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Sgt. Fury and the Howling Commandos reigns as my father’s favorite comic book. Perhaps it was because his father fought in WW2 and it reminded him of his dad, and him being a military man himself, he naturally loved the stories chronicling Fury and his Commandos. In fact, when he sold off his collection of old Silver Age titles (long runs of X-Men, FF and Spidey), it was Sgt. Fury he kept. I always assumed Kirby did most of the issues but he actually left with Issue #7, and Ayers handles all the art chores on this collection.
Spoilers Ahead
-Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #14- Fury and his Howling Commandos must face their greatest challenge. Hitler tells Von Strucker he must destroy the Howling Commandos and Strucker gets his own Nazi commandos, specifically designed to take out the real ones. So Strucker and his Nazi’s plant a trap and spring it on the Commandos, who fall for it! Of course, Nazism is no match for US and its troops, and the Howling Commandos fight back, and escape from Strucker and his forces. There is a one-page look at the B-26 plane used in the War.
-Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #15- The Commandos must travel to Holland to meet with a secret agent to take out the Nazi strongpost and the Dutch traitor, Mayor Rooten. So the Commandos get there, they befriend a young boy who is the mayor’s son, and can’t find Agent X. They have to blow up part of a dam and only Agent X can tell them where it is. When they can’t find him, they just go ahead and set up the explosives. From out of nowhere, the Agent shows up, the Commandos save the day, and young Rooten is upset his father is a traitor, though we readers know he was Agent X.
-Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #16- Here is where the stories really start picking up. First, the cover art is just amazing, capturing the sandy hell the troops are in. The Commandos are sent to the desert to stop a Nazi fortress where they are building weapons. Dum Dum ends up captured and the Commandos need to find shelter at an oasis. They manage to convince the locals that they are trying to help and sneak into the fortress on camels. From there, all hell breaks loose. The Commandos take out the base, rescue Dum Dum and escape with their lives. They are on their way home.
-Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #17- The Commandos are on their way home when they are attacked by Germans. They learn of another German stronghold in the jungles of Africa where they can land their planes. The Comamndos know what they must do. One of the Commandos takes the guise of one of the natives as a witch doctor and tries to turn the natives against the Germans. The Commandos burst in, take out the dirty Nazi’s, and the natives vow never to be enslaved by the Nazis. The Commandos return home where Fury meets with his love, Pamela Hawley.
-Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #18- Fury and Hawley are interrupted by an air raid and they both go where they need to be, Fury with the troops and Hawley with the nurses. Fury and the Comamndos head to a port where they need to take out a German warship and after infiltrating everything, they do. Fury fights the German leader and almost loses the ring he was going to give to Hawley. The Commandos eventually destroy the ship and head home, with Fury actually in a good mood. Fury goes to the Hawley house where he hears devestating news, Pamela died after another raid on a hospital. Fury is crushed.
-Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #19- Fury just lost the love of his life and he is a man possessed, he wants revenge. The Commandos get a few days off but Fury uses that to find out who ordered the raid. The rest of the Commandos help, as does Mayor Rooten (not the traitor his son thinks he is). Fury finds out who set the raid into effect, a heartless man named Von Krummpt whose specialty is raids on hospitals and innocents. The Commandos go about destroying Nazi planes while Fury comes face to face with the man who ordered the raid. They have a fierce fight (where Fury is shot twice) which leads to Krummpt and Fury fighting on a plane, with Von Krummpt meeting his end when he spins around on the plane and falls out of his seat. Fury has his revenge, and mourns his lost love.
-Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #20- Fury and the Commandos must fight against Strucker and his Commando troop (the Blitz Squad) after they kidnap British troops and take over their stronghold. The Commandos infiltrate the stronghold, battle against Strucker’s foes, leading to a Strucker/Fury battle where Fury wins and the Nazi’s are imprisoned.
-Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #21- Fury and the Howlers battle McGiveney’s band of commandos when Fury gets a new mission. He and the Howlers must save a doctors wife and daughter from the Germans so he can work for the Allies again. Fury finds the daughter, but the wife has died. The Howlers, with the help of some French military defeat the Germans and head home.
-Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #22- This is one of the better issues of Fury, as the Commandos must team-up with McGiveney and his team on the historic raid of Ploesti. The groundtroops are sent in to prepare for a huge air-raid. The two sides engange in horrific combat, which led to Fury and McGiveney getting captured by Strucker but they team up (despite their hatred for each other) and defeat the Germans, and the raid is complete. Dick Ayers makes an appearance in here and this was just a fantastic issue.
-Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #23- This is a story Ayers had the idea of, where the Howlers must go deep into Burma in order to save a nun and the children she is watching. It is the Howlers all on their own, using only their wit and skills to defeat the Japanese troops. Percy (one of the Howlers) meets his brother and learns he wasn’t the failure everyone thought he was. A very good issue.
-Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos Annual #1- The Howler’s go off on a mission in Korea with Col. Sawyer. The Howler’s don’t know why Sawyer is going and he just ends up getting wounded anyway. It turns out Sawyer went along just so he could give a battlefield commission to Fury. The annual had some back-ups, an introduction to the Howlers and the supporting cast, two views of the base where Fury is located, a look at Combat arm & hand signal, and finally a two-page ad for SHIELD and Fury.
-The Bottom Line- Dick Ayers writes a nice intro mostly detailing his work on the story for #23 (and questioning Stan why he was left off the writers byline on the issue!) and being a veteran himself and wearing his uniform to the 2007 NY Comic Con. It was a sweet, touching introduction. After reading this, I finally know why my Dad liked this so much. I thought it would be stupid war stories (like Rawhide Kid was just silly western stories) but the issues were surprisingly good. They each were different in their own way, and were very cohesive. I can’t believe I am saying this, but this is right up there with some of the best Silver Age stories Marvel had to tell. Fury is a likeable commando here, with a very likeable cast of heroes, great villains, and some well-written and well-drawn stories that are surprisingly well-done. I was shocked at how well these read some 40 years later, and in the times we live, it is refreshing to look back at how World War II was perceived and how different things like nationalism are. To sum it up, I was pleasantly surprised by how great all of this was, and I highly recommend it as it takes what could have been standard fare war stories, turns it on its head and makes characters we all can relate to Highly recommended.
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