Mike Danger
Created by Mickey Spillane

According to legend, Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer was originally meant to be a comic book eye called MIKE DANGER. After his comic attempts were rejected in 1946, Spillane (a former writer for the Timely Comics line) tried to sell it as a comic strip. According to Mike Benton in his The Illustrated History of Crime Comics, "In 1947, Spillane wrote a "Mike Danger"comic strip for the newspapers. Drawn by Mike Roy and offered by Jerry Iger's syndicate, the comic strip appeared briefly in New York area newspapers and disappeared. Spillane decided to leave the world of comics to become a mystery writer."

In fact,writer and Spillane fan extremis Max Allan Collins thinks this is probably a mistake, and questions whether the Danger strip was ever actually published. He figures Benton may have confused a non-existent Danger strip with the later From the Files of...Mike Hammer. As Max points out, "I've seen lots of Iger sydicated stuff, and comics collectors know about my Spillane fixation...if this existed, I'd have seen an example by now." (At this point, if anyone can straighten this out, both Max and I would be extremely grateful.)

Either way, though, Danger wasn't the success Spillane had hoped for. Spillane changed the character's last name to Hammer, and decided to turn it into a novel.

But, seven years after Mike Danger was rejected by his publisher, the unsold stories actually did make an appearance -- in Crime Detector #3 and 4 in 1954. Evidently someone dug up the pages for Spillane's original Mike Danger comic book and published them. The intro to the first story let's us know what we're in for: "He's rough...he's tough...he's terrific! 190 pounds of bone and muscle...and afraid of nothing! He backs up the law with his two fists and a .45 slung under his left armpit, ready to slug or shoot it out anyplace, anytime! Yes, meet Mike...but be smiling when you do!"

And that's the story of Mike Danger, until 1995, when fellow P.I. writer and long-time champion Max Allan Collins dusted off the original name and had another whack at it, with a comic book.

But the Mike Danger of the 1990's is a far cry from what Spillane originally envisioned. Sure, MIKE DANGER's a tough-talkin', babe-lovin', two fisted, hard-drinkin' yadda yadda yadda kinda P.I., straight out of the 1950's, a sort of pre-Hammer figure. But then Collins really gets cute (and it's almost certainly Collins running the show here, despite Spillane's name being plastered all over. Instead of leaving Danger back in the bosom of the Eisenhower decade, he's catapulted a hundred years into the future and ends up with a new office in the head of the Statue of Liberty and a holographic replica of his old secretary (long-time dead) Holly. And what a passionless, proper, squeaky-clean future it is. Eating meat is a felony, "incorrect" political views are illegal, and you can be fined for saying the wrong thing to a woman.

Charged with murder after killing a would-be assassin in self-defense (in 2052 there's no such thing as "justifiable homicide"), he beats the rap with an offbeat defense-he's dead! Since he supposedly died a century earlier, he can't be charged with any crime. However, because his remains were found on bigshot Simon Holden's land, Mike is Holden's property.

Eventually, Mike manages to get back home, but by then both the storyline and the publisher were running out of steam, and the book vanished. Too bad. The direction the book was taking showed some promise, with Mike continuing to become involved in some rather hinky doings; sort of an X-Files with tailfins.

Not a bad series, but Collins has done much better, more solid work, both in comics (Ms. Tree, Johnny Dynamite) and straight novels (Nate Heller).

The editor, Christopher Mills, was also the editor of the late, lamented Noir mystery mag, The Detectives comic book, and Shadow House. He wrote an ongoing series for that publication called Nightmark, which is a hard-boiled detective/horror fiction hybrid, very much in the pulp tradition. It's about a PI named Gideon King, who's also a monster hunter." Aren't they all?

At one point Mike Danger was optioned for a feature film by Ed Pressman, producer of "The Crow" and "Judge Dredd." nothing came of it...

COMIC STRIPS

• MIKE DANGER
  (1947, Jerry Iger's syndicate)
  Appeared in New York area papers
  Written by Mickey Spillane
  Art by Mike Roy
  (The existense of this strip is highly questionable-see above)

COMICS

• CRIME DETECTOR
  (1954, Timor Publications)
  5 issues
  Mike Danger stories appeared in issues #3 and 4.
  Written by Mickey Spillane
  Art by Mike Roy

• "Meet Mike Danger, Private Detective!" (May 1954, #3)
• "Murder at the Burlesque" (July 1954, #4)
  

• MICKEY SPILLANE'S MIKE DANGER
  (1995, Tekno)
  Created by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins
  Written by Max Allan Collins
  Artists: Eduardo Barreto, Steven Leialoha, Jose Delbo.

• "Danger Ahead"
• "Danger in the Future"
• "It, the Jury"
• "Old New York"
• "Sin Syndicate"
• "Man Out of Time"
• "A Dangerous Ppast (Death in Duplicate #1)
• "The Perfect Wife" (Death in Duplicate #2)
• "Sunday in the Park" (A Child in the Future #1)
• "Escape from New York" (A Child in the Future #2)

• MICKEY SPILLANE'S MIKE DANGER
  (1996-97, Big)
  10 issues
  Created by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins
  Written by Max Allan Collins
  Artists: Eduardo Barreto, Steven Leialoha, Jose Delbo, Brad Gorby, Terry Beatty

• "Virtual Man" (Kitty Mann, Mike kidnapped for his memories)
• "Bring Me the Head of Michael Danger" (Mike loses his head)
• "Brand New Me"
• "A Woman Called Mann"
• "Time Heels" (Mike teams up with Kitty Mann to get Dekker)
• "The Paradox Rule"
• "Abduction" (Red Menace Part 1)
• "Look To The Skies!" (Red Menace Part 2)
• "Better Dead" (Red Menace Part 3)
• "Close Encounter of the Worst Kind" (Red Menace Part 4)

RELATED LINKS

• F.O.M.A.C. (Friends, Fans, and Family Of Max Allan Collins)
  Max's Official Website!  Here you can find information on Max and his latest works, all done up in a most excellent fashion by his son, Nate, who wants to go to college. So, buy his dad's stuff!

Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.