Quite exciting when Kirby’s on duty
Sgt. Nick Fury, the roughest, toughest sarge in the European Theatre, leads a ragtag bunch of half a dozen military misfits in special forces operations. Based in London, their missions take them to Germany, France, Africa, and even Japan. Each member of the Howling Commandos has his own distinct look, skill set, and personality. The most notable character in the squad is the colorful Corporal Dum Dum Dugan, who would later serve as Fury’s right-hand man in S.H.I.E.L.D.
All 19 of these issues were written by “ex-sgt.” Stan Lee. About half of them were drawn by “ex-infantryman” Jack Kirby. The rest were drawn by “ex-corporal” Dick Ayers, who was also the inker of Kirby’s art. Ayers is a fine artist, but nothing spectacular. Kirby’s work, on the other hand, is really phenomenal. Even when he wasn’t drawing cosmic superheroes or mystic gods, Kirby managed to excel in every genre, even westerns and war comics. Although many panels are spent on the seven commandos just standing around chatting and insulting each other, Kirby, like the Hitchcock of comics, makes these scenes visually exciting, and of course that’s even more true of the combat action sequences. Lee’s stories are well-written as well. The plots are sometimes rather formulaic, as one would expect from adventure fiction of this era, but there is enough complexity and variety in the Howlers’ exploits to keep things interesting. It is amazing how many words of dialogue Lee packed into his 1960s comics. Fury and company have got to be the most loquacious commandos in the history of the U.S. military.
Unlike Harvey Kurtzman’s tales of the horrors of war in EC Comics’ Two-Fisted Tales, these are not the kind of stories that win awards. This is pure popcorn-munching pulp fiction. In Lee and Kirby’s hands, WWII is a stage for adventure, heroism, and patriotism. In television terms (for those who remember the 1970s), Kurtzman and company might have been making M*A*S*H, but Lee and Kirby were making Baa Baa Black Sheep. The Germans in these Sgt. Fury stories are typical evil stereotypes like one sees in war movies of the period. Racism and anti-Semitism feature in a few issues, but there’s no hint of the Holocaust. Though Fury and the Howlers do not fight any supervillains, they are still connected to the Marvel Universe. Nazi Barons Strucker and Zemo make appearances, and Captain America and Bucky guest star in one issue. Even Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four makes a pre-superhero cameo as an OSS agent.
In general, I would rather read a superhero comic or a western comic than a war comic, but Lee and Kirby kept me well-entertained with these first 19 issues of Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos. Although they present a sanitized version of the war, that was the norm for this time period. Subject to the comics code, Marvel had to keep things kid-friendly, and I know that my childhood friends and I, whose parents and grandparents served in WWII, would have loved these stories.
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