...the re-commissioned Howling Commandos under Colonel "Happy Sam" Sawyer, are sent into North Korea to blow up a secret air base!
With a slightly wounded "Happy Sam" stationed outside the base as backup, the Howlers attack in their own inimitable style...
With a slightly wounded "Happy Sam" stationed outside the base as backup, the Howlers attack in their own inimitable style...
Why all the set-up for Nick Fury?
He had recently-appeared in Fantastic Four as an eyepatch-wearing CIA colonel to help them stop the Hate Monger and reminisce with Reed Richards, whom he'd met during WWII when Reed was an OSS agent.
So we knew he had survived to the (then) present day.
But bigger plans were in store for Fury...
Nick had just replaced The Human Torch and The Thing as Dr Strange's co-feature in Strange Tales., making him the first comic character to have two simultaneous strips set in two different time periods!
(Howling Commandos in the 1940s, S.H.I.E.L.D. in the 1960s!)
Several of the Howlers joined Nick at S.H.I.E.L.D., including Dum-Dum, Gabe, and Eric Koenig, who had not yet appeared with the Howling Commandos in the 1940s storyline...which is why he isn't in this 1950s-era tale.
(That created a "Chekov/Khan Paradox".
In Star Trek II, the Wrath of Khan, Chekov is captured and recognized by Khan.
But Chekov didn't appear in the first-season episode, "Space Seed", since the Russian navigator wasn't created or cast...until the next season!
How did Khan recognize someone he never met?)
And we finally got to see the only exclusive Sgt Fury-themed Marvel merchandise of the 1960s...a Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos t-shirt (which, unlike most of the other Marvel shirts of the period, has never been reissued!)
(Howling Commandos in the 1940s, S.H.I.E.L.D. in the 1960s!)
Several of the Howlers joined Nick at S.H.I.E.L.D., including Dum-Dum, Gabe, and Eric Koenig, who had not yet appeared with the Howling Commandos in the 1940s storyline...which is why he isn't in this 1950s-era tale.
(That created a "Chekov/Khan Paradox".
In Star Trek II, the Wrath of Khan, Chekov is captured and recognized by Khan.
But Chekov didn't appear in the first-season episode, "Space Seed", since the Russian navigator wasn't created or cast...until the next season!
How did Khan recognize someone he never met?)
And we finally got to see the only exclusive Sgt Fury-themed Marvel merchandise of the 1960s...a Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos t-shirt (which, unlike most of the other Marvel shirts of the period, has never been reissued!)
Until next time...
Dis-missed!
Dis-missed!
