Midnat D’Avis, the female detective from Toronto may have been named after a popular music album. Singer Jimmie Davis released an album in 1929 titled Midnight Blues.
Midnat is also Danish for midnight.
The story
mentions the Schneider Cup. Doc also
heads north in a fast little racer that is described as a small ship that is
mostly engine. The real story here is
about aviator Jimmy
Doolittle. If one word could
describe Doolittle it would be “speed.”
Between 1925 and 1932, the aviator won the three top trophies in
aviation – the Schneider
Trophy, the Bendix
Trophy, and the Thompson
Trophy.
The fast plane
described in the story sounds a lot like the GB Sportster. This was the plane Doolittle flew when he won
the Thompson Trophy in 1932. The
aircraft also made a big shown in the 1991 move, The
Rocketeer.
Doc Savage locates his missing men using a special detector that picks up sensitive emissions from an unnamed element that has been incorporated into their shoe soles. He cites an incident where a vial of missing radium was located in a sewer using an electroscope. The February 17, 1930 issue of Time Magazine carried an article titled Cantonese Miracle that described a similar situation where an electroscope was used to find a missing tube of radium.
Dent made
allusions to this story in The Red Skull. The fake telegram from Buttons Zortell told
of a radium mine and a miner named Ben Johnson who needed Doc’s help.
Dent sets the story up as a horror fantasy story with Kulden’s account of invisible monsters devouring his companions. This idea is further reinforced by the mutilated remains found in Midnat Davis’ plane.
Monk mentions an icebox. This is not a refrigerator but a wooden box that cooled foods using block ice.
Ben Lane is hideously disfigured by acid. This sounds suspiciously like the main character in The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux. A silent film version of the story was produced in 1925 and starred Lon Chaney as the Phantom.
Knockout drops are used to drug Monk and Ham while they are prisoners of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Doc uses his special nerve pinch to paralyze a foe. The likely target here is the Vagus nerve. A variation of Doc’s special grip appeared in the Star Trek series where the Vulcan, Spock uses the Vulcan nerve pinch to paralyze opponents.
The story centers on a new mineral which will supplant manganese in the steelmaking industry.
The gas Stroam’s men use is similar to that seen in Brand of the Werewolf.
Doc Savage utilizes some special shotguns in the story. These are probably based on the Trench Guns used in World War I.
Travel over the snow is done by foot or dog sled.
The shortness of the day is remarked on in the story. Day or only two or three hours long in duration. If we take Fort McPherson in the Northwest Territory as an example we can calculate the time of year the story occurred in. Daytime is about three hours long at this location around December 1. The days get progressively shorter until the autumnal equinox on December 21 which is the shortest day of the year. Afterwards the daytime gets longer. Around the beginning of the second week in January the days again approach three hours in duration.
What this is all means is that the story had to take place around during the first or second week in December or else near the first or second week in January. The amount of daytime changes by eight to nine minutes each day during this time as the Earth progresses through the seasons.
The use of a blimp to explore the frozen northwest is reminiscent of the 1926 polar expedition by Roald Amundsen. The explorers attacked the arctic in a semi-rigid airship. The Norge was an Italian vessel piloted by Umberto Nobile. In 1928, Nobile launched his own polar expedition in the Italia. Five different flights were planned as part of the expedition. On the third flight the Italia crashed in the arctic stranding the explorers on the icepack for 49 days before finally being rescued.
May 1, 1934 – Queen of the Black Coast by Robert E. Howard is published in Weird Tales.
May 7, 1934 – The Pearl of Lao Tzu is discovered.
May 8, 1934 – Jean Batten sets off on an attempt to set a new time flying between England and Australia.
May 9, 1934 – Joy Morton, President of the Morton Salt Company dies.
May 11, 1934 - Eastern states are visited by the remnants of a massive dust storm originating in the drought-stricken Midwestern region.
May 11, 1934 – The Douglas DC-2 makes its first flight.
May 19, 1934 – Fascist army officers stage a coup and seize the Bulgarian government. King Boris becomes a figurehead.
May 23, 1934 - Outlaws Bonnie and Clyde (Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker) are killed in a police shoot-out.
May 26, 1934 – The Pioneer Zephyr sets a speed record between Denver, Colorado and Chicago, Illinois for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad.
May 28, 1934 – The Dionne quintuplets are born.
