Issue(s): Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #6, Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #7
Cover Date: Mar-May 64
Title: "The fangs of the Fox!" / "The court martial of Sgt. Fury!"
Credits:
Stan Lee - Writer
Jack Kirby - Penciler
George Roussos - Inker

Review/plot:
More manic madness from Fury and his Commandos. Issue #6 has the team getting sent to Libya to fight Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox.

They nearly succeed, but are called back due to (correct) intelligence suggesting that Rommel was involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler.

The tension in issue #6 (because going up against Germany's entire Afrika Korps wasn't enough)...

...is that during training for the mission, Dino Manelli is injured, and he's temporarily replaced with George Stonewell, a racist.

In addition to his tension with Gabe Jones and Izzy Cohen, he's a grand-stander that jeopardizes the mission.

By the end of the mission, Stonewell is injured and forced to take a blood transfusion from Jones, and he ends learning a Valuable Lesson, which Nick Fury also presents to us.

The Commandos also get a little help from a tribe of Arab nomads, but they play a minor role.

Issue #7 begins with the Commandos working with a Lieutenant Spencer "Skinny" Parker, who i half expected to turn out to be Peter Parker's father after the appearance in issue #3 by Reed Richards.

The Commandos are expected to take out a German ammo dump, but Fury, who was shown to have bad history with Parker, suddenly foils the mission and is hit by an explosion and given amnesia before he can explain.

It'll later turn out that Nick was aware that the Nazis had set a trap at the ammo dump, and he's cleared of any wrongdoing.

At his court marshal trial, we learn that Fury had a friend who was killed at Pearl Harbor, and the friend's death is what caused Fury to enlist. The boy is unnamed, but he'll later be named Red Hargrove.

We're also introduced to Bull McGiveney, a sergeant who'll be a repeat rival of Fury.

The stories continue to work against believabilty again. One area is the lack of death during a war. After firing upon a squad of Germans, Reb remarks, "Ah don't recon that Nazi squad will evah stop runnin'!". There's also just the amount of action the squad sees, including the fact that for issue #6 they're shipping to a whole different continent, and then back to their base in England for the following issue. It's all in good fun, but clearly not a "serious" war book.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - first Bull McGiveney

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? Y

My Reprint: Essential Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos

Captain Storm and the Unknown Soldier also lost confidants, friends, colleagues, and so forth due to State Shinto Militarist actions. Adding Captain America to the list in Captain America#225 seems to follow this pattern (cf. link on Mike Rogers).

http://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/captain_america_222-223225.shtml

(Some people complain about just referring to the Pacific Axis as the Japanese. Allied critics tended to describe the European Axis events as "Nazi" crimes. In the Asian theater enemy brutality almost always recounts as presented as being simply "Japanese." While the latter group neglected to coin a code name for themselves, I will attempt to discourage bigotry.)

http://ikjeld.com/japannews/00000203.php#comments-in http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/m-war.html#between

The picture says Fury joined the commandos to avenge his friend, not enlisted. Stan probably meant he enlisted, but it gives some wiggle room which is needed because the Marvel Project shows Fury as being US military before Pearl Harbor.

Technically, the US did not have commandos. The term refers to British special forces. The equivalent of the British Commandos are the Army Rangers which were not established until 1942. He was probably one of the first recruits by William Darby of the 1st Ranger Battalion. Most likely, Fury belongs to some super special unit which accounts for the continual moving around. "Howling Commandos" is most likely an informal nickname.