Obsessively putting our comics in chronological order since 1985.
| 1969-03-01 00:06:10 |
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Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #10
Issue(s): Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #10
Cover Date: Mar 69
Title: "Twas the night before Christmas"
Credits:
Gary Friedrich - Writer
Frank Springer - Penciler
Johnny T. Craig - Inker
Review/plot:
It's Christmas, and Nick Fury gets home from foiling a mugging attempt to find a woman in his apartment. He's expecting Val Fontaine, but when it turns out to be Laura brown, he rolls with it. I mean, one woman's as good as another, right?
However, his revelry is interrupted by a call from SHIELD saying that the Hate Monger is at it again. Despite the fact that Laura Brown is a SHIELD agent and indeed one that has experience with the Hate Monger (we saw last issue that she had infiltrated his organization), Nick leaves her behind to go deal with the problem alone. He stops by the Helicarrier to talk with Jasper Sitwell, who is on leave from his duties at Stark Industries.
After the briefing from Sitwell, Nick Fury flies into space and docks with the Hate Mongers gigantic orbital satellite.
Not all of Arnim Zola's Hitler clones are of equal quality, and this one is definitely one of the lesser ones.
Possibly to make up for his poor quality form and costume, the Hate Monger really lays the superior race talk on thick. It's like he really needs to prove that he's Adolf Hitler.
The Hate Monger puts Nick Fury in his genetic bomb or something and fires him at Earth, but something weird happens where one of the Hate Monger's goons accidentally bumps into the missile.
That causes the bomb to prematurely explode harmlessly in space, and Nick Fury manages to land safely on Earth. He returns to Laura, tells her nothing of what happened and instead lets her incorrectly ramble on about how Christmas makes even super-villains docile and peace-loving while he privately speculates that it was Santa Claus that caused that pilot to crash into him.
WTF am i even writing? This is madness!
Quality Rating: D
Historical Significance Rating: 1
Chronological Placement Considerations: It's been a "month" since last issue's Hate Monger story. It's also Christmas, and here's a little something you can print out and put on your Christmas cards.
References: N/A
Crossover: N/A
Continuity Insert? N
My Reprint: Marvel Masterworks: Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD vol. 3
| Previous: Daredevil #49-51 | Up: Main 1969 / Box 4 / Silver Age | Next: Sub-Mariner #12-13 |
Comments
I love the fact that Nick leaves Laura at home, travels to outer space, gets almost killed, lands back on Earth and goes back home just like that. "hey babe, guess what".. that and the idea of the new day coming several hours later.
I found a couple of sources saying that Barry Smith did fill-in art on pages 2-4, though no one seems to know why.
http://nick-caputo.blogspot.com/2012/08/barry-smiths-uncredited-marvel-art.html
http://www.comics.org/issue/22600/
Dean Latimer, a future National Lampoon writer, had this to say in a November 1968 issue of the East Village Other:" Steranko has left this book for the (ecch)X-Men...this has got to be the worst thing Marvel has ever done. Springer the artist, who used to do Phoebe Zeit-Geist...he must be a real creep."
We know from later appearances in She-Hulk, etc. that Santa Claus is canonical to 616, you'd think "the Man On the Wall" wouldn't have to guess about it.
See: The hard-hitting hands-on Hitler who wears tights, carries a grappling rope, and is not afraid to get blood on his dress!
"When he dies, it must be my own hand!"
