|
In the 1930s and '40s, any red-blooded American boy with a taste
for power fantasies was bound to have run across the adventures of
righter of wrongs Doctor Clark Savage, Junior; AKA Doc Savage: the Man of Bronze.
A mainstay of the his own pulp magazine in the '30s and '40s, Doc Savage was also
one of the main inspirations for Superman
(Man of Bronze, Man of Steel; you get the idea), though Doc Savage was
a fantasy hero with at least a nodding acquaintance with reality.
Where Superman started out as a super-evolved being by accident of
birth, Doc Savage was a pulp fiction ideal of what man could become
through hard work, scientific training, and owning a secret gold mine
in Central America.
Able to outdo anyone anywhere at anything, he was the epitome of the
idea that the way to become the man of the future was by
willpower and exercise. And to prove it, many issues
of Doc Savage carried accounts of the daily exercises that Doc
carried out in order to hone his mind and body to the peak of
human perfection. As this invariably involved Swedish
exercises, reciting poetry or multiplication tables, and testing one's
senses using suspiciously ordinary household items, it is obvious that
the editors expected their readers to emulate their hero. Good job most
didn't. Doc Savage apparently did so many exercises on a daily
basis that one wonders how he ever found the time to combat evil.
 Even
morality was a question of application and practice rather than
doctrine, philosophy, or ideology. Doc Savage apparently carried
out all sorts of rather twee moral exercise as part of his daily
routine, but readers were invited to join the Doc Savage Club, where
they received a membership card and a copy of the code of Doc Savage,
which they were encouraged to follow as best they could. |
The Code of Doc
Savage:
-
Let me strive,
every moment of my life, to make myself better and better, to the
best of my ability, that all may profit by it.
-
Let me think of
the right, and lend all my assistance to those who need it, with
no regard for anything but justice.
-
Let me take
what comes with a smile, without loss of courage.
-
Let me be
considerate of my country, of my fellow citizens and my associates
in everything I say and do.
-
Let me do right
to all, and wrong no man.
It's pretty easy to sneer and giggle at this, but
I'm not going to. I'm too busy trying to live up to it. |
