Recently in Nick Fury Category

By the time I started reading Marvel Comics, around 1970, I had missed Steranko's great runs on Captain America and SHIELD.  I first encountered Nick Fury in the pages of the Avengers and Captain America.  I thought he was ultra-cool, to say the least, the first time I saw the Helicarrier in Cap's book.  During the Kree-Skrull war, Cap and the Avengers met with Fury in a space-orbital carrier.  Fury had all the toys a boy could want, a radical girlfriend in Val (with her crazy Bride of Frankenstein hair), and his best friend was called Dum Dum Dugan.

I was primed for a SHIELD solo title.  Nick Fury and his Agents of SHIELD in 1972 was my first.

Steranko's cover was amazing to me.  Fury and the other agents were in underwater gear, attacking a base full of crazed AIM agents in glass-enclosed secret base.  I had seen Diamonds Are Forever the year before and just gotten in James Bond.  This cover brought that Bondian style into comics, shaken and stirred with a Marvel twist.

The stories inside were Jack Kirby and Don Heck reprints.  Sure, it was a bit disappointing that the cover artist didn't draw the stories inside.  But I was thrilled to learn the early history of Nick Fury.  Whenever I read a Marvel reprint book, I felt like an archeologist opening up an undiscovered Egyptian tomb.

The cover to Nick Fury and his Agents of SHIELD #2 was a bit more in the classic Steranko mode.  In addition to Fury, I was able to learn about SHIELD's supporting cast: Gabe Jones, Clay Quartermain, and my favorite, the bookish Jasper Sitwell.  Sitwell's rallying cry, Don't Yield, Back SHIELD!  still rings in my memory.  I can't figure out why Sitwell has dropped of the face of Earth 616.

This reprint title only lasted five issues, not long enough to cover Steranko's Strange Tales run.  Years later I would discover Steranko's 1960s work and be blown away once again.  Nuff said.

Step into the shoes of Nick Fury, leader of S.H.I.E.L.D.

You’ve got thousands of agents, Helicarriers that constantly seem to fall from the sky, Life Model Decoys, and lots of super-gadgets to pay for.  Who pays for that?  Tax-paying True Believers!  And once in a while, Nick Fury has gotta do something great to show our government how these well these billions are actually spent.

In 1971 (Captain America #144), Fury gave President Richard Nixon, Vice President Spiro Agnew, and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird this little show.

Presenting the newest S.H.I.E.L.D. squad, Femme Force One!  Led by Sharon Carter, Captain America’s girlfriend.  It’s her big chance to prove that women are as valuable to S.H.I.E.L.D. as men, in their skintight super-suits.  Diamondback was never this ambitious.

It sure doesn’t hurt that John Romita drew Femme Force One.  Right on, Sisters!  These girls look like supermodels! It only lasted for two panels, but it made me forget about the Femizons for a while.  Keep in mind, the Wonderbra had not been invented at this point in time.  Right on Sisters!

Nixon’s grinning from ear to ear, but he makes one thing perfectly clear to Fury, by explaining how the government really works.  I really didn’t like Nixon after reading this—he’s treating Fury like a high school dropout!  Basically by the time this proposal makes it through all stages of government, Nixon’s out of office and it’s dropped like a hot potato.

Defense Secretary Melvin Laird also insults Nick Fury in this panel.  You can see why these guys lost the war in Vietnam, they are totally ignoring the dude who saved our bacon time after time.  Spiro Agnew, however, appears to be so sexually excited that he is speechless!  What a horndog he appears to be, grinning from ear to ear.  Hopefully these images were a comfort to Agnew after he resigned in disgrace.

I wonder if Quentin Tarentino read this issue of Captain America?  Uma Thurman makes a reference to a fictitious TV show called “Fem Force Five”. 

I’ll bet anything that John Romita voted for George McGovern.  Nuff said.