Sgt. Fury #1

SGT. FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS #1 (1963)
by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

According to legend, the series was born because of a bet with Marvel publisher Martin Goodman on whether Lee&Kirby could sell even a series with the worst title Stan Lee could come up with.
It’s probably an apocryphal story, but a fun one. While the series is mostly separated from the rest of the Marvel Universe, of course Nick Fury would become an extremely important story.
And while the later issues will be more grounded… its beginning is absolutely BONKERS.

The “Howling Commandos” are an elite World War II military unit. This is the very first appearance of Nick Fury, whose main gimmick in the series is being physically incapable of keeping his shirt on for more than two panels in a row.

The only other Commando with a big impact on the modern Marvel Universe is his second-in-command Dugan, but we’ll get to him later.
Rob “Rebel” Ralston is utterly forgettable, but he’ll show up in the modern era and become a Senator.

From a historical perspective, Jonathan “Junior” Juniper is quite important: he will be killed off permanently in issue #4, becoming THE first Marvel regular character to be permanently killed off.

There’s also Gabe Jones, the first black main character in a Marvel series (predating Black Panther by 3 years and Falcon by 6 years)…

…aaaand he was mistakenly colored white in the very first issue. Whoops.
It’s fixed in the modern reprints, though.

There’s mechanic Izzy Cohen; he’s a bit unusual since he’s openly Jewish, something rarely spelled out in Silver Age comics, plus unlike most of his teammates he basically disappears after the series is over and he’s not recycled as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in the modern era.

And finally there’s Dino Manelli who is just Dean Martin. They’ll get REALLY blatant with the comparison as the series goes by.

But let’s move to the story itself. Someone needs to go on a secret mission in Nazi-occupied France, and since the mission is too suicidal for anyone else it’s up to the Howling Commandos.

Now… I’ve skipped Dum Dum Dugan when discussing the main Commandos. If you’re aware of the modern version of the character, you know he’s often the more down-to-earth counterpart to Nick Fury and the one to talk some sense into him.
During WWII, however, Dugan was A FREAKING PSYCHOPATH.

The team survives Dugan’s training (which I remind you involves being shot with live ammunition) and travels to France, where the mission is to prevent the Nazis to learn about D-Day.
Don’t try to make sense of just WHEN issues take place… the continuity between the series and the real WWII timeline is all over the place.

At least they fixed Gabe Jones to show him with the correct skin color! Even the original print gets it right this time.

There’s action movie madness, there’s over-the-top action movie madness, and there’s the unabashedly crazy Howling Commandos taking down Nazi bombers BY HAND.

Seriously, the Commandos are just NUTS.

It helps that the Nazis graduated from the Stormtropper Shooting School Of Never Hitting Anything.

The only reason why the Commandos survive is that they are aided by the French resistance…

…and that the Nazis are complete morons, following ANYONE who shouts orders. Including the people they’re supposed to kill!!!

Okay, you might think that worked only because it was in the heat of battle… but nope! The Commandos later stop the Nazis from executing members of the resistance with THE SAME EXACT TRICK.

The commandos are now free to infiltrate the Nazi base where they’re holding the prisoner, but they need a diversion. They haven’t caused an explosion for a couple of pages, so…

Not that I’m siding with the Nazis or anything, but seriously, can those guys hit ANYTHING!?

Did I mention the Commandos are freaking NUTS!?

The Commandos are captured to be executed, and it even turns out the girl from the French resistance is actually the daughter of the prisoner they’re supposed to rescue.

However it turns out that Nick Fury is still alive. Because the safest place to be next to an explosion of ammunition is beneath rocks.

Sounds legit.

And so the guy is freed, the Nazis don’t learn about D-Day, and the Commandos go back to their base in the UK. You might have expected the girl to join the regular cast, but she’s never seen again.

Oddly enough, the story ends with a flash-forward showing the Commandos joing D-Day.
Junior Juniper is shown to be a part of the team, so I guess Stan hadn’t already planned to kill him off in issue #4.

The second annual of the series will actually be dedicated to show the Commandos during D-Day.

The series lasted a surprising 167 issues, all the way to 1981!!!
Although only the first 80 issues had exclusively new material: they began alternating new stories and reprints until #120, and after that they only did reprints.
Kirby would only draw the first 7 issues, replaced by Dick Ayers: this is probably his signature series, with a total of 95 issues plus annuals.
Stan Lee would drop after 28 issues and an annual, followed by Roy Thomas for about 10 issues, and then the series would become the realm of Gary Friedrick.

Once you get past the absolutely nuts Lee & Kirby stories, it’s actually a rather decent series! While I often bash Roy Thomas, he was good in this series, and Friedrick was able to tackle surprisingly serious topics in a serious manner.
The series would be nicknamed “the war magazine for people who hate war magazines”, and for the most time it delivered.

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Historical significance: 10/10
Nick Fury is a WILDLY different character than his S.H.I.E.L.D. incarnation, but he’s an extremely important character. And his roots to WWII are so strong that they’ll eventually come up with the Infinity Formula to explain why he’s not an old man in the modern era. Oddly enough Marvel was very reticent to use the same explanation for the other Commandos, most of which later show up as S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, possibly because they didn’t want to have too many immortal characters around.
Out of the Commandos, as of 2022 Dum Dum Dugan is the only one still showing off occasionally, but in HIS case there’s been a retcon: the one from the modern era is actually an android copy of the original. I don’t mind the retcon, but I still prefer my headcanon about the hat being a sentient being that turns whoever wears it into Dum Dum Dugan.

 Silver Age-ness: 7/10

Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
Don’t get me wrong: this is a blast to read… but you kind of have to turn off your brain to enjoy it. This is a very, VERY 1960s way to approach  World War II and Nazis.