Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D.

By Bob Harras, Paul Neary, Kim DeMulder & Bernie Jaye (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-87135-554-X

Nick Fury the spy debuted at the height of the 1960s espionage fad, following on the heels of James Bond, Danger Man, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and so very many others. He was also already the star of Marvel’s only war comic Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, an improbable and decidedly over-the-top WWII series similar to The Dirty Dozen. For a few brief years with Jim Steranko in charge the S.H.I.E.L.D. series was one of the best strips in America if not the world, but when the writer/artist left and the spy-fad ended the whole concept faded into the background architecture of the Marvel Universe.

In 1989 a six issue prestige format miniseries reinvigorated the concept. As a company targeting the youth-oriented markets Marvel had experienced problems with their in-house clandestine organisation. In most of their other titles US agents and “the Feds” were more often than not the bad guys, and here Bob Harras used this theme as well as the oddly quirky self-referential fact that nobody aged in comic continuity to play games with the readers.

When Fury discovers that everybody in the organisation has been “turned” and is now a threat to freedom and democracy he goes on the run, hunted with all the resources of the world’s most powerful covert agency. Can he turn the tables on the edifice he created with every friend against him and reclaim S.H.I.E.L.D. for the forces of Good? Can he even survive until morning?

Crafted to blend Invasion of the Body-Snatchers with The Spy Who Came in From the Cold this is a frantic all-out thriller that pays little attention to common-sense or the meticulous and stifling minutiae of continuity but concentrates on momentum to tell an entertaining tale. Daft, fast-paced and as paranoid as a bag of monkeys on goof-balls – as any decent spy-thriller should be – there’s lot’s of fun to be had here for readers not too tied in to pedantry or history.

© 1989 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.