The entire city of New York is swept up in a wave of terror, as an evil international conspiracy devises a crime so sinister that only Doc Savage and his five mighty cohorts can halt its fiendish plan. Led by a phantom master criminal with stupefying supernatural powers, the conspiracy sets trap after trap for Doc. Finally, in a fantastic underground empire, the fearless bronze giant and his courageous crew must fight for their lives against a diabolical enemy that cannot even be seen.
A classic Doc Savage idea — invisible men committing crimes — with Doc and the gang becoming invisible too! The thing is, it only makes people invisible, not their clothes, so Doc is naked for much of the novel!
A couple of fairly interesting plot devices, but this story has never done much for me.
This was the one that did it for me. I had read the first adventure and hadn’t liked it so my expectations weren’t high going into this one. But boy was it fun! The invisibility ray and Doc and the gang running around naked (though invisible) was just too much!! I was hooked from that moment on and have been enjoying Doc for the last 3 years. Looking forward to many more as I work my way through the series.
I thought this was above average.
Telegraph Edmunds is one of the more competent Evil Henchmen. I thought it made a great scene when a disguised Doc tried to join the gang, and Telegraph kayoed him on the principle of “Why take chances?”
I liked Doc (and Habeas) at the opera. It is nice to know that Doc appreciates high culture.
This was one of the more suspenseful Docs. Until the skunk farm, it was all Doc, Monk, and Ham could do to stay alive. For once, it seemed like they were up against a gang that had their numbers.
I found it very amusing that Ham consistently spoke in a Harvard accent. This is one of the few novels where Gen. Brooks has sounded like a “Hah-vahd” man throughout the book.
On the downside, I thought the death scene of the mastermind was forced, and I would have liked to have seen more of Old Bonepicker. He seemed to have more than a touch of rascal in him.
Not in the Top Ten, I grant you, but nevertheless very enjoyable on all counts. With its invisibility sci-fi angle, four-to-the-floor action and numerous fist fights, this would have made a perfect Republic serial. The banter between Ham and Monk is especially arch and amusing. Later retitled THE GHOST LEGION, which is unfortunate because in this context, the word “spook” suggests a fun sort of scare, which is just what the book delivers.
While I absolutely hated the Bama cover for this book (Bama was never good with machines), I thought the story, while totally far-fetched, was actually gripping and funny in spots. But the train wreck in the end is one of the best-written climaxes in all of the Doc books.
“The Spook Legion” is a mixed bag. The climax, involving Doc and Monk becoming invisible, is terrific. But the setup is long, dull and meandering
Another favorite of mine, this one has a great storyline from beginning to end. Doc and Monk’s invisible romp through New York is classic, I would recommend reading this one just for those few chapters!
The 6th Doc novel that I read, and I LOVED it! Looking back now I think what made it so good was the fact that the invisibility gimmick was for real, not some hoax or trick thought up by the bad guys, like the personality-transfer in MAD MESA, for instance. Dent was an amazing writer, always inventive, always so damn readable. I sincerely believe that the Doc Savage saga stands high in the pulp field because of the fact that Dent was just so superior to the general run of pulp authors of his day.
The book is good, but one thing spoiled everything; bad guys kidnapping millionaries and turning them invisible? Demanding a ransom to make them visible again? Essentially they created their own enemies – dangerous, invisible enemies! – in most idiotic way possible.