Western Historical Manuscript Collection: There are no materials for this story.
Some time back Thomas Fortenberry pointed out that this Doc story had its origins in a Victorian era novel titled A Dweller on Two Planets by Phylos (Frederick S. Oliver).
I was poking around my files tonight and did a web search on this title. It is in print and apparently very popular with the Atlantis folks. There are several notable items in the story.
Criminals are treated by means of magnetic fields whereby the blood supply to certain areas of the brain are restricted in order to atrophy that part of the brain "where are located the organs of greed and of destruction. " The description given in the book is similar to the mind control techniques employed on Johnny by Professor Randolph.
The airship Silver
Cylinder is very similar to the air cars described in Oliver's story. The explosive power used to power
A strange disintegrating ray plays havoc with victims
in the Doc Savage story. Readers of
Oliver's account learn of the
A couple of other minor things are coincidental but interesting: Mount Shasta, which is the locale for the Doc story is mentioned several times in this book. The word "su" appears in the glossary. It has nothing to do with the later Doc adventure by the same name (Secret of the Su) but it is a made-up word and it is odd that Dent uses it later on. There is also some business in the story whereby people are changed into stone -- literally! This idea has come up once or twice in the Doc stories with The Green Death and The Stone Man.
Superman: A remarkably similar tale appears in Superman #8 (January-February 1941).
Nikola Tesla: Like the previous story Mad Eyes, He Could Stop the World from July 1937 has more rays than a reader can reasonably count. There are rays that disintegrate people. Other rays propagate a form of mind-control. Climate control is achieved, and the snows of Mount Shasta are melting as tropical temperatures are imposed.
Lawrence Donovan: One other point that is important about Donovan goes back to his authorship in the Doc Savage series. Donovan had a history of recycling plots. He incorporated elements created by other authors from The Monsters, The Fantastic Island, and The Land of Always-Night into his own stories. His final Doc story, He Could Stop the World, recycled elements from several of his own previous eight Doc stories.
July 2, 1937 - Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific.
July 7, 1937 – Japanese troops invade China.
July 12, 1937 – Russian aviators set a new distance record from Moscow, USSR to San Jacinto, California via the North Pole.
July 26, 1937 – Movies: King Solomon’s Mines opens.
