Featuring: Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos
Release: January 12, 1965
Cover: March 1965
12 cents
Written with machine gun power by Ex-Sgt. Stan Lee
Drawn with howitzer impact by Ex-Corp. Dick Ayers
Inked with rifle-fire sharpness by Ex-Corp. Frank Ray
Lettered with bloodshot eyes by Artie Simek Civilian 1st Class
20 pages
| Previous | #321 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Amazing Spider-Man #23 | Reading order | Sgt. Fury #17 |
| Sgt. Fury #15 | Sgt. Fury | Sgt. Fury #17 |
The cover is striking because of the dominant yellow. We haven’t yet seen a cover with such a coloring scheme, but they’ll become more common, and they’ll always catch my eye. This particular color evokes the intense heat of the desert.
Hans Rooten takes his new place as squad mascot. He’s even got a uniform to indicate his “mascot” status. He’s written far more sensibly than, say, Rick Jones is in Avengers. He is allowed to train with the Commandos, but not on dangerous maneuvers, and he doesn’t go on missions, whereas the Avengers take Rick to fight most any super-villain.
The only not-particularly sensible thing is why they continue to let Hans believe his father is a traitor. Now that he’s safely in England, there’s surely no harm in telling the kid his father is a heroic Allied double agent. But these were his father’s wishes, so the child will go on thinking himself to be basically an orphan, with the Howlers the only family he has left.
Hans has already figured out the character of Sgt. Fury: “He is yelling at me! That means he likes me!”
Hans wants to be a Howler when he grows up. Nick hopes that when he grows up, there won’t be any need for Howlers.
Hans is not brought on their dangerous mission to North Africa to deal with a Nazi weapon a spy had alerted them to.
After parachuting into Africa, the Howlers hide their chutes under sand, a nice detail by Ayers.
Dugan gets captured and the Howlers are stranded in the desert running low on water, when they encounter a Bedouin tribe. Knowing how these comics tend to depict Vietnamese or Chinese people, I braced myself for their depiction of Bedouins, but found no obvious faults. Not that I have any expertise, but Stan and Dick seemed to give us a basically respectful depiction of the Bedouins.
Dino does get in trouble for flirting with the daughters, but the tribe helps nurse Ralston back to health, and comes to agree with Fury that the Nazis are their common enemy.
With their support, the Howlers are able to regroup and given the supplies they need to storm the Nazi fortress and rescue Dugan just before he faces the firing squad.
We’ll see next issue that the Howlers’ Africa adventure does not end here.
Rating: ★★★☆☆, 57/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆
Except where noted, scans are taken from Special Marvel Edition #14, 1973.
You can find the story in Sgt. Fury Epic Collection vol. 1: The Howling Commandos. Or on Kindle.
This seems like a good moment to pause and talk about Special Marvel Edition, which is the format I first read many of these stories in, and this is the final issue of Special Marvel Edition to include Sgt. Fury reprints.
Odd series. It started in 1971 as a Thor reprint series. Special Marvel Edition #1-4 reprint Journey Into Mystery/Thor #117-127 between them, and each issue includes a “Tales of Asgard” backup story.
The backup stories are from issues 114, 111, 112, and 115 in order. Why those issues and that order? I have no idea. The order I have to assume comes out of a lack of planning. The issues were perhaps chosen because they tend to have a Loki focus. I have no guess as to why they skipped 113.
Starting with issue 5, this Thor reprint title turned into a reprint title for Sgt. Fury. Quite the jarring change, I’d imagine. Special Marvel Edition #5 reprints Sgt. Fury #3, the story where he met a young Mr. Fantastic. Then issues 6-14 reprint Sgt. Fury #8-16 in order. Issue 8 is notable for beginning the Ayers era. I do have an explanation for the logic underlying these issue stories. Issues 4-7 had been reprinted in the prior years in the pages of Sgt. Fury Annual comics, so that could justify the jump from 3 to 8. The Sgt. Fury title itself was still ongoing, but they occasionally filled a month with a reprint instead of new material, so the recently published Sgt. Fury #95 was actually a reprint of Sgt. Fury #2, which may explain its omission. The first issue had been reprinted in Marvel Tales Annual #1, though that was now 7 years ago. But with this series, the entirety of the first 16 issues had now seen at least one reprint somewhere between 1964 and 1973.
Marvel will pick up where they left off in War is Hell, which will reprint Sgt. Fury #17-18.
If you thought the jump from a Thor reprint series to a Sgt. Fury reprint series was a bit of a tonal shift for the series, wait until the series becomes new stories featuring a kung fu character. Marvel was trying to jump on the kung fu bandwagon popular in the films (a little late as usual), so Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin created Shang-Chi, the Master of Kung Fu, who became the star of the title starting with Special Marvel Edition #15.
Starting with issue 17, the series was renamed to Master of Kung Fu, where it finally found some stability, chronicling the adventures of Shang-Chi over the next decade.
Shang-Chi makes his move debut in a couple months. We’re excited to check it out.
Characters:
- Sgt. Nick Fury
- Hans Rooten
- Dum-Dum Dugan
- Percy Pinkerton
- Gabe Jones
- Rebel Ralson
- Izzy Cohen
- Dino Manelli
- General Palmer
- Happy Sam Sawyer
Story notes:
- Hans Rooten now a mascot, not allowed to join on dangerous maneuvers, but does join in calisthenics.
- Allied secret agent pursued by Nazi Afrika Corps, trying to reach hidden radio transmitter.
- North Africa, Sector N-38.
- Agent gets out message that Nazis developing new weapon in Africa, cuts off before details could be sent
- Agent managed to leave one more message, a French flag scratched in the sand. Fury deduces they should head for the deserted French Foreign Legion post.
- Reference to Kilroy.
- German says “von” instead of “one”.
- Bedouins tie Dino to a weight for daring to attract their young women.
- Dum-Dum and secret agent to be executed.
- Bedouins agree to help Fury against the Nazis.
- Silos for super V-2 rockets to launch into stratosphere.
- Reference to Field Marshal Montgomery.
| Previous | #321 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Amazing Spider-Man #23 | Reading order | Sgt. Fury #17 |
| Sgt. Fury #15 | Sgt. Fury | Sgt. Fury #17 |
