Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Dominic Fortune Max 1-4 October 2009 – January 2010

 



Art and story by Howard Chaykin

Hoo boy, Chaykin is back baby!  Inject this right in my veins.  It opens during the Paraguay- Boliva War and Fortune mentions that he has done three tours, two for Paraguay who he is flying for at the end of the war in 1935 (presumably he was in for the entire three years of the war) and with the war ending he is looking for new work.  Dom points out that he is not a patriot and politics, religion or nationality don’t drive him.  He is after the money. 

He met Delatriz Betancourt, also flying for Paraguay and she might have an offer for him. Delatriz, the descendant of Confederate soldiers who moved to South America, is flirty and distracts Dom enough that he gets shot down and parachutes in the hotel pool, which is surrounded by several ladies in various states of undress.  Chaykin is using the adult Max line to his advantage (just as he did in the magazine lines for many of Dom’s original appearances.)

However, that opportunity dries up when Delatriz and her business colleague Malcolm Upshaw discover that Dominic Fortune is Jewish.

However, one of the naked ladies was Heather Fontaine and when Dom gets back to LA, they begin an affair.  Fontaine’s husband, Irwin Oppenheim, a studio executive, hires Dom to baby sit three of his big stars -Jock Madison, Vaughn Lorillard and P.T. Oakley.  (disguised versions of John Carridine, Errol Flynn and, W.C. Fields) when they go to Berlin for the 1936 Olympics. 

Fortune discovers that Upshaw and Delatriz are both working with the Germans and a rogue American army unit to kill the President.  Fortune steals a plane and lands in time to rather forcefully stop the army unit with the plane’s propellor and fight hand to hand with Upshaw saving the President.

This was a great romp with several fun fights and some rather adult scenes and scenarios.  There is a lot of anti-Semitism thrown around but that was not uncommon for the time and it fit with villains who were happy allying themselves with Nazis.

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