Not only that, but set it in it’s own self-contained universe consistent with the pulp stories of the time; not with actual history. And, for heavens sake, can we please have a pulp-era adventure story without any Nazis?
Oh, good. That solves lots of problems - not the least of which Monk and Ham. I know they are supposedly competing for women, but they never got very far.
The stories could be a bit dark - Doc fought against lots of fairly nasty bad guys. And audiences seem to like lots of locations, which fits naturally with the super saga also. The Pal movie was way too campy.
I hope they do not do this as an origin story, but start in the middle. In a sense the true origin was before and then during WW I, and the first book was far from the best.
IMO the key to succesfully having non-Nazi villains for a 1930s heroic adventure lies in your first statement: “self-contained universe consistent with the pulp stories of the time; not with actual history”. That’s a writing/world-building challenge in order to help the *nonfan audience() suspend disbelief of there being world-conquering mad scientists or dark cults in the 1930s, or undetected lost civilizations/Center of the Earth dwellers or aliens that can be faced down with decopunk/dieselpunk technology.
(* 'cause you need the nonfan audience to make the big, big money)
Nazis make easy villains for 1930s settings: actually known to have existed and to have been evil and you offend no one you care about by portraying them as such.
I don’t remember any Nazis in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Not very good, but no Nazis.
One can still hope that with an established authentic pulp hero like Doc Savage, Hollywood may do better than with latter-day deliberate “[name-period-here]punk” “retro” evocations like Sky Captain or the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Personally I think odds are they just can’t click with the mass audience but it would be good if they pulled it off.
From your mouth to the scriptwriter’s ears.
Wait, isn’t Savage the man who performs involuntary brain surgery on people in order to conform their personality to his own definitions of morality? And he’s the *good *guy?
Well, sure! This was also from the era when Little Orphan Annie’s comic strip stepfather hired a professional assassin named Asp and an Indian bodyguard named Punjab who occasionally sent people directly (and magically) to Hell. And they were good guys too.
It’s not like he was operating on “our type” of people, just those *criminals *(and, IIRC, a few enemy combatants during WWII)
Outstanding!
I liked it. Plenty of Germans but no Nazis