Mike Hammer (character)


Michael Hammer is a fictional character created by the American author Mickey Spillane. Hammer debuted in the 1947 book I, the Jury, and appeared in 13 novels by Spillane, and 15 more published by Max Allan Collins after Spillane's death and based on Spillane's notes or incomplete manuscripts.
Spillane's Mike Hammer books were immensely successful in the 1950s, and Spillane's books rank among the best-selling fiction in modern publishing history with estimated sales over 100 million to 200 million. The Hammer character was also adapted to film and television on multiple occasions between the 1950s and early 2000s.
Hammer is a no-holds-barred private investigator whose love for his secretary Velda is outweighed only by his willingness to kill a killer. Hammer's best friend is Pat Chambers, Captain of NYPD Homicide. Hammer was a World War II army veteran who spent two years fighting jungle warfare in the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II against Japan.

Creation

In 1942, when he was a comic book writer, Spillane created the private detective Mike Lancer published in Green Hornet Comics #10 by Harvey Comics. The character was partly based on Spillane's friend Jack Stang, an ex-U.S. Marine turned police officer in Newburgh, New York.
In 1946, Spillane worked with illustrator Mike Roy and Edwin Robbins to create the private-eye character Mike Danger for proposed comic-book or comic-strip publication. Unable to sell the project as a comic, he reworked the story as the novel I, the Jury, converting Mike Danger to Mike Hammer and supporting character Holly to Velda. "Mike Hammer originally started out to be a comic book. I was gonna have a Mike Danger comic book," Spillane said in a 1984 interview. Two Mike Danger comic-book stories were published in 1954 without Spillane's knowledge, as well as one featuring Mike Lancer. These were published with other material in "Byline: Mickey Spillane," edited by Max Allan Collins and Lynn F. Myers, Jr..

Character

While pulp detectives such as Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe are hard-boiled and cynical, Hammer is in many ways the archetypal "hard man": brutally violent, and fueled by a genuine rage against violent crime that never afflicts Raymond Chandler's or Dashiell Hammett's heroes. In The Big Kill, Hammer describes himself to a bargirl as a misanthrope. Spillane admitted to pulp writer Carroll John Daly, generally regarded as the inventor of the hard-boiled private eye figure, that Hammer was also loosely modeled on Race Williams, Daly's most frequently used detective character.
While other hardboiled heroes bend and manipulate the law, Hammer often views it as an impediment to justice, the one virtue he holds in absolute esteem. Hammer nevertheless has a strong respect for the majority of police, realizing they have a difficult job and their hands are frequently tied by the law when trying to stop criminals.
Hammer is also patriotic and anti-communist. The novels are peppered with remarks by Hammer supporting American troops in Korea, and in Survival...Zero Vietnam. In One Lonely Night, where Hammer attends a communist meeting in a park, his reaction to the speaker's propaganda is a sarcastic "Yeah."
So far as violence is concerned, the Hammer novels leave little to the imagination. Written in the first person, Hammer describes his violent encounters with relish. In all but a few novels, Hammer's victims are often left vomiting after a blow to the stomach or groin.
Hammer is an ageless character, always depicted about 30 years old. Spillane said of his character: "See, heroes never die. John Wayne isn't dead, Elvis isn't dead. Otherwise you don't have a hero. You can't kill a hero. That's why I never let him get older."
The Washington Times obituary of Spillane said of Hammer, "In a manner similar to Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry, Hammer was a cynical loner contemptuous of the 'tedious process' of the legal system, choosing instead to enforce the law on his own terms."

Novels

By Mickey Spillane

By Mickey Spillane with Max Allan Collins

  • The Goliath Bone
  • The Big Bang
  • Kiss Her Goodbye
  • Lady, Go Die!
  • Complex 90
  • King of the Weeds
  • Kill Me, Darling
  • Murder Never Knocks
  • The Will To Kill
  • Killing Town
  • Murder, My Love
  • Masquerade for Murder
  • Kill Me If You Can
  • Dig Two Graves
  • Baby, It's Murder - The Final Mike Hammer Novel

Novels in chronological order

Short stories

By Mickey Spillane

  • The Night I Died
  • The Duke Alexander
  • The Killing Man
  • ''Black Alley''

By Mickey Spillane with Max Allan Collins

  • The Big Switch
  • A Long Time Dead
  • Grave Matter
  • Skin
  • So Long, Chief
  • It's In The Book
  • Fallout
  • A Dangerous Cat
  • A Long Time Dead: A Mike Hammer Casebook, and It's In The Book )
  • Tonight My Love
  • Kill Me If You Can: Mike Hammer 75 1947-2022, The Punk, and Tonight My Love.

In other media

Several films and radio and television series have been based on the books in the Hammer series. The actor most closely identified with the character has been Stacy Keach, who portrayed Hammer in a CBS television series, Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, which ran from 1984-1987 and had a syndicated revival in 1997-1998. Spillane himself played Hammer in a 1963 motion picture adaptation of The Girl Hunters.
Spillane himself favored Jack Stang to perform as Hammer. Hammer arranged a screen test for Stang, who appeared in small supporting roles with Spillane in the 1954 film Ring of Fear and in the film adaptation of I, the Jury.

Films

Feature films

Television films

Television

There have been several television shows based on the exploits of Mike Hammer.

Comics

A short-lived comic strip starring Mike Hammer was distributed by Phoenix Features Syndicate from 1953 to 1954. It was entitled From the Files of... Mike Hammer and written by Spillane, Ed Robbins and Joe Gill, with art by Ed Robbins. Collections of the strip were published in the 1980s.
In 1956, the Turkish comics artist Oğuz Aral created a parody of Mike Hammer titled Hayk Mammer.
Walt Kelly wrote two parodies of Mike Hammer first published in collections of original work of his Pogo comic strip. They were: "The Bloody Drip - by Mucky Spleen" and "Gore Blimey - The Bloody Drip Writhes Again ".
In 2013 Hermes Press reprinted the complete "Mike Hammer" comic strip, with a special introduction by Max Collins.
In 2018, Titan Comics published four parts "Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer" comic series, written by Max Allan Collins with artwork by Marcelo Salaza and Marcio Freire. Later that same year, these four issues were collected as the graphic novel Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer: The Night I Died.

Audio

Radio Series - A December 1952 to October 1954 Mutual Broadcasting System radio series titled That Hammer Guy starred Larry Haines then George Petrie and Ted DeCorsia as Mike Hammer and Jan Miner as Hammer's secretary Velda and the voice of other female characters on the show. It was written by Ed Adamson and was directed by Richard Lewis.Audiobooks - An array of Spillane's novels has been produced as audiobooks. Several of these are performed by Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer veteran Stacy Keach. Examples include Black Alley, The Big Kill and The Killing Man. Also, in 2015, Simon & Schuster released the unabridged version of, narrated by Mike Dennis.Blackstone Audio Productions - In 2008, Stacy Keach reprised the role of Mike Hammer in the first of a series of radio-style dramas entitled The New Adventures of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer. Keach refers to the production style, that is somewhere between an audiobook and radio drama, as a "radio novel." Audie-nominated inaugural production features the episodes, Dangerous Days and Oil and Water. Both were written exclusively for audio by M.J. Elliott and produced with a full cast, music and sound effects in radio drama style by Carl Amari of Falcon Picture Group, who personally selected Elliott to script the Audie Award-nominated dramas. Volume 2 of the series was released in 2009, featuring a 2.5-hour story entitled The Little Death. The story was written exclusively for audio by Max Allan Collins from a story by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins. Volume 3, Encore for Murder, was released in March 2011. All three volumes have been released by Blackstone Audio and star Keach in the title role. Keach also arranges and performs the music featured in the productions and his wife, Malgosia Tomassi, portrays yoga instructor Maya Ricci.

In popular culture