Long a stable of comic books, team ups of literary characters are much rarer. In the pulp world, they were largely non-existent until today. One team-up that many pulp fans have hoped for is one that brings together the 3 main Street and Smith characters: The Shadow, Doc Savage, and The Avenger.
Dynamite Comics finally did this in their recent “Justice Inc.” mini-series by Michael Uslan and Giovanni Timpano.
Up until now, there have been team-ups with two of the three from prior comic-book companies. DC teamed up The Shadow and The Avenger back in the ’70s (I covered this in a prior posting), this one also written by Uslan. Then DC teamed up Doc Savage and The Shadow when they had the rights to both of them in the ’80s. And later DC teamed up Doc Savage and The Avenger during their “First Wave” run (also covered in a prior posting). Now that Dynamite has the rights to all three, we get this team up.
Before we look in detail at this series, let’s do a quick recap of these three characters.
Doc Savage is more adventurer than crimefighter. A man trained to the peak of his mental and physical capabilities, he and his five aides have adventures and tackle big issues. He is known as the “Man of Bronze” due to his hair and skin coloration, and is a genius scientist and surgeon.
The Shadow is basically a spymaster and master of disguise and stage magic, and using a cadre of agents takes on criminals, spies, and super-crooks here in the U.S. and sometimes abroad. While some writers have tried to give him mental powers, in the pulps he had none.
The Avenger was created as a combination of the two. A life of adventuring around the world gave him a range of skills and abilities, including learning to use two special weapons: Mike and Ike, a special .22 pistol and a throwing knife, as well as making him wealthy. Losing his wife and daughter to criminals turned his hair and skin white and caused the muscles of his face to become malleable. He is joined by others who have lost loved ones to criminals, and they formed “Justice Inc.”
While it’s great that we see these three characters together, the problem is that as they appear in the series, they aren’t true to the original pulp versions. Uslan has apparently said these are “alternate versions” in a separate universe. Sorry, but I’d like to see the real versions working together. We see this in the storyline as these characters act differently, plus the origin of The Avenger is altered.
In his story, Doc is shown being much more emotional than he should be. He acts like an awed schoolkid around Albert Einstein and H.G. Wells, whom he should be treating as peers. He is constantly being shown with shocked expressions on his face, rather then the stoic look he should have. While it’s great to see him in action, I’d rather Doc act like Doc.
The Shadow, frankly, acts like a jerk. When Uslan wrote the first Shadow-Avenger team-up back in the ’70s DC series, he did the same thing, having him bark orders at this agents. The Shadow does not do that. Also, Lamont Cranston is not an agent of The Shadow (or The Shadow himself). While The Shadow made use of his identity, Cranston was his own man. Cranston did assist The Shadow in several stories, but was never treated like an agent.
And now we come to The Avenger, who has the most changes to him. Instead of being independently wealthy from his work around the globe, he is now an industrialist, running a company called “Hallibenson.” Yesh. His wife and daughter, instead of being random victims of criminals, are targeted by crooked members of his own company, apparently under control of the big villains of the story. His white hair and skin condition now apparently are the result of falling in snow, rather than the shock of their loss. And The Shadow has to train him in using weapons, rather than him already knowing how (again, from his globetrotting life), and outfit him. And instead of assembling a group of others as Justice Inc., “Justice Inc.” becomes the name of the team-up of the three heroes.
As to the storyline, we have two main villains teaming up to take out Doc and The Shadow: John Sunlight, the only Doc Savage villain to have two adventures, and The Voodoo Master, one of the rare Shadow villains to get three stories (and might have gotten a fourth). Both are given mental powers beyond what was shown in the pulps. The three heroes must stop them in a story that also involves time travel (and meeting the “modern day” Doc).
The storyline was pretty good, but like the horrid “Avenger” series at DC’s First Wave, I would have enjoyed it more had the three heroes been written true to their pulp versions, rather than having “Uslan-versions” of them. At the end we are promised more “Uslan-Avenger” stories, as The Avenger will seek out members for a new “Justice, Inc.”
The recent Avenger special done by Dynamite (see my prior posting) is more inline with the pulp version. I really would rather see more of this version then Uslan’s. Time will tell.
