Essential Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos


By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Dick Ayers, George Roussos, Frank Giacoia, Steve Ditko & Chic Stone (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-6395-4

Grizzled super-spy Nick Fury debuted in Fantastic Four #21 (December 1963): a grizzled and cunning CIA Colonel at the periphery of big adventures, craftily manipulating the First Family of Marvel superheroes just as the 1960s espionage vogue was taking off, inspired by the James Bond films and TV shows like Danger Man.

What was odd about that? Well, the gruffly capable everyman was already the star of the little company’s only war comic, set twenty years earlier in (depending on whether you were American or European…) the middle or beginning of World War II.

Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, an improbable, decidedly over-the-top and raucous combat comics series, similar in tone to later movies such as The Magnificent Seven, Wild Bunch or The Dirty Dozen, had launched in May of that year and although Fury’s later self became a big-name star when espionage stories went global in the wake of TV shows like The Man from U.N.C.L.E., the elder iteration was given a second series beginning in Strange Tales #135 (August 1965).

Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. combined Cold War tensions with sinister schemes of World Conquest by subversive all-encompassing hidden, enemy-organisation Hydra: all with captivating Kirby-designed super-science gadgetry and, later, iconic imagineering from Jim Steranko whose visually groundbreaking graphic narratives took the art form to a whole new level.

For all that time, however, the wartime version soldiered on (sorry: puns are my weapon of choice) combining a uniquely flamboyant house-bravado style and often ludicrous, implausible, historically inaccurate, all-action bombast with moments of genuine heartbreak, unbridled passion and seething emotion.

Sgt. Fury seems to be a pure Jack Kirby creation. As with all his various combat comics, The King made everything look harsh and real and appalling: the people and places all grimy, tired, battered but indomitable.

The artist had served in some of the worst battles of the war and never forgot the horrific and heroic things he saw – and more graphically expressed in his efforts during the 1950s genre boom at a number of different companies – but even at kid-friendly, Comics Code-sanitised Marvel, those experiences perpetually leaked through onto his powerfully gripping pages.

This first massive monochrome compendium features the contents of Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #1-23 (from May 1963 to 1965) plus the new material from the largely reprint Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos King Size Annual #1 from 1965, opening as you’d expect with the blistering premier issue introducing ‘Sgt. Fury, and his Howling Commandoes’ (that’s how they speled it in the stoary-title – but knot ennyware else) by Lee, Kirby & inker Dick Ayers. Bursting with full page panels the tale was interrupted by ‘Meet the Howling Commandos’ – a double-page starring the seven members of First Attack Squad; Able Company, namely Fury himself, former circus strongman/Corporal “Dum-Dum” Dugan and Privates Robert “Rebel” Ralston (a jockey), young student Jonathan “Junior” Juniper, jazz trumpeter Gabriel Jones, mechanic Izzy Cohen and glamorous movie star Dino Manelli.

Controversially – even in the 1960s – this combat Rat Pack was an integrated unit with Jewish and Negro members as well as Catholics, Southern Baptists andNew Yorkwhite guys all merrily serving together. The Howling Commandos pushed envelopes and busted taboos from the very start…

The first mission was a non-stop action romp putting the squad through their various paces as the ragged band of indomitable warriors put paid to hordes of square-necked Nazis as they saved D-Day by rescuing a French resistance fighter carrying vital plans of the invasion, and they even brought back a high-ranking “kraut” prisoner. The epic issue even included a Kirby fact-page comparing six different side-arms of the period in ‘Weapons of War’…

Issue #2 found the‘7 Doomed Men!’ up to their torn shirts in Germans as they first  infiltrated a French coastal town to blow up a U-Boat base and got back to England just in time to be sent on a suicide mission. This time it was to destroy a secret facility at Heinemund in the heart of the Fatherland where Nazi scientists were doing something nefarious with “hard water”…

These overblown fustian thrillers always played fast and loose with history and logic, so if you crave veracity above all I’d steer clear, but if you can swallow a heaping helping of creative anachronism there’s always great fun to be had here – especially since nobody drew atomic explosions like The King…

The drama was then topped off with more fact pages as ‘The Enemy That Was!’ explored the capabilities of German Infantryman whilst ‘Weapons of War: “Chatter Guns” of World War II’ tells everything you need to know about submachine guns…

Rough and ready gallows humour and broad comedy became increasingly important to the series from #3 onwards with home base rivalries and wry comradely sparring leavening the outrageous non-stop action of the missions. ‘Midnight on Massacre Mountain!’ found the squad explosively invading Italy to rescue a US army division caught in a Nazi trap. Along the way they met a brilliant OSS officer training partisan troops, and Fury thought that young Reed Richards would go far…

This issue was supplemented by a fascinating feature revealing what ordnance and hardware cost in ‘America’s World War II Shopping List!’

‘Lord Ha-Ha’s Last Laugh!’ in #4 began a long stint of embellishment by George Bell (AKA old Kirby studio-mate George “Inky” Roussos) and introduced a love interest for the Sarge when he met Red Cross volunteer Lady Pamela Hawley during an air raid in London. How strange and tragic was fate then, that the Howlers’ very next mission took them toBerlin to kidnap a young British nobleman with the same name, acting as a crucial propaganda mouthpiece for the Wehrmacht…

The mission was a double disaster. Not only did Pamela’s ignoble brother perish but the debacle also cost the life of the youngest Howler…

‘Weapons of War: Combat Rifles of World War II’ then ended this shocking, surprisingly grim and low-key melodrama…

Fury’s appearance in FF#21 – not included here – was released between that issue and #5, but no mention was made of it when the dark and cunning yarn introduced one of Marvel’s greatest villains. ‘At the Mercy of Baron Strucker’ saw Fury humiliated and defeated in personal combat against an Aryan nobleman and filmed footage used as a propaganda tool of the Nazis, until Dino pointed out how the nonplussed noncom had fallen for the oldest trick in Hollywood’s playbook…

The riotous rematch went rather better after which ‘Weapons of War: Light Machine Guns of World War II’ ended things in a graphically educational manner, whilst ‘The Fangs of the Desert Fox!’ in #6 dumped the Squad in the desert to tackle the hordes of General Rommel in a mission foredoomed to fail…

‘The Court-Martial of Sergeant Fury’ provided a glimpse at the hard-bitten hero’s past and offered insights into his tempestuous relationship with his immediate superior Captain Samuel “Happy Sam” Sawyer. Of course to get that information we had to watch Fury endure a dramatic trial after seemingly sabotaging a mission and striking a commanding officer…

Although he continued to draw the magnificent eye-catching covers, Kirby left the title with this issue. His astounding abilities were more profitably employed in the superhero titles, even as Lee began consolidating the ever expanding Marvel Universe by utilising more WWII iterations of contemporary characters.

‘The Death Ray of Baron Zemo!’ in #8 pitted the Howlers against a Captain America villain recently debuted in The Avengers as Ayers & Roussos ably depicted the team’s attempts to capture the Nazi scientist and a weapon that could shape the outcome of the entire war. The tale also introduced Junior Juniper’s replacement: a rather fruity caricature of a Brit named Percival Pinkerton, who sported horn-rimmed specs, pencil moustache, Fuschia beret and impossibly utilitarian umbrella…

In #9 the impossible ‘Mission: Capture Adolf Hitler!’ went awry when the Howlers’ invasion of Berlin again brought Fury face-to-face with Wolfgang von Strucker; leading to temporary capture and an astounding escape whilst ‘On to Okinawa!’ in #10 saw them achieve greater success when despatched to the Pacific to rescue a captured US colonel from the Japanese.

This tale also saw the debut of a bearded bombastic submarine commander who would become a series regular before eventually winning his own series (Captain Savage and his Leatherneck Raiders) in 1967.

The pace had certainly slowed and melodrama and subplots increased by #11 and ‘The Crackdown of Capt. Flint!’ saw Happy Sam briefly replaced by a spit-and-polish officer who soon learned the limitations of his ways, whilst in #12 a raid on a V1 factory prompted Dino to join the Nazis ‘When a Howler Turns Traitor!’ It was just a trick though, but nobody told the American commander who stuck the star in front of a firing squad…

This issue also included a Marvel Masterwork Pin-up of Fury by Ayers.

Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #13 is arguably the best issue of the entire 167 issue run and the title says why. ‘Fighting Side-by-Side with… Captain America and Bucky!’ reunited Lee, Kirby & Ayers in a blistering battle yarn as the Howlers crossed paths with the masked Sentinels of Liberty after both teams stumble across a top secret Nazi operation to build an invasion tunnel under the channel to England. To resort to the terms of the times: “Wah-Hoo!”…

Ayers & Bell were back in artistic control in #14 as harassed Adolf Hitler ordered the creation of a Nazi answer to Fury’s elite attack force. All ‘The Blitzkrieg Squad of Baron Strucker!’ had to do was lure the Howlers to a V2 rocket base and spring their trap… Yeah, that was all…

Weapons of War: also returned here with all the gen on the ‘B-26 Martin Marauder’ whilst in #15 Steve Ditko stepped in to ink Ayers in ‘Too Small to Fight, Too Young to Die’ wherein a mission in Holland to destroy the dykes and flood the occupation forces went drastically wrong. The Howlers “fled” back to Britain with nothing but a broken-hearted boy named Hans Rooten – who had no idea that his quisling father was in fact the Allies’ top spy in the region…

The boy became the men’s mascot but couldn’t come with them when they flew to Africain #16 to eradicate yet more Nazi super-weapons in ‘A Fortress in the Desert Stands!’ (illustrated by Ayers & Frank Giacoia using the pseudonym Frankie Ray), after which it was only a short camel-ride south until they encountered natives and Nazis engaged in a battle of Hearts and Minds ‘While the Jungle Sleeps!’ (by Ayers & Colletta).

All this time the chalk-and-cheese relationship between Nick and Pam Hawley had been developing to the point where he was ready to propose. That all ended in #18 when, whilst the unit was busy sinking a German battleship in a Norwegian port, she was ‘Killed in Action!’ (Ayers & Chic Stone).

Crushed and crazy, Fury went AWOL in the next issue, ruthlessly hunting down the leader of the bomber flight which had targeted the hospital she worked in before extracting ‘An Eye for an Eye!’ in a satisfyingly shocking story sensitively rendered by Ayers & Giacoia.

A far grimmer Fury was still in the mood for cathartic carnage in #20, so when ‘The Blitz Squad Strikes!’ found the German Kommandos invading a Scottish castle filled with imprisoned Nazi airmen, he and Howlers were happy to lead the mission to retake it.

In the next issue a long running rivalry with First Attack Squad; Baker Company again resulted in fisticuffs before being interrupted by another rescue mission ‘To Free a Hostage!’ (inked by Golden Age legend Carl Hubbell, as was the next issue).

However, even after scientist and daughter were reunited, the beef with B Company didn’t diminish and when both units were dispatched to sabotage the oil refinery at Ploesti the defending forces captured everybody. When the gloating Nazis tried to get Fury and his opposite number to kill each they quickly learned ‘Don’t Turn Your Back on Bull McGiveney!’ and even Strucker’s Blitz Squad couldn’t stem the devastating destruction that followed…

The final WWII exploit herein is the Giacoia-inked saga of ‘The Man Who Failed!’ as a trip to Burma to rescue nuns and orphans resulted in the shameful revelation of True Brit Percy Pinkerton’s past, also offering a close insight into why our upper lips are so stiff…

This combat compendium concludes with the 15 page lead story from Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos King Size Annual #1 (1965) as the Howlers were called up and mustered to the 38th Parallel to defend democracy from Communist aggression. This particular escapade found them rescuing Colonel Sam Sawyer and resulted in Fury winning a ‘Commission in Korea!’ and at last becoming a Lieutenant in a stirring story by Lee, Ayers & Giacoia before pictorial features ‘A Re-introduction to the Howlers’, ‘A Birds Eye View of HQ, Able Company – Fury’s Base in Britain’, ‘Combat Arm and Hand Signals’ and a 2-page ad feature for the hero’s super-spy iteration as ‘Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ wraps everything up in Marvel’s military fashion.

Whereas close rival DC increasingly abandoned the Death or Glory bombast at this time in favour of humanistic, almost anti-war explorations of war and soldiering, Marvel’s take always favoured action-entertainment and fantasy over soul-searching for ultimate truths. On that level at least, these early epics are stunningly effective and galvanically powerful exhibitions of the genre. Just don’t use them for history homework.
© 1963, 1964, 1965, 2011 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.