The Best of the Encyclopedia of Pulp Heroes: Doctor Satan

Doctor Satan. Doctor Satan was created by Paul Ernst (The Avenger (II), Dick Bullitt, Anthony Lance, Seekay, Perry Westbrook) and appeared in eight stories in Weird Tales in 1935 and 1936, beginning with “Doctor Satan” (Weird Tales, Aug. 1935). Doctor Satan, the “world’s weirdest criminal,” is a nameless young man. He is wealthy and is from a very famous family. He became so jaded at the thrills his money could buy that he began studying advanced science and the occult so that he could become the world’s foremost criminal. He succeeded in this, in large part by mixing SCIENCE! and the occult. Dr. Satan has a number of weapons at his command. He uses the “death shrub,” an Australian thornbush, to kill enemies. He uses a voodoo flame first created 5000 years ago in temples along the Nile. He uses electricity bombs, Cretan voodoo dolls [sic], a time diverter, magic dragons, an atomic ray, and a crystal lightning tube. Dr. Satan is assisted by Girf, a “monkey-man,” and Bostiff, a legless giant. Doctor Satan’s nemesis is Ascott Keane, a Great Detective who is said to have “raised a hobby of criminology into an art that passes genius.” Keane is assisted by his beautiful “secretary and companion” Beatrice Dale.