Dominic Fortune in “Slay Bells” in Hulk! 25 Feb 1981

 Story Denny O’Neil Art Howard Chaykin

Dom is still working for Ferdley’s Milk in the fifth and final adventure in Hulk Magazine where he is invited to meet the British Ambassador when he is accosted by The Silhouette who thinks that Fortune is an Irish assassin trying to kill the ambassador. 

The Silhouette is a less competent version of the Shadow and Dom really has no time for his nonsense.  The Silhouette’s real identity Lamar Canfield is hosting the party for the ambassador.  Sorry Canfield and his companion Margo Payne swear that he is not the Silhouette.

When Santa arrives with gifts for all the guests and kidnaps the ambassador.  Dom knocks out The Silhouette and rescues the ambassador.

It’s an interesting story seeing Dominic Fortune interacting with a version of the Shadow, a few years later Chaykin would do a Shadow miniseries for DC (1986) and another for Dynamite (2014). 

Dominic Fortune in “The Tiny Terror Tumble” in Hulk! 24 Dec 1980

 

Story Denny O’Neil Art Howard Chaykin

So as part of his advertising Dom has to appear on the radio show Ferdley’s Milk Hour with Tina Timons.  Tina is a movie star (kinda like Shirley Temple) and sings on the radio to promote her movies.  She has an annoying cutesy-wootsy with a widdle lisp and Dom is less than impressed until an audience member Lancelot Mahoney tries to charge the stage. 

Dom leaps into action and tackles the man who is led off mentioning that he knows a secret.

We discover the secret – Tiny Tina is not a little girl but a midget with a facelift (like Ester in the Orphan movies) who has slept with the head of the studio and blackmailed him into letting her make movies.  Mahoney is her ex-husband.

Her manager hires Fortune to be a proactive bodyguard killing Mahoney before he can blow the whistle. Of course, making it look like self defence. 

Dom tells Sabbath to stay in the car – which if you guessed she doesn’t do, you’d be right.  But Sabbath overhears the plan and stops Dom from killing Mahoney. 

Very unhappy, Dom confronts Tina who is canoodling with her new paramour, she likes her men dumb and strong.  Dom gets into a fight and Tina pulls a gun only for Sabbath to take it from her.  Sabbath has called in a favour with the Commissioner (from Ghoul of My Dreams) to arrest Tiny Tina.

I have so many questions – Tina is posing as a girl of six and her new boyfriend is okay with that.  Did the studio head know she was a woman or did he think she was a young girl when he slept with her?

At this point the rest of the Hulk magazine is in black and white but Fortune’s adventures are in colour still.  It really makes the story stand out. 

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.