Doc Savage is hard to place in any one publisher’s pigeon-hole, which may be the reason Bantam Books reprinted the adventures with “Novel” on the spine, instead “Science Fiction” or “Fantasy”. Granted many of Doc’s newer fans come from the SF community, but the audience is much wider, encompassing old fans of the original magazine, and male readers of light entertainment series, like The Executioner as well as SF and Fantasy readers. Why should so many different kinds of people like Doc Savage and his five amazing aids? Quite simply, because the Savage canon crosses numerous generic borders, picking and choosing elements indiscriminately but effectively to produce the all-time greatest adventure series.
The casual reader browsing through the shelves of a used bookstore might come across many of the supersagas and think the series was Science Fiction. One of the sources of inspiration for the character was the SF novel Gladiator (1930) by Philip Wylie. The James Bama covers often portrayed scenes as common to early SF as dinosaurs (The Land of Terror, The Awful Egg), weird machines (Murder Melody, The Spook Legion) and strange creatures (The Other World, The Sea Angel). But is it SF for all its Frankensteinian mad scientists, gadgets and super-men?
I think not. Science Fiction has about as many definitions as there are Doc Savage novels, but predominately among the informed, the definition of true Science Fiction is the qualification that SF shows how a new invention, discovery, or being affects society. Granted much of early SF doesn’t conform to this rule and is likewise not much read anymore. If Doc is SF, it is of the poorest variety.
If you’d like to read the rest, please check out Monster 3:From the Pages of Dark Worlds Quarterly
“Doc” Savage is nothing like Danner from “The Gladiator.” The bronze man was also a genius inventor. Again, nothing like Danner.
That may be true but I believe Wylie’s book was one of the sources of inspiration. The Shadow (his success anyway) was another. Street & Smith wanted another superstar.