Dominic Fortune in “Moo over Manhattan” in Hulk! 23 Oct 1980

 Story Denny O’Neil Art Howard Chaykin

Dominic and Sabbath have stuck around New York and Dom has managed to get a celebrity endorsement for Ferdley’s Milk.  “Sure is yummy kids! I have it before all my adventures.”  Fortune tells us.

And his first job is to meet Hollywood star Chisholm Smith, who he knew in the old neighbourhood as Herkie Slivowitz.  Smith gets attacked and Dom steps in to help. 

Only we discover that Smith is a Nazi sympathiser and working with Baron Strucker to assassinate the guest of honour Senator Foster at the premiere of Smith’s new movie (who becomes Senator Fulton when we meet him – oopsie editors) 

Dominic’s agent Acey Dugan shows Fortune proof that Smith is a Nazi and the pair begin to fight as Sabbath realises that the Senator who is visiting the men’s room is in danger.  Dom knocks out Smith and rescues the Senator.  Great publicity for Ferdley’s milk.

Another cracker of a story, with a nice touch of connection to the Marvel universe proper with the appearance of Baron Strucker, who doesn’t do much but it was a nice touch.

Dominic Fortune in “Ghoul of my Dreams” in Hulk! 22 August 1980

 Story Denny O’Neil Art Howard Chaykin

Dom is out gambling and for once has decided to quit when he was ahead.  Of course, it would be that moment that the police have forgotten about their protection payoffs and raid the place.

Luckily for Dom, the Commissioner needs a Brigand for Hire.  It appears that he’s sweet on Zelda Pinkley who is running around with Louie Kelt a gangster.  Luckily Sabbath knows Zelda from school and manages an invitation. 

Dom asks around and Kelt is a bad man selling blood to the Spanish Civil War and is rumoured to be a Zombie.  Sabbath rings Dom and tells him that Kelt’s men are zombies and Zelda is getting married to Kelt tonight.

Naturally, Dom tries to stop the wedding and discovers that garlic, holy water and crosses don’t work on zombies but a solid right hook does.  He manages to stop the zombie gangsters and rescue Zelda – who is disappointed that she will have to cancel her honeymoon.

Again the art is awesome and the fights are great.  I like the idea that Dom confuses zombies and vampires.  The idea is similar to The Scorpion #2 but plays it completely different.  And shows that Dom is his own character with original adventures and not retooled Scorpion adventures.

The Marvel Premiere story was published after this.

Dominic Fortune in “All in Color for a Crime” in Hulk! 21 Jun 1980

 

Story Denny O’Neil Art Howard Chaykin

Before the Marvel Premiere issue, Dom got his first colour adventure in Hulk 21.  As a magazine the stories could be more mature and free of the Comics Code.  Tying into the Hulk TV show at the time, this is the first of five adventures.  Issues 21 & 22 appeared before Marvel Premiere #56.

The story starts in 1937 and Dom and Sabbath are heading to New York as Dom has discovered that there is a comic book character The Purple Slasher that looks a lot like Dom.  While Superman didn’t make print until 1938, masked and costumed characters had been appearing in pulps, comic strips and comic books before that.

Chaykin certainly knows his comics history and this comes into play here and in his later series “Hey Kids Comics”.

Dom and Sabbath visit the old neighbourhood and discovers that the artist has been missing for the last few weeks.  It turns out that the Nazis have taken over the comic shop and using the Purple Slasher to spread propaganda (naturally use the Jewish creators to create Nazi propaganda).

We get several fight scenes as the Nazis try to stop Dominic from freeing the cartoonists.  There is a lovely fight scene over black and white panels of the Purple Slasher with Fortune in painted colour mirroring his fictional counterpart.  The painted colours are lovely and are still vivid for a book that is over 40 years old.

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. 

Dominic Fortune in “The Messiah in the Saddle Resolution” in Marvel Super Action #1 January 1976

 

Story and art by Howard Chaykin (reprinted Marvel Preview #20 Winter 1980)

Another black and white magazine and another early Punisher story as well as Bobbi Morse’s first superhero identity The Huntress (apparently before her second costumed adventure a certain Bat-daughter snaffled the codename so Bobbi then became Mockingbird)

We are treated to a Chaykin Pin up of Fortune, The Punisher and the Huntress.

This is a clever story, washed up silent movie star Noble Flagg has returned to Hollywood to save the city from sin.  Flagg, apparently, can call down the wrath of God as Earthquakes hit brothels, casinos and drug dens.  But Dom recognises his adviser from back East as Olga Cimaglia, who he ratted on to save his own neck, causing him to move to Los Angeles for his health.  We also discover that Dominic Fortune isn’t his real name but rather David Fortunov.

Turns out Flagg has an Earthquake machine and he is just eliminating the competition so Olga can take over the West Coast action.  There are double crosses and even after getting paid Fortune is still broke.

I love a good earthquake machine and this is a clever use of one.  And we get a little of Dom’s history here as well.

In Marvel Preview #20 we are promised a new story to appear soon.  So that will be my next story covered but before that there were new stories that appear in the Hulk! Magazine.

Dominic Fortune in “The Power Broker Resolution!” In Marvel Preview #2 June 1975

 

Script by Len Wein and art by Howard Chaykin (reprinted Marvel Preview #20 Winter 1980)

As I pointed out in my last post, this appears to have been published after The Scorpion #2 and before #3.  It’s a black and white 12 page story so I imagine that Chaykin was able to turn it out fairly quickly. 

Marvel Preview was a Black & White magazine.  This issue also features the first Punisher solo story and an interview with Don Pendleton.  I originally bought my copy for the Pendleton interview and discovered the other joys inside including a Chaykin pinup of The Punisher and Dominic Fortune.

This story was reprinted in issue #20 along with the second Fortune story and foreword and introductions by Chaykin talking about the creation of Dominic Fortune and these stories.  As Dom appears on the cover of that issue, I’ve used it here.

Chaykin tells us that he was annoyed by [now defunct company] pulling the switcheroo on him and that he visited the Marvel offices in the hopes of getting work.  Apparently, there was a bit of that going around at the time.  Chaykin basically ambushes Marv Wolfman and Len Wein and pitches something similar to The Scorpion (which was more in spirit of Doc Savage, The Shadow) but more in the lighter vein of The Spirit and Plastic Man.  Making for more a laid back West Coast hero that the East Coast serious hero.  See Dominic Fortune is nothing like The Scorpion aside from them both being heroes in the 1930s.  (Actually now I want a crossover between the two.)

Fortune is a gambler, who lives on a gambling ship “The Mississippi Queen” and is up to his eyeballs in debt to Sabbath Raven, his girlfriend and owner of the casino in question.

Dom takes jobs only to pay off his debts, in many ways Dominic Fortune feels like a 1930s version of Travis McGee who had debuted just over a decade earlier. 

The story opens with a potential client coming to see Dom.  She is the ex-wife of Jacob Einhorn, a multi-millionaire who owes his ex-wife $250000.  Einhorn is also the owner of publishing empire and extremely private, with his estate Skycliff guarded with landmines.

Our man Fortune has a plan and Raven flies him in on an autogyro.  Dom then leaps off with wing-kites and glides into the estate.  Of course, a wind gust nearly sends Dom to his doom but he survives only to discover that Einhorn is collaborating with the Japanese aiding them with intelligence and propaganda.  Dom realises that Einhorn wants to profit off a second World War a full three years before Pearl Harbour. 

There is a fight as the Japanese realise that there is an intruder who knows about Einhorn’s activities.  And Fortune has to pull out every trick in the book to come out alive.  While Einhorn is taken out by his allies, Fortune is able to retrieve the money owed to his client.

I have to say Chaykin’s art really sings in Black and White with the action flowing beautifully.  There’s a certain irony that Chaykin was kicked off of The Scorpion in an effort to make the character more like Marvel and Chaykin not only turns around and sells a version of the character to Marvel but also gets it into print before the Marvelised version.

This is a great adventure and I am looking forward to more.

The Scorpion #3 Night of the Golden Fuhrer

 

Atlas- Seaboard Written by Gabriel Levy and illustrated by Jim Craig  July 1975

The third and final issue of The Scorpion, like most of the Atlas line many of characters had revamp to make them more (Marvel) superheroes.  Chaykin left the title and a new creative team took over the title. – Now I had intended to cover all the stories in publication order but I thought that certain stories are better being talked about together, so all the Scorpion stories together and then the initial three Dominic Fortune stories.  Interestingly, the first Fortune story was published in between issues 2 & 3 of the Scorpion.

The story opens in 1943 with Moro Frost fighting in World War Two, his plane is shot down and explodes leaving no body and only his dog tags.  And as we all know, if there’s no body they’re not dead.

The story then opens in 1975 (the present) and there is a new Scorpion fighting crime.  He is David Harper editor of the Daily Times who wears a spandex suit with a lovely blue and orange colour scheme.  A mixture of The Green Hornet and Spiderman or Daredevil.  It’s left in the air if Harper is a new identity for Moro Frost or just the bearer of the Scorpion legacy.  (I have my own theories on that but that’s for my concluding article/timeline.  There is a line that this Scorpion had heard Nazi rhetoric 30 years earlier and didn’t buy it then)

The adventure proper opens with Rabbi Akibah and his daughter Sara attacked by neo-Nazis lead by the Golden Fuhrer – a Nazi in a gold mask.

The Nazis leave Sara behind warning her to keep her mouth shut.  She immediately calls the police and tells her employer David Harper.  Harper sends her home so he can investigate as The Scorpion.

There’s an odd bit where The Scorpion climbs out the window only to discover that there is no ledge and he has to use his wrist grappling hook.

Sara returns home so the Nazi can kidnap her for leverage on her father.  (Seriously Nazis take the girl in the first place – she can’t call the police if you had taken her in the first place and her father would have been more cooperative)

We discover that the Rabbi is a Jewish Mystic who in World War Two summoned the Golem of Prague to fight against the Nazis.  These neo Nazis think he can resurrect their dead leaders from World War Two but he summons the Golem that he kept in his basement (it is suggested that he built a new golem in the opening).  The Golem bursts out of the Akibah house as the Scorpion arrives.  The Scorpion fights the Golem but the Golem creates a psychic link to show where the Rabbi and his daughter are being kept.

The Scorpion then follows the Golem and the pair attack the Nazis.  The Scorpion ties up several of the henchmen as the Golem attacks the Golden Fuhrer.  The Scorpion tries to save the Fuhrer but is unsuccessful and the Golem smashes a sewerage tank flooding the building and only The Scorpion, Sara and her father escape (that we know of).

It’s not a bad story and after the first two stories is a change of pace.  It’s an action packed story but The Scorpion is now fighting intolerance in all its forms – it comes across a little preachy.  If it was published today some would call it woke or SJW but that part of the story isn’t overpowering.

The redesign of the Scorpion’s costume is okay but what is the point of that colour scheme? 

Maybe with more stories, I would have warmed to this version of the character more but that was not to be.  Atlas folded soon after and we pick up our story over in Marvel.