Mike Hammer – Hard-Boiled Outcast or Superhero?
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| Year of publication | 2012 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
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| Description | This article focuses on Mickey Spillane's hard-boiled detective Mike Hammer and his portrayal in numerous novels. Here I try to ascertain why is the character of Mike Hammer either deplored or appreciated by the critics or readers when compared to other hard-boiled detectives (Chandler's Marlowe, Hammett's Spade or Macdonald's Archer) – he is regarded an outcast for some, and a superhero for others. In spite of being tamed by current standards (1950's), Spillane created a new 'sort' of a private detective. Mike Hammer is an archetypal 'hard man' – an isolated private investigator despising the legal system, war veteran, patriot, anti-communist with high sex drive and at the same time a brutally violent revenge-seeker. He is nothing like Marlowe, Spade or Archer, he is not solving crimes for money or to bring the criminal in front of the jury for a fair trial, he is the avenger who is 'cleansing' the society, or righting the wrong in his own way – 'eye for an eye'. He never doubts that his killing of the criminal represents the rightful punishment. Therefore he is for some only an unscrupulous killing machine led by rage and blind to the law. But others see him as an avenger in the name of the 1950's American everyman. He possesses astounding endurance that almost makes him invulnerable, invincible – he survives extreme situations that place him outside the normal humanity. These features may be attributed to his 'origin' – Spillane based his character on a comic book character Mike Danger, a superhero. Hammer was created to protect the fictional American society of the 1950's, he has to be tough, merciless and brutal – he is the 'evil for the good'. |