Michael Hammer is a fictional character created by the American author Mickey Spillane. Hammer debuted in the 1947 book "I, the Jury". 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 (December, 1942) by Harvey Comics.
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 (1942). These were published with other material in "Byline: Mickey Spillane," edited by Max Allan Collins and Lynn F. Myers, Jr. (Crippen &amp; Landru publishers, 2004).
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. 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."
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. (An earlier syndicated version, originally aired in 1957–1958, starred Darren McGavin as Hammer.) Spillane himself played Hammer in a 1963 motion picture adaptation of "The Girl Hunters". Spillane himself favoured ex-Marine and former Newburgh, New York police officer Jack Stang, on whom he based the character, to play him. Stang appeared with Spillane in the 1954 film "Ring of Fear" and in the film adaptation of "I, the Jury".
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" (Uncle Pogo So-so Stories, 1953) and "Gore Blimey - The Bloody Drip Writhes Again " (Pogo Peek-A-Book, 1955).
In 2013 Hermes Press reprinted the complete "Mike Hammer" comic strip, with a special introduction by Max Collins.
In 2018, Titan Comics published a four part "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".
References.
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