The Man With No Name

The man with no name ( ) is a stock character in western films, but the term usually applies specifically to the character (or possibly characters) played by American actor Clint Eastwood in what is often called "The Dollars Trilogy" directed by Sergio Leone. In 2008, Empire Magazine chose "The Man With No Name" as the 43rd greatest movie character of all time.

The popularity of the character brought about a series of spin-off books, dubbed the "Dollar" series due to the common theme in their titles, written by Joe Millard and Brian Fox. They included novelizations of A Fistful of Dollars, written by Frank Chandler and For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly by Joe Millard and are as follows:

In July 2007, American comic book company Dynamite Entertainment announced that they were going to begin publishing a comic book featuring The Man With No Name. Set after the events of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the comic will be written by Christos Gage. Dynamite refers to him as "Blondie", the nickname Tuco uses for him in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The first issue was released in the Spring of 2008, entitled, The Man with No Name: The Good, The Bad, and The Uglier. Luke Lieberman and Matt Wolpert took over the writing for issues #s 7-11. Initially, Chuck Dixon was scheduled to take over the writing chores with issue #12, but Dynamite ended the series and opted to use Dixon's storyline for a new series titled The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. The new series is not an adaptation of the movie, despite its title.

A Fistful of Dollars was directly adapted from Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo. It was the subject of a successful lawsuit by Yojimbo's producers. The film's protagonist, a gruff, unconventional ronin played by Toshirō Mifune, bears a striking resemblance to Eastwood's character: both are quiet, gruff, eccentric strangers with a strong but unorthodox sense of justice and extraordinary proficiency with a particular weapon (in Mifune's case, a katana; for Eastwood, a revolver). Another, perhaps more oblique, point of similarity, is the contrast of weaponry between parties: while the protagonist uses a conventional weapon, the main antagonist in each film uses a more advanced, unfairly powerful weapon: a firearm in Yojimbo — unusual or illegal at that time in Japan; and in Fistful, a lever-action rifle.