The revelation that Nick Fury has been re-animating a LMD of Dum Dum Dugan since 1966 is crazy, though I actually mean that in a good way.
The whole point of this series should've been revealing the secrets that weren't sufficiently Earth-shattering to merit inclusion in the main title. Dum Dum is pretty C-List, so it makes sense that his story would be told here. Moreover, Ewing tells a damn good story full of excellent characterization. Dum Dum realizes that Nick only kept him alive so that he'd have someone to know all the tough-guy decisions that he's made over the years. The fact that Fury programmed Dum Dum to be unable to kill him really underlines the point that Nick constrained Dum Dum's existence to the parameters that he saw fit. In other words, Dum Dum wasn't meant to be his own man; he was meant to be the man that Fury needed him to be. If he trusted him as he'd trust a regular human, he wouldn't have installed back-up programming. Moreover, it's clear that Nick allowed Dum Dum to "live" because he knew that he could kill him if having a guy who knew his secrets became inconvenient; after all, Dum Dum wasn't real, in Nick's book. It's a disturbing look into Nick's mind, and it supports the idea from the main series that he's too far gone to be saved at this point. Again, a solid story that reveals secrets and supports the event's narrative is what we should've -- but didn't -- see in this book.
The back-up story? About the Young Avengers? Let's just say that I'm going to run the other way if I see anything with Ryan North's name on anything again.
*** (three of five stars)
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