Doc Savage,the Artic Terror

Doc Savage and the Brotherhood of Bronze.

Doc Savage,the Artic Terror.based on John W.Chambell's based on the story "Who Goes There?" 
Doc Savage joins a group of Scientists and American Air Force officials fend off a blood-thirsty alien organism while at a remote arctic outpost,

"The Artic Terror-an early Doc Savage Supersaga,based on

Who Goes There"

By John W. Campbell - as - Don A. Stuart

Introduction'

The story of the Thing,not the comic hero,but the alien creature,from John W.Cambell's novella.””Who Goes There.is fasinating subject.It has made into three movies.the Original Thing from another world,

Although his name is not as recognizable as Heinlein, Asimov or Clarke, few were as influential in the development of science fiction as John W. Campbell, who shaped the genre as editor of Astounding magazine from 1937 to 1971.  Although his editorial duties limited his own writing output, the few stories he produced were of high quality, and the best known of these is the sci-fi horror story “Who Goes There?” published in Astounding in 1938 (under his pseudonym Don A. Stuart), which has been filmed twice, first asThe Thing from Another World in 1951, and again as simply The Thing in 1982.  The novella has appeared in anthologies here and there, and now Rocket Ride Books has published it in a stand-alone volume, with bonusfeatures.

Anyone who has seen John Carpenter’s version of The Thing knows the basic story:  A group of researchers in Antarctica discover a long-frozen alien which thaws out, and begins to assimilate the humans, creating perfect copies of the men it killed.  Those of the camp who are still human must defeat the alien before it can reach more populated areas and take over the world.  The story is very similar in structure to the 1982 movie, although considerably less grim, since the science fiction of the 30s was generally optimistic, being a few years shy of the disillusionment with science caused by Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In addition to this optimism, there are a few other aspects of the story which reveal its pulpish origins.  Characterization leaves a little to be desired'.

(many of the characters are interchangeable) and most of the men are described as having action hero physiques.  Since it had been many years since I read the story, I had forgotten how closely the description of McReady, the main character, matched that of pulp hero Doc Savage.Is Who goes there a lost Doc Savage adventure?There is plenty of speculation.Perhaps,it was and for one reason or another,was reject and turned into a story,published in another format.McKready,of the original story,is a long way from the Kurt Russel movie portrayal.Captain Patrick Hendry,of the Original Howard Hawks version,might more like the portrayal of McKready.If the story,wasn't,it certainly could have been and maybe even should have been.If anyone,could have survived a battle with a thing from another world,who better than the Man of Bronze.I tossed,just for fun,Phillip Wyles.character Hugo Danner-whom,if you don't,is perhap the inspiration for both Doc Savage and his literary son Superman.

A few caveats aside, “Who Goes There?” is still a captivating story, full of paranoia due to the characters uncertainty as to whether their comrades are human or monster.  (When Campbell was a young boy, his mother’s identical twin came to live with them, and she apparently hated him.  So the boy never knew by sight whether the woman he saw was his loving mother or his hateful aunt.  You see where the seeds of the story were planted.)  If you haven’t read this story, you’ve missed a treat, and it should be considered essential for the well-rounded horror reader.

1925

Who Goes There?
Clark Savage, Jr., joins an Antarctic expedition as meteorologist and second-in-command (McReady, "a bronze giant of a man"; the theory that McReady is Savage was first proposed by Albert Tonik in A Doc Savage Adventure Rediscovered, published in Doc Savage Club Reader number four, 1978).   Savage and the other members of the expedition must fight for their lives when they discover a Thing (from another world). Savage does not have his M.D. yet (according to Farmer, he got his M.D. in 1926). (Classic science fiction novella by John W. Campbell, Jr., most recently published in the collection The Antarktos Cycle, Chaosium, 1999, as The Thing From Another World.)