Who is The Death Merchant?

[English Teacher X]

Okay, now this is kind of interesting:

Some of you may be familiar with the World Newton project, which basically is a massive attempt to link all sort of famous literary figures -- James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, super-heroes, etc -- as relatives, etc.

I discovered THIS regarding the Death Merchant

www.pjfarmer.com/woldnewton/Clark_Savage_III.pdf

Which details the possibility that The Death Merchant is the son of none other than Doc Savage. . . though you have to have read the DC comics DOC SAVAGE mini-series in the 80's to know that Doc Savage had a son.

[Todd]

Okay let's get a little out there:
In the pdf you link to it mentions The Shadow....there was a Shadow story called The Murder Master (also a series by Rosenberger) and it was illustrated by a person named John Rosenberger. Maybe the author of the DM series (written under a pseudonym?) was a big fan of early pulps? Coincidence?

[Brad]

I think Rosenberger, Sapir & Murphy, Pendleton, and their mates were big fans of the pulps. I've long thought that several of the PMP boys were connected to the original pulp heroes.

As I read through the Death Merchant series I noticed that there was no real background given for the character and what was given dovetailed very nicley with what was known about Clark Savage III, and when I looked closely at Savage's "death" there were a number of inconsist elements and the article damn near wrote itself.

Thanks for noticing my work.

[Django The Bastard]

Sapir and Murphy both talked about the influence of Doc Savage on The Destroyer in an interview I read years ago when the Marvel Comics B&W magazine was being published...



Don Pendleton on the other hand in The Executioner's War Book when posed a question on the pulps and their possible influence merely said they were "before his time"...surprisingly enough...

Don was more influenced by the Matt Helm and Mike Hammer novels from what I've heard...

[Jake Cutter]

I'm surprised Robert Mitchum didn't sue.