Editing Doc Savage (section)

===Villains===
Doc's greatest foe, and the only enemy to appear in two of the original pulp stories, was the Russian-born [[John Sunlight]], introduced in October 1938 in the ''Fortress of Solitude''. Early villains in the "super-sagas" were fantastic schemers bent on ruling the world. Later, the magazine was retitled ''Doc Savage, Science Detective'', and Doc dealt with more conventional criminal organizations.  The super-saga was revived in 1948 by new editor [[Daisy Bacon]] shortly before the final cancellation of the magazine. In a September 20, 1948, letter to [[Lester Dent]], Bacon wrote "As long as we are dropping the science detective and returning to just Doc Savage, I think we should return to a real adventure story..."<ref>https://collections.shsmo.org/manuscripts/columbia/c3071 – Listing of Lester Dent Papers, 1924–1984 @ The State Historical Society of Missouri, Folder 23, Correspondence Aug-Dec 1948</ref>

A key characteristic of the Doc Savage stories is that the threats, no matter how fantastic, usually have a rational explanation. For example, a giant mountain-walking spider is revealed as a blimp, a scorching death comes from super-charged electric batteries, a "sea angel" is a mechanical construct towed by a submarine, Navy ships sunk by a mysterious force are actually sabotaged, and so on.  But Doc Savage also battles invisible killers, a murderous teleporter, and superscientific foes from the center of the Earth.{{citation needed|date=May 2017}}

In earlier stories, some of the criminals captured by Doc receive "a delicate brain operation" to cure their criminal tendencies. These criminals return to society, unaware of their past, to lead productive lives. The operation is mentioned in [[Truman Capote]]'s novel ''[[In Cold Blood]]'', as an older Kansan recalls Doc's "fixing" of the criminals he had caught.<ref>(1966 ed. p307)</ref>