By Dennis E. Power
SECTION ONE: A BEEKEEPER’S SWEET DISCOVERY
In 1921 Sherlock Holmes made
one of the greatest discoveries in scientific history. He had discovered,
through a combination of intensive research and fortuitous happenstance, what
mankind has been searching for since the dawn of time, the Fountain of Youth.
Holmes had not merely discovered an Elixir of Life, that is a chemical formula
that could extend life, but one that also rejuvenated the aged back to youthful
maturity.[1]
Holmes discovered that the royal jelly created when a certain bee species ate
the pollen from certain rare species of plants contained this long sought after
treasure.
Royal jelly is a substance secreted from the heads of young worker bees. It
comprises part of the diet of all of the young in a hive. However when a queen
is needed a particular hatching will be fed only royal jelly and in large
quantities. This feeding triggers the necessary biological changes to create a
new Queen Bee. Like honey and beewax, royal jelly has been used for centuries
as a consumable good by human beings. Royal jelly is most often used as a
health food and also a cosmetic base.
Sherlock Holmes’ achievement was remarkable not simply for its biological
effects but because it was accomplished by an “amateur” biochemist. While there
is no denying that Holmes was a genius and an accomplished chemist, it should
also be remembered that his chemical experiments were performed in a rather
small laboratory and as a compliment to his main profession of detection. While
he did carry out some biochemical experimenation, these experiments, as with
all of his other chemical work were to aid Holmes in main his vocation of crime
solving and so were confined to such things as research on stains for the
purposes of identification.
After being a consulting detective for a over two decades Holmes grew bored
as the cases seemed less and less challenging to his intellect. He was also
feeling the infirmities of age and felt that his studies of the habits of bees
and his quest for the elixir of life would prove challenges for his waning
years.
There is some dispute
about Holmes age. Holmes biographer William S. Baring-Gould places his birth at
1854.[2] However the Mary Russell Holmes[3]
papers indicate that he was 54 in 1915 when he met his future wife, giving him
a birth date of 1861. While a difference of seven years does seem like a small
difference when discussing these years as part of the span of a man’s life, it
can mean a great deal. There can be a world of difference between the ages of
54 and 61 as far as physical deterioration goes, especially in terms of the
state of geriatric medicine at the turn of the century. Ms. King disputes
Baring-Gold’s earlier date since it appears that Baring-Gould based much of
Holmes background on the life of his grandfather as recounted in Sabine
Baring-Gould’s autobiography, Early Reminiscences. In Ms. King’s view
the 1854 date was in essence lifted from Baring-Gould’s autobiography. Laurie R. King uses the Adventure of
the Gloria Scott for her dating; using the internal dates to date the
adventure in 1885 (it is stated that it took place thirty years from 1855 when
the Gloria Scott was lost) by this accounting Holmes was seventeen at this
juncture. [4]
Even though this does make
Holmes slightly younger in 1915 when he met Mary Russell, he being 54 and she
15, by the time that they married in 1921 he would have been 60 and she 21,
still a gap of 39 years. There must have
been a reason why a careful researcher such as Baring –Gould picked the 1854
date for Sherlock Holmes birth and there also must be a reason for Laurie King’s
belief that Holmes was younger than most people thought.
Holmes began working on
his elixir in 1909 so despite some interruptions, he may have made some
progress by 1915, enough perhaps to slow down his aging. This may be why Laurie
J. King believed Mary Russell when she stated that Holmes was fifty-four when
he was actually sixty-one. Russell was writing a public account of her life
with Holmes yet also writing several years after the fact. Russell was laying
down the foundation for a “younger” Holmes so that a healthy and vigorous
Holmes would not attract attention when he was supposed to be nearing seventy.
Ms. King’s dismissal of
the dates in Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street because of the similarities
between W. S. Baring-Gould’s biography of Sherlock Holmes and Sabine
Baring-Gould’s autobiography would please Holmes, since he wanted to muddy the
waters about his early life and true age. The similarities however are easily
explained. Holmes worked with W. S. Baring-Gould on this biography, by posing
as a member of the Holmes family supplying Baring-Gould with material for
publication. There were however large gaps in the information about Holmes
early life. Holmes, as a representative of the family, stressed that in no
regard that would they allow Baring-Gould to examine these early years and if
he attempted to do the project would be delayed by legal battles for years.
They also did not want him to leave these years as mysterious so they told him
to create a back history from some skeleton facts, thus the borrowing from his
grandfather’s autobiography.
Holmes of course did not
want anyone to dig too deeply into his family’s past lest the secret of his
faithless mother be discovered. She committed adultery on their father twice,
once with a vampire lover while pregnant with Sherlock.[5]
Her other extramarital affair was with Holmes tutor and teacher, James
Moriarty.[6]
Holmes did not want to reveal these affairs not merely for sake of his family’s
reputation but also because knowledge about the affair with Radu could have
exposed his brother Rutherford’s existence and endangered him.
Exposure of his mother’s
affair with Moriarty would have also brought to light one of the most
anguishing episodes of Sherlock Holmes life, the death of his first love, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth had been killed as Holmes and his friend, and fellow student,
Reginald Musgrave thwarted the plans of Rathe, the fencing teacher. [7] Although this incident was crucial in making
Holmes the man he became, it was Holmes inability to disassociate his emotions
from his actions that led to the death of Elizabeth and so led to his reliance
on stoicism and logic as an adult. The emotional pain of his mother’s
infidelities and the death of Elizabeth resulted in his general attitude
towards women and self-imposed bachelorhood.[8]
His emotional detachment led to having few acquaintanceships and even fewer
friends. Musgrave was reduced to the status of a casual acquaintance after
Holmes left the University.
When Holmes retired to Sussex he fully intended to devote himself to his
bee studies and his research on the elixir of life however he kept being pulled
away from his Sussex farm by his brother Mycroft and other government officials
such as Denis Nayland Smith.[9] Had he not been pulled away from his
researches it is probable that he would have completed his work prior to 1921.
While Holmes bee studies may have been derived from his fascination with
their structured, harmonious albeit matriarchial society, these studies were
certainly given added incentive when he received a note from an old foe in
1908. In 1875 while still a University student,[10]
Sherlock Holmes had been forced to solve a mystery by Fu Manchu, who was at
that time using the name Ch'ing
Chuan-Fu The mystery revolved around the identity of the traitor at the Empress
Dowager's court. After reviewing the evidence and interviewing Prince Kung, the
Chief Eunuch of the Palace and the Dowager Empress, Holmes concluded that the
Empress was the traitor. Fu Manchu refused to believe this and Holmes escaped
with his life only through fortune. After the Empress Dowager died Fu Manchu
sent Holmes a letter congratulating him on the accuracy of his deduction. As a
long deferred payment Fu Manchu gave him a clue to the elixir of life, that it
was derived from the honey of a certain flower.[11]
While the message from Fu Manchu probably was not the deciding factor, it
certainly encouraged Holmes to retire and pursue his bee studies.
We know from Sax Rohmer
that Fu Manchu did not succeed in creating his Elixir of Life until 1929.[12]
This is eight years after Holmes made his first batch of the royal jelly, and
twenty-one years after giving Holmes the major clue to the secret of
immortality. Was Rohmer incorrect? Did Fu Manchu actually possess the secret of
immortality as early as 1908? No, I do not believe that Rohmer was incorrect. I
do not believe that Fu Manchu possessed a working version of the elixir in 1908
when he imparted this knowledge to Holmes. In fact Fu Manchu may not have been
certain that this was a key ingredient of the elixir.
SECTION TWO: THE QUEST OF FU MANCHU
Using the sources of
mythology, arcane lore, alchemical treatises and his own scientific acumen Fu
Manchu begun working on his elixir of life in 1904 but by 1908 had become
frustrated with his progress. As he did with many projects Fu Manchu set up
independent satellite operations to see if the same results would be achieved.
Holmes was one of his unknowing agents in the creation of the elixir of life.
Fu Manchu was certain that if the improbable happened and Holmes achieved
success he could always steal the formula.
When Fu Manchu began
serious work on the elixir of life he doubtless made a study of the legends of
immortals and the various legends of eternal youth. Some of these legends such
as the Fountain of Youth, he would have found were pure myth.
He may have learned that
were people who were true immortals, that they never aged and seemed to heal
from the most serious of injuries. He may have even have found and experimented
on a few of these and discovered that they had come by their immortality
naturally through some quirk in the evolutionary process. He would have also
discovered that their gifts could not be transferred via tissue transplantation
or blood transfusion.[13]
Fu Manchu may have even
discovered people who had become immortal not through evolution or through the
imbibing some substance but rather had made bargains or had been cursed by
beings of great power.[14] Although he probably researched the “living”
dead, that is vampires, mummies and zombies he found this avenue of research, a
dead end-- so to speak, as were the artificially animated corpses of
Frankenstein method.[15]
Fu Manchu was associated
with one immortal that he knew under a variety of names. This immortal had been
a mentor in Fu Manchu’s youth and a friend and rival in Fu Manchu’s maturity.
It remained a source of irritation for Fu Manchu that he aged while his
acquaintance did not. Rashiel, or as he was known to the League of Assassins he
controlled, Ras Al Ghul, maintained his immortality by periodically
regenerating his body in a toxic stew. However this particular method, despite
some accounts to the contrary, only worked on Ras Al Ghul. It either killed
anyone else that tried it or if they survived the treatment, they were rendered
irrevocably insane.[16]
In his researches Fu
Manchu may have learned of some who had staved off death through a drug, for
example Darius Beiderbeck and a man who called himself General Immortus. Both
of these men demonstrated a major of the failings of their elixirs. Their
elixirs did not regenerate the body to youth but only slowed the aging
process. Continual boosters of the
elixirs had to be imbibed in order for the age slowing treatment to be
effective. If by chance the elixir could not be recreated because it contained
ingredients such as rare plants that had become extinct since its creation, as
was possibly in case of the Biederbeck or that the formula was lost due by
destruction or time fogged memory, the aging process restarted. In some cases,
such as Biederbeck’s, there also seemed to be another adverse reaction to
either reducing or stopping the dosages of the elixir, as if after being held
in stasis for so long that the aging process over compensated and hyper
accelerated. After reducing the dosage the would-be immortal died in a few
short years from rapid aging, as if from some advanced form of progeria.
According to Fu Manchu’s sources after failing to find a substitute for his
elixir Biederbeck aged from forty to eighty in ten years. [17]
The so-called General Immortus was also useless for Fu Manchu’s research since
he had long forgotten how he had created his version of the Elixir.[18]
Fu Manchu discounted the
story of Saint-Germain as a person who had achieved his eternal youth through
alchemical means but instead his sources led him to believe that Saint-Germain
was actually a vampire attempting to pass as human.[19]
There was also the
mysterious figure called Baron Karl who had created a form of elixir that also
staved off the ravages of aging, only to lose the formula in a fire. This
elixir however seemed to be more effective in that unlike Beiderbeck, it only
had to be taken every few decades.[20]
He suspected, without hard evidence, that this was a variation of the Elixir of
the Nine.[21]
The Nine were, at least according to them, immortals whose eldest members dated
back to the Paleolithic era.[22]
Their elixir slowed the aging process so that a person aged one year for every
three hundred. However this elixir also had to be taken regularly, in yearly
installments. There were also reports of rare but serious neurological side
effects. The largest strike against the Nine’s Elixir was that the Nine
controlled it and so controlled those who took it. The Nine had contacted Fu
Manchu as a prospective member of their organization but he since he suspected
that the Elixir was addictive, he diplomatically declined their offer.[23]
Fu Manchu had abducted some people he suspected of being agents of the Nine but
could never isolate the elements of the Elixir from their blood or tissue
samples.
There were also rumors of
various substances that could stop the aging process, however Fu Manchu would
not have known of silphium plant of the
Most tantalizing to Fu
Manchu was the story of Cornelius Agrippa’s assistant who achieved eternal
youth through one drink of an elixir created by Agrippa.[25]
Once Holmes began the
elixir research Fu Manchu undoubtedly had agents watching Holmes for any sign
of having achieved the elixir of life. Although Holmes was certainly careful in
hiding his discovery, he most probably would not have been able to escape the
attention of Fu Manchu. This is especially true in the light of Holmes
uncharacteristic marriage, especially to a woman decades his junior. The date
of Holmes marriage is intriguing in the light that this was also the year in
which he made his big breakthrough with the royal jelly youth elixir.
SECTION THREE: THE ROYAL JELLY PROBLEM
In 1921 Holmes’ perfected
royal jelly elixir not only preserved one’s age but actually rejuvenated one
back to a more youthful state. All of the previous elixir’s mentioned halted
the slowed the aging process, sometimes so dramatically that aging was
imperceptible. One of the drawbacks of these elixirs was that a person was
locked into the age when they first took the elixir. If they were fortunate
enough to take it when they were a youth they would have centuries of youth. If
however they took it in middle age or at the twilight of their life, they would
remain in that state for centuries. Fu Manchu was already sixty-four when he
began his serious experimentation on the elixir. [26]
Shortly after taking the improved form of his royal jelly and discovering his
physical age was regressing, Holmes realized that he had a new lease on life. A
union with Mary could be a true marriage of not only mental equals but also of
physical equals. It was then that he agreed to the marriage.
Holmes however was not
quite ready to “kill off” Sherlock Holmes so he and Mary had to keep up the
pretense of his age. As a master of disguise this was not a problem for Holmes to
accomplish on the relatively rare occasions that they were publicly seen as Mr.
And Mrs. Sherlock Holmes. The intention was to continue with their identities
until it no longer became feasible for them to do so. Mary Russell intended to
continue her identity and pretend to age as it became necessary. Unfortunately,
it was never necessary for her to have to pretend to do so.
Holmes’ discovery
should have been a boon, not only for Fu Manchu who was waiting in the wings
for such a discovery, but it should have been a boon for the world. Sherlock
Holmes understood how revolutionary his discovery was, for while eternal youth
and health would not eliminate most of the ills that plagued mankind, it could
go a long way to ending some of them. It would certainly eliminate disease and
possibly death. With the prospect of long life, humanity might be take a long
view of history and gradually eliminate most problems such as war, poverty and
crime. He knew that the royal jelly would have to be slowly and gradually introduced
so that social chaos would not ensue.
Sherlock Holmes gave
samples of the royal jelly to his brother Mycroft, to his wife and to his aging
friend Dr. Watson. He knew that Mycroft Holmes would be the best man to create
a systemic method to disseminate the royal jelly to the world’s population
without creating either social anarchy or allow the royal jelly to be
sequestered into the hands of an elite few. However tests on Mycroft and Dr.
Watson soon uncovered a serious flaw in the royal jelly. It did not work, at
least it did not work on them as it had on Sherlock Holmes, and although
invigorated with renewed health they remained the same biological age they had
attained prior to taking the royal jelly. This result was standard among all
the other test subjects.[27]
The secret of Holmes’
discovery would have to be kept strictly guarded while further tests were
conducted. Mycroft Holmes used his authority as head of the British Secret
Service to keep the properties of Sherlock’s royal jelly secret from even
highest echelons of government. He
realized that was there even the merest hint that Sherlock had stumbled onto a
veritable fountain of youth there would be a mad frenzy by the powerful and the
unscrupulous to use it. If it were learned that it only worked on Sherlock, his
life would not be worth a fig. He would be needlessly vivisected for the
secret. [28]
As it would be
discovered the royal jelly was not without its merits, it did slow down the
aging process to some degree but its rejuvenation properties were not found to
work on anybody but Sherlock Holmes, although testing continued.
Unbeknownst to Holmes or Mycroft one of the vials supposedly used in a
failed test actually ended up in the hand of Dr. Fu Manchu. He tried the royal
jelly and nearly died of anaphalatic shock. It took Fu Manchu eight more years
before he was able to create his own elixir. Like most of the extant elixirs Fu
Manchu’s successful formula arrested the aging process by slowing it down
dramatically. Yet it also had the two main drawbacks of needed continued
dosages and while it kept Fu Manchu alive he remained at the advanced
biological age of eighty-nine. He would continually seek to improve his formula
for the next few decades.
In the course of his later studies Fu Manchu would have become familiar
with Siliphium and Kavuru and would have discovered the attributes and
detractions of both. Siliphium slowed down the aging process but was derived
from a plant that grew only on one island. Efforts to transplant the plant were
unsuccessful. Kavuru needed leopard spinal fluid and the glands of women
between the ages of sixteen and twenty.
The kavaru pills also had to be taken once a month.[29]
The Kavuru used all of their women and depopulated the local villages of women
in their need for the female glands. Fu Manchu had discovered a process similar
to the Kavuru method, in that the
alchemical process that created his version elixir of life can only be stoked
with human bodies.[30]
Fu Manchu may have
obtained samples of the Kavuru pills from Neal Brown or his wife Annette, if so
he would have discovered that the formula was not too different from his own.[31]
In Tarzan’s Quest,
Jane’s friend, the Princess Sborov was searching for a way to restore her
youth. This quest took the Princess and Jane into the land of the Kavuru, since
it was rumored that they had this ability. There were many rumors about the
Kavuru; many of these were not true. That their pills could restore youth seems
to be one of these. The Kavuru pills arrested the aging process but probably
did not rejuvenate. In Tarzan Alive, Philip Jose Farmer carefully noted
that although Jane was forty-seven years old, she still moved and looked as if
she were in her twenties; therefore there was not a noticeable age difference
between Tarzan and Jane. If the pills restored youth, Farmer need not have
noted this.
Philip Jose Farmer speculated that Doc Savage successfully synthesized
Karavu, “which is why he and his aides have not aged since 1933”[32]
Doc Savage disappeared circa 1948 into other dimensional space and was trapped
there for years in an energy state so he did not age. [33]
However his fabulous Five were seen taking care of Doc’s son and his grandson,
having aged yet still being active. If Doc had been able to replicate the
kavaru pills he must have only created a small amount which ran out after a few
years. He must also have kept the formula secret even from his most trusted
aides. It does seem puzzling however if Doc had replicated the Kavaru formula
that Monk Mayfair who was a chemist nearly equal to Doc could not replicate the
formula.
Yet there is also the matter of why Doc Savage or Tarzan would have needed
the Kavaru pills. There was after all the royal jelly. Even if Lord Greystoke,
despite being related to the Holmes family was not allowed access to the royal
jelly, it seems odd that Mycroft Holmes or the British Secret Service would not
have at least sent a sample to Doc Savage, who was a well regarded
philanthropist as well as a world renowned scientist, to see if he could unlock
its secrets.
SECTION FOUR: THE MYSTERY OF
THE TRIGGER
Doc Savage did unlock part of the secret of the royal jelly. He discovered,
as had the scientists in England, that Holmes’ royal jelly treatment was
effective for most people, in slowing down the aging process but eventually the
body would become adjusted to the chemistry of the jelly and lose its potency.
Dr. Watson, Mary Russell and Mycroft were able to add several active years to
their lives but they still eventually aged. However Mycroft aged less at a
lesser rate than the others. Among his own staff Doc Savage discovered that the
Royal jelly was most effective on himself and Monk Mayfair.
Doc Savage knew that there was a genetic element to the effectiveness of
the Royal jelly formula. The royal jelly worked best on people who could trace
their ancestry to the Wold Newton Meteorite Event. This however was not
confined to just royal jelly; silphium, kavaru and some other life extension
compounds also worked most effectively on a member of the extended Wold Newton
Family. However even in the Wold Newton family there were mutations. Tarzan
apparently had a mutation which allowed him to become permantly immortal from
the potion given to him by the witch doctor. Sherlock Holmes apparently had a
genetic mutation that allowed for the royal jelly to rejuvenate him. Doc Savage
surmised that both Holmes and Tarzan had a common ancestor that passed down a
very rare recessive gene that triggered the “immortality” gene or factor.
He believed that it may have been the man called John Carter who could not
remember how old he was. Like Tarzan he seemed to be permanently immortal.[34]
Doc Savage passed on part of his finding to the British Secret Service,
telling them that the best chance to find another person who could be
rejuvenated by the royal jelly would be among the extended Wold Newton
families. Doc Savage believed that the
rare “immortality gene” that is the rare genetic mutation that allowed for
variations of immortality. Permanent immortality that is eternal youth from one
dosage of a substance that triggered the gene: rejuvenation- the ability to
return to biological maturity and maintain that age through either one or
regular dosages of the substance that triggered the gene; and eternal life-the
ability either maintain the age or delay the aging process by one or regular
dosages of the substance that triggered the gene. The first two were extremely
rare; the third while still rare was more common among members of the Wold Newton
families and various, rare individuals outside of the Wold Newton families. Doc
Savage suspected that all the various people who benefited from the various
elixirs of life could trace their ancestry to the person who had originated the
mutation. Doc Savage suspected that the common ancestor might be John Carter of
It is fairly certain that Doc Savage was not aware of the existence of Kane
the Immortal or the other five men who had been affected by a fallen meteorite
in prehistory, although if he had been this may have altered his findings a
bit. Although Doc Savage probably knew
about DNA prior to his disappearance in 1946, he did not have access to the
sophisticated DNA analysis techniques of the early 21st century. If
he had he would have discovered a strange genetic anomaly that preceded the
Wold Newton family.
Doc Savage’s theory about the common ancestry of these individuals does seem to be on the
whole valid, even among such groups, as The Nine who claim that their elixir
worked on anyone. The Nine’s elixir was unique among other such elixirs of
life. It was effective on people outside of the group for this reason, although
the key ingredient was directly related to this Wold Newton immortality gene.
The effectiveness of the Capellean/Eridanean elixirs derived from their
technological base which was based on molecular nanotechnology. The adopted
terrestrials received blood transfusions from Capellean/Eridanean
extraterrestrials whose blood contained
nanites geared towards maintaining health and increasing the life span.
Because of the nanites had been programmed for the Capellean and Eridanean
norm, the nanites were not as effective on terrestrial biology as they were on
Capellean and Eridanean biology. This is one of the reasons that the aging
process did not slow down in terrestrial adoptees until the age of forty.[36]
While this was an
inheritable mutation it was not one that manifested readily. Although Tarzan
became truly immortal after he imbibed a potion given to him by a witch doctor
his children did not become immortal and became all too mortal when their
supply of the Kavuru pills was depleted, although the pills were more effective
for them than they were for most people.
It was the same story
with most of the so called elixirs of life, while they may be effective in
slowing down the aging process of most people for a time, eventually, unless
these people have the genetic marker, the so-called immortality gene, the
elixirs gradually loses their effect. In essence these elixirs trigger the
latent mutation and depending on much of the genetic anomaly the individual has
will determine how effective the elixirs are upon them, some may need constant
doses of their elixirs, some may need to take it every few years, in some the
aging process is totally arrested in others the aging process is extremely
slowed.
In 1972, during the
course of its periodic testing, the Q branch discovered that the blood serum of
one of their agents tested positively with samples of the royal jelly. Although
it is probably apocryphal it is said the Major Boothroyd sighed and said, “Of
course, it would be him.” The agent was James Bond, 007 a member of the
extended Wold Newton family, although one without close genetic ties to either
Tarzan or Sherlock Holmes.[37]
This led scientists
to believe that the immortality gene was a random mutation with the extended
Wold Newton family. The royal jelly treatment successfully rejuvenated the
fifty-three year old Bond to biological maturity-that is back to being
approximately twenty-five years, although like Holmes he had to dose himself
with it on a regular basis. Upon his agreeing to take the treatment Bond
insisted that his close colleagues at MI5 be returned to active duty and given
the royal jelly. This arrested their aging but did not make them any younger.
Major Boothroyd declined the offer. Sir Miles Messervey, Miss Moneypenny and
Bill Tanner accepted the offer but would eventually decide to leave the service
for various reasons of their own. [38]
Having learned of
James Bond’s rejuvenation, Fu Manchu was even more determined to find a way to
rejuvenate himself. He found one method of doing so by using drugs to remove
his allergy to bee venom and then using the royal jelly. However this was only
effective for seven years and like Darius Biederbeck, he became afflicted with
rapid aging. He then tried a method of transfusing his blood supply with one of
his descendents, although this was seemingly been effective only time will
tell.
There was also
another case where a rejuvenation formula was created and was seemingly
effective in 1969. The drug rejuvenated a man who was biologically ninety years
old back to biological maturity. What is even more amazing is that chronologically
the man was thousands of years old. The man was Iwaldi, a member of the
Nine. The Nine encouraged their
Servants, that is, those they selected to receive the Elixir, to try and
replicate the Elixir. They did this out of blatant self-interest as well as a
method of controlling their Servants. For thousands of years attempts to
replicate the elixir had proved ineffective. Most who tried to create their own
version of the elixir eventually realized this and realized how much they
needed the Nine for their immortality. The specific plant needed to create the
elixir was rare and the supply was always limited. Although the Nine guarded
the location of the plants, they had serious concerns about a possible disaster
happening to the plants and eliminating their ability to create the elixir.
They encouraged their candidates to try to make their own versions of the
elixir in the hopes that one of them would succeed, giving them an alternative
to their rare supply of the elixir.
In the early 1960’s
one of the researchers working for Iwaldi was able to create a version of the
elixir that not only prolonged life but also restored youth. Iwaldi chose not
to share this discovery with his fellow members of the Nine.[39]
Instead he had a plan to also rejuvenate the earth, which he believed was being
destroyed through overpopulation and pollution, by killing off most of humanity
and have an immortal elite rule the remnants of humanity. Fortunately Iwaldi’s
plans never came to fruition thanks to efforts of Doctor James Caliban.[40]
However the
rejuvenation formula was lost so it cannot be determined if the rejuvenation
drug was effective on the general populace or just on a small group of people.
Even Caliban was unable to break replicate the formula for the Nine’s elixir.
Part of the problem
may have been that the researchers had to work with blood samples or samples of
the elixir itself rather than the plants themselves however because one of
their early researchers had stolen several viable plants and disappeared. The
plants were however only viable under certain conditions so they believed that
chances were that the researcher had failed.[41]
In fact he had not failed but like some of the other recipients of the elixir
he became mad.
The researcher was a
young, extremely handsome youth who had become the lover of Anana, distaff
leader of the Nine. At this time Anana was already biologically in her late
nineties. Kavandavanda convinced her to give him some of the plants to study.
He absconded with them and took with him several members of his tribe who were
also servants of the Nine. Like the Nine Kavandavanda promised them
immortality. He was not able to get very far from the Nine’s headquarters in
Unlike the Nine’s
elixir which had to be taken in yearly doses Kavandavanda’s version had to be taken
every month. To help supply him with the necessary ingredients the women that
had come with him were first sacrificed and then women from the surrounding
villages. By 1933, the Kavuru population was few in number although they had a
large supply of pills, most of which Kavandavanda kept for his personal
reserve.
Tarzan and Jane took
these pills in 1933. Tarzan gave his pills to his sons and to his lion, so they
must have worked even on felines. Why were the Kavuru pills and the Nine’s
Elixir so effective in slowing down the aging process? Why did they work so
well on people outside of the Wold Newton family?
Oddly enough the
answer is once again Tarzan. Doc Savage did not have the technology, nor would
he have thought to do a DNA analysis of the Kavuru tablets. Lord Greystoke
donated a couple of the pills in late 1970s. The reason that Lord Greystoke
donated the pills was because his supply was running low. In 1933, Tarzan,
Jane, Neal Brown and Annette had approximately two thousand pills when they left
the Kavuru.[43]
Divided equally this would have given each of them 500 pills. Tarzan’s 500
pills were split between Jad Bul Ja and between Tarzan’s sons and their wives.
It became apparent by 1950 that the pills were not having any effect on Alicia Rutherford
Clayton so John Paul Clayton gave his supply to his stepbrother, sisters and
his mother.[44]
When it became
apparently that time would run out before the pills could be duplicated, Jane’s
children, over her protests stopped taking their pills. To forestall the
inevitability of aging and death, Tarzan’s family moved into Pellucidar, Alice
developed cancer, which prompted her return to civilization. Tarzan and Jane
also returned to the surface world while Jack Drummond-Clayton and his wife
remained in Pellucidar to help deal with various problems in David Innes’
empire.[45]
Alice Rutherford
Clayton died in 1978 and John Paul Clayton was never the same. He became a
reclusive devotee of rare books. For a man who had once been at the peak of
physical conditioning, he became gaunt. Jack insisted that he preferred his
solitude. He did not want to tell his family that he had leukemia, having been
hit with this news while
In 1988, a man
calling himself Dane Hunt kidnapped John Paul Clayton. Hunt believed that John
Paul Clayton was an aged Tarzan. Hunt believed that Tarzan had aged because he
had stolen his supply of the Kavuru pills.[46]
John Paul Clayton let him Hunt continue believing this mistruth and led Hunt on
a wild goose chase throughout Africa, convincing Hunt that Burroughs had
deliberately falsified the information as to where the pills came from. He told
Hunt that the geneticist who called himself God had created them. God had given
sentience to a group of gorillas by using DNA samples stolen from Westminster
Abbey. The gorillas had the memories and personalities of the persons God had
stolen the DNA from. They built a city they called “London-on-the-Thames” [47]
John Paul Clayton
knew that London-on-the-Thames was deserted and planned to outwit Hunt,
defeating him by guile since he could no longer do so by muscle. John Paul
Clayton saw that there was a great deal of resemblance between Hunt and Tarzan,
and that Hunt possessed strength akin to Tarzan. John Paul Clayton learned that
Hunt had another agenda as well as his search for the immortality pills; he
wanted Tarzan to acknowledge him as his son. Hunt’s real name Jean Raoul de
Coude and he was the son of Olga de Coude, with whom Tarzan had a short affair
before marrying Jane. De Coude attributed John Paul Clayton’s inability to
acknowledge him or even to remember him to senility.
Although he was
beaten, starved and half dragged across
There is little doubt
he would have succeeded in this had not the real Tarzan arrived on the scene.
Jane and Tarzan had returned to Pellucidar after
Tarzan confronted De
Coude who was shocked to find the real Tarzan still young. They had a brief
brutal fight that ended with De Coude falling to his death. It was only after
De Coude’s death that Tarzan could bring himself to acknowledge that De Coude
was his son.
The ultimate tragedy
was that Tarzan lost two sons that day because John Paul Clayton’s disease
ravaged body succumbed to the brutal beating he had received at the hands of
his half brother. He had strength enough to say his final farewells to Tarzan
and Jane before passing away. It is fitting perhaps that the son of Tarzan died
fighting in his beloved
A couple of the
sentient gorillas died in the assault on De Coude’s camp. They asked that
Tarzan take their bodies back to
SECTION FIVE: THE SINGULAR SOURCE
1988 was a
significant year in the life of Tarzan and Jane because it was the year that
the last of the Kavuru pills had been used and Jane began to age. Since she
ruled out returning to Pellucidar, Tarzan had to face the fact that eventually
she would be lost to him. Despite attempting to find several methods to prolong
her life, Jane began to age normally.[50]
By 2018 she was biologically 74 years old when she was involved in a serious
accident that nearly killed Tarzan. Although Jane was not killed she suffered
extensive brain damage that left her blind and paralyzed. She did not want to
live out the rest of her life as a burden to Tarzan and asked that he give her
the mercy of death as he had to Jad-bal-ja when he became aged and infirm.
Tarzan of course refused, eventually they agreed on a compromise, cryogenic
suspension.
Using his vast wealth
Tarzan funded several scientific projects with the purpose of not only curing
Jane but also rejuvenating her.
Oddly enough it was
tissue samples from the gorilla’s from London-on-the-Thames that provided the means
to create a true elixir of life that worked on just about everyone.
An initial chemical
analysis demonstrated a strong similarity to the sample of elixir donated by
James Caliban. However it was not until 2050 that DNA analysis ascertained what
plants and hormones had been used in making the Kavuru pills. Intensive DNA
analysis proved that the Kavuru pills and the elixir of the Nine had the same
plant DNA. Moreover there was a specific human DNA strand present in both
samples. The DNA was that of Tarzan and significantly one of the plants in both
mixtures was identified as the Mbwun or Kothoga fungus. This fungus which in
modern times grew only in
The Mbwun fungus that
had been found in the analysis of the Kavuru pills and also in the Nine’s
elixir however had a different genetic signature than that of the one from
Brazil, indicating that the fungus had at one time been more wide spread. Intensive genetic tests also revealed the
presence of this same genetic strain in the royal jelly formula created by
Holmes. The dried plants that Fu Manchu had given Holmes had been infected with
the mbwun fungus carrying this genetic virus. The tissue of the gorilla from
London-on-the-Thames revealed the presence of the same fungus, indicating an
African origin. God had used the mbwun fungus to create a genetic virus that
imprinted the RNA/DNA of deceased Englishmen into the gorillas. A similar mbwun
created genetic virus was what gave the Kavuru pills and the Nine’s elixir its
immortality factor.
Tarzan was shocked
when it was revealed that Patient Zero for the genetic anomaly that allowed
various elixirs of life to be effective on a few individuals and in some rare
cases granted rejuvenation and/or true immortality was John Clayton, Lord
Greystoke born in 1892.
Through some
inexplicable manner Tarzan was not only his own ancestor but a genetic marker
unique to him could be found in most of the people upon whom the various
elixirs of life were effective.
There was at least
one other person who had the same genetic marker and manifested into true
immortality. This was the man known as Phra the Phoenician or as he is better
known, John Carter of
The DNA driving the
immortality factor of the elixir and its offshoot the kavuru pills belonged to
Tarzan. Somehow in the distant past, Tarzan’s DNA must have been absorbed by
the mbwun fungus and the Stone Age people who became The Nine used this fungus
to create their elixir.
Once Tarzan’s DNA was
identified as the key ingredient, the relationship between the various elixirs
could be mapped out. Tarzan’s genetic was somehow transmitted to the mbwun
fungus in the Paleolithic era and the Nine created their elixir from plants
that contained the virus. Silphium from Fear Cay was almost certainly a cache
of the Nine’s elixir plants. Kavandavanda stole some of the precious elixir
plants from the Nine but when the plants lost their potency in transplantation
he was forced to substitute some of the key ingredients, thus creating the
Kavuru pills. General Immortus had been a servant of the Nine but had been
expelled and left to die of old age. Iwaldi had given Baron Karl a sample of
elixir in the hopes that he could replicate the formula. He may have succeeded
but a fire destroyed his notes. The fire may have been set by agents of Anana
who did not wish the formula to be duplicated.
One of the Nine’s
experiments to crossbreed their elixir plants with another hardier species
resulted in seeming failure. However the Mbwun fungus that carried Tarzan DNA
had infected this plant. Although the plant by itself was useless some form of
elixir could be produced when it was combined with other chemical compounds.
This plant was sent to Sherlock Holmes by Fu Manchu, therefore it was the basis
for Holmes Royal Jelly and also Fu Manchu’s form of the elixir.
It is not known what
was in the elixirs used by The Mortal Immortal or Darius Biederbeck used. It is
possible that they used some variation of the Nine’s elixir. In the case of
Darius Biederbeck, this would seem to be a fairly good guess. In the case of
the Mortal Immortal, who only had to take one dose of an elixir before becoming
eternally youthful, two possibilities exist. One is that the elixir was a
variation of the Nines and that it activated his latent genes into full
immortality as seems to have happened with Tarzan and John Carter. The other is
that the elixir actually did not work, was toxic and actually killed the young
man, but activating his “Highlander” type immortality.
Scientists deemed it
too unsafe to replicate the mbwun virus due to its chimerical nature. Instead
combinations of biologists and physicists began working on a synthetic version
of the mbwun virus using nanotechnology. It proved elusive however.
Although the
researchers in Tarzan’s employ were mystified by the revelation that Tarzan was
responsible for a genetic virus created thousand of years before his birth,
Tarzan was not. He had met a doppelganger of his several years earlier and knew
that at one point he was supposed to travel back in time. However his
doppelganger had not divulged any details not wanting to upset the course of
history. Knowing that the immortality factor but mostly, that any ultimate cure
of Jane depended on his traveling back to the past, Tarzan began to fund time
travel research.
As part of the crew
of HG Wells, using the identity of John Gribardsun he traveled back from 2070
to 12, 000 B.C. How the creation of the Nine resulted from his time travels is
related in the articles Triple
Tarzan Tangle and Kane and
Gribardsun.
Although the early
editions of Time’s Last Gift, Philip Jose Farmer’s account of
Gribardsun’s journey back through time, do not reveal it, starting with the
1977 Ballentine edition revealed that Tarzan’s quest for the fountain of youth
was successful. It is mentioned that in 2073 Ms. Renown Chilliken, who had been
born in 1940 became the first person to receive a treatment that rejuvenated
her. By 2140 she was still young and beautiful. The rejuvenation treatment had
been created by replicating the genetic virus present in the Kavuru pills and
the Nine’s elixir, and also by recreating the rejuvenating properties of the
royal jelly formula.
Although Renown Chilliken
was believed to be the oldest person on earth, her birthday celebration was
attended by the actual oldest person in the world, Tarzan and the second oldest
person, Jane.
In the epilogue it
further revealed that Tarzan and Jane, now eternally young, were taking part in
a mission to Cappella, which by coincidence or design was the home system of
one of the groups of aliens stranded on Earth, who had also used a life
extension treatment based on nanotechnology. What is not stated is the reason
why this particular location was chosen. Once the immortality treatment became
public, the remaining adopted Capelleans and Eridaneans also went public with
the desire to return to their adoptive homes. It took several more years to
develop FTL technology. Capella was chosen as the first stop because it was
slightly closer to the Earth.
[1] Although
there have been many fictional stories about people finding a fountain of youth
which accidentally ages them back a state of childhood or even infancy, these
seem to be fictional. Both of the two known rejuvenation formulas, Holmes royal
jelly and Iwaldi’s elixir, reverse the effects of aging by undoing cellular
damage rather than making any great morphological changes. The body’s is reset
to the biological equivalent of a healthy person at the peak of maturity. One
of the side effects of the elixir is that it makes the recipient resistant to
disease and able to heal more rapidly and eventually would regrow a severed
limb or organ. However it does not confer true immortality in the sense that it
can instantaneously regenerate vital organs. Holmes discovery of the royal
jelly treatment was first related by W. S. Baring-Gould in his Sherlock Holmes
of
[2] Sherlock
Holmes of
[3] As
edited by Laurie R. King, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, O
[4] A Holmes Chronology by Laurie King
[5] The vampire lover was Radu the Handsome. The result of Mrs. Holmes extramarital affair was the birth of Sherlock’s vampiric twin, Rutherford Holmes. Fred Saberhagen reveals the vampiric affair and the resulting vampire twin in The Holmes Dracula File. The vampire twin appears in Alternate Outlaws edited by Mike Resnick but Brad Mengel revealed his identity in Watching the Detectives.
[6] This affair was directly referred to in the otherwise fictitious Seven Per Cent Solution. That Moriarty was Holmes tutor is also revealed in The Infernal Device. His stint as his teacher is shown in Young Sherlock Holmes film.
[7] At the time Holmes did not know that his fencing teacher, Rathe was the same man who had tutored him in math years earlier. In the film it is Holmes, Watson and Elizabeth against Rathe, the new headmaster and Mrs. Briggs the school nurse. Rathe and Briggs are actually siblings and part of an Egyptian cult that is killing off rich businessmen who had earlier desecrated an Egyptian tomb. However while this was the cover story that was used, Moriarty had killed the real Rathe and assumed his identity as part of a mission of revenge. This also as part of a larger scheme, linked to his alien masters the Capelleans. For Moriarty’s connection to the Capelleans please read The Other Log of Phileas Fogg by Philip Jose Farmer. The film’s depiction of Holmes and Watson meeting as young men prior to A Study in Scarlet is also false. It is a bit hard to believe that after such traumatic incidents that both of the boys would forget having met one another. The film’s Watson character was actually Holmes fellow student Reginald Musgrave whose connection to Holmes was established in the A. C. Doyle story The Musgrave Ritual. That Musgrave also acted as the first amanuensis for Holmes is established in The Musgrave Version and The Adventure of the Celestial Snows by George Alec Effinger
[8] Sherlock Holmes had allowed himself to love three women, Elizabeth, Irene Adler and Mary Russell. Although diligent research has discovered that Sherlock Holmes had romantic interludes besides these three in the persons of Marjorie Raffles, Miss Falkland and Vivian S. La Graine, these three encounters did were more casual because of the circumstances in which they were committed. Sherlock Holmes loved Elizabeth, Irene and Mary as Sherlock Holmes. He was someone else when he was involved with the other ladies. I am not suggesting that Holmes had any sort of disassociative personality disorder, at least no more so than any good actor. Holmes was a consummate actor who immersed himself in his roles and met these ladies while playing a role that is while, undercover. Like many undercover operatives in order to make his assumed role believable Holmes sometimes had to act in ways that were atypical for him such as romancing and wooing a young lady. This is not to say that there was not, at the time, an emotional connection between Holmes and these ladies in question, however that connection ended when the case was over. Although it is most probable that while assuming his roles, Holmes, like many actors who are by nature stoic and straitlaced, allowed himself to safely experience emotions he normally kept contained by convincing himself that it was for the role and not real. Another possible reason that Holmes may have refrained from many romantic liaisons was because he was so fertile. Four out of the six women with whom he was involved, even for a short while, became pregnant.
[9] Between 1909 and 1921 Denis Nayland Smith involved Holmes in the adventures titled Ten Years Beyond Baker Street, and the Fires of Fu Manchu; Mycroft drew Holmes into the adventures called Hellbirds, Son of Holmes, Adventure of the Peerless Peer, Rasputin’s Revenge and Holmes apprentice Mary Russell involved him in The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, O Jerusalem and A Monstrous Regiment of Women.
[10] The 1875 date for this adventure gives independent evidence for the 1854 birth date of Holmes.
[11] Adventure of the Celestial Snows by George Alec Effinger
[12] According to The Mask of Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer, (1932)
[13] Such as the immortals made famous through the Highlander series of films, novels and television shows.
[14] Kane, Dorian Gray and Casca the immortal to give a couple of examples.
[15] His research into vampires did result in one experiment that he hoped would give him eternal life. He attempted to duplicate the Animus Klonos experiment conducted by Dr. Praetorius ad described in the tome, Annotations by Herr Doktor Theophagus Kraft on Praetorius’ The Filtration of Nature and Effects of Homunculi Distillation. The purpose of the experiment was to create younger satellite bodies that shared Fu Manchu’s consciousness. This experiment did lead to the transferal of Fu Manchu’s consciousness into a new body nor had had created a satellite body that shared Fu Manchu’s consciousness as did Dracula’s soul clones, but rather Fu Manchu’s process incompletely imprinted Fu Manchu’s personality and memories upon the younger body, creating in essence a cloned body with Fu Manchu’s memories. The clone was named Tzing Jao but went by the code name the Yellow Claw.
[16] Fu Manchu’s relationship with Ras Al Ghul is detailed in The Devil Doctor: The Early Life of Fu Manchu. The reason for Ras Al Ghul’s peculiar form of immortality is explained in The Demon Head.
[17] Darius Biederbeck appears in The Return of Dr.Phibes. His rapid aging from middle to old age in a matter of hours and subsequent death were exaggerated for purposes of drama.
[18] If indeed he ever had such a formula. Although it is apocryphal there is some evidence to suggest that “General Immortus” was once a Servant of the Nine who was cast out of their service. Rather than kill him immediately for his offense, they sentenced him to die a long linger death from old age with him knowing that he could have had centuries more to live. General Immortus appeared in DC Comics as a foe of The Doom Patrol starting with My Greatest Adventure #80 June, 1963
[19] Both tales may have been true, although there may have been at least two different men calling themselves the Count Saint-Germain. The vampire who called himself Saint-Germain has been chronicled by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, starting with Hotel Transylvania (1978)
[20] Baron Karl appears in Escape From Loki by Philip Jose Farmer. He may also appear under other names in the Doc Savage adventure Up From the Earth’s Center and Sea Wolf by Jack London
[21] For more on Baron Karl and his possible association with the Nine please read Christopher Carey’s “The Green Eyes Have It–Or Are They Blue?” in Myths for the Modern Age, ed. Win Scott Eckert, MonkeyBrain Books, 2005. This essay combines two earlier pieces, “Loki in Sunlight” and “The Green Eyes Have it or are They Blue”, both located at the official Philip Jose Farmer website
[22] The Nine appear in the novels, A Feast Unknown, Lord of the Trees and The Mad Goblin by Philip Jose Farmer
[23] Physical addiction was only part of why he declined the Nine’s offer. Fu Manchu did not want to become part of any organization that controlled him and whose agenda might conflict with his own personal agendas. This is part of the reason why he never pursued becoming part of the Capellean or Eridanean families. Since the Capelleans and Eridaneans had been all but eliminated by 1873, there was not much point in joining them anyway.
[24] Silphium appeared in Fear Cay, by Kenneth Robeson in 1934, the pills of the Kavuru appeared in Tarzan’s Quest by Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1936
[25] Whose tragic story was related in “The Mortal Immortal” by Mary Shelly
[26] Although one of the benefits of the Nine’s elixir was that it regenerated body parts, it was not able to reverse the aging process. One of the reasons that the Nine encouraged their agents to experiment with the elixir to see if they could create an effective substitute was twofold. First was as an alternative to the elixir in case the rare ingredients that went into the elixir compound became so compromised that no more elixir could be made. The second was on the off chance that someone could create a compound that was even more effective than the elixir, one that could rejuvenate as well as prolong life. In is revealed in The Mad Goblin that one of the eldest members of the Nine, Iwaldi had been searching for a rejuvenator for centuries.
[27] Further tests would show that the royal jelly treatment did successfully slow down the aging process in most people who used it, however the rejuvenation factor did not manifest. Continual use of the royal jelly to halt the aging process was also elusive for the subjects eventually built up an immunity to the chemicals in the royal jelly.
[28] Although the argument has been made that the reason that royal jelly and other elixirs of life have been kept from the public at large is because of fears of overpopulating the world with hordes of immortals, this does not actually seem to have been the case. There seems to a component in most elixirs that decreases fertility as it increases life span. Prior to using royal jelly Sherlock Holmes was so fertile that he fathered nine children. Yet after using the royal jelly and rejuvenated back to his prime, he does not seem to have fathered any children. Although the case has been made that Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell were the parents of Abraham Moth who was the father of Arthur Sherlock Holmes, presently known as R MI5’s current Armourer, it seems more likely that the Holmes lineage came through Jane Sherlock, his mother. Jane Sherlock seems to have been the granddaughter of Sigerson Holmes. While it is true that Sherlock and Mary Holmes childless state could be due to her infertility, there are other instances where immortality seems to equate to low fertility. Highlander type immortals become infertile when their immortality is activated. The original Capelleans and Eridaneans with their life extension treatment that assured of a thousand years of life became extinct on Earth due to the combination of low fertility and a practical if vile practice of targeting females for assassination. The creators of the Kavuru pills grew so few in number that they had to seek outsiders for the ingredients to create their pills. Casca the Eternal soldier also seems to have been infertile. The Thoan Lords from Philip Jose Farmer’s World of Tiers series appear, at least by, More than Fire, seem to be very few in number brought about by a combination of low fertility and wanton murder of one another. The immortals of Farmer’s Riverworld series were also infertile and although that does seem to be purposeful to prevent overpopulation on the already teeming planet, one has to wonder if it was not also a by-product of the immortality process.
[29] Dr. Edward Jekyll, also experimented with the glands of young women in an effort to find the elixir of life. However he did not achieve the elixir of life but he did successfully find a method of transforming his gender. His experiments were depicted in Dr. Jekyll, Sister Hyde (Hammer Studios 1971)
[30] The Trail of Fu Manchu Rohmer, Sax (1934)
[31] Fu Manchu eventually did discover a method of rejuvenation, at least for himself. However it required the blood of a close relative as a catalyst. So he ruthlessly began breeding descendents to be used as material for his elixir. At one point he planned to use Fah lo Suee and Shang Chi for this purpose.
[32] Farmer, Philip Jose, Tarzan Alive, Bantam, 1976 pg. 198
[33] This other dimensional space is the nexus point between universes known variously as the Phantom Zone, Negative Zone, the Bleed and several other names. Doc’s exile to other dimensional space was shown in DC Comics, Doc Savage No. 1, 1987
[34] Although Tarzan insists that he is as mortal as anyone else, just longer lived, the fact that he lived over 14,000 years without aging and without suffering a mortal injury defies this statement. He may mean that he is susceptible to injury and that he could be killed, say if beheaded or bisected. Then again it is quite probable that Tarzan suffered mortal wounds without realizing it. The blows to his head that gave him temporary amnesia may have killed a man without his healing factor.
[35] For a series of scholarly dissertations on this very subject you may read The Arms of Tarzan by Philip Jose Farmer, John Carter is Phra the Phoenician by Dr. Peter Coogan, John Carter: Torn by Phoenician Dreams by Dennis E. Power and Dr. Peter Coogan. The Lives and Times of John Carter of Mars by Dennis E. Power and Dr. Peter Coogan.
[36] The Eridaneans, the Capelleans and the blood ceremony between their adoptive Terran families were first revealed in The Other Log of Phileas Fogg, Farmer, Philip Jose (Daw 1973). The Eridanean and Capellean longevity was based on nanotechnology was first theorized in the Capellean and Eridanean sections of Aliens Among Us!, although many of the speculations first disseminated in that early article have been since discovered to be false that speculation seems to remain valid.
[37] In the
later case this is a good thing since among the many women James Bond bedded
was Violet Holmes, the daughter of Mycroft. Their union resulted offspring,
Clive Reston who also became a member of the British Secret Service.
[38] Eventually everyone that James Bond worked with at MI5 retired and were replaced by different people. Sir Miles was at first replaced by Admiral Michael Hargreaves-Mountbatten, and then by Barbara Mawdsley, Miss Moneypenny was replaced by Penelope Smallbone, Tanner was replaced by his nephew and Q was replaced by R. However the film and book series continued to use the names of the original characters to both a sense of timelessness and a sense of continuity to the series. The use of these names also was to provide the cover of fictionality for the true activities of MI5. Although various foreign intelligence agencies had eventually uncovered that original ruse that Fleming’s books and the films provided, which was to make the public and foreign governments that James Bond was a fictional character, they began to doubt this new intelligence when a younger James Bond appeared on the scene.
It was the combination of the continuation of these names in the works of fiction and the fact that the persons in question had indeed received the royal jelly treatment that led such a careful scholar such as Win Eckert to believe that the royal jelly treatment was fully effective for M, Moneypenny and Tanner, as seen in the James Bond Chronology and Genealogy
[39] There is some evidence Iwaldi did at least share it with the nominal head of the Nine, XauXaz. For more information please see Tarzans in the Valley of Gold.
[40] Farmer, Philip Jose The Mad Goblin, Ace Books,
[41] The
plant Silphium which was found on Fear Cay in
the
[42] The
Mutia Escarpment is a large mountain jutting out of a valley in
[43] Kavandavanda claimed that this amount of pills would give eternal life to a thousand people. However a pill the size of a pea had to be taken once a month, so this amount would have taken a storehouse rather than a box that could be carried by one man. Even if Tarzan and the others only carried off what they could carry, it is doubtful that there was that many pills on hand, otherwise the kavaru would have had no need to continually hunt and capture women to make the pills. Kavandavanda probably had personal supply of about a thousand pills with a thousand pills for the rest of the followers. Two thousand pills would have kept Kavandavanda alive for another 167 years.
[44] John Paul Clayton was the biological son of Lord and Lady Greystoke. He was however not the main protagonist of the novel, The Son of Tarzan (1914) by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Rather that was about his adopted older brother, John Drummond Clayton. Philip Jose Farmer first revealed this adoption in “The Great Korak Discrepancy”. John Paul Clayton was the baby seen in The Beasts of Tarzan (1913). The other children of Tarzan are Charlotte Clayton who was mentioned in The Man Eater (1915) by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Penelope Clayton whose identity was discovered by Chuck Loridans in his “The Daughters of Tarzan” in Myths For the Modern Age (Monkeybrain Books, 2005)
[45] See Dr. Peter Coogan’s Pellucidar Lost
[46] We know
for a fact that De Coude had not stolen Tarzan’s supply of the pills, so whose
did he steal? The answer is Tibbs, who had been the manservant for the Prince
and Princess Sobov. He erroneously believed Tibbs to have been Tarzan and
Jane’s manservant. Although it is not specific as to when De Coude confronted Tarzan
about his parentage, it seems to have been in
[47] The encounter between Tarzan and “God” was depicted in Tarzan and the Lion Man (1934)
[48] In fact
Greystoke Inc. was owned by the
[49] The story of John Paul Clayton’s confrontation with Jean DeCoude was depicted in Tarzan the Warrior, Malibu Comics, 1992. The story was fairly accurate in how it depicted the character of John Paul Clayton and his interaction with DeCoude. “Jackie Clayton” was depicted as weak and a bit of a coward. John Paul Clayton was neither of those and even the death of his wife and his illness would not have changed that. However Jack had immediately sized “Hunt’ up and knew him to be a bully who glorified in his power over the weak. To string De Coude along and to take him on a wild goose chase, Jack acted the part of the coward. To be fair, if the comic book version of Jackie Clayton had really been a coward and a weakling, he would have divulged his true identity and the whereabouts of Tarzan rather than take continual beatings. Instead, he continued the pretense to be the aged Tarzan to his detriment. Possibly the one partially true statement that “Jackie Clayton” made was that when his Jane died, he had lost the will to live.
The comic also depicted Tarzan and Jane as being transported to an other-dimensional realm where they became caught up in a war between aliens and beast-men. In fact the supposed other dimension was actually the center of the Earth, specifically, Pellucidar and the turmoil in question was the war that Innes was fighting to keep his Empire. In Tarzan the Warrior, Jane wants to return home because she needed the values of civilization. It was not so much she rejected the primitive but rather despised the constant state of war that existed in Pellucidar.
[50] Tarzan even obtained samples of the royal jelly through his connections in the Wold Newton family. It was discovered that the royal jelly had no effect upon people who had taken the Kavaru pills. There was a lingering genetic effect that negated the beneficial enzymes of the royal jelly.
[51] These rather gruesome episodes are depicted in the novels, Relic and Reliquary by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child