King Kong–everybody knows him! 25 feet of unbridled ape. Strong enough to lift & trash a subway train. A hide thick enough to make him effectively immune to pistol bullets. Smashs through walls! Shatters steel chains! http://www.unmuseum.org/kingkong.htm
And He’s loose in New York City!
The citizens are in danger!
Who will save them?
Doc Savage, Man Of Bronze—raise from infancy to be virtually superhuman in intellect & physical achievement, he & his 5 companions (Ham, Monk Renny, Johnny, and Long Tom) and assisted by his cousin, Patricia Savage, fight hoodlums, mad scientists, & sinister cults to defend New York & the world! Doc’s vast scientific knowledge & arsnel of unique weapons & vehicles has aided him against countless foes. Can he & his companions save the city? http://members.firstinter.net/robsmalley/page1.htm
Which of these 1930’s classics wins the day?
Please remember that Doc will have trouble using gas on Kong–the streets are crowded with bystanders, New York gets brisk winds off the sea that are channeled by the skyscrapers, and Kong might just have learned to hold his breath. However, Doc has the help of his 5 aides & his cousin.
Your opinions?
BTW-- help me find a better link to describe Kong’s abilities, please? My favorite Kong site went belly up.
Doc Savage wins.
Doc takes Monk’s pet pig, Habeus Corpus, and covers it with pitch then sets it on fire. The squealing, flaming porker terrifies Kong who races up the Empire State Bldg. Doc, in his ornithopter, shoots Kong with high-potency tranquilzer darts. The big ape falls to his death with minimal loss of life to the general populace, just one hell of a mess to clean up.
“Not beauty, but 'twas Bronzie that killed the beast!”
He waits for Kong to climb up past the windows of his eighty-sixth floor offices in the Empire State building, and tells Monk in Mayan to dress up in female clothing. Kong falls in love with Monk (a la every Bugs Bunny cartoon ever made), and then drops an anesthetic bulb in front of Kong, lifts him with the auto-gyro, and whisks him back to his island.
Is there any reason Doc & Co. couldn’t simply pop over to Abercrombie & Fitch (who carried safari gear in those days), acquire heavy caliber rifles, and shoot Kong deader than dogshit?
Rifles not a rifle, my good man. Multiple hits from something in the .450 Nitro Express class of cartridges isn’t something even the mighty Kong will shrug off, I suspect. For that matter, a rich, resourceful guy like Doc could easily equip his group with full-auto goodies from that era like the Lewis gun or the Browning Automatic Rifle. Seven people armed with these, especially using armor piercing ammunition, would cut Kong down in a few minutes.
Funnily enough, I was once in a roleplaying scenario that took classic Pulp-era characters, throwing them together as a loose team, and had us visit Kong’s island.
Doc was with us, but no Kong. He’d already been removed from the island a year or two previous, in the timeline.
According to Phillip José Farmer in Doc Savage, his Apocolyptic Life, Doc was the fellow who designed the gas-bombs that the Denham expedition used to capture Kong in the first place. So he’d have no trouble whipping up a highly potent version in his lab to deliver to Kong.
And it’s not like Kong was very far from the 86th floor lab.
Also, I would not put it past Doc to know the precise nerve-point to punch with one mighty blow and knock-out Kong.
It’s not as if he didn’t have experience fighting giants.
Psst, TwoTrouts, Doc used a gyroplane not an ornithopter.
See, I was thinking something along the lines of Long Tom (the electrical whiz) turning the dirigible mooring mast into a giant van der graaf generator, thus delivering a huge electrical shock when Kong climbs up it.
And of course Ham could handle the lawsuits for the families of the people Kong squishes when he hits the ground.
