Sgt. Fury #8

The Death Ray of Dr. Zemo!

Featuring: Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos
Release: May 5, 1964
Cover: July 1964
12 cents
Not a bad story by: Ex-Sgt. Stan Lee
Passable art by: Ex-Corp. Dick Ayers
Inked by: Geo. Bell
Lettered by: S. Rosen
22 pages

I know what you’re thinking.
Didn’t we just read Sgt. Fury #7 pretty recently?
Yes.
But isn’t Sgt. Fury bimonthly?
Yes.
Wait. This comic is from May. You were just reading March comics.
Yes.
You haven’t even finished March yet. We haven’t read the March Iron Man story.
True.
I know you’re mostly going in publishing order, but sometimes move things around for story reasons.
I do.
But that doesn’t make any sense here, right? You only move things around when comics tie into each other, and Sgt. Fury is set in WWII. How can it tie in directly with any superhero comics?

Well, there’s the rub. For reasons we’ll go into later, we are reading Avengers #6 two months early. And, as noted on the first page, this issue does tie into Avengers #6! Sort of, at least. They were released the same day and star the same villain, Dr. Zemo.

It makes for a pretty uncommon occurrence in comics, where fans like to track what a character’s first appearance is. Dr. Zemo has two. He was introduced on the same day in two different titles, two stories set twenty years apart. We’ll meet him here in Sgt. Fury, then see what he’s up to twenty years later menacing the Avengers.

It’s a pretty cool and unique quasi-crossover. In service of it, we’re reading Sgt. Fury #8 two months early.

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