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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 22, 2023 18:16:34 GMT -5
The 1960s were the era for spies; in real life, on the movie screen and on television. Spy music sold record albums and singles..... ...and it filtered into comics, who never missed a bandwagon on which to jump. DC had the Dr No adaptation (from the UK Classics Illustrated) and Marvel had Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD. Harvey had Spyman and Jack Q Frost, while Tower had a whol team of super agents and commandos, with the THUNDER Agents. Archie wasn't to be left out and gave us: The Man From RIVERDALE........ Archie went nuts with it, though it isn't as funny as you would think, though it has moments. The Riverdale gang are agents of POP (Protect Our Planet), battling the enemy organization CRUSH, whose acronym isn't made clear. It's what you would expect, sort of mixing a Mad parody with the usual Archie jokes, though with a sort of adventure plot. In the first installment, in Life with Archie #45, Veronica and Reggie are agents of CRUSH, while Archie and Jughead work for the WPA (World Protection Agency, not the Works Progress Administration, of the Roosevelt era), while Betty is a file clerk. This is more of a straight parody of the Man From UNCLE.... Jughead of Gorilia (as in Gor-ilya). The pair are sent by the Chief (Mr Weatherbee, which is already close enough to Mr Waverly) to mail some letters, then realize he wasn't wearing his WPA badge. They go back and test him, with the secret handshake and Gorilia paralyzes him with a joy buzzer. A mask comes off and it is a CRUSH agent, who had them send out coupons for Soggy Slop Breakfast Food, the cheap cereal manufactured by CRUSH. They use a truth machine on the CRUSH agent, which reveals that the cereal is laced with a mind control drug. They wonder where the real Chief is and Betty comes in and shows them, stepping behind a screen, then emerging as Mr Weatherbee, who is glad to get out of that girdle! (though he didn't seem to mind the soft satin underthings). He sends them out to stop CRUSH. They head over to the CRUSH HQ, hidden behind a Chinese laundry (and the reason why this story didn't get reprinted in the trade collection). CRUSH agents Reggie and Veronica watch on a monitor (Veronica is draped on a chaise lounge). The laundry man tries to gas them with a steam iron, but Gorilia takes him down with a karate chop (didn't include a martial arts stereotype with the Chinese front man). Bonaparte finds the secret door and stumbles in to find femme fatale Veronica. Gorilia hacks through the wall to try to save Bonaparte and gets kicked out the door, for his troubles, as Bonaparte doesn't want saving! Veronica feeds Bonaparte the cereal, then Reggie captures Gorilia and tries the same with him, but he adds cream and sugar, then flings the glop into Reggie's eyes and escapes. he shoots away the bowl before Bonaparte can taste the cereal and in time honored comic book (and spy adventure) tradition, tie up Veronica, to make their escape...... The WPA sends a helicopter, which drops 5,000 gallons of milk on CRUSH HQ, destroying the cereal, as it turns into a soggy ooze. They return to WPA HQ, where the Chief is hanging onto a light fixture, for dear life, as the place is under attack.... As I say, it's a pretty good parody of the Man From UNCLE (minus the amateur who gets involved in the operation), with some racist content. Said couple of panels are why this wasn't included in the 2019 collection of the stories. It begins with issue #47 (#46 features the debut of Pureheart the Powerful), where ARCHIE and JUGHEAD are working for POP (Protect Our Planet), which operates behind the facade of a dry cleaning shop, where Betty is also employed, but believes it to be a legitimate dry cleaner. They are under attack by CRUSH Agents; specifically, Reggie and Veronica. They need to send a microfilm to the London office and hit upon the idea of sending Betty, to post it in the mail box. Betty comes in with a package, addressed to ARCHIE and he and JUGHEAD grab it and soak it in a barrel of oil (wouldn't water be better for an explosive, since oil is flammable?). It turns out to be a cake, from ARCHIE'S mother (MOM). Bety guilts them into eating the oil-soaked cake. They give her the package to drop off and she goes on her lunch hour Reggie & Veronica then try to dupe her into taking a bomb back into the POP HQ, disguised as shirts needing cleaning.... Betty asks them to post her letter, which Veronica does, without thinking, because she is too busy being impressed with how cleverly she tricked Betty into taking the bomb inside the dry cleaners. She then realizes what she has done and she and Reggie try to retrieve the parcel from the mail box, which is a POP agent, in disguise. Their car explodes, because Betty left the parcel of shirts in veronica's car and comes back to get it, seeing the wreck. She returns to tell ARCHIE that she has posted the letter and the nice lady gave her a note, which praises POP's newest agent and offers Reggie and 5 other CRUSH agents, in trade. Betty then returns with a ticking parcel. The rest of the issue features Pureheart the Powerful battling The Looker. In issue #49, the gang have a new HQ, in Pop's Choklit Shop. CRUSH bugs the sugar bowl, but JUG eats a cube, with the mircrophone, and assaults the CRUSH agents with his stomach rumblings, amplified by their receiver. VERONICA and REGGIE are part of POP and the look into CRUSH infiltration into Lodge Industries. BETTY is aware that she works for a spy agency, but is back to being the lowly file clerk. VERONICA sneaks THE GANG into the plant and they snoop around, eventually learning that plant manager TT Condor and his nephew, Hubert, are CRUSH agents (Hubert is actually a midget, disguised as a kid). REGGIE & VERONICA are captured, by Hubert; but, BETTY, disguised as a cleaning woman, saves them. They succeed in stopping Mr Lodge from signing his plant over to CRUSH. Stories continue, in a similar vein, with threats to Lodge Industries and attacks by enemy agents, who look increasingly like supervillains. Issue #54 features BETTY, as "The Girl From RIVERDALE." BETTY is kidnapped by CRUSH agent Super Spy and held for interrogation, in a tranquilizing chair. However, she is impervious.... ARCHIE and VERONICA keep messing up the operation, putting everyone in peril and BETTY has to save the day. She defeats super robots and smashes through walls with a super scream, then ARCHIE and VERONICA take credit for the win and walk off for a date, leaving BETTY with the villain..... This pattern continues through the stories. If you wonder why I keep capitalizing the entirety of the names, it is because they are written as spy acronyms throughout the stories. Like all fads, the spy craze wore itself out and Archie moved on, but he did revisit it later, in Archie #610-613... Archie is kicked out of Pop's, after breaking a bunch of dishes, for which he cannot pay. He comes home to find his lookalike cousin, Andy Andrews, globe trotting investigative journalist, is there visiting. They are observed by a little old lady, who runs off to an alley and climbs into a dumpster, which is the secret entrance to the HQ of CRUSH, the evil spy organization. The old women removes her disguise, revealing, Sharry, the Spy Girl..... She reports in to the boss, who needs one more ingredient for his formula, which will allow him to conquer the world. It is to be delivered by The Blond Man. Sharry also reports she has been watching the teenager (Archie) as ordered and we learn that he has thwarted the boss' plans, before. Archie is downbeat, after being banned from Pop's and Chuck and Jughead try to cheer him up. he sees his cousin, Andy, go into Binder's Used Books, and follows, to talk to him. Andy goes up to the owner and says his POP sent him to read some Edgar Allen Poe. The shopkeeper takes him to the back, to a bust of Poe and Andy opens his eye wide, which is scanned and a secret door opens, revealing.... But Archie stumbles into the store and follows Andy, setting off alarms, until Andy gives the password and Archie learns that Andy is actually an agent of.... POP. The secret HQ is hidden behind Binder's Used Books. Archie wants to help and Andy says it is too dangerous. Andy reveals that the head of CRUSH is none other than Mad Doctor Doom... We also learn that CRUSH stands for Criminal Recruits United to Spread Havok. Andy goes to intercept the Blond Man and Archie wonders if there is a connection between POP and Pop. He runs back to Pop's Choklit Shop and Sharry the Spy Girl follows him, then tries to intercept him, disguised as a hot blond. Betty & Veronica come along and say three is company, but 4 is pushing it, and chase the disguised Sharry away. CRUSH agents Cramer and Cranston try to ambush Andy, but get the snot beat out of them. The Blond Man makes his getaway, in the confusion. Betty & Veronica dump Archie in a trash can, when he, in his daze, calls them "fellas." Chuck tries to smooth things over, between Pop and Archie and he succeeds. As he leaves the shop, he thanks POP, as Cranston and Cramer pass, and they assume he means POP, the spy outfit. They kidnap Pop, which is witnessed by Betty and Veronica, who sees the pair take Pop into the dumpster entrance to CRUSH HQ. They are spotted on a security camera and a trapdoor deposits them in a cell, with Pop, where Mad Doctor Doom intends to test his completed formula on them, which wil turn them into mindless drones, The Walking Dazed! Chuck and Jughead alert Archie that Pop is missing and he knows that CRUSH has him and decides to rescue him. Archie goes to see Andy and the go into POP HQ, but Andy tells Archie that he isn't trained. He shows Archie pictures of Cramer and Cranston and Sharry teh Spy Girl. Archie promises to alert him if he sees any of them. Mad Doctor Doom tests the formula on Betty, Veronica and Pop and it works. Sharry, the Spy Girl and the boys are sent to take a cannister to Riverdale High, where they will introduce it to the students, via the cafeteria, turning them into the Walking Daze, who will then spread it to others, making everyone mindless slaves of Mad Doctor Doom. Sharry disguises herself as Miss Grundy and Ms Beazly, the lunch lady, while Archie finds the zombie Betty & Veronica, who ignore him, to Reggie's amusement. reggie sees the body of a hot young thing, until he moves his tray and sees it is Ms Beazly, in a shapelier body. He runs off, mortified and in need of an optometrist. Sharry has Archie running all over the place and Jighead learns that Pop is also dazed. Sharry and the boys infiltrate POP HQ and turn all of them, including Andy, into The Walking Dazed, and the school kids are whammied, as well. Archie, Jughead and Chuck find the dazed POP agents and learn that they obey commands. They run off to find Dilton, to lend his science skills to solve the problem. Archie has a case he used to ward of the Dazed, at POP HQ and it has a pair of spectacles, a thimble and a pen in it. The spectacles have x-ray features and laser weapons. Archie uses the spectacles and Jughead the thimble (which turns into a metal gauntlet, that can be launched as a flying metal fist) to battle Cramer & Cranston. Dilton tries some of the soup and is Dazed, before he can help; but, they learn that the formula is in the soup. Jughead, being an expert on Ms Beazly's cooking, goes to work. Archie goes to alert Mr Weatherbee and is captured by Cramer, Cranston & Sharry and sees Mad Doctor Doom sitting in Mr Weatherbee's chair. He proposes a toast and Sharry realizes something is up with the champagne, as Mad Doctor Doom double-crosses them, with the formula. She and Archie escape together, with opposing sides united by a common enemy. Archie & Sharry go see Jughead, who has worked out that the cure is chicken soup (which cures everything). They grab Reggie, who keeps seeing hot women, who turn out to be Ms Beazly and Miss Grundy (Sharry, in disguise) and is beating his head against a wall to knock sense into it. They load up super soakers and water bombs with chicken soup and use them to hose down the town, reversing the effects of the formula. Mad Doctor Doom and the Blond Man escape, but everyone is freed. Andy, as a reward for saving the world, makes Archie, Jughead, Reggie and Chuck agents of POP. This was a great bit of fun and having Mad Doctor Doom, for the Pureheart stories, the boss behind CRUSH was inspired. the story is from Tom DeFalco, who say what you will about him at Marvel, wrote great Archie stories. This adds all kinds of touches from Life With Archie, while also poking fun at The Walking Dead. It has elements of the modern Mission Impossible films and other recent era spy stuff, except maybe Jason Bourne. This was followed up with a Betty and Veronica adventure, in Betty & Veronica Spectacular #87 and Betty & Veronica Digest #196, which were reprinted in Pep Digital #178, in its entirety. In the first adventure, Agents Betty and Veronica, or Agents B & C, operate from their secret HQ, with the aid of Lodge Industries and Dilton, who designs their gadgets.... Veronica likes the jet pack sneakers, but asks Dilton if he can make it in a a pump (as in high heels, not air pump). He also designs hypnotic contact lenses which prevent people from realizing they are Agents B & V, so they don't have to wear masks anymore. They receive an alert from their Archie Warning System that he is in trouble. They go to his house and his mother says he is in his room, but the window is open and he is gone. They shanghai Reggie and interrogate him with lie detector goggles, but he is innocent. They then suspect their rival, Cheryl Blossom. They intercept her car and interrogate her, but she is also innocent. Dilton alerts them that he has located Archie, via his cell phone and directs them to a warehouse.... ...where they find Archie tied up, by Evelyn Evernever, a rival from the Li'l Archie stories. She is moving back to Riverdale and wants Archie to take her to the Valentine's Day Ball, but he goes out with Betty & Veronica. They get into a fight, but someone else nabs Archie. It turns out, the mystery person frees him, while they fight Evelyn. They use the ropes to tie up Evelyn and then Archie asks them to take him home (two hot women in tight catsuits tie up a third, in a mini-skirt, and Archie wants to go home? Reggie would want to stay!) They drop him off and return to their HQ. Later, their tracking app leads them (wearing the invisibility cloaks, to the fair, where Archie is out with Evelyn. She has him trapped and calls for help and Agents B & V run to the rescue, but are beaten by Agent S.... Evelyn escapes and Agents B & V learn that Agent S was hired by Mr Lodge to watch over them and that she is Sue Stringly, the poor girl from the other side of the tracks in Little Archie. They go off to take in some of the rides. We return once more in Veronica #206. The girls are working on French homework, when they get an alert from Dilton, that someone is breaking in at Lodge Industries. They go over there and find someone breaking into the vault... They capture the crooks and head home to study. Later, tBetty is babysitting and the kids get out of hand and she calls in Veronica, to rescue her. Kids are terrified of her and stop misbehaving. It starts happening all over. With the help of Dilton, they learn that subliminal signals are coming from the Klutzy the Clown Show. It is owned by The Blossom Corporation (via shell companies) and they realize that Cheryl Blossom is behind it, trying to wreck Lodge Industries. Betty #192 picks up the story, as they confront Klutzy, but the kids in the audience attack them. They use their gadgets to escape. Later, they get an alert that Archie is in trouble, as crazed kids carry them off. They are unable to help, as they run into Agent Red, aka Cheryl, who broadcasts that they are Betty and Veronica, to the world. She is aided by Ginger.... A brief fight ends when Cheryl & Ginger teleport away. Cheryl reveals that she tricked Veronica's cousin Marcy, to get the technology they are using, then disappears. They track them down to city hall, where Ginger threatens to drop Archie off the roof, unless they are given the codes from Lodge Industries. Mr Lodge gives in, but Mr Blossom stops him, before he aids his evil daughter. Klutzy is revealed to be Cheryl, who used the kids because they love Betty and not her. She wants to use the media to make her the next Oprah and control the world, via the media. Marcy sends through new signals, which release the kids from control and they turn on Cheryl. Ginger flies off with Archie and Betty & Veronica give chase. She takes him to Pop's, to have a date and B&V are afraid to get too close, or Archie may be hurt. Marcy teleports in, teleports Ginger outside and nabs her teleportation belt. B&V tie up Ginger and Marcy takes Archie home. Later, B&V are inundated with cries for help, since they have been exposed and whine to Dilton about getting their secret identities back. These stories are all fantastic, loads of fun, with reappearances by classic characters, in more sophisticated stories that the 60s fare. The original Man From RIVERDALE is decent enough spy parody, in an Archie vein, but the formula is worn out before the stories are and repetition doesn't help in reading them. These have more of a plot and a sense of fun to it, beyond just spy spoof. Betty & Veronica gets more than a little fetishy, between tight leather catsuits and oodles of bondage (male and female), and plenty of catfighting. You almost start to wonder if Eric Stanton has taken over writing Betty & Veronica. Obviously, Archie was aiming at an older audience than the old days. Still, the originals, as with much of the Life with Archie material, is a lot of fun and a departure from the usual formula, as was Little Archie, which is part of why they have a special following, in the Archie world. These later comics all celebrate that and quite well. Certainly beats a lot of what DC and Marvel was doing, both without the excessive violence and celebrating their past, rather than trashing it with cynical updates or morphing it into movie continuity. The Archie material is perfect for new readers; but has plenty of stuff for the old. It kind of sums up why they have had such a resurgence in recent years, aside from the fact that they always maintained a sense of fun to their material, even as they updated it. Sometimes, Marvel and DC lost sight of that element. Next time, a quick look at spy fi invading the world of Captain America, and an overview of the mash up of James Bond, Bruce Lee and Fu Manchu that was Master of Kung Fu. That will also be somewhat brief, as I already have a review thread devoted to it.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 28, 2023 21:56:32 GMT -5
Spy-Fi spilled over into other areas, at Marvel and we will briefly look at two instances. Our first one was a direct extension of SHIELD: the Steranko issues of Captain America.... First, a bit of background. Jim Steranko took over the art chores of Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD, in issue #151, of Strange Tales, working over Kirby layouts. Stan Lee handled the script, through #152, then Roy Thomas took over, in the next issue. By issue #154, Steranko is credited with full art and plot and then takes over everything, in the following issue. He kickstarted SHIELD into something truly spectacular, though Kirby gave it a pretty awe-inspiring start (He didn't stay on art, though, turning it over, then returning later). Steranko went all kinds of nuts with the series, bringing back HYDRA (which actually started before he was plotting) and revealed baron Strucker as the real Supreme Hydra. After teh Strucker story, Captain America guest starred in the series. Steranko starts a new chapter and introduces a slew of new SHIELD recruits, including Sidney Lavine, aka "Gaff," the technical whiz who would become SHIELD's version of Q, Clay Quartermain, swashbuckling agent who would spend a lot of time with the Hulkbusters, and Contessa Valentina de Allegro Fontaine, or Val, for short. In that issue, Captain America lends a hand for a demonstration in hand-to-hand combat and then aids Fury in investigating Project: Blackout, an operation which they learn has been initiated by The Yellow Claw. Together,t hey defeat the Yellow Claw's minions and upset his applecart. Cap goes off to other things, while Fury and SHIELD continue the fight to tear down the Yellow Claw's organization. So, cut to Captain America #110, which starts out like any normal issue and finds Cap having to deal with the Hulk, who busts into town. he is being pursued by the Army, who have cordoned off the area and brought in the big Stark guns. Rick Jones tries to interfere and gets hurt and the Hulk escapes. Cap drag's Rick's sorry aaauh-behind to Avengers Mansion, to recuperate then spends his time moping, as he did, in those days. Then, Rick startles him by wearing Bucky's old suit (why does Cap have Bucky's costume, if Bucky plunged to his death, wearing it, in WW2?). Rick connives his way into being Cap's new sidekick as he goes to investigate an Avegers alarm, which indicates the sewers of New York as the problem. The go down and investigate and instead of finding alligators or CHUDs, the run into...... HYDRA. You know, "Hail, HYDRA! Cut off a limb and we will need a really big band-aid. Immortal HYDRA, like athlete's foot, we are never eradicated!" That bunch. So, Cap dives into their ranks and starts smacking the goons around, tossing 'em across the landscape and generally opening up a Number 10 Can of Whoop-Ass. Rick throws some girly punches and ends up in trouble and cap has to rescue him, allowing him to run off like a snivelig coward, while Cap gets zapped from behind. Cap is dragged before the head honcho, who likes high heels and leather..... MADAME HYDRA! What, you though Baron Strucker was hiding out at a cabaret, dressed as Marlene Dietrich? He only does that on weekends, for some extra cash. Some HYDRA goon tries to impress the boss lady, using a Power Vest to try to whoop Cap, but he is made of sterner stuff (and more tasteful attire) and they battle through walls, while Rick evades other HYDRA goons. Mr Power Vest picks up Cap's shield, after it looks like he is gone, but Rick turns up to screw things up and Power Vest is revealed to be Cap and he has to save Rick, again. He ends up in another firefights and Madame Hydra snares Rick, with her whip (Rick didn't resist, much). She then shoves him into the water run off, for Cap to rescue, while she takes a powder. In the next issue, Steve Rogers is at a penny arcade, to meet a SHIELD contact.... ...when he is ambushed. He battles his way through, as usual. meanwhile, Madame Hydra is having some fun with the boys..... ...She still has a master plan in motion, but there is always time for some BDSM comradery, at HYDRA. Cap tries to train Rick, but he is a smart-ass know-it-all and sucks at it. he gets gassed and kidnapped, then clues are left to sucker Cap into a trap. Rick is put on ice, while Cap fights through an ambush and rtacks HYDRA to their base, but runs into the Mankiller.... Cap beats him, but HYDRA has him surrounded and they unload on the rooftop, where he beat Mankiller and all they find is an empty costume, riddled with bullets, and a human facemask, suggesting that Steve Rogers was a false identity for Cap. Steranko misses a deadline and Kirby fills in, with a recap of Cap's Nazi-smashing past. Then, he returns and we learn more about Madame Hydra.... Cap is presumed dead and the Avengers hold a funeral, with Nick Fury delivering the eulogy. They are gassed by HYDRA and placed in coffins and taken to a cemetary, to be buried alive. Rick spots HYDRA loading the Avengers and follows and sees them going to pre-dug graves, when all hell breaks loose.... You know; if Cap's shield were transparent, he could use it as a windshield for that motorcycle..... Cap & Rick defeat the HYDRA goons and Madame Hydra tries a suicide attack and also fails and appears to die. She got better. Later, Madame Hydra would murder Viper, of the Serpent Squad and take his place, battling Nomad, the new identity of captain America. Steranko brings the same pulpy super-spy thrills that he originated in Nick Fury, while adding the Kirby-esque touches of Cap smashing through hordes of HYDREA goons, instead of Nazis. It was dynamic as hell, innovative in its use of pop art graphics (something Steranko understood far better than Stan, and a pulpy villain, in the form of a crazy Dragon lady, Madame Hydra, the future Viper. Steranko created a great psycopathe, in Viper and she has since turned up in the Nick Fury tv movie (with the Hoff) and with Wolverine, in theaters. This storyline influenced a lot future takes on Cap as an occasional reserve agent of SHIELD, which would come into play at various times. Even more, it greatly influenced Ed Brubaker's Winter Solder storyline, as he had Cap thoroughly immersed in the world of spy-fi, as he contends with the Winter Soldier, a legendary assassin, with a link to Cap's past. That, of course, inspire the movie version, which drew heavily from 1970s spy paranoia, like Three Days of the Condor, with Robert Redford, who joined the MCU, to link the new with the old. Sticking within the world of pulp sydom and cinematic homage is Marvel's Master of Kung Fu. Once Doug Moench got involved. Originally, MOKF was Marvel attempting to hop on the kung fu train, using Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu characters, to give the hero an enemy. New to the story is Shang Chi, the son of Fu Manchu, who is sent out to slay his enemy, Si Dennis Nayland Smith and Dr Petrie; but, Smith pulls a double cross and convinces Shang Chi that he is on the wrong side and the son turns on the father. For the most part, this stuck to the mix of pulp adventure, crossed with kung fu movies, until Moench found a sympatico collaborator, in Paul Gulacy. They teamed up to turn Fu Manchu-Meets-KUNG FU into Bruce Lee-Meets-James Bond..... First, they introduced Clive Reston, who is alluded to be the son of James Bond and the grand-nephew of Sherlock Holmes. Next, Chi is sent to break up a heroin smuggling operation, which hides an operation to use nuclear weapons. Chi and the MI-6 agents, under Nayland Smith, destroy Carlton Velcro's island fortress. Then, they deal with mad double agent, Simon Bretnor, aka Mordillo, a killer with a taste for toys, and his robot sidekick, and 'droid of many hats, Brynocki. From there, they go on to battle Chi's father, Fu Manchu, in a magnum opus that involves an orbital platform and a resurected ancient warrior. After that, the series gets back to standard martial arts action, with occasional spycraft. There is an homage to Terry & the Pirates and, much later, a tribute to the earlier stories, with Gene Day going to town, on the art, before his untimely death and the end of the series. I have a whole thread devoted to it; so, I won't waste time. Sadly, that was not the route that Marvel went with the Shang Chi film. If you want that, you need to try Enter The Dragon, and Man With The Golden Gun. Next, we will explore some more Steranko, as we look at the biggest spy comic of the all, Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD. We will be with SHIELD for a bit, so have your needle guns at the ready and your Porsche hover-cars gassed up and ready to move.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 2, 2023 16:09:42 GMT -5
Let's say you are the publisher of a company noted for churning out quick knockoffs of whatever is popular. I am the publisher of a company noted for churning out quick knockoffs of what ever is popular.Uh...right. Anyway, James Bond is a big hit at the cinema and tv is jumping on the bandwagon and producing spy series after spy series. What do you do, as said publisher? Um, publish a James Bond knockoff, with a suave, sophisticated agent, with fast cars and sexy women?Nope. Really?Really. You publish a knock off of the Number 1 tv series, The Man From UNCLE. Oh, okay; with a suave, sophisticated American agent and a foreign, serious, sidekick?Nope. Are you sure? 'Because that is what I see on The Man From UNCLE.....Some of that is there; but not the sophisticated guy. Our hero is a grizzled, cigar-chomping ex-squad leader of a Ranger platoon, in WW2, a guy with a foul mouth and a perpetual 5 o'clock shadow. Heck, his uniform was usually in tatters. This guy drinks beer or whiskey, not vodka martinis, shaken or stirred. This guy was the leader of the Howling Commandos. Captain America?Shut up! Forget that stupid change in the otherwise awesome film; I'm talking about the real Howling Commandos: Dum-Dum Dugan, Gabe Jones, Reb Ralston, Pinky Pinkerton, Dino Manelli, Izzy Cohen, Eric Koenig and the late, lamented Junior Juniper. They, along with Sgt Nick Fury kicked Kraut kaboose from Normandy to Berlin (always behind Easy Company, 506 PIR, 101st Airborne Division). Our spy is Col Nick Fury. Colonel?Yup; he got a battlefield promotion and then promoted on. However, we first meet the modern Nick Fury in a slightly different location, working for a different Intelligence Agency, a Central one.... The story begins in the Baxter Building, as Ben disrupts the serenity of the day by whalloping his steel punching bag, after reading newspaper articles about someone called the Hate Monger stirring up mobs to violence. They decide to go for a walk, to cool off and run smack into a rally, with some chillingly familiar sights.... The mob turns on some immigrants and Ben smashes the speaking podium set up, but then the HM hits them with a ray, which sets one against the other. The team splits up, after a big fight. Reed returns to the Baxter building and finds the doorman and others lying in a bruised and battered heap. He goes inside and finds a surprise, his old war buddy, Nick Fury, doing a number on security, as they try to prevent him from going up to the FF's penthouse. Reed takes him on up and they reminisce about a mission together, back when Reed was with the OSS (Sgt Fury #3). Fury tells him he is a colonel now, working for the CIA and he is there to recruit the FF to help stop a fascist revolution in the Latin American republic of San Gusto (Saint Pleasure?), where the rebels are stirring up anti-American sentiment (because the US has never given them a reason to hate us before....) Reed takes the Pogo Plane and flies off to San Gusto. Ben sees the plane fly off, from Alicia Masters' studio, while Johnny notices it from the street and Sue, from a dress shop. They converge on the Baxter Building and find Fury. He cons them into going, to prevent Reed from hogging all of the glory. They take the FF ICBM (every team should have one!) and land in San Gusto. Hate Monger also sees their departure and suspect something is up and he and his stormtroopers pile into an underground rocket and head for San Gusto, where they are behind the attempted coup. Reed acts as a one-man army, disarming the rebels and disabling a strange ray machine, which is zapping every square inch of the country. He gets gassed and captured and brought before HM. Fury turns up and forces HM to give Reed the antidote to the Hate Ray, but then the fascists get away. Reed then defeats each member of the FF and administers the antidote to them. They then return to aid Fury in the battle against the stormtroopers.... They turn the ray on the stormtroopers and one of them shoots the Hate Monger, who is revealed to be Adolf Hitler....or a clone or double (later revealed as a clone). That would have been it; but, fans liked seeing Nick in modern times and The Man From UNCLE was a big deal on tv. So, nick Fury got a solo series, separate from the Howling Commandos (well, some of them). Strange Tales #135 sees Nick Fury being scanned and measured in the Master Mold, for a Life Model Decoy. the mold creates dozens of robotic Nick Fury, Life Model Decoys, or LMDs. They fan out to draw fire from assassins. Meanwhile, Fury and his caretaker get into a Porsche and speed away, but are soon attacked by a fighter jet. They fire mini-sidewinder missiles and blow it out of the sky. then the agent activates a switch and the car transforms to a sportier mode.... It then lifts off the ground and gains altitude. An onlooker reports into a hooded figure and we get our first glimpse of the enemy, HYDRA.... Fury goes through security screening at some secret base, then is brought before a bunch of VIPs and Tony Stark. They fill him in about HYDRA and their intent to rule the world. Stark is the armorer for the new organization: SHIELD ( Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law-enforcement Division). They want Fury to lead the organization in the fight against HYDRA. Fury defers, saying he isn't cut out for the job, when he notices odd wiring to his fancy chair. he realizes it is boobytrapped and rips it out and tosses it out a window, affording us our first view of this secret base..... The Helicarrier! Fury starts issuing orders and people snap to and the board is certain they have picked the right man. They leave Fury to direct the search for the saboteur and begin the battle against HYDRA. Jack Kirby delivers a bang-up debut, hitting us with all kinds of wild concepts, like the LMDs and the flying car, the Helicarrier and HYDRA, a fanatical organization, where failure is punishable by death. We see one of the failed assassins forced into single combat against another HYDRA agent, who turns out to be a woman. The story ends without coming into contact with HYDRA, to entice us to buy the next issue. Now, you may say to yourself, well, it's a secret spy organization, but ti doesn't look THAT much like UNCLE. Au contraire, as we see in the next issue.... Fury is tailed by more HYDRA assassins and he goes into a barber shop and deilvers warnings to the shoeshine guy (who is, of course, black), the manicurist and the barber and when the disguised killers come in, they find themselves captured, by sophisticated devices, hidden in the shoeshine chair, and manicure station. Fury then gets into the barber chair and heads off for SHIELD HQ.... HYDRA launches a full scale attack, but Fury lures them to a false location and captures the attack platoon. Back at HYDRA base, the man in charge pleads for his life and is dispatched by his replacement. Issue #137 features Gabe Jones and Dum-Dum Dugan joining Fury, as SHIELD agents. Fury gets a new gimmick suit and a SHIELD agent works to get a micro-film to Fury, as HYDRA sends a whole assault team against a train and to chase his contact, in a race car. The film gets to Fury, revealing that HYDRA has constructed a Betatron Bomb and plans to place it in orbit and blackmail the world. The launch site is believed to be somewhere in the Balkans. Fury, Gabe and Dum-Dum take a SHIELD IBP (Intercontinental Ballistic Plane) from Maryland to the Balkans, in a few minutes and a parabolic arc.... We then see a boardroom and the CEO of Imperial Industries International leave the meeting and go through a secret passage, to HYDRA base, where he dons the robe of the Sureme HYDRA. He prepares to launch the bomb and Agent G comes before him and removes her mask, revealing the female killer from issue #135. She is the daughter of the Supreme HYDRA and pleads with him not to carry out the plan, as the bomb endangers too many lives. He refuses to listen as it will gain them power over the Earth and he launches the bomb. Fury and his team spot the launch and bomb the launch site, destroying it, but not the rocket, which succeeds in placing the bomb in orbit. Meanwhile, the female HYDRA Agent G continues her rebellion against her father. he sends her to her room and she tells him she hates him and stomps off to listen to rock n roll music and look at teen idols in magazines. Fury consults with Tony Stark and a HYDRA team is inserted and succeed in capturing Fury and taking him to their base, where he is to be executed. The Supreme HYDRA issues his ultimatum. Fury uses his gimmick suit to bust out of a cell and he is aided by Agent G. Meanwhile, Dum-Dum and Gabe load a SHIELD strike team into the captured HYDRA Ram vehicle and they use the homing device they discovered to key in on the HYDRA base. Fury and Agent G battle their way through the base, then the saucer craft crash lands and SHIELD agents coming pouring out, like UNIT.... They link up and shoot up the base, while Tony Stark launches into space and disarms the Betatron Bomb. The Supreme HYDRA, Arnold Brown, escapes, revealing that he is the secretary of the CEO of Imperial, not the CEO himself. The woman is his daughter, Laura. Fury and his team mop up and HYDRA members escape and find Arnold Brown, but don't believe he is the Supreme HYDRA and shoot him, dead. Fury ends up dealing with Mentallo and the Fixer and Kirby ends up doing just layouts (after doing the same, for John Severin, for a couple of issues). He meets new SHIELD agent Jasper Sitwell, one of the young modern breed, who couldn't wipe their own.....er, nose. They battle The Druid, them Advanced Idea Mechanics or AIM, the dudes in the beekeeper outfits. AIM is able to locate the barbershop entrance to SHIELD HQ and invade the area, meeting SHIELD in battle. Gabe, Dum-Dum and Jasper fight them off and free the captive cover agents, then Jasper displays a rather strange reaction to a bound woman..... Apparently, SHIELD hires a lot of repressed agents and misogynists, judging by Jasper and Dum-Dum. Dum-Dum harasses the woman and she beats the snot out of him, before HR gets their hands on him and we get a microcosm of comic book publishing (and probably a certain section of fandom). AIM frames Fury for treason and he faces trial, but SHIELD one-ups AIM and defeats them and finds them tied to The Secret Empire. Fury learns that HYDRA is still active and behind these other groups, which leads into the next phase of SHIELD. These early stories are very Man From UNCLE, with SHIELD agents in suits, with gadgets, a secret entrance to their HQ and occasional use of the Helicarrier. They carry out old fashioned commando raids, in combat gear, defeating the threats from HYDRA and others. HYDRA is the typical pulp secret army, in robes and hoods, with hidden agents everywhere and assassins around every corner. Kirby concots all kinds of spy gadgets to fight them and the plotting is pretty much his, though Stan monkeys with things a bit, via dialogue. It seems like Laura Brown was set out to be a dangerous assassing, but then was quickly turned into a love interest, before she kileld anyone. She departs the story after the defeat of HYDRA, but returns later. Kirby establishes a terrific set-up, with the Helicarrier base being the center-piece, followed by the flying cars and various gadgets and weapons. It's all pulpy spy goodness, full of action and a little intrigue. Gabe and Dum-Dum act as Fury's lieutenants but we do not see any of the other Howlers. A Sgt Fury annual would find them reunited, for a special mission into Vietnam (after a previous annual had them reunited in Korea, where Fury gets his battlefield commission). The mission to Nam is under SHIELD supervision, but it is made clear that the others are civilians, contacted by Fury for the mission. This trend would continue into the future, as the Howlers are reunited again, in Captain America, then aid in a battle against a HYDRA cell, after Sam Sawyer is kidnapped by them. However, Eric Koenig, at some point, was revealed to be working for SHIELD, in Europe. The series kind of struggles to provide a new threat, after the defeat of HYDRA, leading to the succession of enemies, until we learn that HYDRA is behind AIM and THEM, aka The Secret Empire, which I thought was a segment of the NBC series Cliffhangers..... I don't think Kirby intended to return to HYDRA, as he tended to want to do new things, which seems born out by the new threats of Mentallo & The Fixer, the druid and AIM. Stan, on the other hand, had been using THEM in Tales of Suspense, with Captain America and I suspect he shoehorned them in. Not sure who thought up making THEM a front for a revived HYDRA; but, things definitely pick up with HYDRA back in the picture. That leads us into Phase 2, as Kirby cedes work on the series completely and Stan turns scripting over to Roy Thomas. It is here that a figure will enter SHIELD and elevate it into something more than an UNCLE clone, though it does involve swiping from James Bond, Fu Manchu, and even Errol Flynn swashbucklers. Stay tuned for more SHIELD and the biggest thing to hit comics, since Kirby.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 12, 2023 17:49:33 GMT -5
In Strange Tales #150, Nick Fury, Agent of Shield, entered a new era. Prior to that issue, SHIELD had been busy battling Advanced idea Mechanics, AIM, a bunch of scientists an screwballs, who were an offshoot of Them, aka The Secret Empire. Essentially, you had two separate plots that got thrown together. The Secret Empire had been running around in other Marvel books, especially in Tales to Astonish, with the Hulk, and Tales of Suspense, with Captain America. They were fairly run-of-the-mill hooded nogoodniks, messing around with society. AIM was introduced within the SHIELD series, as a new threat to SHIELD, as Fury battled them and their plot to unseat him as head of SHIELD. It turns out that AIM was a subdivision of The Secret Empire (known as Them) and their base is destroyed and seemingly everyone there. meanwhile, Fury uncovers evidence that HYDRA didn't die off when SHIELD defeated them and the Supreme Hydra, Arnold Brown. #150 begins the rebirth of Hydra, led by a new Supreme Hydra, Don Caballero, elder brother to this man..... Fury demonstrates that an intense sonic beam could detonate nuclear weapons, in their silos. Such a weapon, known as the Overkill Horn, is sought by Hydra. Fury receives an invitation to attend a lavish party, hosted by wealthy South American industrialist Don Caballero. meanwhile, a SHIELD agent finds proof that Hydra is back in business and is killed, under orders from Caballero. Fury attends a party, at a strange villa, in the Sahara. He is attacked by statues and uses his spy gadgets to fight, but is captured and interrogated by caballero.... He eventually breaks free and leads the fight against Hydra, as they attempt to steal the Overkill Horn and deploy it as a weapon. In the course of things, Hydra kidnaps Laura brown, daughter of Arnold, who helped Fury defeat the firs Hydra group. They succeed, but Caballero disappears and we learn he uses various disguises and cover identities, such as Emir Ali-Bey. Fury and the SHIELD grunts face Hydra-pillar armored vehicles and the battle android, Dreadnought, which launches an attack on the Helicarrier, itself.... This new battle also signaled a change in personnel, behind the scenes. Stan Lee had been scripting over Kirby plots and Kirby handled art or breakdowns for other artists. Roy Thomas takes over the scripting and Kirby transitions in a new artist, Jim Steranko. Steranko was a fan, from Readin, PA, who had a rather exotic background. His grandparents emigrated from the Ukraine and worked the coal mines, as did his father and his father's siblings. His father later became a tinsmith and also "bootlegged coal," digging unauthorized shafts and taking the coal for themselves, to sell. Steranko suffered from tuberculosis, as a child, and attended a special school that emphasized physical health. he later moved on to a regular junior high, where he was the target of bullies, until boxing and self defense classes at the YMCA taught him enough to fight back. He used a stage magician act props, of his fathers, to learn stage magic and escapology and worked his way up in carnivals, as a sideshow performer, doing magic and escapes, while also playing guitar in a rock band. his talent in art landed him a job in an advertising agaency and he also inked some pencil art for Vince Colletta. Joe Simon bought some ideas from him to use at Harvey, leading to Spyman and Magicman. Now, he was working at Marvel, over Kirby layouts, until he had the confidence and experience to take over full art duties. he was contributing to the plot and, with issue #155 of Strange Tales, took over the script, as well as art. Early on, it all looks very kirby, with some variances. The variances grow, as we see SHIELD subtly altered. In the Kirby period, SHIELD agents wear suits, then combat overalls and leather helmets, rather like WW2 commandos and paratroopers. Soldiers in standard Army OD Green uniforms and white helmets were seen in background, guarding secure areas. Under Steranko, the commando suits are more stylized, with additional equipment buckled on, following in the tradition of Wally Wood, an ex-paratrooper, who showed soldiers and para-military types weighed down with ammo and equipment pouches and web belts. Steranko brought this to SHIELD combat attire, and made the weapons look more sci-fi. He replaced the soldiers with SHIELD troopers, in orange uniforms, with yellow web belts and accents, including vizored helmets. Fury gets sleeker, with better tailored suits and all kinds of gadgets to aid in his fight. He shaves once in a while. Hydra and Don Caballero, in disguise, infiltrate the Helicarrier and launch attacks on Fury and he must pursue them and Steranko goes full Wally Wood sci-fi..... Fury traces the disguised Caballero to Hydra Base, an artificial island, somewhere in the Pacific, as they plot to release the Deathspore upon the world. Fury supports his iconic combat jumpsuit, though in black, rather than the later navy blue. He sneaks around, taking down Hydra sentries, but is eventually captured and he learns the true identity of the Supreme Hydra.... Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, his WW2 nemesis, leader of the Blitzkrieg Squad and a dedicated Nazi. In later years, we will learn that Strucker and some other Nazis saw the impending downfall of the Third Reich and set up an escape plan. They infiltrated a Japanese secret society and then murdered its leaders, taking it over for themselves. they initially battle Captain Savage and a Marine Raider Force. He builds up Hydra into a globe-spanning organization, then creates Them and AIM to divert attention away from Hydra, once they are known to Western security. Now, he stands revealed. Fury escapes and unleashes the deathspore, within the protective dome over Hydra Island. Steranko was borrowing from the Bond films, as they had introduced SPECTRE Island, in From Russia With Love, the HQ for SPECTRE, where we first meet Red Grant, played by Robert Shaw, who is an assassin for SPECTRE. Steranko moves Fury into the more glamorous world of Bond, with the expensive suits and fast cars, and he will soon add the exotic women. Laura Brown is rescued and goes her own way and we are introduced to a new class of SHIELD agents, including Sidney "The Gaff" Levine, who becomes their tech guru, Clay Quartermain, a hard-charging pretty boy, who becomes a top SHIELD combat specialist, and the exotic Contessa Valentina Allegro de Fontaine, who gives Fury a judo toss, the first time he lays a hand on her, ala Pussy Galore, in Goldfinger. This leads into a battle against a new opponent, as FBI agent Jimmy Woo alerts SHIELD to a new shadowy menace. There is another force at work, which also seeks to dominate the globe. Fury teams up with agent Woo and captain America, to battle this group, which turns out to be the army of The Yellow Claw, the Asian mastermind who sought world conquest, in the 1950s. Steranko revives Atlas' old series, The Yellow Claw, a Fu Manchu ripoff, with Fu replaced by the Yellow Claw, who is depicted as a Red Chinese warlord and spymaster, and his daughter Suwan, and Nazi war criminal Fritz von Voltzman. Yellow Claw utilizes extremely advanced technology and eventually attacks with his own sky fortress, as the storyline climaxes in a massive aerial battle between SHIELD and the Yellow Claw's army... SHIELD agents, using jetpacks and other transport, board the Yellow Claw's sky fortress and a pitched battle rages across it, with Steranko pulling out all of the stops in a special 4-section gatefold center spread.... Yellow Claw is defeated and revealed to be a robot, as we learn it was all a game, played by the Prime Mover and Doctor Doom. After this, Fury settles down for more mysterious fare. he first faces an alien visitor, who is not what he seems, but turns out to be a fevered dream of Fury's. Then, Fury gets his own title, as Brother Voodoo takes over Strange Tales. Nick Fury #1 introduces us to Scorpio, an assassin, with a powerful Zodiac Key, and a personal vendetta against Fury.... Steranko channels his Eisner and EC influences in the first issue, as we see Fury scale a stone tower and break inside, before being shot... The assassin is the real Nick Fury and the dead one is an LMD. It was a test to see if LMDs could replace field agents, but Fury proved better than his doppelganger. The analysis of the session reveals that the LMD was hit by 4 rounds, but Nick only fired 3. he finds a small disc, with a scorpion emblazoned on it. We see this symbol elsewhere, with a Formula 1 race driver, Count Julio Scarlotti. Fury oversees the test of a force field-generating system, but learns that someone has sabotaged the device, as a rail launched missile heads towards him. He is able toe scape and track down Scorpio at the command center, where he has knocked out SHIELD technicians. They battle and Scorpio seems to die, in the fight. Jimmy Woo joins SHIELD and he and Fury face a crazed scientist, and Fury then investigates a Hound of the Baskervilles rip-oof, which turns out to hide a Nazi war criminal and a secret sub pen, ala The Avengers tv series episode, "Castle D'Eath." Scorpio returns and substitutes himself, for Fury and places a drugged Fury inside a uniform of a training LMD. The real Fury survives and we meet Pickman, on old locksmith, who Nick and his brother, when they were children. He knows the identity of Scorpio and confirms it, but is accidentally shot by Val, before he can reveal it. Fury chases down Scorpio and sees him unmask and recognizes him, before he disappears in a hail of bullets. Many years later, int he pages of Defenders, we will learn that Scorpio was Jacob Fury, Nick's brother. We will also learn what happened to the LMD that Fury replaced, in the demonstration, where he has to fight for his life. Steranko had great problems keeping to deadlines, as he was still working in advertising and playin music and it led to a fill in issue, before the return of Scorpio, then his replacement, altogether. Archie Goodwin takes over the scripting and Frank Springer handles the art, as Fury faces various threats, including a returned Hate Monger (in a story by Gary Friedrich), Barry Smith handles an issue, then Herb trimpe joins Friedrich, which includes an earlier Bullseye. The series ends up turning into reprints of the Strange Tales stories and fades away. Over the years, some Marvel writers would return to Fury and SHIELD, though more often just Fury. We will look at some of the more notable instances, next time as we see Fury try to recruit Foggy Nelson to join the SHIELD executive board, try to orchestrate a hostile takeover of Stark International, and deal with a blackmailer, from the past.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 23, 2023 20:58:57 GMT -5
By the end of the 60s, the spy craze was pretty well over. Bond still did well at the box office, but most of the tv spies and rivals had retired, or got new careers. It didn't help that the Vietnam War wasn't going well and the CIA was demonstrating that it was hardly an organization of white knights, defending civilization against evil. So, Hollywood and comics moved on, more or less. Once in a while, someone might throw a spy adventure out there; but, for the most part, espionage took a darker turn. In the literary world, the George Smiley's and Harry Palmers had demonstrated that espionage was a nasty, often depressing business and some of these spies were actually double agents. Britain was rocked with scandal after scandal, with the Cambridge 5 (Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt, and John Cairngcross), high level doubles for the USSR and the US with the Bay of Pigs disaster, several failed plots that left the CIA embarrassed, and the Phoenix Program (assassinating suspected Communist leaders, in Vietnam) made it even worse. Moving into the 1970s, Nick Fury kind of kept a low profile, apart from his wartime adventures, with the Howling Commandos. When he did pop up, he was mostly treated as a government impediment or he was needing help to deal with rogue elements within SHIELD. Quite often, Fury and SHIELD acted as stand ins for shady CIA dealings. Fury is around a bit in the early Captain America solo comics (the revived title), aiding Cap as he battles the Red Skull and the other Nazi war criminals. He turns up in Hulk #104-108, where the Mandarin is controlling the Hulk and sends him on a rampage through China. Fury is forced to work with his Soviet opposite number, Yuri Brevlov, who Fury fought beside in WW2. They uncover the Mandarin at the heart of things and work to release the Hulk from his control. FF #84-87 find Fury acting for the government, dispatching the FF to stop a robot army that Dr Doom is massing. For the most part, Fury appears mostly as a supporting character in captain America, as Cap works directly for SHIELD or in aid of Sharon Carter, one of Nick's agents. There is even a love triangle as Nick mistakenly believes that Cap and Val were slinging the shield around. When Steve Englehart takes over, this comes to a head and is resolved, just in tome for the 50s Cap to appear and wreak havoc. Daredevil, of all places, lets SHIELD run wild, as Tony Isabella has SHIELD protect Foggy Nelson from a HYDRA attack and offers him a position on the SHIELD Executive Board. The HYDRA cells is run by Maggia boss Silverman, aka Silvio Manfreddi. He recruits a bunch of supervillains to be divisional chiefs of HYDRA....... DD mostly battles the supervillain lieutenants, with the odd HYDRA goon, while Fury and SHIELD have running firefights around the globe, with this bunch, including some rather odd locales.... One of the lieutenants is a villain called Blackwing, which lets Tony Isabella do some Batman gags, and he is ultimately revealed to be Silvermane's son, while Silvermane's identity, as the Supreme hydra, takes some time to be revealed. It is actually a really good Daredevil arc and Isabella's intention was to iron out some of the discrepancies with SHIELD and HYDRA and return HYDRA as a serious threat to everyone. However, he didn't stay on the book, after the arc, so that was kind of it, for this bunch. Isabella also used the ltter pages to fill in the history of HYDRA and reveal who were Strucker's bunch and who were splinter cells. Marvel; Spotlight #32 introduced Spider-Woman, as an agent of a European branch of HYDRA, under the command of Count Otto Vermis. She is at first deluded into believing she was a spider evolved into human form, which is eventually retconned into being a false idea, used by Vermis to control her. Vermis has one of his agents cosie up to the powerful woman, called Arachne, and woo her, to help manipulate her to their cause. They then have the lover fall into SHIELD hands and send Spider-Woman to kill Nick Fury and free her love. Nick is able to convince her that she is being played and the lover reveals his revulsion of her, believing her to be a creature, not human. She goes back to kill Vermis and blasts his escape craft, causing it to crash and explode.... Just prior to that issue, Archie Goodwin and Howard Chaykin team up to reveal how Nick Fury appears so young, 30 years after WW2. It turns out he was saved by something called the Infinity Formula, but he needs regular treatments, to stop the aging process and is being blackmailed in relation to it. Fury deals with the blackmailers but keeps the formula. Marv Wolfman uses Fury and SHIELD and Spider-Woman, in Marvel Two-In-One, having them help deal with Fixer and Mentallo, as well as encountering Deathlok, who ends up being turned into a controlled assassin, aimed at President Carter. Deathlok is stopped, while the Impossible Man stands in for Carter. Wolfman had Ron Wilson revive the old New York SHIELD HQ, complete with barbershop entrance.... While this is going on, Clay Quartermain, who debuted as one of the new SHIELD agents, as Steranko moved the series in a new direction, beginning the battle with the Yellow Claw, soon found himself seconded to the Hulkbusters, for quite a spell.... Next, Fury apepars to be working with the returned Scorpio, in Defenders; but, it turns out to be the Fury LMD that Scorpio swapped for the real Fury, when he drugged him and placed him in combat, in Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #5. Scorpio uses LMD technology to create a new Zodiac, but they prove flawed and several, including Virgo, his intended love, die and the rest are defeated by the Defenders and Moon Knight. Scorpio is revealed to be Jake Fury, nick's missing brother and he commits suicide at the end of the story. Steranko had all but stated that Scorpio was Jake, in his issues, but this confirmed it and gave him a finale. Fury continued to represent the government, while we kept having rogue SHIELD offices go freelance. Both Black Widow and Bobbi Morse, who debuts as The Huntress, in Marvel Super Action #1 (magazine format). Iron Man #118-119 presents an interesting wrinkle to the whole rogue SHIELD phase, as Tony Stark investigates why SHIELD is poking around in his records, looking for lists of stockholders (couldn't they just get that from the SEC?). He finagles his way onto the Helicarrier, to investigate and uncovers a rogue group, operating within, who are sabotaging the Helicarrier to crash in Soviet territory, to create an international incident. Stark stops them, but, in the course of things learns that it was not the rogue group that was interested in the Stark shareholders, it was Fury! Fury was trying to orchestrate a hostile takeover of Stark International to force them back into the munitions business, to supply SHIELD with tech. Tony defeats the plan; but, his faith in Fury is shattered and it is a step towards his descent into alcoholism, as the battles with Justin Hammer, leading to "Demon In a Bottle" occur right after these two issues. Fury is depicted as rather ruthless in pursuit of his goals, a personality trait that had become more common, across the 70s. fury wasn't above playing mind games with superheroes, in pursuit of his goals. This coincides with the CIA scandals and the establishment of the Senate Oversight Committee, which put a damper on CIA operations, during the Carter years. Fury continues to pop up, now and again, usually in stories that require the government to recruit superheroes for a crisis or further rogue cells. He is there as Bobbi Morse becomes Mockingbird and reveals the rogues she has battled and Fury aids Spider-Man and Black Widow (and Shang Chi) in a battle against Viper and the Silver Samurai, as they brainwash SHIELD and take control of the Helicarrier, to make a super-kamikaze run on the Capitol Building, during a joint session of Congress, with a presidential address of the body. Fury and Cap work together, along with the Howling Commandos, as Gen Sam Sawyer is kidnapped from their reunion, by a revived Hydra, with a Supreme Hydra who is revealed as Baron Strucker.... Cap and Nick end up on HYDRA Island, which was last seen devastated by the Deathspore, which supposedly killed Strucker. It turns out that Strucker is an LMD and he is destroyed, in the battle, but at the cost of Sam's life. Cap and the Howler's salute the fallen hero, at his graveside. We are reminded in that issue that Eric Koenig is a SHIELD agent, who runs a European branch, while Gabe and Dum-Dum are still active agents in the US. The rest of the Howlers have their own lives, including Reb Ralston, who is a senator, for an unnamed Southern state. This is pretty much the status quo for Fury and SHIELD, until the tail end of the 80s, when we get the next chapter in the SHIELD saga, which we will discuss, next time.
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Post by Rob Allen on Jul 24, 2023 11:33:48 GMT -5
SHIELD - but not Fury - were the main antagonists in Marvel's Godzilla series of 1977-79.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 24, 2023 22:10:58 GMT -5
SHIELD - but not Fury - were the main antagonists in Marvel's Godzilla series of 1977-79. Yeah; I read about that, elsewhere, but never read those comics. Mostly, I saw Red Ronin used later, just before Avengers #200 and read about the mini-helicarrier that Dum-Dum used. I should have mentioned that; but, didn't have enough knowledge to really give it justice. I kind of wanted to focus more on Fury's direct involvement. By a similar token, Fury and SHIELD are a big factor in The Micronauts, when Baron Karza reappears, in the third year, as he is controlling HYDRA and attacking the Helicarrier and the final battle ends up SHIELD and the Micronauts vs HYDRA and Karza's dog soldiers and other forces. By a similar token, part of the reason I didn't go into great detail with Clay Quartermain and his involvement with the Hulkbusters is that I haven't read a great deal of that. I had the odd Hulk comic or Marvel Super Heroes reprint; but never more than a handful. I had one issue, with the Abomination, with Clay suiting up in his SHIELD combat gear, which was the first instance of my knowledge of him being in SHIELD. Apart fromt he reprint of Starnge Tales #135, in Son of Origins, I didn't read any original Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD, until they did the Baxter reprint of the primarily Nick Fury stories, plus the alien visit from the last Strange Tales story (which may or may not be a dream). I was able to find the whole run, while I was in the Navy. The next segment is likely to get sarcastic, as we move into what I liken to the destruction of SHIELD and the reduction of Nick Fury into either an idiot or a sneaky SOB, who likes to F with people. Oustide of Archie Goodwin, it's not going to be pleasant.
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 12, 2023 21:27:11 GMT -5
After a series of guest appearances and team ups, Nick Fury turned up in his own book, again. First, there were reprints of Steranko's work (just the Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD comic and 1 story from Strange Tales), which is where I finally got to see Steranko on the chracter. At the end of the 80s, we got new Steranko Nick Fury art, on a new mini-series..... Bob Harras is the writer, with Paul neary and Kim Demulder on art. The Helicarrier had crashed in the New Mexico desert and was being surveyed by Nick Fury and a tech team, as they sought to isolate its nuclear power core. This seems to be a target of several groups and they are soon under attack by what looks like an AIM ship, which debarks a company of HYDRA goons.... A battle ensues and SHIELD takes heavy casualties, including Clay Quartermain. Fury gets a private message and meets an agent at Roxxon, where he learns of the Delta 7 program.... The agent shows Nick the Delta Program secure area, which has detailed and highly classified files on SHIELD, the Helicarrier and the power core. he then shows him deep in the bowels, where the core has been brought. Fury sneaks out, after they waylay a security guard who comes across them and Fury calls for a meeting at SHIELD NY HQ. he gets word, there, that Clay Quatermain has died. he fills Val, Dum-Dum and Sitwell on what has been found. Nick reports to the Board of Directors, who are hidden behind shadowy viewscreens. They say a plan must be formulated, but ignore his request for immediate action. The Board turns out to have a better idea of what is going on than Fury..... Fury's undercover man at Roxxon is murdered, by what appears to be Jimmy Woo. Sitwell gives a briefing and Fury is called out to report to the Board, unarmed. He is confronted by Rollins, his undercover agent, who denies any Roxxon program. Fury decks him and it becomes clear it is a set-up. He ends up on the run, through the complex, pursued by Rollins and security. dum-Dum tackles him as he is about to shoot Fury in the back. Fury escapes and Dum-Dum is arrested and Gabe is warned off. Later, they are interrogated by the Board and changes are enacted. Jasper Sitwell is made new head of SHIELD, while Val is summoned to speak to them, alone. Fury goes into hiding, disguised as a street bum, then gets to a hidden storage chamber, under a subway tunnel and gears up. he moves through sewers and maintenance tunnels, but runs into a female SHIELD agent, who tries to kill him. He realizes she is from the Delta Program. Sitwell addresses an assembled SHIELD and declares Fury the Number One Most Wanted. He seems out of character and is following the Board's lead. SHIELD then poisons the well for Fury with the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. Fury gets help from some homeless people, in the tunnels, then Jimmy Woo and a SHIELD assault team turn up and massacre them. He contacts Val for a meet and she talks to Sitwell, at Clay's funeral. They meet and Fury is ambushed, but escapes. Val tells Sitwell he promised no interference and we learn that Val set him up. We also see an apparently living Clay, before the Board. Fury meets up with a guy, named Alexander Hyde Pierce. He is a low level SHIELD "sleeper" agent, to in the upper echelons. He helps patch up Fury, while he plans his next move. Meanwhile, a SHIELD agent from the ESPer unit, reports to Sitwell about blocks of a quarter of SHIELD's personnel, from the telepaths. Sitwell dismisses his concerns. He is nearly murdered, but is saved by an old CIA buddy of Fury's, Alphonso McKenzie, who smells a rat. Meanwhile, Fury and Pierce hit a SHIELD outpost, in Philadelphia, to weapons and intel. They run into Clay Quartermain., but are forced to break off and run. We also learn that an old Jimmy Woo is part of the Board. Fury approaches Tony Stark, as does a Fury LMD, sent by SHIELD, Stark aids the real Fury and gives him something that will detect LMDs. Oh, and SHIELD is in cahoots with HYDRA, as the younger Jimmy Woo meats up with Madame Hydra, aka Viper. Fury recues Allen, the ESPer agent, and McKenzie from SHIELD, resulting in the death of Eric Koenig. They go to Hong Kong. It all turns out to be a conspiracy, where LMD technology has evolved to the Deltite stage, where people are regenerated/replaced and everything you know is wrong. Fury continues to build his team and takes them down. I hated it. Oh, it is well written, filled with twists and turns, trust no one, no one is who they seem, etc, etc. It just wreaked of Bad revisionism, which was a watchword of the late 80s and early 90s. redo everything, make it darker, make it more violent, lose everything cool that came before. It was SHIELD, if written by Robert Ludlum and I never cared for his work. SHIELD was supposed to be a fantasy world of good guy super-spies saving the planet from the remnants of fascism and anarchy (there's two extremes for you) and security threats from outside the Earth. They were the guys you called when it got weird and dangerous, like Doctor Who's UNIT or Captain Scarlet's SPECTRUM. Or UNCLE. Now, SHIELD were the bad guys and Fury was paranoid enough to not trust them and assembles a team he can, while his friends are turned against him, killed and replaced. SHIELD ran HYDRA as a cover....it.......AAAARGHHhhhh! I hate that kind of garbage, that just throws out what was, makes everyone act out of character, and makes you feel like you were a moron for enjoying past stories. it even retcons away Fury's hostile takeover attempt on Sury LMD, run by the Board. Dum-Dum ends up dead, by the end of it, but they indid that with the stupid Secret Invasion/Skrull BS, where they brought back characters that younger writers liked, and just erased what happened to them. It was lazy, stupid and all ready parodied by the Simpsons, before Marvel did it.... Your mileage may vary and this tends to get praises; but, it ain't my SHIELD, any more than the morose, moping, conspiracy riddled Daniel Craig Bond was my Bond, or the Brosnan films had anything much to connect them to the past, apart from Desmond Llewellyn, before he died. It was change for the sake of change, without improvement or relevancy. I hated Bond, after Goldeneye and I hated this. Out of the ashes of the exposed and destroyed Deltite SHIELD came a new SHIELD, a stripped down version, led by Fury, centering around his core group of agents who sided with him in the mini. They soldiered through the longest sustained Nick Fury run, which included a revival of HYDRA and a return from the dead for Baron Strucker, who now had the deathspore inhabiting his body. I liked it a bit more, except I didn't care for any of Fury's sidekicks, compared to the old team. That take on things would end up inspiring the only Classic Nick Fury film appearance, when The Hoff portrayed Nick Fury, in a tv pilot movie..... HYDRA hits a SHIELD complex, murders Clay Quartermain and steals the frozen body of Baron Strucker. At the head of HYDRA is the Viper, daughter of Strucker, and her brother, as they mix Viper with Fenris. Fury is pulled out of retirement and leads the team to victory, stopping a missile attack on New York. The original script was by David Goyer, early in his screenwriting career, but what hit screens wasn't his script. It wasn't good, either, by Hoff is cheesy enough to make it dumb entertainment. The acting, across the board, is terrible and the Helicarrier model looks pretty damn fake. It even had water-tight doors in the interior, which makes no sense, since it could only be flooded with air. Anyway, it tanked and no series followed, much like Generation X. The one shining light, for me, was the graphic novel, Wolverine/Nick Fury: The Scorpio Connection.... Archie Goodwin and Howard Chaykin team up again to give us the old Fury, as he and Logan run up against a revived Scorpio, who isn't jake Fury, but his son, whose mother pulls his strings. except, she had a fling with Nick and Mikel, the new Scorpio (complete with Zodiac Key) turns out to be Nick's son. His caucasian son. Wolverine gets pulled in because a friend is killed by Scorpio and he and Nick try to stop him. They put an end to things and free the kid from mommy Dearest's control. That leads to a mini-series, in 1995, Fury of SHIELD, where Mikel becoems a SHIELD agent, Nick has to give up smoking cigars, thanks to some stupid kid who complained about Fury smoking a stogie on a trading card, and it features story by Chaykin and really bad Image-style art from Corky (seriously?) Lehmkuhl (Lamne and Cool, in one name) and Mark McKenna. It takes a while, but Fury returns as a foul-mouthed, over-sexed Cold Warrior, from Garth Ennis.... Fury turned up some more, then appears as a black man, in Ultimate Spider-Man, in this new universe, because that was "edgy" and then Bryan Hitch draws him as Samuel L Jackson, in Ultimates so Marvel can lobby for him to play the character, in these films they intend to finance, via their own, new, production company. That will never work! Marvel proper then has to give him a never-before-seen black son, so they can match the movies and there we are, aside form, before that, white Fury leads Secret Invasion and all of that mess and I just stop caring, because I can't stomach most of modern Marvel, except Brubaker's Captain America and the odd Dan Slott mini or truncated series. Last I saw, Fury had a bunch of Secret Avengers, Val was the new head of Hydra...or was it Leviathan? I just don't care. Anything from Nick Fury vs Shield onward is either a bad dream, caused by burritos, an alternate world, a bunch of clones, a pocket universe, or whatever lame retcon I can assign to it. Told you it wasn't going to be pretty. I get that this is just my perception and if you liked these works, more power to you. You have a stronger stomach than I. For me, it took all of the fun out of the concept, much as Eon did the Bond films and the 90s and subsequent decades did for adventure comics....except in the indies, where fun was allowed. Corporatization kills creativity, in my book, and this is "my book." So, from here, we move on to something a little different, but deeply rooted in the real world of espionage and the world of literary spies, as we explore Italian writer/artist Vittorio Giardino's Max Fridman and his experiences during the rise of Fascism, across Europe. Get ready for some ligne claire adventure and mystery.
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Post by chaykinstevens on Aug 13, 2023 10:18:07 GMT -5
That leads to a mini-series, in 1995, Fury of SHIELD, where Mikel becoems a SHIELD agent, Nick has to give up smoking cigars, thanks to some stupid kid who complained about Fury smoking a stogie on a trading card, and it features story by Chaykin and really bad Image-style art from Corky (seriously?) Lehmkuhl (Lamne and Cool, in one name) and Mark McKenna. Lehmkuhl had been one of Chaykin's assistants in the late 80s, drawing backgrounds for things like the Scorpio Connection and Black Kiss. He drew a pin up in the final issue of Howard Chaykin's Amerikan Flagg, which looked far less egregious than the Fury mini. I think his actual first name may have been Courtney.
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 13, 2023 10:34:32 GMT -5
That leads to a mini-series, in 1995, Fury of SHIELD, where Mikel becoems a SHIELD agent, Nick has to give up smoking cigars, thanks to some stupid kid who complained about Fury smoking a stogie on a trading card, and it features story by Chaykin and really bad Image-style art from Corky (seriously?) Lehmkuhl (Lamne and Cool, in one name) and Mark McKenna. Lehmkuhl had been one of Chaykin's assistants in the late 80s, drawing backgrounds for things like the Scorpio Connection and Black Kiss. He drew a pin up in the final issue of Howard Chaykin's Amerikan Flagg, which looked far less egregious than the Fury mini. I think his actual first name may have been Courtney. Well, the credits have "Corky," which, a grown man, calling himself "Corky," is just asking for a wedgie! Actually, I could see that being Chaykin's doing, to mess with the guy. Still looks like Image junk, though. Definitely not my aesthetic, especially with SHIELD.
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Post by DubipR on Aug 13, 2023 12:34:58 GMT -5
Eight pages in and no Lancelot Link? For shame
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 13, 2023 13:27:17 GMT -5
Eight pages in and no Lancelot Link? For shame Give me time; I've got 4 threads going and a full time job! Besides, I was pretty darn young, when that was on Saturday mornings and I have only the vaguest memory of it....mainly a secret HQ that you entered through a sofa or something like that. Heck, I spent nearly 30 years trying to remember the name of a Saturday morning show, with a British double decker bus and found the answer, in all places, in a book about the Harlem Globetrotters. (Here Come the Double Deckers, which was a British show, broadcast by NBC, opposite the Hanna-Barbera Globetrotters cartoon.) Those chimps play better than the Monkees! Good harmony, too!
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Post by foxley on Aug 13, 2023 16:25:01 GMT -5
Eight pages in and no Lancelot Link? For shame Give me time; I've got 4 threads going and a full time job! Besides, I was pretty darn young, when that was on Saturday mornings and I have only the vaguest memory of it....mainly a secret HQ that you entered through a sofa or something like that. Heck, I spent nearly 30 years trying to remember the name of a Saturday morning show, with a British double decker bus and found the answer, in all places, in a book about the Harlem Globetrotters. (Here Come the Double Deckers, which was a British show, broadcast by NBC, opposite the Hanna-Barbera Globetrotters cartoon.) Those chimps play better than the Monkees! Good harmony, too! Here Come the Doubledeckers had an awesome theme song!
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Post by chaykinstevens on Aug 13, 2023 17:37:02 GMT -5
Next, Fury apepars to be working with the returned Scorpio, in Defenders; but, it turns out to be the Fury LMD that Scorpio swapped for the real Fury, when he drugged him and placed him in combat, in Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #5. Scorpio uses LMD technology to create a new Zodiac, but they prove flawed and several, including Virgo, his intended love, die and the rest are defeated by the Defenders and Moon Knight. Scorpio is revealed to be Jake Fury, nick's missing brother and he commits suicide at the end of the story. Steranko had all but stated that Scorpio was Jake, in his issues, but this confirmed it and gave him a finale. Avengers #72 by Roy Thomas had already revealed Scorpio was Jake. Iron Man #118-119 presents an interesting wrinkle to the whole rogue SHIELD phase, as Tony Stark investigates why SHIELD is poking around in his records, looking for lists of stockholders (couldn't they just get that from the SEC?). He finagles his way onto the Helicarrier, to investigate and uncovers a rogue group, operating within, who are sabotaging the Helicarrier to crash in Soviet territory, to create an international incident. Stark stops them, but, in the course of things learns that it was not the rogue group that was interested in the Stark shareholders, it was Fury! The rogue SHIELD agents in this were named Buck Richlen, Val Adair and Adam Manna. Does anyone know whether the third of these names was, like the first two, somehow a reference to David Michelinie and Bob Layton's Star Hunters nemesis, Rich Buckler?
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 13, 2023 17:37:39 GMT -5
Give me time; I've got 4 threads going and a full time job! Besides, I was pretty darn young, when that was on Saturday mornings and I have only the vaguest memory of it....mainly a secret HQ that you entered through a sofa or something like that. Heck, I spent nearly 30 years trying to remember the name of a Saturday morning show, with a British double decker bus and found the answer, in all places, in a book about the Harlem Globetrotters. (Here Come the Double Deckers, which was a British show, broadcast by NBC, opposite the Hanna-Barbera Globetrotters cartoon.) Those chimps play better than the Monkees! Good harmony, too! Here Come the Doubledeckers had an awesome theme song! After reading the mention of the show, in the Globetrotter book, I pulled it up on IMDB and confirmed enough info that it was the show I recalled. I remembered a double decker bus and a clubhouse, behind a fence, where a section opened, like a drawbridge, to get in, as well as scenes of fighting someone in a factory setting. Sure enough, the bus was the clubhouse, located in a fenced in junkyard, with a drawbridge entrance. the factory fight was from the episode, "Invaders From Space," where a candy company does an alien invasion publicity stunt and there is some kind of fight in the factory. Also learned that one of the kids, Peter Firth, would grow up to be the political officer, in The Hunt For Red October, who is murdered by Sean Connery, to cover their defection. he would also appear in Spooks, aka MI-5, which I saw much later. That was only broadcast the one season, on NBC (maybe a re-run season, or just repeated at least once); but, it was memorable! I've seen clips of Lancelot Link on Youtube, which brought vague memories; but, i haven't watched any full episodes on there, yet. I have stronger memories of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids, which was pseudo-spy stuff, in a Scooby Doo/Josie & the Pussycats vein. Minus the talking dog.
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