#don pendleton

Marvel’s long-running line of reprint titles was slowly diminishing as the 1970s reached the end of the decade and the mainstream newsstand outlets that were the lifeblood of comic book sales began to steadily be replaced by a greater reliance on the nascent network of comic book specialty stores. The idea behind such reprint titles initially was that they were an easy way to generate some small…

PAPERBACKS FOR TODAY # 04 : danger can happen

Those in question...

The Liquidator #1 by R.L. Brent, Award 1974

The Executioner #19: Detroit Deathwatch by Don Pendleton, Pinnacle 1974

The Demolishers (Matt Helm #24) by Donald Hamilton, Fawcett Gold Medal 1987

'The Godmakers' by Frank Frazetta.

Warriors (Erin Hunter) "This one didn't get past round 2 in the Hunt and honestly I think it deserves a Slaughter win more. It takes place in a kitty civilization where the characters are very frequently battling over very important subjects such as who gets to own a pile of rocks or some cat catching a rabbit on the wrong side of the border. There's brief periods of peace and allyship, but most of the time, tensions are present and everybody is probably willing to start beating each other up if they scent another clan on their territory. The violence isn't instinct or the thrill of it beyond the fact that these are still cats who hunt prey, but it's still rather irrational in many cases. The only real path in life you can have in a clan which isn't committing to causing and withstanding senseless violence is the path of healing that senseless violence, seeing cats you can't save die and also not being able to have children or a mate ever, which isn't even something you can choose to do without approval from cat heaven most times, meaning that you'll most likely be locked into a cycle of mindless battles over that one guy from the other clan accidentally marking the wrong side of the border.

This is also how you get brand new artists in the age range the books are for drawing cat violence and death with their limited skills before they somehow become the best artists you've ever seen while still probably drawing lots of cat violence and death. These murder cat books have an unexplained impact on young artists who will be drawing the same scenes of their pick for the saddest cat death years later. It also gets people making their own stories inspired by it, which are often still cat soap operas with plenty of senseless violence (source: 9 year old me had one of these bloody cat soap opera stories inspired by Warriors), and might even lead to Warriors rps with similar amounts of violence."

The Executioner (Don Pendleton) ""I am not their judge. These people have judged themselves by their own actions. I am their judgment. I am their executioner."

Mack Bolan (nicknamed "The Executioner" by his fellow soldiers) is an elite sniper/penetration specialist in The Vietnam War when he receives word that his father Sam, a steelworker in Pittsfield, has gone insane and shot dead his wife Elsa and daughter Cynthia ("Cindy"). On talking to the Sole Survivor, younger brother Johnny, Bolan discovers that his father was being squeezed by Mafia Loan Sharks and, on hearing that his daughter was prostituting herself to cover his debt, snapped under the pressure.

Figuring there's no point in fighting a war 8,000 miles away when there's a bigger enemy right here at home, Mack Bolan sets forth on a one-man crusade to destroy The Mafia, using all the military weapons and tactics at his disposal including heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, sniper rifles, night-vision scopes, radio-detonated explosives, electronic surveillance, silenced handguns and the garrotte. Bolan is also fond of using wiles to turn his enemies against each other.

Inspired the character of The Punisher. Being in the Mafia (no matter how distant the link) is punishable by death. Doesn't matter if you just are an errand boy, you are guilty and must die."

A book you very likely don’t have on your shelf #552

“The Executioner: War Against the Mafia” by Don Pendleton

⭐️ ⭐️ 

The whole experience of this book is wild.The book was originally published in 1969, but my used copy was published in 1972. It’s the first in a 642 book series.

There is a literal cigarette ad in the middle of this book! Flip through the photos on my post if you want to see it! It wasn’t even the brand of cigarettes that our main character smoked!

Mack Bolan is the Executioner. Bolan is an expert marksman during the Vietnam War to the point that his nickname becomes The Executioner. The first chapter, which honestly was the best part of the book, tells the story of how Mack’s father got behind in loan payments to the mafia who then proceeded to shake him down. A lot of very bad things happen that I don’t want to spoil because as I said its the best chapter in the whole darn thing, but its bad, and Mack is granted leave to come home and deal with the fallout. Then he seeks revenge on members of the Mafia - execution-style.  

I’ve never read something that was so obviously written for a male audience.  This is absolutely written for the male gaze. If you can’t tell by the title and the dime novel nature of this cover, this is not high class literature. And that’s fine.  Most of what I read is not high class literature. But this was just violence and sex.  

And the women in this book were only viewed as virgins or whores. There is no in between. And there is a lot of hypocrisy in the way he treats sex workers. And if have to read one more time about women’s “globular” breasts, I swear…

So much of this book is very surface level. You don’t get a lot of what Mack’s thinking, just a lot of him doing. Most of his internal dialogue is him debating the morality of what he is doing.

Sometimes it’s funny reading a book written in the 60s, because the author is trying to show off technology that was new for the time, but was NEVER pertinent to the plot. We are given a description over the span of a couple of pages about how the mafia has computerized their prostitution business and in detail, how it works. Does it come back later for this to be important? No, it doesn’t.