Discussion:
The Men Vanished
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Dave
2008-11-30 12:30:22 UTC
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From December, 1940..

A perfectly awful title. This is about explorers disappearing into
the Amazon, a lost tribe in a mystery city, gyroplanes in the pursuit,
DOC fighting a jaguar, and "the Men Vanished" is the best Dent could
come up with? Jungle Of Death? The Golden Jaguar? The River of
Doom? Anything for some pizazz>>>

It starts off with the Explorers Club giving their Man of the Decade
medal. Not surprisingly, it goes to DOC, in a unamimous decision. We
learn that an explorer named Daniel Stage disappeared into the amazon
sometime earlier, and that six other explorers have disappeared trying
to find him. Seven missing explorers in the unexplored Amazon? You
have to wonder what DOC isn't all over this one already. But then
you'd also have to wonder why Monk and Ham are at the awards dinner
with DOC, and Johnny and Pat are sitting around back at the office.
Renny and Long Tom are out of the country, OK, but Johnny and pat
don't go to the awards club dinner?

Anyhow, DOC runs into a mystery at the dinner. There is a man with
two faces -- half his face is horribly disfigured. Another explorer
gets involved. Pretty soon Pat is kidnapped, DOC is disguised, and
Daniel Stage's sister is involved. We get some standard New York City
chasing around, some plot thickening, and then off to South America
for the second half of the book.

At the Hidalgo Trading Company the dirigible is gone. Pat isn't
toting her sixshooter around in her purse -- had she given it up by
1940? the pets are mentioned, but remain off stage the entire time.
Hard to believe, but Monk had dropped Habeas off at Ham's place during
the awards dinner -- a play-date with Chemistry? Then the pets aren't
mentioned until the final two pages of the story, when it turnes out
they'd been put into the gyroplanes for the week-long or longer trip
to south America, captured along with everyone else, but never
mentioned. Maybe they were edited out?

This one has the feel of tighter editing than was often the case; it
zips right along. A fairly logical plot, good gadgets, no phony
science, Pat (DOC has given up by this time, he's "Try to disocurage
her, but you probably won't be able to." Much better than I had
remembered it being; a top 1940 DOC.

Dave
Dave
2008-11-30 12:35:52 UTC
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Upon further review, "a top 1940 DOC" is pretty faint praise. Seven
of the titles that year were by authors other than Dent. THE MEN
VANISHED comes in December, and is the first Dent in six months -- the
longest streak ever in the series. In fact, this is in the middle of
th eghost streak -- 10 of the previous 18 issues had been by authors
other than dent.

dave
Kent Allard
2008-12-01 13:54:33 UTC
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Post by Dave
Seven missing explorers in the unexplored Amazon? You
have to wonder what DOC isn't all over this one already.
Weren't missing explorers constantly coming back out of the jungle every two
months or so, back then? I think it must have been standard operating procedure
for Doc to wait 6 months for any lost people to come to him with a story of a
lost city before he took it upon himself to investigate.

Then there was that Kent Allard guy, lost for years, and showing up just around
this time too.

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