1990 Charter/Diamond Action Adventure
Ron Stillman is the pseudonym of fellow Ohioan Don Bendell. Born in 1947 and still alive according to my research.
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction states that the Tracker “stories are told in a maliciously exaggerated parody of the conventions of this sort of fiction.”
The Tracker series had eight entries. Bendell wrote the first six.
Written review below. Video review here:
Tracker Number Two- Green Lightning starts off just like I like it with a very sexy description of a leggy toned babe slowly pulling her stockings up her shapely legs and then…
shaving her mustache?
Turns out the babe is actually undercover hitman Miguel Atencio. He is in Cleveland for the Broncos/Browns game airing on Monday Night Football. Also in attendance is the president of the US. Which in 1990 would be George Bush the first. It never says it directly but the story takes place in the US in 1990 so I’m going to make that connection.
Miguel is hired by an “electronic oriental mafia”, (their words) Ryoku Rai Kyookai, AKA: the Green Lightning Society. And the most hilarious reasoning behind this task? He is to kill the president as he is too competent, and they need someone with less political experience in there.
In the crowd as his luscious alter-ego, Miguel notices number 80 of the Denver Broncos acting weird, looking up at the crowd like he's looking for someone. It's nothing, he decides. He takes out his grenade launcher but as soon as he does, number 80 reaches in the Gatorade tub and pulls out a rifle and shoots him between the eyes. Turns out, number 80 doesn’t actually play for the Broncos he is in fact secret spy Natty Tracker. USAF Major. Ninja in training. Quarter Norwegian. Quarter black. Quarter Sioux. Quarter Tonto Apache. Electronics and weapons expert. His backstory? Blinded when a drunk driver made him swerve off the road in his 1963 split window corvette. Along with being the ultimate soldier he is a tech wizz and created a pair of goggles that not only lets him see again but does all manner of high tech gobbledy gook. He is insanely rich from his electronic inventions but dedicates his life to killing the enemies of his country.
The President thanks him. He says, “how did you know?”
“Adam's apple, sir. Women don't have Adam's apples.”
“Well, I'll be damned.”
Haha! I thought this was the competent president.
At the end of first chapter we have Natty Tracker wondering who is the next scum bag he will be killing.
The second chapter starts with a description of a cute little five-year-old girl. And just like Mr. President George Bush’s son said, “Fool me once, shame on you…fool me twice? Won’t get fooled again.” It’s obvious by how over the top adorable and wholesome the little girl’s description is that we are about to get something gnarly. And we do. After we learn about her honey colored curly hair shining like the sun we read about her dad do something that should never be done. After the assault, while dad of the year is sleeping, the little girl comes in with a razor and slits dad’s throat. When the cops ask what happens she blames it on Mom. She goes into foster care. Same thing happens. She kills him also. She grows up. Becomes a serial killer of men who deserve it. She likes to bite their dicks off and keep them in jars in her library. On her last kill it happens to coincide with a man the Green Lightning is after also. They are impressed and want to hire her.
This book is all over the place. It takes a minute to get into the main plot which is Tracker taking on the Green Lightning Society. We have more introductory chapters of characters who are bit players. It’s like when you have a big todo list and a day off. You start one project but don’t finish and then do a little of everything on the list and by the end of the day nothing is actually done.
In the third chapter we are introduced to Reverend Clyde Ormand. A preacher in a South Carolina Church. He doesn’t really matter when it comes to the story but it’s insane so let’s go over it.
He is a coke head with a $500 a day habit. To help fund his habit, he sells it to junkies in town and some of his upper echelon parishioners. He gives a 15-year-old girl blow for sexual favors. His coke arrives from Columbia in hollowed out dead bodies that are shipped to his morgue. Once he takes the coke out of the bodies, he gives the carcasses to his brother's slaughterhouse where they grind the bodies up with the beef that goes out to the local grocery stores. One day the bodies stop showing up. A Japanese man shows up instead with a bag of coke. He says he is the new connection and shows the reverend a video of them killing the Columbian dealer by cutting off his head.
Finally, we are back to Tracker. He is randomly attacked by ninjas after banging his smoking hot Native American kindergarten teacher girlfriend. Luckily his neighbor is a house full of KGB agents assigned the task of keeping an eye on Tracker. The Russians want his tech and for that they need him alive so Tracker is aided by the Russians who snipe one of the ninjas from their window.
Too much Tracker for you? Good news. We have another character introduction. Back in Japan at the Green Lightning Society Monday morning meeting we meet a sexy female agent who after killing a traitor of the organization she is tasked with hunting down and hiring the serial killer lady from the beginning. The one who bites off dudes dicks. She plays on her desire to rid the world of men who have SA tendencies and tells her that Tracker is a dirty rapist. She’s in.
She picks up Tracker in a bar. But Tracker is a super man and knows something is up. He smooth talks his way into getting more info on who hired her and then turns her into the police. All of that brutal killer backstory and buildup and we get a nice dinner and a book ‘em Danno?
You know what this book needs? More ninjas. Tracker is back at home. Ninja attack. Again. This time they get him. They take him to an abandoned building, strip him naked and tie him up. Don’t worry though, Tracker has a fake finger which he unscrews and takes out his escape tools. After cutting himself free he throws a bomb at the ninjas and dives out a window. We then get a couple pages of a naked man fighting ninjas. Tracker commandeers a car which has a super-hot red head named Dee Light. Hmm. Also, released in 1990 was the smash hit Groove is in the Heart sung by bright red-headed looker, Lady Miss Kier. Is this the author inserting his Dee Light fantasies?? Anyway. They make a couple jokes about his naked body and how she’s checking out his dick.
"You're a little cockeyed"
He takes her back to his house and beeee—ohhhhh. (slide whistle sound here).
Outside it says there is an African American man. Screeching brake sound! In 1990 in a bonkers over the top action men's adventure book and they use the phrase African American?? This is a first. I didn't even realize that terminology was around then.
Tracker gets in his supped up car and heads up to the mountains so he can take the ninjas down on his turf. We get a big, long car chase action scene with rockets and helicopters.
At the mountain Natty heads up knowing the ninjas will follow. He toys with them. Steals their clothes at night. Kidnaps them one by one. Moves their fire in the middle of the night. He gets info about who hired them.
In Japan we meet the Green Lightning main assassin Ken Fuji-something. We are losing interest fast here.
He is 6'11 solid muscle. Karate and judo and all kinds of martial arts master. Ripped the head off of his father after being told by father he raped mom.
Tracker goes to Japan to fight him one on one. Decent punch and kick fight scene. Tracker wins. Gets info on who the boss is. Travels back to the US to bang Dee Light some more.
Back to Japan to find lady assassin.
The ending is him messing up the organization through their bank accounts and financial investments. Um. Ok. Haha!
Yeah, this book should have been wrapped up a long time ago. It’s very sporadic. Things happen for no reason. Characters are given lush introductions and then never appear again. The antagonist is the shady Green Lightning Society, but they are so mysterious they aren’t even in the book. I’ve seen better plot development in Saturday morning cartoons. It is hilarious though. And if it is indeed a parody like The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction site says then the author did their job. I don’t know though, it feels real to me. Like the author was trying to tap the Men’s Adventure main vein and inadvertently made something funny. It could go either way. I’m on the fence about it. That being said, I would one hundred percent pick up the others in the series. It has lots of 80s pop culture referenced; Robocop, Bo Jackson, Carl Lewis, Lawrence Taylor, Andre the Giant and if nothing else it was a ton of fun.
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