A mad scientist at war with the world. Old-school villain pulp from 1935.
The first volume collecting three of the five stories of the Dr. Death pulp, originally published in 1935.
Dr. Death was a villain pulp. These were a variety of pulp magazines that centered around the exploits of an eccentric, usually brilliant supervillain. Their evil plots are usually foiled in the end by a somewhat duller "good-guy" antagonist. Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu is probably the best known version of this.
Dr. Death is a former Dean of Psychology at Yale who has decided that Humanity's technological progress has gone too far, and the world needs to be sent back to a new dark age. To this end, he decides to start eliminating the world's leading scientists, businessmen, and engineers. He uses a combination of super-science and occult sorcery to achieve his ends.
He's opposed by Inspector Jimmy Holm of the NYPD, a young man with advanced knowledge of …
The first volume collecting three of the five stories of the Dr. Death pulp, originally published in 1935.
Dr. Death was a villain pulp. These were a variety of pulp magazines that centered around the exploits of an eccentric, usually brilliant supervillain. Their evil plots are usually foiled in the end by a somewhat duller "good-guy" antagonist. Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu is probably the best known version of this.
Dr. Death is a former Dean of Psychology at Yale who has decided that Humanity's technological progress has gone too far, and the world needs to be sent back to a new dark age. To this end, he decides to start eliminating the world's leading scientists, businessmen, and engineers. He uses a combination of super-science and occult sorcery to achieve his ends.
He's opposed by Inspector Jimmy Holm of the NYPD, a young man with advanced knowledge of many of Death's occult abilities.
There are three tales - "12 Must Die," "The Gray Creatures" and "The Shriveling Murders."
They're all pretty similar. Dr. Death starts killing people, and Jimmy Holm and the Secret Twelve, a collection of political, corporate, and criminal leaders try to oppose his schemes. There are kidnappings, death traps, desperate battles, and close escapes. Jimmy Holm is usually captured multiple times per story.
The stories are quick paced, incredibly violent, and written with overwrought purple prose. I'm stating these things as positives.
On the down side, there are a few racist portrayals, which were sadly not uncommon in stories of this era. It's still a lovely little time capsule, if you're interested in that sort of thing.