The Executioner (book series)

This article may be written from a fan's point of view, rather than a neutral point of view. Please clean it up to conform to a higher standard of quality, and to make it neutral in tone. (September 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The Executioner

Cover sample of The Executioner #1: War Against The Mafia
Author	Don Pendleton
Language	English
Genre	Action
Publisher	Pinnacle (1969–1980) Gold Eagle (1981–present)
Publication date	1969–present
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Paperback)
Pages	188 (1981–1986) 220 (1987–2008) 192 (2008–present)

The Executioner (a.k.a. Mack Bolan) is a monthly men's action-adventure paperback book series (published from 1969 - 2020) following the exploits of the character Mack Bolan and his wars against organized crime and international terrorism. The series has sold more than 200 million copies since its 1969 debut installment, War Against the Mafia.^[1]

The regular series includes 464 novels (as of December 2020 when the series ended). Every other month, the Executioner series was complemented by the release of a Super Bolan, which were twice the length of a standard Executioner novel. There were 178 "Super Bolans" (as of December, 2015 when that series ended).

The Executioner was created and initially written by American author Don Pendleton, who penned 37 of the original 38 Bolan novels (he did not write #16). In 1980, Pendleton licensed the rights to Gold Eagle and was succeeded by a collective of ghostwriters. Some Pinnacle printings in the middle of Pendleton's original series carried a photo and brief article on the author, showing that Pendleton was not just a "house name".

Pinnacle Books was bought by Kensington Publishing (Zebra Books and others), and retained the rights to the original 38 novels; they were briefly reissued in the late 1980s-early 1990s.

Since its inception in 1969, The Executioner series has spawned several spin-off series including Able Team (1982), Phoenix Force (1982), and Stony Man (the series into which Able Team and Phoenix Force were eventually merged in 1991). The Stony Man series began in 1991 with "Stony Man" #2 (since the first "Stony Man" novel was published as a one-shot back in 1983, titled "Stony Man Doctrine" which is also regarded as the first "Super Bolan" novel).

In the Mack Bolan universe Stony Man is an anti-terrorist organization, with two teams - Able Team and Phoenix Force. Each had its own series of books from 1982 until 1991, when the publisher combined both series into Stony Man.

In addition, the Super Bolan series emerged in 1985, a separate series of Mack Bolan adventures that ran concurrently with the regular monthly series. These books were double the size of a regular Executioner novel and were released every other month. Technically the first "Super Bolan" book was Stony Man Doctrine (1983) which is also considered the first book in the "Stony Man" series. The Super Bolan's then commenced with Book #2 in 1985 and ran a total of 178 novels.

In France, a new spin-off series, Kira B., featuring Mack Bolan's "daughter" Kira, was introduced by the publisher Vauvenargues, in 2012. Written under the pen name Steven Belly, the series follows the adventures of Kira, a young woman who appeared in L'Exécuteur nº300: Le réseau Phénix,^[2] where she manipulated Mack Bolan to come out of retirement to fight against cyber-criminals. Since then, she has helped her "father" in his fight against crime and now is the heroine of her own, eponymous series.

There were 453 novels in the original Executioner series (1969-2017), plus the following spinoff series.....

In 1975, Leonard J. Ackerman Productions produced Don Pendleton's The Executioner Mystery Magazine, a digest-sized, pulp magazine anthology series along the same lines as the Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. The magazine had little connection to the Mack Bolan books save for the occasional story related to the Mafia. The magazine ran for only four issues, ending in August 1975, with the final issue titled simply The Executioner Mystery Magazine.^[3]

Select Executioner titles were distributed on audiocassette by DH Audio through #241, although the company was dissolved in Fall 2001. These abridged versions of the books, read by Richard Rohan performing multiple voices, ran about 3 hours. Stony Man Doctrine was also published as an audio cassette tape.

The first three books in the Executioner series in audio format were published by Books in Motion as cassette tapes.

Cutting Edge Audio published the Executioner & Stony Man series on audio, starting in October 2004 and beginning with Executioner 301 Blast Radius and Stony Man 68 Outbreak. They were available throughout North America and online via Cuttingaudio.com. The company had no plans for selling them through regular retail outlets. They stopped publishing them in 2006.^[4]

Joseph E. Levine contracted Richard Maibaum in 1972 to write a screenplay, based on the fifth and sixth volumes, Continental Contract^[5] and Assault on Soho.^[6] Some Pinnacle printings at the time had a strapline in a corner of the cover with "Soon to be a major motion picture from Avco-Embassy."

A later attempt to adapt The Executioner to the screen by William Friedkin was to star Sylvester Stallone and Cynthia Rothrock,^[7] but the production was scrapped.^[8]

It was announced in August 2014, that Shane Salerno, Hollywood producer and screenwriter, acquired the rights to turn the novel series into a film franchise.^[9] Four days later, Deadline reported that Warner Bros. had acquired the film rights from Salerno, hoping to sign Bradley Cooper to star as Bolan and Todd Phillips to direct. Salerno would write the script and produce.^[10]

Mack Bolan: The Executioner was a comic book adaptation of War Against the Mafia adapted by Don and Linda Pendleton, published in 1993 by Innovation Publishing with art by Sandu Florea. Intended to run four issues, the final installment was not published due to Innovation closing.

The Executioner: Death Squad was adapted by Linda Pendleton with art by Sandu Florea. It was a 128-page black and white comic, published in 1996 by Vivid Comics.

The Executioner was adapted into a five-part comic book series by IDW, written by Doug Wojtowicz and illustrated by S. I. Gallant. It was reissued as the graphic novel Don Pendleton's The Executioner: The Devil's Tool in November 2008. The reissued version contained an introduction by Linda Pendleton, "Don Pendleton's Creation of Mack Bolan, The Executioner".

The Executioner books and spin-offs are featured on the August 5, 2019 episode of the Paperback Warrior podcast.^[11] The show's hosts, Eric Compton and Tom Simon, discuss the series' origins including its impact on popular culture. Additionally, the show spotlights key authors that contributed to the series and its spin-offs. During that episode, Eric Compton reviews Executioner #88 Baltimore Trackdown by Chet Cunningham.^[12][13]

1. Kira 1: Ondes de Choc dans l'Oregon (2012, Shockwaves in Oregon)^[15]
2. Kira 2: L'Aigle de Brandebourg (2013, Brandeburger Eagle)^[16]
3. Kira 3: Neige de sang sur Oslo (2013)^[17]
4. Kira 4: Crisis (2013)^[18]
5. Kira 5: La Quadrature sibérienne (2013)^[19]

• Punisher

• MackBolan.com
• Official website of Don Pendleton, the creator of The Executioner, Mack Bolan Series
• executionerseries.com Original Executioner Series