Back at his skyscraper headquarters, Doc receives a telegram informing him that his old friend Jimmy Cross has died. Doc and his aides head to the Hopi Indian reservation in Arizona, to pay their respects to Jimmy’s family. They stop off by the gravesite where he recalls an incident during the War. Doc, his future aides, and Jimmy were huddling in a trench when a comrade was trapped in barbed wire and cruelly shot by the enemy. Doc went crazy, leaped into the German trench and killed them all; it was Jimmy Cross who suggested that Doc is destined for better things, if he can control the darkness within him.
For peace and comfort, Doc goes to Tampico, Mexico to take up with an old girlfriend named Teresita. After they make love, she casually mentions that some men are coming to kill her; Doc and Teresita fight them, with the Man of Bronze using non-lethal methods and the Mexican spitfire just shooting them. They escape by motorcycle to a camp outside the town—which is soon invaded by ghosts, one of which Doc sees as Jimmy Cross (they are hallucinations caused by a nasty gas weapon wielded by counter-revolutionaries). Doc is knocked out and awakens a prisoner of the rebels who is working for the masked leader of the Sea Spider Society. When they bring in Teresita and place her in a gas chamber, Doc rips his chains out of the wall and clobbers all the guards. The mastermind escapes in a minisub while Doc administers an antidote to his beloved. The Man of Bronze pursues the sub underwater, disables it with some well-placed gunshots and watches as the baddie is eaten by an alligator.
On the final pages, Doc muses on the mission his father has been training him for, to fight evil. He informs his aides of his decision but he postpones plans until his father returns from South America; in the meantime, he will be at his Fortress of Solitude. The final page is an action portrait of Doc and his aides, with the Doc Savage oath at the top.