Strictly speaking this is not the end
for the world of The Destroyer. The
books are still being published as is the Legacy spinoff series. But this is the end of playing catchup with
the series which started in the early 1970s.
I started collecting in the late eighties and now have finally caught up
(if I had more time I'd reread the whole series in order) thanks in large part
to fact the entire series is now available as ebooks. 151 books, a spinoff series of six books so
far, a movie (and a new one in the works), a TV pilot as well as Marvel comics.
(There are new comics that I need to get)
It feels weird being caught up, the
hunt for Destroyers has been part of my life for 30 years now. The Destroyer I can't remember how I discovered
him it might have been a copy of Inside Sinanju at the cheap books in the
corner store visiting my grandmother. It
might have been a library book. It may
have been the back cover blurb for the Doc Savage video (which was definitely
my introduction to Buckaroo Banzai).
When I found The Destroyer, I was in
love. The characters are great. Chuin
should be the most offensive character in the world but he's not. Some would
say that he's racist but it makes sense because he IS far superior to everyone
else. He’s a frail looking little old man but heaven help you if you upset him
or interrupt his soap operas.
Then there is Harold Smith the
incorruptible WWII veteran cheapskate with a computer system that can
infiltrate any electronic information.
Smith was asked to head the agency CURE by Kennedy and has been in the
job since the 1960s.
Remo is the meat in the sandwich of
these two extremes. The Newark beat cop conscripted into an eternal battle with
outré threats to America. He's the guy who cleans up Chuin's bodies when the
old man kills someone who has annoyed him.
A lot of the Destroyer has made its
way into other things Person of Interest, Knight Rider, The Karate Kid.
The Destroyer lead me to explore
other series and was why I wrote Serial Vigilantes of Paperback Fiction. Being able to write a Destroyer short story
for the More Blood anthology was one of the greatest moments of my life.
I've read most of the original books written by Murphy and Sapir (the first two books being more or less the only ones I haven't read.) I haven't read all of Will Murray's or James Mullaney's.
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