Monday, October 9, 2023

Marvel Premiere #56: Dominic Fortune “The Big Top Barter Resolution”

 



 written by David Micheline (from plot by Len Wein and Chaykin) and art by Howard Chaykin. October 1980.

Our first full length adventure and the first story to tie into the Marvel Universe proper.

The story opens with Timothy “Dum Dum” Dugan getting into a brawl aboard the Mississippi Queen.  Dum Dum first appeared back in 1963 in Sgt Fury and the Howling Commandos #1 and this story takes place before that adventure.

Dum Dum owns a circus that some mobsters want to buy, the mobsters were giving him grief and so Dum Dum naturally taunts them by staking the circus.  And if you guessed he lost it to the house, you’d be right.

Sabbath now owns the circus and is happy to sell to the mobster’s boss, Spencer Keene, to recoup her money. That is until he calls her a tender morsel and the deal is off.

The circus starts giving shows to pay back the money but there are several acts of sabotage that only Dom’s quick thinking and action stops. But the mentalist, Cephallo’s trailer is stolen.  Turns out Keene only wanted the mentalist to open a safe without touching it.  Cephallo isn’t in the trailer but his assistant Glory is.  Glory is the real mentalist and is able to open the safe but Dom and Dum Dum burst in to rescue her, causing the safe to explode. 

The subsequent fight and airshow attract a crowd. Glory gets a movie deal, Sabbath returns the circus to Dum Dum, and Dom and Sabbath ride off into the sunset on an elephant.

This is a good story, it works even if you don’t know who Dum Dum Dugan is but it places the action into the larger Marvel patchwork. 

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