The Destroyer

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This page refers to a series of novels. For other uses of The Destroyer, see Destroyer (disambiguation).

Cover sample of Destroyer #1: "Created, The Destroyer.

Cover sample of Inside Sinanju, A companion guide to the series.

The Destroyer is a paperback series of novels created by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir about a US government operative named Remo Williams. The first novel was published in 1971, although the manuscript was written in 1963. Along with Don Pendleton's The Executioner series, The Destroyer is one of the original and longest lasting men's adventure series. It was adapted into the 1985 feature film, Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, starring Fred Ward as Williams.

Unlike The Executioner and similar series, The Destroyer cannot be strictly labeled as an adventure series. The series, while action based, has several elements of fantasy, science fiction, espionage and mystery (not necessarily all in the same novel). The main characteristic that sets The Destroyer series apart from other adventure series is the political and social satire in almost every novel. The series has lampooned almost every subject, including itself, over the years.

The series was originally co-written by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir. Early in the series, only one of them would write a book alone. The usual process was for one of them to begin the book and for the other to finish it. In the late 1970s, the relationship between the two men became tense and Richard Sapir left the series. In the early 1980s, Murphy began using ghostwriters to help with the series. One of the ghostwriters included his wife, Molly Cochran. By the mid-1980s, Richard Sapir returned to the series to write some more books. In the late 1980s, Will Murray took over the responsibility of writing the series alone, after writing several of the books with either Warren Murphy or Richard Sapir. After Richard Sapir died, Will Murray continued the series until the late 1990s. Shortly after Will Murray left, after novel #107, there were three novels (#108-#110) without a steady ghostwriter (#108 & #110 by Mike Newton; #109 by Alan Philipson). Jim Mullaney took over for novels #111-#131, followed by two more by Mike Newton. Tim Somheil was ghostwriter from #134 through #145.

On July 11, 2006, it was announced that The Destroyer would be moving to Tor Books, part of the St. Martin's publishing group. Along with the change of publisher, author Tim Somheil was dropped in favor of previous author Jim Mullaney who will co-write the novels with Warren Murphy. The last novel published by Gold Eagle, Dragon Bones, came out in October 2006. The first Tor novel,The New Destroyer: Guardian Angel, will be out in May 2007, as well as a re-release of three older novels in a collection calledThe Best of the Destroyer. There has been no confirmation on how many novels will be produced for the year of 2007. If the series does well, there may be hardcovers in the future.

A few years ago, Warren Murphy started his own publishing house, Ballybunion, to have a vehicle to start Destroyer spin-off books. Ballybunion has reprinted The Assassin's Handbook, as well as the original works: Assassin's Handbook 2, The Movie That Never Was (a screenplay he and Richard Sapir wrote for a Destroyer movie that was never optioned), The Way of the Assassin (the wisdom of Chiun), and New Blood, a collection of short stories written by fans of the series.

1 Background
2 Villains
3 Other media
4 Series listing
5 External links

[edit] Background

The series is about Remo Williams, a Newark cop framed for a crime and sentenced to death. His death is faked by the government so he can be trained as an assassin for CURE, a secret organization set up by President Kennedy to defend the country by working outside the bounds of the Constitution. The sitting US President and the head of CURE are the only other people that know about the organization (over the years this circle of people has increased slightly). The head of CURE is Harold Smith, a man selected by the President because of his brilliant mind but more importantly, because of his integrity. Smith was a former law instructor at Yale and served in the Office of Strategic Services during World War II.

Remo's trainer is Chiun, a deadly assassin and the last Master of Sinanju. Over the years, Remo and Chiun's relationship has transformed from student-teacher to son-father. It's also been discovered over the years that Remo is the avatar of Shiva, as prophesied in the legends of Sinanju. In 1985 a companion book entitled Inside Sinanju was published. This was a revised and updated book that was formerly titled The Assassin's Handbook. Most of the book is written in the first person of "Chiun". It covers anecdotes as well as information on the various villains and story arcs from the series.

[edit] Villains

Remo and Chiun have encountered a number of colorful villains, both human and superhuman. Their foes have run the gamut of pulp fiction from mobsters to mad scientists. Given their talents as assassins, few have survived their encounters with Remo and Chiun but some of their more powerful foes have managed to survive such as the sinister android Mr. Gordons, super-soldier Elizu Roote, the computer program known as Friend, renegade Sinanju practitioner Nuihc (backwards spelling of the name Chiun), and his protege Jeremiah Purcell aka the Dutchman, and a Chinese vampire known as The Master.

[edit] Other media

In 1985, The Destroyer concept was adapted for the theatrical movie Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, starring Fred Ward as Williams and Joel Grey as Chiun. In 1988, an American television pilot, Remo Williams, aired but did not lead to a series. It starred Jeffrey Meek as Williams and Roddy McDowall as Chiun. Like many films, this one did not follow the source material very closely, much to the disgust of some fans and the authors of the Destroyer series. Several Destroyer books actually make fun of the film and its promotional materials.

There have been several comic book and magazine series published by Marvel based on The Destroyer series.