Featuring: Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD
Release: May 4, 1965
Cover: August 1965
12 cents
Writer: Stan Lee
Artist: Jack Kirby
Inked by: Dick Ayers
Lettered by: Artie Simek
12 pages
| Previous | #369 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Amazing Spider-Man #27 | Reading order | Sgt. Fury #20 |
| Strange Tales #134, Story B | Strange Tales | Strange Tales #135, Story B |
Your entire life qualifies you for this job!
It’s 1965. Thunderball will be hitting the cinemas in Decembr, the 4th consecutive year Sean Connery will go into action as 007.
In the second film, From Russia with Love, we were introduced to a global criminal organization that it takes a dedicated government to fight– SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion).
The head of SPECTRE wasn’t named and we didn’t see his face, only his kitten. The kitten plainly identifies him as evil.
These movies are popular, and the rest of the entertainment industry is taking notice.
Michael Caine just went into “action” in a more subdued and bureaucratic spy tale as Harry Palmer, definitely not the world’s best spy.
Television will soon be satirizing this secret agent genre with Get Smart, in which Maxwell Smart of CONTROL fights against KAOS, an international organization of evil.
The following year, secret agents on TV will be offered an impossible mission, if they choose to accept it.
Probably most relevantly, the previous year introduced The Man from UNCLE (United Network Command for Law and Enforcement), letting us know that these organizations should have acronyms for names.
In the 1950s, Marvel had dabbled in every genre, including the occasional spy series like Spy Fighters or Kent Blake of the Secret Service.
Now they are bursting at the seams with the expanding superhero genre. They have one current war title, Sgt. Fury, which we’ve been reading with the superhero comics for some reason.
They haven’t abandoned their long successful romance/humor girl genre, and Millie and Patsy each carry two titles still. And three western heroes still carry titles: Two-Gun Kid, Rawhide Kid, and Kid Colt.
They’re ready to ride on the booming spy genre with their own 007 or Man from Uncle. They’ll need a secret spy organization with a cool title that’s really an acronym. And they’ll need an evil organization to pit them against. Preferably headed by a mysterious man with a kitten.
And a star to headline these adventures. New character? Or look to their already expansive cast of characters.
We know from the pages of Fantastic Four that Sgt. Fury of World War II is now Colonel Fury of the CIA. Why invent a new top spy when you already have one?
Where to put them? Make a new title? No, you’re having crazy distribution problems at the moment and are artificially limited in the number of titles you can put out. Why Captain America and Iron Man need to share a book.
I’ve got it! Strange Tales. The Human Torch/Thing stories all sucked, so we cancelled them. Our new spy series can share this former horror title with Dr. Strange. Makes sense to me.
On that note, I then have to recall that we haven’t actually read any Dr. Strange stories since issue 129, 6 issues ago. We read the wonderful Human Torch stories from issues 130-134, but skipped the Dr. Strange stories.
But now that Nick Fury is taking over the first half of the book, I would like to… still not read the Dr. Strange stories. Not just yet. We’ll read this first half of this comic, then return to it later. Even though, with the new Dr. Strange movie out, a Dr. Strange post would be topical.
Let’s look at the cover again. Because I want to talk about it, but had a long preamble.
It’s one of the most unique and striking covers we’ve seen, and one of the best covers. It’s got an interesting concept. It’s not absolutely clear on the situation. The top half is this villain in green. Perhaps it’s a separate image, or maybe he’s standing behind the control panel. We see this ominous hand on the control panel with our hero on the screen being x-rayed. This seems based on a scene inside the book; from that scene we deduce these are two separate images and it’s actually SHIELD who is scanning Fury.
It’s a bit off that the x-ray doesn’t show the gun. Does this imply this is a special gun designed to fool x-rays? Or just an oversight?
The circuitry depicted on the console is basically trademark Kirby.
There’s Nick Fury. Let’s notice he has an eyepatch. He doesn’t have one in the World War II adventures we’ve been reading. But that was 20 years earlier. However, he didn’t have one in his most recent adventure, Fantastic Four #21. So it must have just happened. They don’t try to explain it in this issue.
SHIELD. “Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law-Enforcement Division”.
They’ll tweak the acronym over the decades. At some point they’ll rename it “Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage and Logistics Directorate”. Not quite certain why. But it’s the acronym I was first introduced to.
The movies will go with “Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division”.
Let’s examine the three options for a moment. When I was young, I liked the second one, the one I knew. Supreme Headquarters sounded a little bit silly to me as a child. I didn’t realize then how commonly the military used that phrase. To this day, that’s NATO headquarters: “Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe”. That name grew out of “Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force”, the central command for WWII operations in Europe. So it was an entirely sensible phrase, despite how comic book-y it sounded.
It’s since been decided the S should be Strategic and the I, Intervention.
The word Homeland invokes a modern sensibility, bringing to mind the recently established Department of Homeland Security.
Espionage stuck around for both comic book versions; this was a spy agency. But not into the movies. The comic book version lost the Law-Enforcement, but the movie version sort of brought it back, making it the E with just Enforcement. Maybe that implies law-enforcement.
At present the US government draws strong lines between international espionage and domestic law enforcement, separating out authorities and duties between different departments, and rightly so. Perhaps the later comics recognized the concerns in combining these actions. Instead of Law-Enforcement, they came up with the word Logistics. Which is the lamest-sounding word I can think of. But the movie doubled down on it. Logistics is something a large agency needs behind the scenes to make things run smoothly, not something you put on the emblem.
I don’t have any particular objection to the word Intervention, but the removal of International is interesting. At face value, the word could mean two things: that the organization is headed by multiple countries, or that it operates internationally. This comic will suggest the former interpretation, that SHIELD is a multinational effort like NATO.
Over the years, the comics will be murky on whether SHIELD answers to America or an international body. The movies depicted an international but shadowy board of directors.
In fact, the confusing international nature of SHIELD is why the US military withdrew sponsorship of the Avengers movie (Wired article). I still find it a bit shady that the military sponsors movies in exchange for script review. Avengers didn’t pass their test, but Disney had enough money to make the movie without the Pentagon, and it proved sufficiently profitable.
In the balance, I like the original acronym the best of the three, mainly due to my distaste for the word Logistics.
I have a couple questions about the plot, but they don’t really matter. The first 5 pages are a wild action ride, with no time to worry about what makes sense.
The basic idea is that they need to transport Nick Fury from the Pentagon to SHIELD headquarters even though assassins are trying to kill him. The plan is decoys. Harry Potter fans will recognize this trick from when everybody used poly-juice potion to pretend to be Harry so the Death Eaters wouldn’t know whom to pursue. In this case, the decoys are LMDs, Life Model Decoys. Robotic copies of Nick Fury.
My plot issues which aren’t important are these. The first is that Nick Fury went to the Pentagon from wherever he was, so why didn’t the assassins strike then, before he had all the protection. Second note is that the decoys didn’t really seem to help. For all that trouble, they were all killed instantly and then the villains were on the real Nick Fury’s trail anyway.
Which leads to a chase scene between a jet and a car with special gadgets. The car wins and flies off with Nick Fury.
Notice the agent refers to the “American divison” of SHIELD.
It’s time to meet Hydra. That’s who the assassins worked for, and this guy on the motorcyle is a spy. The leader is mysterious. We don’t see his face. Just his hand holding a cigarette. And his kitten. They all refer to him as “The Master”.
Their greeting is: “Hail, Hydra.”
Because a Hydra agent had failed to kill Nick Fury, he is executed and replaced. His replacement is the first woman to attain a high rank with Hydra, to join the Circle of Assassins.
They do this cool pose where they all line up behind the agent and stretch out hands so it looks like she has many limbs.
She then says Hydra’s slogan: “Cut off a limb and two more shall take its place.”
We then see Tony Stark, head of the Special Weaponry section of SHIELD. He seems to function as the equivalent of 007’s Q.
His presence itself is interesting, as this directly ties this comic into Marvel’s superhero titles. However, there is no mention of Iron Man. Only Tony Stark. So that’s a bit of hedging. There are connections to the superhero universe, but without making this a superhero comic. We’ll see more superhero connections in Avengers #18.
Sgt. Fury has taken a similar tack, being entirely a war comic, but with connections to the Marvel Universe, most evidently in the issue where Captain America showed up.
The romance and western comics remain isolated from the rest of the line in terms of continuity.
It’s interesting that this comic comes out 2 months after Tony quit the Avengers. I doubt this was planned by Lee, but it’s one of those serendipitous convergences of attempting to read these comics in order. Tony Stark was pretty vague in Avengers #16 about why he needed a leave of absence. I like to imagine it’s because he was so busy with SHIELD, but couldn’t tell the other Avengers that.
There’s one other recent point of connection between this story and the superhero comics. Recall in Avengers #15 that Captain America wrote to Nick Fury, asking for a job with military intelligence. Captain America didn’t know about SHIELD, and Nick Fury didn’t at that moment either. This story takes place after Cap sent the letter but before it arrived. (Which might imply this issue actually fits best continuity-wise somewhere in the middle of Avengers #16).
Tony Stark dramatically demonstrates the need to stop Hydra from taking control of the Earth. Fury notes the delegation present includes people from many nations, suggesting again that SHIELD is an international body.
This is reinforced on the next page, when Tony refers to it as a world-wide organization.
At first, Nick Fury expresses doubt that he’s the man for the job. But then he notices and deals with a bomb and proves he is “the man for the job”.
We then get the dramatic reveal of SHIELD HQ. It’s a giant heli-carrier. Seems somewhat conspicuous for an organization whose very existence is a secret. Quite the splash page, though. One of Kirby’s coolest images yet.
The story is obviously not finished, but it’s a fine point to pause. This begins the 7-part Hydra saga, which we will read in a few chunks to better line up continuity.
Instead, we’ll next take a look at what Nick Fury was up to 20 years before he became the head of SHIELD.
But first, it’s May 1965. Let’s take a peek around the newsstand.
This isn’t the only new feature Marvel is debuting today. Another familiar face gets his own series, but we’ll see who when we get there.
We actually read another comic from this month already. I thought it would be amusing for April Fools Day last month to read Detective Comics #341 and just pretend it was part of our Marvel reading.
- Life with Archie #39, Archie
- Blue Beetle #50, Charlton
- Teenage Hotrodders #13, Charlton
- Showcase #57, DC
- Secret Hearts #105, DC
- Wonder Woman #155, DC
- Idaho #8, Dell
- Raggedy Ann and Andy #2, Dell
- Annie Oakley and Tagg #1, Gold Key
- Astro Boy #1, Gold Key
- Magnus Robot Fighter #11, Gold Key
- Little Dot #100, Harvey
Astro Boy #1 stands out to me. Astro Boy was created by Osamu Tezuka, the undisputed godfather of Japanese comics. His influence remains prominent in Japanese comics and animation decades later, all starting with his creation Astro Boy. Astro Boy was popular enough for his animated series to show in America, and this comic seems inspired by that animated series, and only indirectly by Tezuka’s comics. It’s notable because Japanese comics are now a dominant force in America, all over bookstore and comic stores, but this was much less true in 1965.
Meanwhile, Archie meets the Kreeps, a nod to the popularity of the Munsters. Charlton renames its title Unusual Tales to Blue Beetle, riding on the wave of superhero popularity. Within the year, Marvel will start phasing out its horror title names and rebranding them after the superheroes. Seems well overdue.
Rating: ★★★½, 65/100
Significance: ★★★★★
I really like this comic, and I try to give ratings as high as 65 sparingly. But Spider-Man and Fantastic Four have been so good of late, that I realize this would only be the 51st highest scoring comic. Since I like this comic, I updated our Best We’ve Read page to account for a top 100 instead of a top 50, just to make room for this.
Scans are taken from a reprint in Sgt. Fury Annual 2 (1966).
Characters:
- Colonel Nick Fury
- The Master (of Hydra)
- Agent H
- Tony Stark
Story notes:
- SHIELD: Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law-Enforcement Division.
- LMD: Life Model Decoy
- Col. Fury ordered to report to the Pentagon for an LMD; apparently breathing could be fatal during the process of making them.
- Scientist orders four copies of master matrix, which perhaps is also called the “master mold”.
- Hidden assassins kill all the decoys. At least 5 decoys created.
- Nick Fury led away in Porsche 904; unphased by firebombs because made from same alloys in hull of space capsules; equipped with sidewinder missiles; converts into air car.
- Failed Hydra agent given chance to defeat his replacement; loses and dies.
- Agent H first female to join Hydra Circle of Assassins.
- Tony Stark in charge of Special Weaponry section of SHIELD.
- Hydra slogan: Cut off a limb, and two more shall take its place!
- Hydra greeting: Hail, Hydra!
| Previous | #369 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Amazing Spider-Man #27 | Reading order | Sgt. Fury #20 |
| Strange Tales #134, Story B | Strange Tales | Strange Tales #135, Story B |
