by Mike Newton, (Characters originally by Don Pendleton)Published by Gold Eagle Books (1989)
Softcover, 219 pages
Finished 3/26/2018
Barnes and Noble listing
“It ran against the grain for Bolan to conduct defensive
operations. He preferred a swift offence, with the advantage of surprise, but
playing escort stacked the odds against him, giving his opponents the edge. In
any combat situation, the defender was essentially a passive target, marking
time until the enemy revealed himself and praying the that the first shot was a
good, clean miss. Defenders chose the killing ground, where possible, but their
opponents chose the time, the method of attack.”
Just a little taste of the Executioner’s style of prose.
For those who’ve never heard of the character let me give you his backstory.
After two tours of Vietnam, Mack Bolan returned home to his loving family. Then
one horrible day, the family decided to go for a picnic lunch in the park. Just
when they started to chow down, two rival factions of the mafia started to go
at it, with Bolan’s family cut down in the crossfire. His wife, son, and
daughter were killed. From that day forward, Mack Bolan was determined to
destroy the mafia and all other criminals that the law couldn’t touch. He
became The Executioner.
Now if that sounds like a rip-off of the Punisher, you’d be
half right. The Punisher is in fact a direct rip-off of the Executioner. The
first Mack Bolan novel, War Against the
Mafia, was published in 1969, while the Punisher made his debut in Amazing Spiderman #129 in 1974. It just
so happens that copy outshone the original. The biggest reason for that is
Generation X loves its comic books and they now have creative control of the
film industry.
 |
| Don Pendleton, author of The Executioner |
The two characters were the same, destroying crime
wherever they could. A one-man army of death and destruction. Eventually Bolan is
recruited into training several other off-the-books vigilante teams,
unofficially working for the Justice Department. This formed the spin-off
series Able Team and Phoenix Force, which were combined into
the single Stony Man series. The French publishers also added Kira B, who was Bolan’s Daughter.
Pendeleton’s wrote the first thirty eight books, before the series was sold to
Gold Eagle, an imprint of Harlequin Books, which began to churn a new novel out
once a month. In addition, they also supplied a Superbolan, every other month,
which was a double sized adventure. Gold Eagle continued to publish until 2014
when the division was shut down after a corporate takeover. All -in-all close
to five hundred volumes were penned in the series’ run.
This book is what one would expect from a series that the
Punisher was cloned from. The head of a Colombian cartel, Ernesto Vos, (an
obvious analogue for Pablo Escobar) has been captured on American soil. There
is only one witness left that can put the kingpin away for life. Consequently
there is only one man who can make sure that the witness arrives at the trial
alive, Mack Bolan. It is a race across the country as Mack Bolan, and his
brother, dodge Neo-Nazi’s, biker gangs, crooked cops, and corrupt federal
officials- all of whom were dreaming of the fat bounty. It is an action packed,
blood fueled, violent ride. Does he make it on time? Of course, he’s Mack Bolan
after all.
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| Michael Newton |
The actual author of this volume, Mike Newton wrote close to ninety books in this series (triple that of the original). What impressed me is that he used a lot of real life details in constructing the narrative. The groups mentioned were real. The biker gang, The Mongols, is an actual violent gang. Little details like that really open it up for me. If you’re looking for some character growth, or an arc where it’s unsure that the hero will prevail, or he learns something of life or himself from blowing his enemies away, then this isn’t the book for you. It is nothing more than it advertises on the cover- And that’s not a bad thing.
For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst.
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