Ms Tree Vol. 5: Heroine Withdrawal

Ms. Tree (Hard Case Crime) #5

by Max Allan Collins, Terry Beatty (Artist), Gary Kato (Letterer)

The next incredible instalment in the case books of Ms Tree, private detective, from famed Hard Case Crime author Max Allan Collins ( Road to Perdition )!

Fans of pulp noir and hard-boiled detective crime fiction will love this seminal collection of classic comics.

From the minds of award-winning author Max Allan Collins and artist Terry Beatty, comes the fifth collection of classic Ms Tree stories, collected together for the first time!

Join Michael Tree, the 6ft, 9mm carrying private detective on her thrilling adventures. No case is too small, no violence too extreme, just as long as it gets the job done.

Fans of hard-boiled detective and crime fiction will get a thrill from these tales!

Collects Ms. Tree #18-27, #29-31

Genres: Graphic Novels, Mystery, Comics, Crime, Comix

272 pages, Paperback

First published December 19, 2023

About the author

Received the Shamus Award, "The Eye" (Lifetime achievment award) in 2006.

He has also published under the name Patrick Culhane. He and his wife, Barbara Collins, have written several books together. Some of them are published under the name Barbara Allan.

Book Awards
Shamus Awards Best Novel winner (1984) : True Detective
Shamus Awards Best Novel winner (1992) : Stolen Away
Shamus Awards Best Novel nominee (1995) : Carnal Hours
Shamus Awards Best Novel nominee (1997) : Damned in Paradise
Shamus Awards Best Novel nominee (1999) : Flying Blind: A Novel about Amelia Earhart
Shamus Awards Best Novel nominee (2002) : Angel in Black

Japanese: マックス・アラン・コリンズ
or マックス・アラン コリンズ

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ms. Tree goes to the looney bin.



This volume mainly focuses on Michael pleading insanity for killing and getting stuck in an asylum until the doctor there clears her. These are pretty meaty volumes, so she deals with an abortion bomber first, goes to jail for a bit and uncovers corruption, and then ends up semi-brainwashed after being released from the facility.
It's a lot.



But it's all pretty good.
Recommended

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Ms. Tree hits keep on coming!

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She'll be fine. Probably.

On the docket this time are two-fisted takes on crime and rehabilitation, vigilantism, mental health, and abortion rights. No tip-toeing around hot-button 1980s (and ever after) issues for Michael!


The titular story arc of this one sees Our Heroine going on some psychotropic meds and turning over a pacifist leaf at a most inconvenient time. Not to worry, though- this doesn't slow down the growth of the comic's body count one little bit!

[Shaun Stanley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ms. Tree Volume 5 Heroine Withdrawl collects issues 18-27 and 29-31 of the Renegade Press comic series written by Max Allan Collins and art by Terry Beatty.

The hard-as-nails private detective Ms. Tree is back on the case tacking issues such as abortion clinic bombings, corrupt prisons, and women-abusing politicians.

This volume of classic Ms. Tree comics switch things up a bit with half the issues dealing with the fallout of Ms. Tree's tendency to serve justice with a pistol. Because of her vigilante actions, Ms. Tree will spend time behind bars as well as in a mental health institute. I have really been enjoying these stories, but this volume didn't resonate quite as well with me even though I did enjoy the change of pace in the scenery department. Maybe because all of the main characters all just seemed so angry? The art continues to be predominantly no-shading inking with each issue getting one color added to each panel.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've enjoyed the Ms. Tree graphic novel series by Max Allan Collins very much. Great graphics and entertaining hard crime stories. Ms. Tree Vol. 5: Heroine Withdrawal was basically similar but also it seemed a bit of 'going through the motions'.

It's a collection of 5 individual stories which, in this book, are tied together. So let's see.

Story 1. Her nemesis, crime boss Muerta, is returning to the US to stand trial. He's holed up on his estate, basically bed - ridden. Ms. Tree's partner, Dan, who lost an eye and hand in a previous confrontation with the Muerta gang, seeks revenge and is found over the dead body of Muerta and others. He proclaims his innocence, is locked up and Mike (that's Ms. Tree's name) investigates.

Story 2. This story was definitely not my favorite. Mike is forced to hide out from the Muertas and stay out of her PI business due to what happened in the 1st story. She meets her dead husband's ex - cop partner and ends up trying to help him. He's gone a bit loco and is now hanging out with an anti-abortion group that is picketing an abortion clinic. He wants to blow it up. I just found this a topic that shouldn't be glossed over and it felt like it was just used to be hard - hitting??

Story 3. Because of the events in Story 2, Mike is sent to lock up. She basically didn't follow the judge's rulings that she not be involved in crime cases until her trial. While in this county jail, attempts are made on Mike's life, she befriends her fellow inmates and exposes corruption within the jail. Woo hoo!

Story 4. Mike's lawyer makes a deal with the DA prosecuting Mike that she will attend a psychiatric facility and plead to an insanity defense to avoid the trouble of a trial. While there, Mike delves into her feelings, discovers an inmate who has seen a murder by a popular politician and gets her agency to investigate and saves herself and the fellow inmate.

Story 5. Mike is released from the psychiatric facility, taking tranquilizers and admitting to herself that violence isn't the only solution to solving crime. This forces her partners, son-in-law and even her exec asst to take the mantle of trying to protect her from mob forces and endangering themselves. All is made good in the end of course....

Anyway, it was an action - packed collection, well drawn, but not totally satisfying. I'll see how #6 is when it's released. (3.0 stars)

[Jameson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read my reviews of the previous 4 volumes and you might conclude I’m obsessed with Ms. Tree. In my defense: to know her is to love her, and to love her is to obsess over her.

This volume really gets into the inner workings of Tree. Collins does a good job showing us (and Ms. Tree) how and why her mind works the way it does, and what justice means in her world. This batch of stories really is peak Tree. We see the Ms. Tree we know and love, wheeling out her brand of justice with witty one-liners. Then we see her get the vigilante’s eventual comeuppance: censure and confinement. After that we have a series of chapters told from the POVs of the supporting cast—all aghast at Tree’s wild transformation upon her release from the mental hospital. Tree is shown to be woefully and naively anti-violence. Which just makes everything worse for the people she cares about (two of the most innocent characters are forced to become murderers when Tree won’t take the responsibility to defend what’s right.) Finally, we see Tree realize there’s a middle ground between the extremes. It’s very well done.

Collins’ stories and Beatty’s art are both incredibly clean and tight. Which is probably what makes these 80s-drenched crime comics feel so timeless. Beautiful, well-told mysteries starring a bitch-on-wheels packing heat and a thirst for justice? Fan for life, me.

Heroine Withdrawal is the 5th volume brought to us from Hard Case Crime. This book features Ms. Tree #18-31 (not counting #28, which was published in a previous volume, where it supposedly better fits the narrative.) Extras include, per usual, a cover gallery and a text piece. Here the latter is a Mike Mist short story by Barbara Collins, starring Ms. Tree’s hokey P.I. pal, Mike Mist. (I always loved the Mist comics—I think they were usually just a page or two long, but they were fun “minute mysteries.”) Missing from the collection, per usual, are the insightful and sometimes explosive letters pages.

I still think Hard Case Crime, in their laudable effort to attract new readers, has inadvertently made it pretty confusing for new readers to figure out just where to start. (Not as bad as Marvel with their 20 “volume 1s” of Spider-man, admittedly.) But I’ve come to the conclusion that my previous efforts to clear up the confusion may inadvertently be equally confusing. The gist of it is this: Hard Case Crime published what they consider the stronger material first. So if you read their Ms. Tree books in the order they were published, you get the story in this order: ENDING, BEGINNING, MIDDLE. My hope is that when this line wraps up, the comics gods will bless us with some oversized hardcovers or an omnibus collecting each issue with all the extras in chronological publishing order.

If you’re confused about where to start, and who wouldn’t be, just for you I’ve put together a handy dandy little list of the contents of each volume. If you want the original publishing/story order, you’ll read v3-v5, then v1-v2. The only problem with that is there’s an unpublished v6 between v5 and v1. But I still recommend it because why would you want to start a sprawling narrative with the final chapters. Oh, and if you’re confused about which book is which volume, use the table below. Why there are no volume numbers on the spines, and only sometimes in the copyright pages, we’ll never know. None of my baseless speculations make much sense of that choice.

Long story short:

1) this is Volume 5 of the Ms. Tree Saga but the saga’s been published out of order

2) these books are presently the easiest way to read that saga and

3) it’s a saga you’ll want to read over and over again.

Get it? Got it? Good! Highly recommended.


————————-

V1 Ms. Tree: One Mean Mother
Ms. Tree Quarterly/Special #1, 4, 7, 8, 9

V2 Ms. Tree: Skeleton in the Closet
Ms. Tree Quarterly Special #2, 3, 5, 6, 10, and Ms. Tree #28

V3 Ms. Tree: The Cold Dish
Ms. Tree B&W shorts from Eclipse Magazine (previously collected as The Files of Ms. Tree V1) and Ms. Tree #1-9

V4 Ms. Tree: Deadline
Ms. Tree #10-17, #32-34, and Ms. Tree 3D

V5 Ms. Tree: Heroine Withdrawal
Ms. Tree #18-31 (skipping #28)

[Craig Childs · Rating 3 out of 5]

"You have been piling up some bodies, darlin'… "

Ms. Tree is the first and longest running female private eye in comics. Max Allan Collins' stories are a unique blend of 1950's hardboiled action mixed with 1980's social issues. Terry Beatty's art is clean and just a shade retro, using two-tone panels and spot colors to add a distinct visual flair. Tree is modeled on Velda from the Mickey Spillane novels.

This is the fifth of six trade paperbacks from Hard Case Crime that will collect the entire Ms. Tree run of comics, minus two crossovers.

Ms. Tree: Heroine Withdrawal collects five story arcs:

"Muerta Means Death" (1985) -- Ms. Tree #18-21. When the man responsible for the murder of Ms. Tree's husband is shot on his death bed, Dan Green is framed for the hit. Ms. Tree must clear Dan's name by figuring out who is trying to take over the Muerta crime family.

"Right to Die" (1985) -- Ms. Tree #22-23. Ms. Tree tries to stop a distraught widower from bombing an abortion clinic, but is someone else working against her trying to cover up a murder? (Issue #23 reveals Ms. Tree's prior abortion, which pays off seven years later in the 1992 arc "Maternity Leave".)

"Prisoner in Cell Block Hell" (1985) -- Ms. Tree #24-25. While waiting trial for Dominic Muerta's murder, Ms. Tree's bail is revoked because she interfered with the police investigation at the abortion clinic. She is remanded to a women's prison, where someone--perhaps another inmate with a grudge--wants her dead.

"Heroine Withdrawal" (1986) -- Ms. Tree #26-27. Ms. Tree takes an insanity plea in the Muerta case and is institutionalized under a psychiatrist who wants to cure her violent tendencies. She learns from another patient about how the mob-upped U.S. Senator Palma got away with murdering his girlfriend…

"The Other Cheek" (1986) -- Ms. Tree #28-31. Ms. Tree is released from psychiatric care, now overmedicated and swearing off all forms of vengeance. This is the best arc in the collection, the only one with a strong humorous element. Each chapter is narrated by a different secondary character who is amazed at the kinder, gentler Ms. Tree… but it won't last after the bad guys kidnap Mike Jr. This arc brings both the Muerta and Sen. Palma storylines together to a bloody conclusion.

Also included is a Mike Mist prose story by Barbara Collins.

3 stars

[Rick Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories in "Heroine Withdrawal" follow not too long after the events of the previous volume in the Hard Case Crime line - "Deadline". Ms. Tree here shows even less scruples when it comes to vigilantism, openly killing murderers and going on full-blown shooting sprees with mobsters and criminals. It's a bit over the top, but Max Allan Collins builds some intriguing mysteries throughout this stretch of the run.

The story arc, "Muerta Means Death", occupies the initial third of the book and centers on a violent gang war that takes place due to a power vacuum in the criminal underworld. Though the story is less mystery solving and more action packed, Collins is able to still cultivate the noir atmosphere that makes the comic work fairly well. Latter stories in this volume continue the trend of including incendiary political topics like religion and abortions, but Collins does a decent job of keeping issues nuanced for the sake of the comic. The prominent arc in this volume is "Heroine Withdrawal" which focuses on Ms. Tree's murder trial. Like in "Deadline", Ms. Tree continues to be a fairly abrasive individual, making for a complicated protagonist that I imagine will rub some readers the wrong way. I quite like Collins' approach to writing Ms. Tree, but there are times where I do find her decision making unnecessarily frustrating.

Terry Beatty's artwork continues to be strong with respect to clarity of expressions, though the stiffness of the action can at times still be a bit of a letdown. The minimal use of color is a bit jarring for a comic that isn't all that old, but Beatty uses this constraint well for the most part as it does add to the noir aesthetic well. Overall, I do prefer his latter work on the series much more, but it does get the job done well enough here.

[Steven desJardins · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am sure I read all of these stories in the '90's, but it's long enough ago that I remember only major elements of the ongoing story arc and bits and pieces of the individual details. It would be wrong to say that this isn't a series that does subtle, but it would definitely be true to say that this is a story that does unsubtle, like a bludgeon. Violence enacts a price in these stories, a personal cost in terms of trauma and consequences, but its necessity is never questioned except by characters meant to be seen as naïve, stupid, or irrational; by straw men; and by characters whose eventual rejection of the concept of restraint is meant to underline the need for a hard-boiled dame with a gun to blow away the bad guys, before a foolish pacifism leads to the death of innocents. But for all that I think the narrative cheats in the presentation of its worldview, it at least presents a point of view that feels sincere and worth engaging with.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

More terrific noir from Max Allen Collins and Terry Beatty. Ms. Tree is a private eye who tends to shoot first, meting out her own form of justice. If this one, Dan gets framed for the murder of the head of the Muerta mob. Then there's a case involving an abortion clinic. After that, Ms. Tree goes to jail for violating her probation and, of course, it can't be that simple. Eventually, she goes to a psychiatric hospital to avoid a trial. When she gets out, she isn't herself and it almost gets all those around her killed. Some really good stuff here. Really looking forward to getting my hands on that last volume when it comes out.

[Gonzalo Oyanedel · Rating 4 out of 5]

El largo feudo con el clan criminal de los Muerta vuelve a traer consecuencias para la investigadora Michael Tree, aunque ahora provienen del sistema legal bajo el que opera y cuyos dictámenes deberá obedecer, aún si van contra su propia naturaleza.

Una etapa que da a la serie el respiro que necesitaba, justo cuando parecía estancada en un tira y afloja sin fin. Y si bien no ofrece ni originalidad ni un desenlace sorprendente, el carisma de Ms. Tree acaba por imponerse; al menos lo suficente para que el lector vuelva por más.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review is for all 6 Hard case collected volumes read back to back.

Hardboiled sensibility and unflinching un-sentimentality combined with ripped-from-the-headlines tales long before Law and Order made the phrase a trope, MAC shows why he is a master in whatever format he chooses to work.