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Solitude

The concept and name "Fortress of Solitude" Strange Blue Dome is a fictional base of operations first appeared in the Doc Savage pulps in the 1930s and 1940s,long Superman co-opted the name and made more famous as his arctic retreat.

At various times, and for various reasons, Doc Savage likes to be alone. At these times he retreats to his Fortress of Solitude. This Fortress of Solitude is located somewhere in the Arctic. Doc Savage built his Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic and retreated to it alone in order to make new scientific or medical breakthroughs, and to store dangerous technology and other secrets. Doc’s labs, and many of the inventions Doc has captured from the villains around the world. The concept and name “Fortress of Solitude” first appeared in the Doc Savage pulps in the 1930s and 1940s. Doc Savage built his Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic and retreated to it alone in order to make new scientific or medical breakthroughs, and to store dangerous technology and other secrets. The name “Fortress of Solitude” originally appeared in Doc Savage pulps. In fact, an argument can be made that Superman’s creators essentially ripped off the idea. Old Doc’s Fortress was located in the Arctic and acted as a retreat for the mysterious man.The structure is a huge, igloo shaped dome,that only Clark Savage knows how get into by way of the hidden doorway.

First appearance of the scrambler laser pistol; b) first mention of Hidalgo by name; c) the Fortress of Solitude is described as being in both Antarctica and near the North Pole; d) Doc’s lobotomy technique is explained for the first time; e) the brief history of the 1940s Doc impostor raises some intriguing question, first of all, was it Bo’s father as mentioned in issue #2 of the miniseries? f) issue includes a letters column and a diagram of the Fortress of Solitude.

Wiki

Pulp fiction's legendary Man of Bronze returns in two of his most engrossing adventures. In this debut issue, he pulps' greatest superman confronts "The Devil Genghis", a mad genius armed with incredible scientific inventions stolen from Doc Savage's "Fortress of Solitude". This volume reprints both appearances of Doc Savage's greatest enemy, the diabolical John Sunlight, and features the classic pulp cover art, along with the original interior illustrations by Paul Orban.

The Fortress of Solitude is still owned by Clark Savage, Jr. It is actually the third "Fortress" and has been relocated near the South Pole.It is here, away from the annoyances of civilization, that Doc performs his greatest research work. Alone, he gives complete concentration to the tasks before him. No one but Doc knows what the "Fortress of Solitude" looks like, or its definite location.

Notes

The Fortress of Solitude was featured in the Doc Savage 1975 movie and other various comics

* Blatantly ripped off by the writers of DC's Superman comics five years after its appearance in the Doc Savage stories.

For miles and miles in all directions the white waste looked absolutely barren - except directly ahead, where there was obviously an island. The bronze man simply disappeared from his usual haunts, sometimes for months at a time, and during these absences, it was absolutely impossible to get in touch with him. When Doc came back from these absences, he explained simply that he had been at his Fortress of Solitude -and usually, too, he brought back some new invention, or the solution of some complicated problem of science or surgery. The island seemed to be solid stone, with no bit of soil and no vegetation. Just a high, bald knob of stone. Amass of rock rearing up from the floor of the Arctic Ocean. It must be as solid as Gibraltar, for it stood firm against the ice pack. The ice had piled up against the island, and for leagues it was broken in great bergs. The floes had squeezed and piled one on top of the other, and the ice had lumped up in masses that were sometimes as large as factory buildings.The Strange Blue Dome stood, a weird−looking thing, on the rock island.It was like half a blue agate marble.Like a marble that some fabulous titan had lost here in this unknown part of the globe, to become buried in stone and surrounded by fantastic ice. It was strange. 

Long before there was a Superman, before there was a Batman there was our hero Doc Savage. And yes comic fans he is the source material for most of the great aspects of our favorite comics.One of these concepts is the lair, the place to retreat to… the Fortress of Solitude. Doc Savages’ Fortress of Solitude was constructed by him and a team member Renny ( yes before the Avengers and X-men Doc had a specialized team). Large sections were fabricated and the materials and construction crews were then airlifted on huge cargo planes to a remote area of the Arctic where the great dome was constructed. The Fortress served as a retreat where Doc could go to spend long uninterrupted periods of time studying, experimenting and pursuing his interests.

For our purposes, the Fortress of Solitude is where we will discuss the things that interest us… our studies, experiments, hobbies and interests and where we go to retreat from the outside world in order to pursue them.

The bad guy in Fortress of Solitude is the above-mentioned John Sunshine. A man of hidden origins, he just exudes evil. In it, he escapes from a Siberian prison camp and heads off into the Arctic on a stolen icebreaker (and all of them are starving despite the fact that the ship was loaded with a year's supply of food when they stole it. What's up with that?). The ship is trapped in the ice, and John Sunshine stalks off into the icy wasteland, where he encounters friendly English-speaking Eskimos and a mysterious blue dome. He eventually makes his way into the Dome, and finds death ray technology, which he decides to sell to a couple of squabbling Balkan nations so that he may use the money to take over the world.

A good deal of the storyline takes place in the Arctic, where some of them are running around in their underwear and feeling few effects of the cold. I suspect that the writer had very little personal experience with sub-zero temperatures. They also involve two giant women named Giantia and Titania, who aren't very bright; and their pretty but stupid sister Fifi, who keeps saying "What about poor little me?" so that Doc's associates can act like idiots around her.

In the end of the novel Fortress of Solitude, Doc reveals that the mysterious blue dome is his own Fortress of Solitude, where he retreats to perform experiments, and that the death ray technology the madman Sunshine is selling was Doc's own invention. He is then put in the position of needing to find a way to break into his own fortress, and Sunshine disappears across the ice sheet so that he can be used again in another volume

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