Post by dans on Aug 23, 2022 21:28:44 GMT
Notes from the writer:
Dr. Diamond is the heroic identity of renowned surgeon Dr. Drake Gordon, who appeared in the first 4 issues of Cat-Man comics in 1941. The story below is a direct re-telling of the first half of his origin in Cat-Man #1. He was a dashing figure with an Errol Flynn mustache.
Dr. Diamond had powers similar to the Black Terror: super strength, great speed, and sometimes enhanced resistance to injury (he survived an explosion and possibly gunfire in his first adventure but was knocked out by a blackjack in the next one, and gas in another one), and he may have had a danger sense, though it didn't kick in quite early enough the one time it was on display. He couldn't fly but had his own 'sleek' airplane. He lived in 'Central City' which I think may be San Diego, since two of his adventures take place fairly near Mexico but also an ocean. By his third adventure he has gained a significant amount of notoriety, as the villain of that story knows that he can steal the Black Diamond and remove Dr. Diamond's powers (although he doesn't make any use of those power, even though he boasts about them...)
Drake got his powers from a mysterious Black Diamond, which has connections to both Egypt and 'the Orient' in its history. My first impression was that he got the Diamond from a monk, but I re-read - the story says that this man lived in a beautiful home, and while he dressed much like the Yama-Lama Ka-Bang (of Bingo, the Wonder Boy fame), the man who gave him the Diamond may not have been spiritual or mystical at all - that is my interpretation.
Dr. Diamond fought spies who were trying to blow up Hawaii, a mad scientist named Borcia who had a giant robot named Najor (other times Nojor), and another mad scientist who had a zeppelin which hangered inside an artificial island that could be lowered to the sea bottom. Borcia was called Garcia when he was introduced, and may actually have been named Borgia; it is hard to make out the lettering exactly.
Drake has a potential love interest in Elena Borcia who is the mad scientist's step-daughter, though she never showed up in another story. There were no other significant supporting characters other than villains.
So here it is; the updated origin of Dr. Diamond...
Dr. Drake Gordon was the only civilian passenger on a tramp freighter making calls in many of the Southeast Asian countries, on a self-imposed mission to learn 'the surgical mysteries of the Orient'. He was unfortunate enough to be caught on deck when the freighter encountered a 'flash typhoon' in the Sea of Bengal, and he was roughly tossed overboard. The twisting winds carried him many miles before finally dropping him into the turbulent sea, perhaps momentarily lessened in the lea of an island. He hurriedly stripped off most of his clothes and desperately fought his way through the giant waves of the rough waters to the shoreline. The shoreline was nothing but a narrow beach, virtually all swamped in the waves, around a monstrous pillar of stone that reached high into the sky. He staggered through the shallower water of the shore, but found nothing that might help him survive - no caves for shelter, no fresh water, no trees, nothing but that narrow strip of sand circling the mighty pillar...
Finally, battered by the storm and exhausted by his desperate swim through typhoon-roughed waters followed by his endless trek around the base of the pillar, he collapsed to the sand, unconscious... Fortunately for him, the storm was abating...
He awakened somewhere else. A strange man stood near the bed where he awakened. The man spoke in an unknown language, but Drake somehow understood him. This man was sitting in a lotus position - but he was hovering several feet off the floor, and Drake could see nothing supporting him.
*****
"You are quite safe, my son. You are in the monastery on the pinnacle of the rocky spire that makes up the Island of St. Modora."
Drake looked around him - he seemed to be in a large temple of some kind - but unlike anything he had ever seen before. There were many niches cut into the walls, each with a statue - the nearby statues seemed to represent figures from Norse, Hindu, Judaeo/Christian, Islamic and Buddhist theologies, with more he couldn't recognize farther away. The man who had spoken was of indeterminate age and ethnicity, with bland facial figures - but as Drake stared more intently at that face, he was surprised to see flashes of subtle similarities to faces from every ethnicity he was familiar with.
And then he realized that he was clothed - but not in his own clothes, which must be somewhere at the bottom of the sea by now, but in a strange outfit. A red, skin-tight 'muscle' t-shirt with a green 'breastplate' at the collar, tight, short, blue shorts, a belt of green matching the breastplate, with scales that suggested it might be made of snakeskin, with an oval yellow buckle, a yellow cape with a clasp at the collarbone, an empty setting for gem of some sort, and red calf-high leather boots.
"Where are my American clothes? What am I doing in this costume? Why have you brought me here? Who are you?" Drake was confused.
"Patience, my son, and I will explain all..." the mysterious figure began. "Thousands of years ago, an Egyptian peasant named Amnis, a devout follower of Khonsu, the God of the Moon, was working his fields and he found... a glittering black stone, harder than any other - a Black Diamond. He took the stone home, and it spoke to him... describing the great powers it could grant him, and being a just man, Amnis used those powers in the service of good. But one night while he slept, an evil man sneaked into his hut and stole the gem from around his neck!" He paused, but Drake was too fascinated... or too exhausted... to comment.
"This thief made his way to a trading post on the Suez Gulf, where he attempted to sell the gem. Instead, he came to the attention of a mighty pirate captain, who murdered him and stole the gem for his own. Not too long later, the pirates made shore on the west coast of India, in search of slaves, where they were slaughtered by the natives they had come to oppress, and the gem changed hands again. The history of the Black Diamond is murky for many years afterward." Again he paused; again Drake could think of nothing to say in response to this almost unbelievable tale.
"Several hundred years ago, another pirate ship, this one carrying slaves captured in dozens of different countries, was wrecked on the shores of this island, which the survivors named St. Modora. The slaves had followed many different religions before their capture, but they could all agree on the concept of a saintly man or woman, and this allowed them to peacefully coexist while each following the beliefs of his or her heart. They found a way to climb the monolith that is St. Modora, and founded this monastery, dedicated to the study of peace and goodwill."
"Some twenty years ago, I was making a tour of some of the homelands of the ancestors of those who now live on this island, and in a bazaar, I bought a collection of jewels - and among them was the Black Diamond!" He held up a black, glistening stone, exactly the size of the empty setting on the clasp of Drake's cape.
"This is a fascinating story," Drake finally commented. "But what does it have to do with me?" he wondered.
"Our mystical studies tell us that great evil is aborning in the world, and we would do our part to fight this great evil. Your own destiny has drawn you here at this time. If you will vow to use the great powers of the Black Diamond to smash crime, I will gift it to you!"
Drake barely took an instant to think about it. "This seems too good to be true! Only yesterday, I was known to only a few people as Dr. Gordon - but from now on, I will be known to the whole world as Dr. Diamond!" As he spoke, the man touched the Black Diamond to the clasp on his cape, where some mystical force immediately held it firmly in place.
"I will sweep across the universe, leaving the wicked and evil trembling at the sound of my name!" He paused for a second, and he could feel the mystical power of the gem filling his body as he completed that oath.
Then he continued: "And with the great strength the magic Black Diamond gives me, I will smash the most deadly criminals that prey upon society!"
A few hours later, now fully recovered from his harrowing ordeal, with a boost from the powers of the Black Diamond, Dr. Drake Gordon, soon to become famous and the mighty hero Dr. Diamond, took off in a small, sleek plane that the inhabitants of the island just happened to have handy, and headed back towards America.
"Next stop - the Hawaiian Islands!" he thought with excitement. "Look out, evil, here comes Dr. Diamond!"
Follow the further thrilling adventures of Dr. Diamond in: The Photomortic Effect