A staple of DOC SAVAGE stories is the "slow opening." Something
mysterious is happening to people. Sometimes they're killed;
sometimes they go to New York City, and are killed there. Other times
they get off a last-minute telegram of phone call. Quite often DOC
makes to appearance before Chapter 3, Sometimes it's as late as
Chapter 6.

I've started rereading one like that right now -- name slips my mind
at the moment, but it's the one with the Bantam cover with DOC looking
at 4 giant ferrets. And I think -- why do they always wait so long to
introduce DOC? Wouldn't it have made more sense to introduce him
sooner? A chapter 2 intro, ala THE DESTROYER? Show him doing
something heroic or fantastic right in the first chapter, and have
that chapter end with, "Little did DOC SAVAGE know that in far off
Congobongoland, and mysterious menace to world peace was already
emerging from the primordial swamp...."

Compare with THE SPIDER, with the fever-pitch already there by the
third paragraph. Even THE SHADOW ususally makes an appearance in the
first or second chapter

dave