The Deadliest Man Alive

Count Dante, The Mob and the War for American Martial Arts

Before he became Count Dante, The Deadliest Man Alive, master of Dim Mak, The Death Touch . .

Before he helped form the event that became widely known as the United States Karate Association Grand National Championship . . .

Before he became Supreme Grand Master of the Imperial Black Dragon Fighting Society . . .

Before he started his own dojo and dared to train Black folks and women . . .

Before he started the deadly Dojo War in Chicago . . .

Before he opened a hair salon and coiffed the hair of Playboy bunnies . . .

Before he opened a string of occult and porno bookstores. . .

Before he bought a pet lion and took to walking it around the streets of Chicago on a leash . . .

Before he began wearing a cape and carrying a walking stick embossed with gold leaf . . . 

Before he started selling his patented fighting system—capable of killing a man with a single blow—in comic books . . .

Before he was—or wasn’t?—involved with the Chicago Mob . . .

Before he did—or did not—help to organize Chicago’s record-setting Purolator Heist . . .  

Before he got hooked on cocaine and died mysteriously . . .

He was John Keehan, a doctor’s kid from a good family, with a weakness for the girl next door. A certified beautician who owned a hair salon and coiffed the hair of Playboy Bunnies, nobody from high school ever expected he’d end up inside the pages of millions of comic books, selling the infamous secrets to the Dim Mak, The Death Touch, bringing mixed martial arts to the masses.