The Complete Adventures of Señorita Scorpion Volume 2

Sting In The Tale

The Complete Adventures 
of Señorita Scorpion Volume 2
by Lee Savage Jr and Emmett McDowell
Altus Press
ISBN 9781618270702

Following on from the first volume (reviewed by me here), The Complete Adventures of Señorita Scorpion Volume 2 is the concluding collection of stories originally appearing in issues of the pulp magazine Action Stories between 1945 and 1949. And, having read the first volume, I’d have to say that these particular stories are not what I was expecting. 

Following an introduction by modern pulp writer Will Murray (one of the modern writers of Doc Savage who actually gets the formula right), we plummet straight into the first of the four stories collected here, Brand Of The Gallows-Ghost, from the Winter 1945 issue. 

This one, like many of the Señorita Scorpion stories, doesn’t feature the Scorpion, aka Elgera Douglas, herself in all that many sequences. She pops up here and there while other characters, like her romantic interest Chisos Owens, shouldering the majority of the action and deduction of the tale. The secret ingredient being that, as usual, everybody is talking about Elgera and she’s the focus point for the solution to the story. This yarn is pretty good and, once again, Lee Savage Jr uses his expressive language to craft a quite literary pulp, with wonderful passages like... “The moonlight dropped hesitant yellow fingers into the mysterious depths of Santa Helena Canyon…”. 

It’s all the standard Western tinted blood and thunder you could want... with a curious character name popping up. One of the female characters in the book is called Lupita Tovar and, I can only assume this is in homage to the 1920s-1950s Mexican actress of the same name, who my regular readers might remember best as being in the Spanish version of the 1931 Dracula, made on the same sets as the Lugosi Dracula (both reviewed here) during the evenings of the same shoot. 

The second story, Lash Of The Six Gun Queen, from the Winter 1947 edition of Action Stories, is where things get and, frankly, stay a little weird concerning the stories in this volume. This one is probably the stand out story in this collection but, unusually, it’s told in the first person from the point of view of a new character trying to bring Señorita Scorpion to justice (before falling for her and finding her innocent of her supposed crimes in the third act) rather than the standard third person. A good tale, though, nonetheless.

Then things get even weirder with the Winter 1948 tale Gun-Witch of Hoodoo Range, written this time by Emmett McDowell instead of regular writer Lee Savage Jr... and that change of writer shows in more than just the style, which is less expressive and poetic than Savage Jr’s prose (although it certainly has its moments too). However, the character of the Scorpion does not seem to be remotely like she was in the other books, always going around masked to hide a scar which she never previously had and with absolutely nobody referring to Elgera Douglas, nor indeed Chisos Owens, who is absent from both this story and, surprisingly, the next. In fact, the Scorpion in this is revealed to be a new love interest for a new character, who is the focal point of this one (none of the regular characters are in this at all) and, it’s revealed at the end that she duped everyone and that the real Señorita Scorpion died of wounds received half way through the tale. Wait... what?

This is a twist which is completely ignored when Lee Savage Jr returns to write the final tale, from Winter 1949, The Sting Of The Scorpion. This one has no mention of the events in the previous tale (as that one did of no events prior) and we definitely are back in the saddle with Elgera Douglas as the original Scorpion once more. 

That being said, this one differs from the others in that, a) there’s no Chisos Owens turning up or even mentioned here and b) this one stays with the Scorpion and she’s the main attraction of every story element, as we follow her adventure while she tries to prove her innocence, find out why she is being framed and identify who is doing it. It’s a pretty good tale but with no warning that it was intended to be the last. Actually, the main takeaway I got from the last two stories in this volume, both by different writers, is that a scabbard is not something which (unlike what the dictionary says) is just for holding swords. In these last two it’s referred to as the long holster on a horse which holds the rifles for the rider. So that was an interesting discovery... I need to do more research into that, I think. 

And there you have it. The Complete Adventures of Señorita Scorpion Volume 2 is very much a different experience to the first volume but, this makes it no less entertaining and I certainly had a good time with it. It’s a shame Lee Savage Jr never returned to the character but I understand there’s a newish, overpriced, short volume of three modern tales by different writers which I may have to look into at some point in the near future... so there’s that to look forward to.

The Complete Adventures Of The Domino Lady

Blonde Heat

The Complete Adventures
Of The Domino Lady
by Lars Anderson
Altus Press
ISBN 9781618273581

“Adventure was her meat and danger her dessert.”
Black Legion - Saucy Romantic Adventures

There seems to be some divergence of opinion as to the identity and, indeed, the existence of a writer named Lars Anderson. Wikipedia reports that it’s a publishers house name (just like Kenneth Robeson was a Street And Smith house name for the Doc Savage and The Avenger stories... although the primary writer behind the Doc Savage stories was really Lester Dent) but, according to Tom Johnson’s afterword in this very tome, he says that Will Murray (who wrote a lot of the modern Doc Savage adventures I’ve been reviewing on this site... again under the house name Kenneth Robeson) has verified that Lars Anderson was an actual person.

I’d like to know more but, whichever is the case, this collection from Altus Press, The Complete Adventures Of The Domino Lady, reprints the six stories he (or perhaps they) wrote for two publications in 1936. The first five of these stories, published that year, comprising The Domino Lady Collects, The Domino Lady Doubles Back, The Domino Lady’s Handicap, Emeralds Abroad and Black Legion all appeared in issues of that year’s Saucy Romantic Adventures while the sixth and final story, The Domino Lady’s Double, appeared in Mystery Adventure Magazine.

Now, after reading pulps by Lester Dent, who I think is a much better writer than Maxwell Grant (house name for Walter B. GIbson, who wrote The Shadow stories), I think I was somewhat spoiled by the former’s brilliant writing style because, I’ll be honest, it took me a few stories in of this collection to get into the character or, more specifically, the way she is written.

Nothing wrong as a character per se... to avenge the murder of her Irish politician father, wealthy socialite Ellen Patrick dons the guise of The Domino Lady, which includes a black domino mask, a completely superfluous cloak and her automatic pistol... basically becoming a Robin Hood style figure, stealing from rich, corrupt politicians and mobsters to give to needy charities, getting people out of blackmail threats and the like, wanted by both the police and the underworld. But she’s written... and this may well have been a publisher’s stipulation, since she was appearing in Saucy Romantic Adventures, after all... like she’s almost in a soft porn parody. I mean, how many times do I have to read about her ‘kissable shoulders’ and her shapely, somewhat peripatetic bosoms as a description of her character in every tale?

Having said that, I did eventually get used to the sex hugging style of the descriptions and did find the stories interesting, especially for the reason that they are almost a microcosm for exactly the sorts of stories you would get in various 1930s or 1940s feature film runs of characters thrown up on the silver screen. So, in six short stories you get the blackmail photographs plot, the ‘withdraw your winner of a racehorse from the race if you know what’s good for you’ plot, the heist on a luxury sea cruise plot, the corrupt politicians and power mongers syndicate plot and even a ‘framed for murder by a Domino Lady double’ plot. And these are exactly the kinds of tales you would see on a long run of films about such characters as The Saint or The Falcon or, well, take your pick.

But, they are peppered throughout with such succulent but cringeworthy bits of purple prose like “Ellen was breathing fast, her glorious bosom tossing beneath the scanty bodice of her gown.” or “The tall sleuth’s masterful arms went around her palpitant figure and his seeking lips found the damp grotto of her warm mouth.” which, okay, had me chuckling quite a lot in places. Having said that, though, I did warm to both the character and the writing style by the end of this short run and it’s a shame there were only six short stories about the character. Or so I thought...

In another classic case of opening a can of worms, it seems that this character I’d never heard of until I read The Complete Adventures Of The Domino Lady is now more popular than ever and lots of new short stories (where she teams up with the likes of Sherlock Holmes and The Phantom) and various comics are now published contemporaneously about the character. So, yeah, I think I’m going to have to take a punt sometime next year and buy up a couple of tomes of her new stories and see what’s been done with the character in recent times, I think. I  can only hope that phrases referencing her kissable curves and throbbing bosom are as prevalent in the new writings as they were in the originals.

Pat Savage - Six Scarlet Scorpions

Bronze Veneris

Pat Savage - Six Scarlet Scorpions
by Will Murray writing as Kenneth Robeson
Altus Press ISBN: 978-1618272744

Will Murray is back, writing under the old Street and Smith Kenneth Robeson pen name to create another epic tale in the Doc Savage series, except Doc isn’t actually in this one and, I’m happy to say, doesn’t get too many mentions in it either (I’ll explain while I’m kinda happy about that a little later). Pat Savage - Six Scarlet Scorpions is the first of Murray’s ‘solo’ adventures detailing the stand alone exploits of Doc’s, almost fearless, cousin Patricia Savage... known by many as The Woman Of Bronze or, if you go by the very enthusiastic back cover blurb here, “the golden-eyed Girl of Bronze”.

Pat Savage was always one of my favourite characters in the pantheon of Doc’s wonderful ‘brothers’ in arms although, he really never liked her getting involved in any of his adventures for fear for her safety. She only appeared in 39 of Kenneth Robeson’s 181 published (in his lifetime) Doc Savage novels but she was always a stand up character in my book, starting off in her first adventure in the Doc Savage tale Brand Of The Werewolf and sporadically after that... whenever she found an opportunity to horn in on the action. Over the last 20 or so years, Will Murray has been writing new Doc Savage tales, many of them reviewed here, and he’s seen fit to include Pat in a fair number of them. Well, I guess she must be a popular character because he’s now written Six Scarlet Scorpions which is her first official stand alone adventure. At least in prose form... I believe Millennium Press released a one-shot Pat Savage comic in the 1990s, an issue which has continued to elude me to this day as I wait for that strange mix of art and magic phenomenon which I like to call... the right price.

Now, let me define what solo adventure means here. In the case of Pat Savage, it doesn’t mean that she’s going it alone for this one, it just means Doc Savage himself is never in the picture and, although I was expecting him to turn up towards the end of the story, he doesn’t actually do that and I think that’s right and proper for the first time Pat goes it alone. I’d welcome guest appearances from her cousin in future novels in this new range (I’m assuming there are going to be some because this one rips all the roars and roars at all the rips) but she needs to fly under her own wings the first time out, I reckon..., so I’m pleased that Murray made that decision.

That being said, she does have the companionship, throughout the story, of Doc Savage’s most regular assistant from The Amazing Five, Monk (aka Andrew Blodget Mayfair), the chemist who is more known for his apish looks and physical strength than he is for his unquestionable excellence in his chosen field of science. There’s also a couple of appearances from his lawyer friend, Ham, but the majority of the action in this one is covered by Pat and Monk working as a team.

And it’s a pretty good team.

Murray start things off with a plane crash in the desert in Oklahoma and the whole story is set in the relatively near vicinity of a few towns and a mountain range. Anything within a short plane ride away, in fact. The story involves the ‘vinegarroon’ scorpions of which there are more than six... although the title of the story makes for a nice alliterative attraction... and a chemical substance which causes either heavy disease or death. Of course, with a chemist in tow, Pat should be able to solve this one easily so the writer throws Monk’s portable chemistry lab out with the bathwater and we have a story based on a mystery disease which can’t suddenly be solved and cured within a couple of hours. Especially since Pat and Monk soon find themselves fugitives from the law and its harsh brand of Oklahoman justice. So the two have a lot on their plate as they try and stay away from the police and investigate the strange mystery of the head of a bunch of criminally ambitious indians, lead by a character ripped almost from the silver screen’s theatrical serials and known as the masked mastermind, The Standing Scorpion. And it’s exactly the identity behind this mysterious villain which takes a lot of our two main protagonists collective brain power to  find out, just like it always used to do in those old 1930s - 1950s serials.

The book is loaded with cliffhanger action, as you’d expect from something which is trying to emulate the pulps. One of the initial qualms I had when I started reading this was that, without the curious quirks of the Doc Savage character to describe and work into the main narrative, this felt less than a Doc Savage novel and more like something else. Which, of course, it is. Monk and Ham comply to their character traits and it’s just something that I had to accepts. Pat is not Doc and the experience is never going to be quite the same as reading one of those Man Of Bronze adventures... and nor should it.

All in all, this is a pretty strong opener for the first of the stand alone Pat Savage tales and I really have to slap Murray on the back here and say that he’s done a grand job with the lady. There were, of course, a couple of things I didn’t like about the novel (isn’t there always?).

My first problem with it was the way in which Pat and Monk treated an aircraft pilot to steal his plane. Seems to me this is not the best way forward and it seems unnecessary and pretty out of character for any of Doc Savage’s associates to behave the way they do here. No comments are made to redress the balance about what happens to the fellow later and how he can be compensated. This just seemed a bit off kilter in terms of the way the characters would conduct themselves and I would have liked a bit of an explanation for it.

The other thing which bothered me was something which happens at the end of the novel. The stories usually take place at some point in the existing Doc Savage timeline from the early 1930s to the late 1940s and it’s often pinpointed exactly where the adventure fits in with all the others in the chronology. This one, from some things which are said, I take to be set somewhere in the mid to late 1930s. However, without giving anything away, in as much as you know that Pat, Monk, Ham and Monk’s pet pig Habeas Corpus will have to survive the adventure due to their later, published exploits... something happens which forces the three two legged adventurers into a month of quarantine. Now I can’t say myself that any of these three characters were out of action for a month in the original books or not but, if they were, I’d like to know about it and find out which two Doc Savage yarns this story fits itself between.

However, when all is said and done, these are really minor grumbles here and, as usual, Will Murray does an outstanding job of carrying on the Kenneth Robeson name. I’m hoping this tale is as popular with other readers and as fun to write for Murray as it was for me to read it because I’m really hoping these ‘new adventures’ of Pat Savage will be a regularly scheduled literary event every year. Whether they are or not, though, fans of Doc Savage and his merry colleagues could do a lot worse than picking up Pat Savage - Six Scarlet Scorpions and giving it a good reading. I’m glad I did.

Doc Savage: Death's Dark Domain

The Eyes Have It

Doc Savage: Death's Dark Domain
by Will Murray 
writing as Kenneth Robeson
Altus Press 
ISBN: 978-1618270825

Death’s Dark Domain is the fourth of Wil Murray’s second wave of writing further Doc Savage adventures as the new Kenneth Robeson - the pen name traditionally used for Doc Savage stories, most of which were written by Lester Dent - whose style Murray emulates perfectly.

This is not, of course, to say Murray’s mimicking of Dent’s style is not a creative endeavour. The trick is to come up with your own twists and spin on the Doc Savage legend while utilising that base style to ensure your own “yarn spinning” has some credibility within that particular universe and Murray is a master craftsman at this kind of work.

This Doc Savage adventure has a lot of tension and weight to it, since it’s set right after the events of one of the original Doc Savage adventures, Fortress Of Solitude. Yeah, that’s right, Doc had a Fortress Of Solitude in the Arctic many years before a certain other famous character in comics poached the concept (and his first name is even Clark too... ring any bells?). Also, fans of the Doc Savage series will know that Fortress Of Solitude was a very important novel in the Doc Savage canon. For... not only did it point out a mistake that Doc Savage had made in keeping an arsenal of “too advanced to fall into human hands” super weapons in his Fortress, thus providing the carrot for the lead villain on that particular story, but it also introduced the only villain ever to appear twice in the Doc Savage series (of which there were over 180 novels).

The thing is about Doc Savage is, he’s pretty much invincible. I only ever knew him to lose a situation once (in the very last of his original adventures after the title was cancelled, Up From Earth’s Centre... presumably because Dent wanted people to write in to the publishers to complain so they could see what happens next?) and he has always commanded an attitude and strength of character wherein you know that, if Doc Savage is on the case, he’s going to solve the groovy mystery (always explainable by science, with the one exception being, again, that very last published story of his early adventures) and this leaves the writer with something of a problem, if you look at it in this way. It means that every foe Doc comes up against... he only comes up against the once. He defeats them and he moves onto the next adventure. Except in one very special circumstance... in Fortress Of Solitude, the villain known only as John Sunlight, who is extremely smart and not to be taken for granted, almost as smart as Doc Savage himself, wanders off at the end and is “presumed” to be eaten by a stray polar bear.

However, that very same year, a further Doc Savage adventure, The Devil Genghis, put paid to that theory when John Sunlight returned. It’s an interesting development and I wish Dent would have brought the character back for further stories but perhaps he felt that this would wear down Doc’s credibility as an adventuresome superman too much. Who knows?

In Death’s Dark Domain, Doc and three of his crew (Monk, Ham and Long Tom) are still clearing up after the damage done in Fortress Of Solitude and it’s clear that they aren’t taking Sunlight’s supposed death for granted. In fact, Sunlight’s long shadow is cast over the first two thirds or so of this book like a spectre haunting Doc and his crew. It’s like they’re all expecting Sunlight to show his hand at any moment and this gives the writing an interesting colouring. Is John Sunlight in this one? And if he is, does that wreck continuity with the later story, The Devil Genghis? Well I’m really not going to tell you, you’ll have to find out for yourself but... certainly something of Sunlight’s presence is felt among the pages of this gripping tale, but it doesn’t necessarily come from the direction you think. And that’s all I’m saying about the Sunlight connection here.

The book starts off well and sets up the usual inexplicable phenomenon which Doc always gets around to explaining at the end of the novel in scientific terms. In this case, a darkness is causing the odd person to wake up supposedly dead, only to find that he or she has been turned into a pair of floating eyeballs. There are also ferocious, unseen cyclops wandering the country in which this is set and also much talk of vampires... indeed, Mr. Bram Stoker’s astonishing literary creation even gets a shout out here, and it’s unusual for a Doc Savage tale to identify a fictional character quite this blatantly.

One of my favourite characters, Pat Savage, gets a look in at the start of the novel but, alas, doesn’t join in on the adventure proper... again, I won’t say why. But the tale does feature a strong female character, who’s very much a mystery herself and... oh wait... I shouldn’t say too much about her either. but she’s pretty interesting and Doc is throughly disapproving of her actions in certain parts of the novel.

Murray weaves his tale with his usual brilliant pacing and utterly compelling storyline, which really does read like its just another novel sized story from the original pulp magazine. The action never lets up and he also uses elements that were ahead of the time in the thirties but which we can look back to now with a nostalgic reference.... something that Dent did in the original tales without understanding the effect, perhaps, that it would have on future generations of readers. Here, for example, Will Murray introduces a theremin as one of the elements in the mystery... which really brightened my reading experience because, well, I really love theremins (both the musical instrument and the story of the inventor behind them).

What more can I say about Death's Dark Domain? This book is terrific. If Doc Savage is your thing, and if you’re bothering to read this review I’m guessing he is, then you really won’t be disappointed with this blistering tale of the start of a war aggravated by the actions of John Sunlight in Fortress Of Solitude. Seriously good fun and Doc is seen at his most serious. Can’t wait to get onto the next one in the series. Well worth every penny.

Doctor Who - The Crimson Horror

Value Added Strax

Doctor Who - The Crimson Horror
Airdate: 4th May 2013. UK. BBC1

Warning: Crimson spoilers waiting 
to slowly seep through you below...

Well that was all rather a lot of fun for the hundredth episode since the new era of stories started, counting from when Russel T. Davies ressurected of the show.

The Crimson Horror is the third, so far, Doctor Who story to feature one of my favourite triumvirates of regular characters... the Silurian Madame Vastra, her human lover Jenny and their Sontaran assistant Strax. The story is, like their previous outing in The Snowmen, set firmly in Victorian times but shifted away from their regular “beat” in London, instead moving to the Yorkshire town of Bournv... err... Sweetville. It’s possibly not as great an episode as either The Snowmen or A Good Man Goes To War, but it’ certainly not far from the standard set in those and Mark Gattis, a man I trust for writing homages to the pulps of this particular period, shows he’s more than up for the job.

The story starts off with the old chestnut of the last thing a person seeing before death being retained by the eyes and the opening hook, after a man has been struck down by the delightfully lurid pulp terror known as The Crimson Horror, is that his last image was of The Doctor. Then, post credits, we follow an investigation by our three Victorian heroes which eventually, after some time, leads us to The Doctor, who has turned crimson himself and is held prisoner and paralysed almost... until he can reverse the process in a convenient cabinet which I guess one has to write in for these kinds of stories.

Then, rescued by Jenny, he relates to her and the audience the story which has led up to his near terminal crimson complexion and this is done in a beautifully treated flashback which looks like old grainly filmstock and photographs. Now, I could be picky (and I might as well be, for when am I not?) and mention that the style of moving image used in this sequence or the sounds used to trigger to a modern audience the capturing of still images, are not actually as old as the period on which they are being used... of course, I’m no expert on that so please comment below if I am wrong, but the fact that they made an effort to give these flashback moments a sense of the past which could artistically be linked to that kind of period was both admirable, with a slight dash of genius... so I’m quite happy to forgive them any amount of what I would call deliberate, controlled anachronism within the delivery of the story.

What’s more compelling is that this means that the story has actually started mid-way through, Now I’m guessing it was probably scripted like this but it could also have been an editing decision, since a lengthier selection of footage from the flashback starting off the story would have done the same thing in a more linear fashion and placed The Doctor and Clara front and centre, right from the outset. However, a smart decision harkening back to the days of early Marvel comics and before, in terms of a useful narrative structure to lead you to the hook of the story in a more timely and dramatic fashion, has been made and since this method is not all that often used in Doctor Who (although taken to the Nth degree, as you can get away with in science fiction, then show runner Steven Moffat’s original Weeping Angels story Blink could also be considered an extreme version of the same technique, if you chose to decode it that way), I was very happy to see the episode structured in this manner and it certainly made sense to do this in a story that was so aptly grounded in late nineteenth century pulp fiction.

The action and detective work never really flagged and it had some very nice moments in it which I am very grateful to Gattis for. The fan-pleasing reference to Fourth and Fifth Doctor companion Tegan Jovanka was very much “on the money” for instance, and a scene which was built around a terrible joke, with Strax making use of Thomas Thomas, who is the living Victorian embodiment of the modern Tom Tom satellite navigation systems in cars is one of the reasons I’ll continue to watch the show even though it does seem to be going a bit pear shaped as of late. The relationship between the characters played by Diana Rigg and her real life daughter as villainess and blind daughter was all very nice and there were some truly cool musical moments to support scenes such as the brilliant bit where Jenny strips down to black leather fighting gear to knock a few heads. All good stuff and I think the show needs more of these characters and more scenes like these, please!

My only real disappointment with this episode was the baggage I brought with me. I assumed that since Vastra, Jenny and Strax do not know about the living version of companion Clara, that we were going to get some kind of big revelation this week when they think that their version has returned from the dead. All we got, alas, in return for those kinds of questions throughout the episode was, unfortunately, answers along the lines of “It’s complicated.” They’re playing their cards very close to their chest again on this one but I’m assuming we’ll find out whether Clara is either friend (a regenerated time lord such as Romana, or The Doctor’s Daughter or even The Doctor himself) or foe (The Rani, The Master, a construct of the Great Intelligence or the Daleks) or something I haven’t quite worked out yet in two weeks time... when River Song returns to our screens.

But, ultimately, my own expectations of the story did not stop the episode from being, mostly, a brilliant addition to the show and, if not a rival to the likes of shows like the Victorian set story The Talons Of Weng Chiang, certainly a good stab at being a worthy successor. Not sure if I’m looking forward to Neil Gaiman’s take on the Cybermen next week but we shall see what we shall see, I guess.