Aggressors - The new hero pulp

SOmething a little different here's a short story I wrote. I wanted to explore the notion of the vigilante both the Aggressors and the pulp heroes before them.


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RETIREMENT DAY

The party had been a surprise and Ben Hearne mentally berated himself as he packed his files into storage boxes. He should have seen the clues and figured that his co workers would do something like that, after all he’d been an FBI agent for over thirty years now. He never even gave the sight of his first supervisor, Val Kildare, in the office a second thought. Perhaps the grief of the loss of his wife had affected him far more than he realised.

Ben had joined the FBI in 1971, fresh out of college, where his psychology degree had kept him out of the Vietnam war. His father was disappointed when hadn’t gone into practice, Ben knew his father had been hoping that he would join him in practice and eventually take over, but Ben had found criminal psychology much more interesting and the FBI offered the best opportunity to study the criminal psyche.

He started in the fledgling profiling section under the legendary Val Kildare. Kildare had taken Ben under his wing and had been recommended him to the Vigilante task force after three years.

The taskforce had been established in the 1930’s to track the illegal activities on American soil of unique individuals who took the law into their own hands. During the 1950’s the group had virtually been disbanded but a new wave of vigilantes had swept across America in the late sixties and revitalised the force to its former glory.

When Ben joined he had been given the task of profiling many of these new vigilantes, he threw himself into the study of the first wave of these vigilantes. He’d read reports from assistant commissioners of police, Scotland Yard, state troopers and other Law enforcement agencies, and the colourful exploits of men labelled The Shadow, The Spider, Doc Savage, The Avenger, The Saint, The Toff, The Falcon, The Just Men, and many others had consumed his life for three months.

He’d examined the speculations contained the reports on true identities of some of these vigilantes. And began his profile based on these hints, he’d starting by profiling Richard Wentworth as reports on The Spider, The Shadow and The Whisperer had all suggested that he was the man behind the masks, in fact Commissioner James “Wildcat” Gordon had been most insistent on this point. He’d then looked at other individuals named in the files such as Lamont Cranston, Kent Allard, Jethro Dumont, Richard Curtis van Loan and found that in many cases the suspects were wealthy men who had served in World War I and returned to civilian life unable to settle down and possibly feeling guilt over how their families had gained their wealth sought to use their skills learnt in WWI to redeem themselves. Many of these men appeared to have adopted or at least studied Eastern religions again suggestive of this desire for redemption perhaps to control the darkness in their souls that the war had unleashed.

His superiors had been pleased with his evaluation and he had loaned to various subcommittees of the taskforce to study the new vigilantes that seemed to be appearing daily. Hal Brognola had been impressed with his analysis of Mack Bolan but sadly his recommendation that Bolan be offered an amnesty and his skills be turned to counter terrorism had never been actioned with Bolan refusing to surrender and dying in a blaze of glory. He’d then worked briefly for the Penetrator taskforce with Dan Griggs from the Department of Justice. But mostly he worked with the taskforce in Washington. No arrests were ever made on the men and women had his profiles had suggested and Ben occasionally thought that his colleagues were secretly helping these vigilantes.

Occasionally, the Vigilante taskforces investigations into actions against the Mob and other criminals had uncovered illegal operations run by the CIA and other agencies using mercenary forces. He’d prepared profiles of groups known as Z-Commando, Hard Corps, CURE and Deadly Force Inc. but pressure from the higher ups had stalled those investigations. It was an office joke that they’d dealt with more letters than the postal service.

Oddly, it was these frustrations that helped him to understand why these vigilantes had started their war on crime. But in his heart, Ben knew that he never really understood these men and their quest. He had interviewed Frank Castle, The Punisher during his short confinement but Castle’s insistence on name rank and serial number answers to all his questions had given him little to work with.

Over the nineties, the number of vigilante incidents had dwindled and the taskforce was scaled back. After a warning from NSA agent Remo Murphy-Sapir to back off his investigation, Hearne had been transferred to counter terrorism in 2000.

Now in 2004 he was retiring. One of his investigations had gotten too close to a domestic terror cell and they had planted a car bomb. It had missed its target and killed his wife as she borrowed his car to quickly run to the market for some bread. In his grief Hearne had gone crazy and upset several assistant and deputy directors with his allegations of a conspiracy within the FBI.

Thanks to a former partner, Hearne had received counselling and decided to jump before he was pushed out of the FBI. By retiring first, he was able to keep his pension and benefits and he had decided that in his retirement, he would write a book on the vigilante phenomenon.

Hearne finished packing his files and began to clear the items from his desk, carefully packing his mug, lamp, gun and photos into another box. A few of Hearne’s co-workers offered to help him carry the boxes to the car, which he readily accepted.

He discussed his retirement plans as with them as they walked to his car. All agreed that the book was a great idea and that he should start right away. Patting his desk box Hearne laughed and told them that he had some research to do before he could start.

Once the car was loaded, Hearne drove off to prepare for his empirical research.

From Warren Murphy's newsletter:
Hi All!

It's a deal that's been a while in the making, but...
I received the go ahead just moments ago to release this to you!
We at WarrenMurphy.com are excited at the possibilities this will
present in the (hopefully not-too-distant) future.

The full release follows:

***********
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Warren Murphy announced today that he had signed a Destroyer film
production deal with Robert Evans independent production company in
Hollywood. The deal covers film and television, as well as computer
games and merchandising, and the old man says "after quite a few
years in the Destroyer doldrums, we've got a chance here of seeing
something good happen."

For those who don't know, Robert Evans is a one-time actor who took
over the running of Paramount Studios when the company was down the
drain and on the verge of bankruptcy. In just a handful of years,
Evans produced The Odd Couple, Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, Love
Story and The Godfather, and turned Paramount into the hottest
studio in town.

*****************

More information on Robert Evans can be found at:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0263172/


So it look as if there may still be a movie in our future after all!
Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Thanks for being here!
Brian Murphy
Webmaster @ WarrenMurphy.com

Discuss this topic and more at the forums on
http://www.warrenmurphy.com/forum

With Gold Eagle cancelling The Destroyer, their supply of books to overseas shops has been sporadic at best. Which means that living in Australia as I do, I don't get my Destroyers very often.

So to go to my bookshop and find a new Destroyer waiting for me was pretty exciting. Sadly I was left disappointed by this book. Don't get me wrong I don't mind Tim Somheil's writing, brings a certain pulp sensibility to the table, which is a good thing but in this installment he fumbles the most important part of The Destroyer - Remo and Chuin. Neither felt "right" to me. There was no bickering, Chuin feigns being a senile old man. Ugh, Chuin would never lower himself to playing senile, the brilliance of Chuin is that people assume that he is this weak little old man and act accordingly and whammo Chuin gets them. Chuin never has to put on an act, his appearance is enough.

Which brings us to the Koh-Mo-No. I have no issues with Chuin hawking this fashion statement but Somheil does it for the wrong reasons. Apparantly, Smith has been on Chuin's case about how his kimono stands out. Chuin's been wearing his Kimonos for the last 30 years, what's changed all of a sudden? If Chuin was doing this to get Remo to wear the proper attire for an assassin, or an attempt to enlighten the people of America, I could understand.

But these are diversions, Remo and Chuin face off against the offspring of Sa Mangsang (also known as Cthulhu) and they give the Masters of Sinanju a run for their money but I was disappointed where the Squid and their protectors battle two dolphins only to have the Dolphins make fools of them. Remo and Chuin don't make an appearance nor do they find out about this battle. I failed to see the point of the entire scene.

Okay in the last post I spoke of the influence of this story on me. In this post I will look at the plot of this novel and if it is possible to reconcile the parody heroes with their inspiration.

Bay City, New Jersey is a dying port town, left behind in the march of progress. Into this town sweeps Rocco Nobile, who procedes to improve Bay City and through some blackmail becomes Mayor, with the intent of centralising all Mafia operations.

Ordinarily, we'd expect that Remo and Chuin would be dispatched to get rid of such a threat, but Smith assigns them to protect Nobile. All is not as it seems and Nobile is working undercover to help bring down the Mafia.

To protect this plan they have to protect Nobile and this brings Remo and Chuin into conflict with The Eraser and the Rubout Squad who have decided to start a war on the Mafia with Mayor Nobile.

The Erasor is Samuel Arlington Gregory, millionaire weapons designer and his team consists of Mark Tolan, The Exterminator, Al Baker, the Baker and Nicholas Lizzard, the Lizard.

The Erasor's war on the mafia foiled by Remo and Chuin but the publicity generated by the Rubout squad's attacks means that the plan to bring down the Mafia using Nobile has to be abandoned.

As far as I can find Samuel Arlington Gregory, The Erasor is a unique creation.

Mark Tolan, The Exterminator is based on Mack Bolan, the Executioner from the series by Don Pendleton. Tolan is a kill crazy psycho who would be happy to kill anything. On the other hand Bolan is not a kill crazy psycho, a surgical scapel to Tolan's hacking machete. In Viet Nam, Mack was known as both the Executioner and Sergeant Mercy, so we see a man who is capable of extreme violence and extreme compassion. The latter quality is totally lacking in Tolan.

So it is impossible to reconcile Tolan with Bolan, but is it possible that Tolan could be one of the many imitators of the Executioner but I haven't found any who are as kill crazy as Tolan. (There was a 1980 movie THE EXTERMINATOR and 1984 sequel, which star Robert Ginty as John Eastland, The Exterminator but the timing suggests that any influence would be the other way around.)

Al Baker, The Baker is based on Bucher, The Butcher from the series by Stuart Jason (house name). Baker is a small time number's runner who had seen "The Godfather" too many times. Bucher is an orphan adopted by a mob boss, starting as a hitman eventually replacing his father before the realisation that what he was doing was wrong hit him and he decided to fight against the mob. Baker refuses to use a gun and is happy to take Gregory's money. Bucher is an expert shot. I could see Al Baker working for Bucher and worshiping his boss, mentally creatng the team of the Butcher and The Baker.

Nicholas Lizzard, The Lizard is based on Richard Camelion, The Death Merchant from the series by Joseph Rosenberger. Lizzard is an alcoholic actor who routinely dresses as a woman, Camellion rarely drinks and his disguises seem to be of older men. Like Baker, Lizzard doesn't activly participate in the fighting.

So as we can see the members of the Rubout Squad serve as broad parodies of other Pinnacle characters.

Okay this is the book where Sapir and Murphy figured out jut how The Destroyer Series was going to work. Chuin comes to the forefront as a equal partner to Remo in this adventure (from a Wold Newton standpoint Chuin probably started feeding Sapir and Murphy information about his adventures).

Chuin explains Sinanju's history to Remo including the Sword of Sinanju, which past masters used to execute prisoners and other undesirables which the Chinese currently hold.

Remo and Chuin are called in to find General Liu, a delegate from the Chinese Government who has gone missing. Chuin is less than impressed with the American Government's overtures of peace to China as one of China's Emperors didn't pay for Sinanju's services way back when and kept the Sword of Sinanju so naturally all Chinese are thieves.

Chuin teases Remo as Remo attempts to figure out what happened to the General, refering to Remo as Charley Chan, Ironside and Perry Mason.

Chuin ferrets out the traitor in the Chinese delegates and uses the Sword of Sinanju to execute the traitor. He then collects that ancient debt but leaves the sword in China.

This is what the Destroyer is about, the legacy of Sinanju, the relationship between Remo and Chuin and some kick ass adventure.