Title:
Curse of the Fire God, Part Four
Date of Publication
December 1995
Cover Price
Our Rating:
Credits:
Gary Gianni
Cover Penciler
Comic Book Synopsis / Plot
In the Delezon jungle, Doc Savage, Pat, his aides, Whitney Wellman, and the foreign dignitaries awake to find themselves chained at a sacrificial site sacred to the fire god Kuchulkan and the evidence points to President Diaz as the mastermind behind the villainy. Kuchulkan appears and tries to immolate Doc but the Man of Bronze has freed himself with a concealed knife (in his thumbnail) and throws a smoke bomb to enable the rest of the party to escape as well. They make their way to a rebel camp and seize weapons to fight off Kuchulkan’s followers, with Doc himself squaring off against the fire god. Doc manages to evade his fiery foe and maneuvers the villain into igniting a cache of explosives. President Diaz and his army, led by Habeas Corpus, arrive to mop up the rebels, and Doc reveals that the entire scheme was organized to discredit the President. The real mastermind was American publisher Randolph Robard McFallon, who needed a revolution in Delezon to supply him with cheap oil to keep his financial empire afloat, so he concocted the legend of Kuchulkan, hired a man to wear a flaming suit to stir up a revolt, and let the scheme run its course. Later, back in New York, Wellman drops by to tell Doc and company that the bankrupt McFallon’s paper has found a new owner, who is keeping Wellman on not as an investigative reporter but as restaurant critic. And Pat has her suspicions as to who this perceptive new owner might be.
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Reviews
By Peter Silvestro
So was Doc Savage “done right” by Dark Horse? No better or worse than anyone else. The writing was good, presenting an authentic action whodunit, with the familiar characters in fine form. The most creative aspect was in making this a sort of sequel to DUST OF DEATH, but restrained in its borrowings from the earlier tale. The art had some great moments, especially the fiery battle in issue 4 but Doc was way too huge, looking like James Bama’s conception on steroids. It was a good job otherwise, and it’s a shame there weren’t any more from Dark Horse.
Score: 3 (out of 5)