Western Historical Manuscript Collection: There are no materials for this story.
Parts of this story brought back memories of an H. P. Lovecraft movie that had been out a few years earlier. The movie was From Beyond and was fairly entertaining. With that in mind, a re-reading of the story seemed in order. A quick glance at the paperback edition confirmed the story to be very short.
In both yarns, a hidden world of monsters is revealed by the power of a new electrical apparatus. Under the illumination provided by this device, the air becomes filled with hideous apparitions that were heretofore invisible. Mad Eyes was published in the May 1937 issue of Doc Savage Magazine while From Beyond was first published in The Fantasy Fan in June 1934.
Lovecraft's story deals with a machine that allows one to see into other dimensions -- other worlds -- an altered state of being -- or whatever you choose to call it. In the Doc Savage story, this is the same idea that is being foisted off to the reader.
In both stories, one basic force seems to motivate these ethereal creatures -- eat or be eaten!
From Beyond: These things were never still, but seemed ever floating about with some malignant purpose. Sometimes they appeared to devour one another, the attacker launching itself at its victim and instantaneously obliterating the latter from sight.
Mad Eyes: Monstrous creatures came to life. One with a score of protruding necks seized upon another. Somehow, all of the necks succeeded in swallowing the other monster, dividing it into parts.
The antagonist in From Beyond, Crawford Tillinghast, has to all appearances been driven completely insane by his explorations in the ether. Likewise in Mad Eyes, the victims of the magni globes seemingly run the risk of suffering the same fate.
Many things are at play in Mad Eyes but the scientific devices contained therein do not open a dimensional portal, thereby allowing viewers to see "beyond". So there are similarities and differences. It could be supposed that the author of this Doc Savage story could have been influenced by Lovecraft's short story. This is pure speculation with only the story's similarities as evidence to back up the idea. However, it is a nice fantasy to think that some kinds of hidden links exist between various stories.
Cosmic energy again appears in Mad Eyes. Both the magni globes and the speed cars draw on cosmic energy. These cars are a type of Super-Diesel, which draws nearly all of its energy from the stratosphere.
The idea for
the fast little aircars used in this story originated could be inspired by the
record setting Bluebird driven my
Sir. Malcolm Campbell.
There is also
the fantastic machine, the Terror,
first seen in Jules Verne’s Master of the
World.
May 1, 1937 – The French battleship Dunkerque is commissioned.
May 3, 1937 – The novel Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell is awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
May 6, 1937 - The German zeppelin Hindenburg is destroyed by fire while landing at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey.
May 12, 1937 - George VI becomes the King of England.
May 16, 1937 – The US Treasury approved plans today for the creation of a secure silver storage vault on the Military Academy reservation at West Point, New York.
May 23, 1937 - Millionaire industrialist John D. Rockefeller dies.
May 27, 1937 - The Golden Gate Bridge opens.
May 28, 1937 – Neville Chamberlain takes office as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
May 30, 1937 –
The Spanish ship Ciudad de Barcelona is torpedoed and sinks.
