Nick Fury from the Beginning (reviews by shaxper)

[shaxper]

Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #19

"An Eye for an Eye"
writer: Stan Lee
pencils: Dick Ayers
inks: Frank Ray
letters: S. Rosen

grade: B+

If the end of the previous issue and the cover and solicitation for this one left you expecting a revenge-obsessed Nick Fury on the edge, you're bound to be a little disappointed. Instead of watching the impulsive act of a desperate man, we merely watch Fury pushing the men too hard through training once again (as he did when Junior died), disobey orders to go on a secret mission of vengeance, and then get a final one-on-one battle with the German officer responsible for the bombing raid that killed Pam with far less blood-thirst and vengeance than you might expect. Nick drops his gun to duke it out with the guy, allowing the officer to pull a gun and prove he has no scruples thus further justifying any noble action Nick takes against him, and even in spite of this, his final demise is caused by gravity and poor planning -- not Nick. So I'd hardly call this "the roaring revenge of Nick Fury". Maybe it was a fear for the comics code, but I feel Nick could have taken a bigger grief-induced dive over the deep end of vengeance in this one, finally pulling back and finding the strength to be a hero at the last moment.

That said, I did like the level of concern and support the Howlers attempt to provide to Fury in this issue, as well as that final panel when Nick visits Pam's grave.

While the vengeance and grief aspects of this issue didn't live up to their potential, I did enjoy watching Nick and the Howlers have to surreptitiously work within their own organization the way they normally infiltrate German ranks. Walking into that intelligence room and having Dino work information out of a young woman there felt far more exciting than Nick's absurd climactic battle aboard a WWI bi plane.

Also worth mentioning (or is it?) That Stan arbitrarily inserts the return of Hans and his Nazi sympathizing father who is secretly Agent X in this story (from Sgt. Fury #15). It absolutely felt forced, and I never liked these characters to begin with.

Art-wise, Ayers still feels like he's actually trying in this issue, providing some truly rich, dramatic shots in the issue, though Frank Ray's inks lack the flair and embellishment that Chic Stone's did last issue, and the anonymous colorist who made such ambitious decisions in drenching certain characters in hues of red last issue begins to do it far more indiscriminately this time around, arbitrarily drenching some characters in total red for no seeming reason. Apropo of this, the letters column appears to explain why the colorist goes uncredited in these issues, implying that he/she is outsourced and not part of the Marvel staff. Here's what was said:

"Stevey, we only write and draw the stories! Then, the pages go to the engraver--then the printer! Somewhere along the way, some saboteur seems to get his hands on every ish and make a million bone-headed mistakes such as the ones you mentioned. We hate to pass the buck, but honestly, we get just as burned up about all the coloring errors as you do. But we have so many mags going thru the presses so quickly, that we're never able to fix them up in time!"

I suppose this could be referencing the coloring process only and not the work of the colorist him/herself. Any insight on this, folks?


Minor details: I believe this is the first time The Pig 'n Whistle is named. I'll have to double check.


Plot synopsis in one long sentence: Nick is pushing his crew too hard after the death of Pam Hawley, Captain Sawyers gives them a furlough to recuperate (especially Nick), Nick decides to use the time to plan a secret mission to get revenge against the man who ordered the attack that killed Pam, the Howlers want in, and they do it.

Pretty solid issue, but not as great as it should have been.

[foxley]

Finally, I want to share Stan's own comments about this issue from the letters page. I think they're important ones:

"We hope this month's issue will serve to point out a very meaningful fact to all who read it -- namely, war is hell! If you think there's glamour to it, forget it! People get hurt, people suffer, people die! And, as in the case of Nick Fury, people often lose loved ones! Once or twice in the past, readers have commented that we sometimes make war seem almost humorous because the Howlers kid around so much. However, any ex-serviceman knows that all fighting men clown around and swap wisecracks during moments of great stress -- not because there's anything to joke about, but merely to bolster their courage -- to take their minds off the threat of danger and sudden death which they lives with night and day! Sometimes a bantering remark can keep a combatman from cracking up under fire! So never be misled by any humor you may find in these yarns -- for, such is the nature of man that he will sometimes face death with a wisecrack, even while the icy fingers of fear are clutching at his heart!"

Nicely said, Stan.

So basically the same message Sgt. Rock had been preaching for years?

[shaxper]

Sgt. Fury And His Howling Commandos #20

"The Blitz Squad STRIKES!"
writer: Stan Lee
pencils: Dick Ayers
inks: Frank Ray
letters: Artie Simek

Grade: B-

Last time around (Sgt. Fury #14), Stan felt the Blitzkrieg Squad was an important enough nemesis to give it half a book to introduce, and yet, when the conflict finally got going, none of the team's members ended up doing anything significant. This time around, Stan bothers to bring them back out of some misguided notion that even a war comic requires a super villain team, and he manages to do pretty much the same thing with them again. Despite a cover warning that the squad is, "Back Again! More DEADLY Than ever!" apparently all "more DEADLY than ever!" means is that one of them actually manages to do something in the story. Sure enough, while they all receive names this time around, only Siegfried actually gets any real battle time, going head to head with Dum Dum and immediately showing cowardice. We don't even see the rest get defeated. Fury defeats Strucker and, the next thing we know, they're all being marched off in handcuffs.

Worse yet, they don't even seem particularly matched with the Howlers, which had been the entire point the first time around. Siegfried and Dum Dum both wear ridiculous hats. That appears to be the full extent of their similarities.

So what exactly is Stan expecting us to find appealing or worthwhile about these characters?

At the same time, I wonder if the Blitzkrieg Squad is responsible for Strucker's enduring legacy in the Marvel Universe today. Truly, beyond the fact that he commands this team, there would have been no reason to have brought him back, issue after issue, at this point. He might have been as easily forgotten as some of the other Nazi antagonists the Howlers have faced off against had it not been for the Blitzkrieg Squad. Similarly, I wonder if the X-Men's Magneto ever would have amounted to anything had he not been the head of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, which feels like a direct parallel to the Blitzkrieg Squad. Then again, Magneto was in the first issue; Strucker was not.

Also worth noting in this issue is Stan and Dick's unique pacing of the violence. In a comics code approved book, there's only so much violence a war comic can depict, and it feels paced carefully in this issue so as to remain intense even without bullet-riddled bodies and blatant depictions of death. In the first battle scene, there are absolutely no weapons fired. The Howlers leap on a band of Nazis before they can fire their guns and simply clown around with them as if this were all a game. A Nazi is even pushed out of a window while the dialogue reassures us that there is a moat below. Then, eventually, Fury lobs agrenade into a window that has a soldier's head peaking out, suggesting (though not overtly stating) death. Suddenly, in the next frame, we have lots of guns firing, lots of grenades being thrown on the page after, and finally guns being fired in tight places. It's also worth noting that a second Nazi gets thrown out the window around this point, and we are not similarly assured that a moat will be cushioning his fall. All together, it comes off like a carefully building symphony of violence, still ending in tame comic-code friendly violence, but feeling more intense because of the gradual build-up.

Meanwhile, artwise, Dick Ayer is still bringing a little more to the game than he had been prior to #18. I particularly enjoyed his depiction of Reb lobbing a grenade on page 14. It's not Kirby-level, but it's good.

Finally, it's worth mentioning that we see several indications that the title is faring extremely well in this issue. We see the first solicitations for a Nick Fury T-shirt, learn than an annual is being developed, and finally get our first glimpse of Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. which is seeing print this very month. Big news indeed!

Minor Details:

-Bull McGiveney is still being forced upon us as a pathetic rival to Nick Fury. He feels just as forcefully imposed upon us as this entirely unnecessary Blitzkrieg Squad does.

- How do Dum Dum and Siegried fall head first down a flight of stone steps and not even show a bruise for it?


Plot synopsis in one long sentence: The Blitzkrieg Squad sneaks into England and takes over a castle, holding the military operatives there as prisoners, Nick and Bull McGiveney fight over who will get to stop them, Captain Sawyer chooses The Howlers (no surprise),
they invade the castle, Dum Dum and Siegfried face off for a while, Nick and Strucker face off, Nick wins, and the Blitzkrieg Squad is captured.


Well paced, but otherwise an unimpressive issue. If these are supposed to be the arch rivals that we love to hate, then Stan needs to spend a little more time developing them. Then again, we don't read war comics to find arch rivals and super villains. Either way, reintroducing the Blitzkrieg Squad proved to be a poor choice here.

[Cei-U!]

Baron Strucker is important to the Marvel Universe because Steranko made him the mastermind behind HYDRA. It has very little to do with his Sgt. Fury appearances.

Cei-U!
I summon the harsh truth!

[shaxper]

Baron Strucker is important to the Marvel Universe because Steranko made him the mastermind behind HYDRA. It has very little to do with his Sgt. Fury appearances.

Well, clearly, nothing about these early Strucker appearances is remarkable. What I meant was that he stuck around long enough for someone like Steranko to do something with him BECAUSE of the Blitzkrieg Squad.

[Cei-U!]

Well, clearly, nothing about these early Strucker appearances is remarkable. What I meant was that he stuck around long enough for someone like Steranko to do something with him BECAUSE of the Blitzkrieg Squad.

There's a two-part Fury story ahead of you in which Stan attempts to make Strucker a more rounded character. (It's also the last appearance of ol' Wolfy before Steranko brings him into the present.) I don't want to give away any more than that except to say I'm looking forward to your perspective on it.

Cei-U!
I summon the last hurrah!

[shaxper]

There's a two-part Fury story ahead of you in which Stan attempts to make Strucker a more rounded character. (It's also the last appearance of ol' Wolfy before Steranko brings him into the present.) I don't want to give away any more than that except to say I'm looking forward to your perspective on it.

Cei-U!
I summon the last hurrah!

Consider me intrigued...

[Gordon Smith]

Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos #7

"The Court-Martial of Sgt. Fury"
writer: Stan Lee
pencils: Jack Kirby
inks: Geo Bell
letters: Art Simek
colors: ?

grade: B

Honestly, I expected more from this one. A court martial is grounds for intense excitement, but the only real drama in this trial was the fact that Nick conveniently got amnesia and couldn't remember his otherwise clearly justified reasons for his actions. I was expecting a murkier trial, one in which there was no obvious "out" for Nick waiting at the end (clearly, he was going to recover his memory at the last moment). And I can't help but feel the cover lied to me, promising, "If he's found guilty, it's the FIRING SQUAD for Nick Fury!" Would they really have executed Nick for striking and disobeying a commanding officer?

I hope you don't mind a late reply to this question. Historically, no member of the United States Army was executed for striking an officer or disobeying a superior officer in the execution of his duty during the Second World War, but there was no legal impediment to this happening since these crimes were (and still are) military offense theoretically punishable by death. According to an official report which can be found on Fold3, 24 enlisted men received a death sentence for an alleged violation of Article 64 (striking or disobeying a superior officer). All death sentences in these cases were vacated or commuted. Nicky would have got off with a few months in the stockade unless he was really unlucky.

- Can a German prisoner's word really be enough to save someone in a Court Martial? Fury's lawyer seems convinced that the case is won and it's all formality now, but I would expect some serious fact-checking before a military court would just take the guy's word and close the entire case on that alone?

There was no legal impediment to a general court-martial using the testimony of a prisoner of war. Prisoners of war were witnesses in a number of cases, although these cases usually involved other prisoners of war. In one case of some notoriety ten years after the fact, Italian nationals, technically enemy belligerents at the time, were the primary witnesses in the murder-rape case involving Louis Till, the father of lynching victim Emmett Till. The odds of a general court-martial basing an acquittal on the word of an enemy officer were slight, but it was legally possible.

[berk]

With all the Marvel/DC crossovers through the years, I wonder if there was ever any talk of a Fury + Sgt. Rock team-up?

[Schnitzy Pretzelpants]

The same things bugged me. The Hitler thing was a business decision, so it was easy to give it a pass.

I have mixed feelings on the whole revisionist nature of things like Sgt. Fury, and Captain America (film) including characters like Gabe Jones.

I guess the stickler for historical detail and the part of me that will cringe when some idiot kid, will now think that ‘this is the way it was’ thinks these revisions are a bad idea.

The bleeding-heart-progressive-Liberal in me though, can detach myself from the above, and look at the film and comics as being more pop-culture than historical, and therefore kind of wonders whether in the long run having the ‘lie’ isn’t better than the truth in this case, because – Captain America (film) offers up positive depictions of characters – a woman, an African American, and an Asian – who are incredibly skilled professionals at what they do, and integral parts of Cap’s unit. If you’re going to depict a guy having his skills augmented by some whiz-bang formula, and the implicit idea that there is a portal to other dimensions in a cube, then why not actually do those other things as well, accept that these are pop-culture and decidedly NOT historical films or comics, and therefore they can provide diverse heroes for a more diverse audience attending or reading them, and even perhaps get in ‘lesson’ under the wire, perhaps encouraging a little more progressive thinking in the younger and more impressionable audience members.

If this were Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers I would definitely let the first part of me reasoning prevail, but as it is Sgt Fury and Captain America, I am not entirely sure it shouldn’t be somewhat applauded. After-all, in both film and comic, aren’t the Howling Commandoes really supposed to be ‘the best of the best’?

[dan bailey]

With all the Marvel/DC crossovers through the years, I wonder if there was ever any talk of a Fury + Sgt. Rock team-up?

If so, it probably wasn't every enthusiastic. The last *choke* non-reprint issue of Sgt. Fury came out in early '74, & for that matter no SHIELD series lasted more than 15 non-reprint issues till the 3rd incarnation of Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD came along in '89, by which time the Sgt. Rock series had bitten the dust. (There were a couple of dozen ishes of Sgt. Rock Special in the early '90s, but I know nothing about them; were they all reprints?)

[Cei-U!]

Fury and Rock occupy such different worlds tonally that I have a hard time imagining them co-starring without one or the other being seriously mischaracterized. Might as well as team up Sad Sack and Bill Mauldin's Willie and Joe.

Cei-U!
Hmmm...!

[prince hal]

I have mixed feelings on the whole revisionist nature of things like Sgt. Fury, and Captain America (film) including characters like Gabe Jones.

I know what you mean. The problem is that presenting the truth, in other words, all we have learned and added to the history books (with the frequent exception of those issued in such bastions of backwardism as Texas) forces us to confront a much uglier reality than we have mythologized into statues, movies, museums, and popular memory. it used to be that you could watch a WW@ movie form the pre-awareness era and cheer, exult, get weepy and feel patriotic without the nagging knowledge that virtually all of it is sentimentalized bushwa. We're still paying the price, if I can use that analogy, for centuries of whitewashing (there's a haunting word choice).

AA digression: It's a truism by now that slavery is our nation's original sin, whose taint will be with us forever. I don't know how far we can carry that analogy, as analogies aren't usually sturdy, but the redeemer was Lincoln and/or all those hundreds of thousands of soldiers in blue. Which is why I just will never get the Dixie flag. I hope I don't rouse the ire of the fellow poster and proud son of the South whose thinking I so respect, but man, I will never figure that out.

Oh, for the days when we could watch the stories of WW2 without thinking about separate blood supplies for black soldiers, and concentration camps for American citizens, and the simplistic vision of America that lulled us to sleep every night.

Sorry to be inchoate. Hope this makes some sense.

[shaxper]

but the redeemer was Lincoln and/or all those hundreds of thousands of soldiers in blue. Which is why I just will never get the Dixie flag. I hope I don't rouse the ire of the fellow poster and proud son of the South whose thinking I so respect, but man, I will never figure that out.

I'm a Northerner myself, but the idea that the Civil War was fought over slavery is revisionist propaganda. It was an issue that was certainly at stake, but it's not what made Lincoln go to war nor what rallied the soldiers in the field. So the idea that the Confederate Flag is an advocacy of slavery is inaccurate. When the Dukes brothers put it on their car, and when public schools in the South put it at full mast each day, it's to commemorate the freedom their ancestors sought from what they perceived to be a tyrannical central government. Sure, their ancestors were also committed to slavery and had an economy that even depended upon it, but that wasn't an ideal they rallied behind.

Oddly enough, the political party that best encompasses the Confederate ideal today is probably the Tea Party.

And I must say that I find it disturbing that so many Northerners who are bothered by the Confederate Flag can rock out to Lynard Skynard's "Sweet Home Alabama" without ever batting an eye. That's some legitimately racist sh*t they're singing about that infuriates me to no end. Look up the governor they're referencing, as well as the Neil Young song.

Oh, for the days when we could watch the stories of WW2 without thinking about separate blood supplies for black soldiers, and concentration camps for American citizens, and the simplistic vision of America that lulled us to sleep every night.

Well said.

[Rob Allen]

Fury and Rock occupy such different worlds tonally that I have a hard time imagining them co-starring without one or the other being seriously mischaracterized. Might as well as team up Sad Sack and Bill Mauldin's Willie and Joe.

I'm surprised that Amalgam didn't have a series called Sgt. Furock and his Combat-Happy Commandos.