Serial Vigilantes of Paperback Fiction: An Encyclopedia from Able Team to Z-Comm

234 Pages·2009·1.03 MB·English

by  Brad Mengel

Serial Vigilantes
of Paperback Fiction
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Serial Vigilantes
of Paperback Fiction
An Encyclopedia from
Able Team to Z-Comm
B M
RADLEY ENGEL
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
Acknowledgments: I want to acknowledge and
thank the following people for their support, advice,
information and encouragement: David Aubrey,
Matthew Baugh, Peter Coogan, Henry Covert,
Chet Cunningham, Win Eckert, Lee Goldberg,
Gillian Hallam, Andrew Henry, Keith Hetherington,
Chuck Loridans, Patrick Lozito, John Mengel,
Stephanie Mengel, Mike Newton, Dennis Power,
John Small, Douglas Wojtowicz.
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
Mengel, Bradley, ¡975–
Serial vigilantes of paperback fiction : an encyclopedia
from Able Team to Z-Comm / Bradley Mengel.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-4165-5
softcover : 50# alkaline paper
1. Vigilantes in literature—Encyclopedias.
2. Serialized fiction—United States—Encyclopedias.
3. Serialized fiction—United States—Bibliography.
I. Title.
PS374.V56M46 2009 813'.087203—dc22
2009029370
British Library cataloguing data are available
©2009 Bradley Mengel. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Cover images ©2009 Shutterstock
Manufactured in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
To all the writers whose works
made this book possible
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Table of Contents
Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
THE VIGILANTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
1. Crossovers, References and Parodies  . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
2. Precursors to the Serial Vigilante  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
3. Modern Pulp  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
4. Missing the Mark: Singletons, Police, Private Eyes,
Criminals, and Other Oddities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
5. The Female of the Species  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
6. The Future of the Serial Vigilante  . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Index  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
vii
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Introduction
Some of my fondest memories from my childhood were staying up with my father
and watching The A-Team, Knight Rider, Airwolf, The Equalizerand MacGyver. My first
taste of what I came to call the serial vigilantes in a print format came a few years later,
when I discovered The Destroyer series by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy. Over time,
I began to become curious about other similar characters. So I decided to find what infor-
mation was available.
I found that there has been little written critically on this particular sub-genre of
crime and mystery fiction. Critics like Julian Symons totally ignore the subgenre, it does
not even rate a mention in any of the three editions of his crime fiction reference Bloody
Murder.
I discovered an article by Alice K. Turner (1977) in the compilation Murder Inkand
William Kittredge and Steven M. Krauser briefly discuss the type in the introduction of
the anthology The Great American Detective (1978).
I also uncovered William H. Young’s A Study of Action-Adventure Fiction—The
Executioner and Mack Bolan (1996), which examined The Executioner series in great
detail and contained a chapter on other series but never really looked at what defined
these series.
The internet was of limited help. Some series, such as The Butcher, were virtually
impossible to find information on. Some websites provided inaccurate information (one
site suggested that The Penetratorwas first published in 1991based on the fact that eight
books from that series were reprinted at that time). I did find some very good sites on
the Executioner and the Destroyer.
With this partial information, I began to collect the various series referred to in the
above texts, discovering new series through advertising material and searching through
used bookstores.
With the books, I was able to discover what made these series unique as well as allow-
ing me to:
• Name the sub-genre,
• Create a definition for the sub-genre,
• Identify and describe series belonging to the sub-genre.
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