For a few years now, there has been a back and forth news story about Dwayne “The Rock “ Johnson playing an old school pulp hero, Doc Savage, on the big screen. And although Johnson’s schedule seems to keep The Man Of Bronze sidelined, this question won’t just because of a recent fan resurgence of the template of our modern comic book heroes in print and in epub, the pulp crime fighter.
From The Shadow to Zorro to The Spider, these masked heroes have been up and down in different versions in the cinema and with new stories being created by new writers, these heroes have once again taken the imaginations of old and new fans alike.
From the two gun detective tales of The Black Bat, and the medical themed mysteries of The Purple Scar, more and more interest is being generated to simpler themes of justice and actual mysteries in the stories. Also, with the comic book seeming to be emptying out by Hollywood and television, retro resurgence is part of the same wave that occured back in the 80’s and 90’s with films being made of The Lone Ranger, The Phantom, and The Shadow,
Despite the shameful Green Hornet movie failing critically and commercially, and the current CW’s Arrow and BLack Lightning and Marvel’s Netflix TV shows bringing back a ground level ideal back to heroics, fandom is ready for pulp heroes to be brought back.
If Dwayne Johnson does make a successful Doc Savage movie, and the hunger for old school heroes on the big screen takes off, except to see a wave of pulpy goodness in modern mass media.