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Ms. Tree

kevinburtonsmith

Created by Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty

Since Mike Hammer was originally planned for comic books, it only seems fitting that Spillane defender/apologist and hard-boiled renaissance man Max Allan Collins’ “female Mike Hammer,” MICHAEL TREE, should appear in the appropriate medium.

And who knows? Collins is probably most famous for his historical detective novels featuring fictional Chicago private eye Nate Heller, or perhaps his continuation of the Dick Tracy comic strip or the Mike Hammer series after their respective creator’s deaths; or maybe even writing the graphic-novel-turned-into-a-major-motion-picture Road to Perdition but, as excellent and acclaimed as all that work may be, to tell the truth, I think the Ms. Tree series represents–even now–Max’s most ground-breaking and exciting work.

A female private detective in Chicago, Michael takes over her husband’s detective agency when he’s murdered on their honeymoon. Seems he was poking around a little too deeply into the business affairs of the Muerta crime family. And so, of course, she decides to continue the investigation, intent on avenging her husband, Spillane-style.

In fact, Collins has often said that the 9mm-toting character was inspired by Velda, Hammer’s secretary, who in his opinion was almost as tough as Hammer was. The basic premise of Ms. Tree then, was, “What if Velda and Mike Hammer eventually got married, and on their honeymoon he was murdered?”

As one CBR.com reviewer put it, “the premise sounded pretty cool to me. Mike Hammer finally marries his hot secretary and then he’s murdered on their wedding night, and she has to find his killer. Spillane–with a twist.”

And so, throughout the long-running series (arguably the longest running P.I. comic book in history), Ms. Tree wages war against the Muerta family, wreaking havoc on their business dealings and sending more than one member to the happy hunting ground, although not without some serious consequences, including arrest, a prison sentence, involuntary medication and even a stay in the looney bin. Mind you, the series offered more than just Michael’s scorch-and-burn holy war against the Muerta — that would have become tiresome quite quickly. No, Ms. Tree also took on other cases, ones that touched upon the social and cultural issues of the day, dealing with serial killers, homicidal lesbians, child molesters, crooked cops, pro-life killers and the rest.

The rest of her life is equally complicated. Fortunately she has a great team behind her. Her small detective agency employs Effie, the secretary and business manager, and two other operatives, former D.A. Roger Freemont and young Dan Green. They’re loyal to a fault, although they don’talways agree with the boss’s tactics. Her home life is just as tangled and imbued with drama — besides running a small detective agency, she’s taken on the task of raising her husband’s adolescent son, Mike Jr. (of course), from a previous marriage. Later on in the series, there’s her own pregnancy to deal with, courtesy of an ill-advised affair with an old boyfriend. And so it goes, a personal life top-loaded with disappointments, conflict, tragedy and betrayals. Her decision to keep the baby ignited a final head-spinning series of adventures with Michael  going after the bad guys, guns blazing, while dealing with pregnancy, birth and nursing. And at a time when private eye comics would historically cram sometimes two, three or more stories into a single issue, Collins and Beatty stretched out their stories over as many as issues as they needed, allowing plenty of room for the plots and characters to breathe, and for Ms. Tree to even engage in some actual detective work.

Right to the end, she was breaking ground.

I mean, look at the facts. How many other P.I.s have been institutionalized? Had an afterlife experience? Tracked down a killer while pregnant? Watched her husband murdered on her wedding night? Breast fed her kid while working a case? Dealt with the topics of homophobia, abortion, devil worship, child pornography, date rape and incest? And not just dealt with them, but asked some pretty damn hard questions that aren’t easily answered by either end of the political spectrum. And all this in a comic book!

But that’s the rub.

Anyone who follows this genre should know who Ms. Tree is. But many hardcore crime fans don’t even know she existed. Because she appeared in a comic book. Or they dismiss her because she was written and drawn by men. But the fact remains: Ms. Tree is still one of the most thought-provoking and exciting female private eyes around. In any medium.

It didn’t help, of course, that Ms. Tree made her first appearances simultaneously with the female private eye explosion of the early eighties. But in terms of subject matter Ms. Tree was just as groundbreaking as Kinsey or Sharon or V.I. And often predated them.

Nor did it help that Ms. Tree’s publishing history was almost as complicated as her fictional life, as the creator-owned character jumped from publisher to publisher, going from black and white to two-tone and finally ending up, appropriately enough, at DC (which, of course, originally stood for Detective Comics) in full colour! An eight-issue final run as a quarterly, and annuals in 1992 and 1993 was the seeming end, it seems, of a long and erratic run. Finally, in June 1998 Terry Beatty confirmed that there would be “No new Ms. Tree from DC. We were in line for something at Vertigo for several years, but could never get anything OK’ed. DC recently bumped the rights back to us. Whether we will do anything at this point, I don’t know.”

A few short stories have since appeared, and even a 2007 novel, Deadly Beloved (from Hard Case Crime, no less), and rumours of a television series kept popping up, visions of Teresa Russell dancing in Collins’ head.

Always one of my favourite P.I.s, and like Max, I’ve long hoped that someday, someway, Ms. Tree would return, be it in comics or television or feature film.

Something.

Anything?

In a world of Jessica Jones, Dex Parios and Lisbeth Salander, the time is right for a Ms. Tree revival.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Creators Collins and Beatty are also responsible for Mike Mist, a comic strip update of the old minute mysteries, who has also shown up occasionally to help out Ms. Tree on a full-length case or two. They’re also responsible for the rebirth of Johnny Dynamite, Pete Morisi’s old 1950’s Mike Hammer-like comic book eye, first as reprints in Ms. Tree, and later as an all-new stand-alone mini-series in 1994.

BONUS!

UNDER OATH

GUNS, GUNS, GUNS

COMICS

  

SHORT STORIES

COLLECTIONS

 

NOVELS

TELEVISION

THE DICK OF THE DAY

FURTHER INVESTIGATIONS

Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith, with a special thanks to John McDonagh for the heads up on the Dakota North/Ms. Tree ads.
 
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