By Brian Michael Bendis, Jonathan Hickman, Stefano Caselli (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851- 3864-8
Just as the 1960s espionage fad was taking off, inspired by the James Bond films and TV shows like Danger Man, Nick Fury the spy debuted in Fantastic Four #21 (December 1963 – between #4 and 5 of his own blistering battle mag), a grizzled and cunning CIA Colonel lurking at the periphery of big adventures, craftily manipulating the First Family of Marvel superheroes.
He was already the star of the little company’s only war comic: Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, an improbable and decidedly over-the-top, raucous and wild WWII series similar in tone to later movies such as The Magnificent Seven, Wild Bunch or The Dirty Dozen.
When spy stories went global in the wake of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. the elder iteration was given a second series (in Strange Tales #135, August 1965) set in the then-present. Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. combined Cold War tension and sinister schemes of World Conquest by hidden, subversive all-encompassing enemy organisation Hydra – all gift-wrapped with captivating Kirby-designed super-science gadgets and explosive high energy.
Once iconic imagineer Jim Steranko took charge, layering in a sleek, ultra-sophisticated edge of trend-setting drama, the series became one of the best and most visually innovative strips in America – if not the world.
When the writer/artist left and the spy-fad faded, the whole concept simply withdrew into the background architecture of the Marvel Universe, occasionally resurfacing in new series but increasingly uncomfortable to read as the role of spooks “on our side†became ever more debased in a world where covert agencies were continually exposed as manipulative, out-of-control tools of subversion and oppression.
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 now usually the bad guys and author 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.
Fury had discovered that everybody in his organisation had been “turned†and was now an actual threat to freedom and democracy. His core beliefs and principles about leading “the Good Guys†betrayed and destroyed, he went on the run, hunted by the world’s most powerful covert agency with all the resources he’d devised and utilised now turned against him.
After that story was resolved S.H.I.E.L.D. was reinvented for the 1990s: a new leaner organisation, nominally acting under UN mandate, soon pervaded the Marvel Universe. The taste of betrayal and those seeds of doubt and mistrust never went away though…
Following a number of global crises – including a superhero Civil War – Fury was replaced as S.H.I.E.L.D. director. His successor Tony Stark proved to be a huge mistake and after an alien invasion by Skrulls, the organisation was mothballed: replaced by the manically dynamic Norman Osborn and his cultishly loyal H.A.M.M.E.R. outfit.
Osborn’s ascent was an even bigger error. As America’s Director of National Security the former Green Goblin and recovering psychopath instituted a draconian “Dark Reign†of oppressive, aggressive policies which turned the nation into a paranoid tinderbox. AsAmerica’s top Fed he was specifically tasked with curbing the unchecked power and threat of the burgeoning metahuman community.
This spectacularly poor choice was, however, also directing a cabal of the world’s greatest criminals and conquerors intent on divvying up the planet between them. The repercussions of Osborn’s rise and fall were felt throughout and featured in many series and collections throughout the entire fictive universe. His brief rule also drastically shook up the entrenched secret powers of the planet and his ultimate defeat destabilised many previously unassailable empires…
Fury, a man driven by duty, fuelled by suspicion and powered by a serum which kept him vital far beyond his years, didn’t go away. He just went deep undercover and continued doing what he’d always done – saving the world, one battle at a time. Even after Osborn was gone, Fury stayed buried, preferring to fight battles his way and with assets and resources he’d personally acquired and built…
This beguiling and complex superspy thriller collects material from Dark Reign, New Nation and Secret Warriors #1-6 from 2008, beginning with a short recap of the current global crises, a gathering of heroic strangers and a reaffirmation of Captain America’s maxim that a few good men can change the world in ‘I Will Be the One Man’…
Fury had long known that to do the job properly he needed his own resources and no political constraints. Thus he had clandestinely built up his own formidable and unimpeachable resources. Decades in charge at S.H.I.E.L.D. provided him with mountains of data on metahumans from which he compiled “Caterpillar Files†on a host of unknown, unexploited, untainted potential operatives who might metamorphose into powerful assets…
With the nations and covert organisations in disarray he moved to fix the mess with a squad of dedicated super-human operatives. But it was a truly dangerous game, as evidenced by the fact that one of Fury’s most valued but volatile assets is the 12-year old son of Grecian war-god Ares. Phobos is destined to become the new god of Fear…
Yo Yo Rodriguez AKA Slingshot, Sebastian Druid, Jerry “Stonewall†Sledge, J.T. “Hellfire†James and Daisy Johnson, codenamed Quake, were his first picks, dubbed Team White and activated whilst Osborn was still in power.
Simultaneously battling both Hydra and H.A.M.M.E.R. forces whilst rendering a defunct S.H.I.E.L.D. facility useless to both agencies, the squad picked up valuable intelligence in ‘Come with Me and Save the World’, prompting Fury to break into the White House and apprise the new President of his intentions and the current status quo.
At no stage did he ask for permission or approval…
He kept the worst of the intel to himself. For most of his career S.H.I.E.L.D. had been no more than a deeply submerged asset of Hydra and all his victories nothing more acceptable losses for a secret society reaching back to ancientEgyptand which had been secretly steering the world for millennia.
Now Osborn and the Skrull invasion had shaken things up so much, Fury had an honest chance to truly wipe out the perfidious organisation forever…
‘Autofac’ then provides all the maps, data files and diagrams any conspiracy nut could ever need to untangle the web of assorted secret agencies, before ‘My Desire is Eternal’ shifts focus to the recent past when current Hydra supremo Baron Wolfgang von Strucker battled Skrull infiltrators.
In the months that followed, Hydra too was attacked, seemingly destroyed, but now Strucker sought to capitalise on the chaos and regenerate the cult in his own image, necessitating seizing all fallow assets, technology and even experienced operatives abandoned by friends and enemies alike…
As Team White slowly grew closer Strucker was recruiting breakaway factions of Hydra, unhappily marrying super-science and generational cabals with ancient magic. This rabid rapid expansion did however give Fury an opportunity to place one of his own deep within the organisation…
Now as Strucker creates a new hierarchy of deadly lieutenants – Viper, Madame Hydra, Kraken, Silver Samurai, The Hive and resurrected mutant ninja the Gorgon – Fury cautiously expands his own organisation, reaching out to old S.H.I.E.L.D. comrades he feels worthy of trust. It’s too little and too late. In ‘After a While You Simply Are What You Are’ finds Team White taking their first casualty and experiencing their biggest defeat when Daisy leads the squad against Gorgon as his forces attempt to kidnap an entire division of forcibly “retired†S.H.I.E.L.D. telepaths from the defunct and discredited Esper Agent section.
With the situation escalating, Druid and field-leader Daisy are sent to the Australian Outback to recruit a replacement for Team White from Fury’s Caterpillar Files. Meanwhile the old man himself goes to his oldest surviving friends for help and Phobos and J.T. rashly snoop in the secretive leader’s office and find something quite incredible in ‘It’s the World That’s Changed: I Haven’t Not One Bit’.
When S.H.I.E.L.D. was shut down, second-in-command Dum-Dum Dugan gathered up his most trusted fellow agents and veterans and went private, founding the Howling Commandos Private Military Company. Warriors to the last, they’ve been looking for one last good war and a proper way to die.
As they are reacquainting themselves with their old boss, in Australia Daisy and Druid find unexpected success with the extraordinarily powerful but oddly naïve mystical teleporter and reality shaper Eden Fesi but realise that’s only because his mentor Gateway wouldn’t let him go with the guys from Hydra…
As Strucker’s cabal laid their plans and continued to accrue men and materiel, Fury and the Howling Commandos moved to secure some heavy armaments of their own, sneak attacking The Dock – a H.A.M.M.E.R. base where the mothballed fleet of colossal flying fortresses known as Heli-Carriers were stored.
Sadly Hydra knew they were coming and took the opportunity to lay an ambush of their own. With Fury swiftly losing beloved comrades and the three-way battle going against his veteran forces, things looked bad until Team White chose to disobey orders and teleported in for a blockbusting rescue mission in ‘Summon the Horde Wake the Beast’…
As the surviving Commandos escaped with three Heli-Carriers, the Secret Warrior put Daisy through a terse debrief, and she ferociously defended herself, claiming Team White only broke protocol and disobeyed orders because Fury pressed his Panic Button… Something he claims didn’t happen…
To Be Continued…
This excellent exercise in tense suspense and Machiavellian manipulation also includes a stunning ‘Cover gallery’ by Jim Cheung to supplement the wry, engagingly cynical, blackly comical and gloriously excessive cloak-and-dagger conflicts: employing enough intrigue to bamboozle even the most ardent espionage aficionado, although I fear that a thorough grounding in Marvel continuity might be necessary to fully appreciate this intense and engaging effort to the full.
© 2008, 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.