Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos #128

In the pages of Essential Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos,Vol. 1, Fury's right hand man, Dum Dum Dugan was injured and sent stateside for rehabilitation. Unknown to the Howlers, Dugan was on his way back to them when his transport vehicle was shot down by the feared Nazi raider, the Sea Shark! Now as the Howlers, with help from the mysterious Navy Captain known only as the Skipper, scour the Atlantic for survivors of the attack, Dum Dum leads his comrades on a desperate mission of survival! That's because the Sea Shark has it in mind to finish off the job of elimination of all evidence of the villain's actions, which are in clear violation of the Geneva Convention!

As much as Stan Lee could milk a dead horse with endless appearances by Doctor Doom in the pages of the Fantastic Four or Magneto giving the X-Men constant fits, the Marvel legend sure could keep things fresh in the pages of Sgt. Fury. Plus Stan the Man wasn't afraid to shake up the Howler's lineup. 

I think being veterans of World War II, Stan and the rest of the bullpen did everything they could within the confines of the Comics Code to make the war in Sgt. Fury as realistic as possible. So they added a few Nazi villains that were colorfully on par with the typical comic book baddie. Based on the fact that this version of the war occurs in a universe filled with superheroes, it makes sense that these Nazis seemed like demonic mad scientists bent on world domination and the spread of evil. ( Man, I'm starting to sound like Stan Lee here...) However, in the pages of Sgt. Fury, good men died, got injured, and bore their scars internally as well as externally.

Look, I am a huge fan of Nick Fury. I love his super spy adventures and I just adore his stint in the United States Army. These issues are some of the best works of the Marvel Age of Comics. Being a war comic, which has a sorta niche following, these books are seriously underrated. I'm glad I got my hands on all of the issues I needed for a full story run before the secret of these gems got out!

Reprinting the main story from Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #26.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 10 out of 10 stars.

Marvel Zombies: The Complete Collection, Vol. 3

I can't tell you the number of times I've grabbed this book, only to put it right back down. That's because in this, the 3rd volume of collected Marvel Zombies tales, there's also a Halloween Special included. I've had this book for several years and always keep forgetting in October to read it. Well, not this year. I made sure that it was the first thing I grab for my 2024 Halloween reads! 

Before celebrating All Hallow's Eve with the undead heroes of the Marvel Universe, there's several minis and one-shots to experience. All of them bloody. All of them rated for mature audiences.

• The contagion finds its way to the universe of the Marvel Apes. According to a traveller from the future, the key to preventing the zombie virus from taking root in Earth-8101, a group of heroes led by the Iron Mandrill must protect that world's version of Doctor Doom!
• The source of the zombie infection is finally revealed.
• Howard the Duck and a Machine Man must travel through various time periods of several universes to collect samples of the zombie virus in hopes of irradiating the threat to Earth-616.
• Howard then returns with a squadron of some of the biggest oddball heroes of the multiverse, led by Dum Dum Dugan, to prevent a world in which a Third Reich of Zombie's won World War II from taking over Earth-616.
• A Special Forces team is sent to quell a zombie invasion begun at Project PAGASUS.
• Finally, a mysterious female survivor of the undead outbreak, teaches her son about Halloween.

Karl Kesel, Fred Van Lente, Frank Marraffino and Peter David are the writers who dreamed up this anthology of terror. It's artists such as Todd Nauck, Alessandro Vitti and Kano who brought these nightmares to vivid life. I used to joke how a single issue print run of Robert Kirkman's Invincible must have caused shortages of red ink because of all the blood. I've thinking that this book might have attempted to break that record.

I must have bought this book for the Halloween special. Completing a run of the Marvel Zombies books has never been one of my comic book collecting goals. I've read a couple of volumes previously and while it's a fun scare compared to some of the more secular Marvel Horror titles, there's still a lot of death and destruction. I think it's more shocking when the carnage is caused by or thrust upon beloved icons of your youth. It's definitely more disturbing. 

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars.

Marvel Comics Presents #173

There are 4 one-shot stories in this, the third from last issue of MCP.

Lunatik is back for another run. This time around, he's been hired to assassinate an entire tribe of dimwitted natives as part of some big business scheme. But with the Silver Surfer involved and a heavy dose of hero worship, the bounty hunter just might have a change of heart.

In the Vengeance story, the demonic moppet Diabolique and her Plaything have returned. A major character dies! And I'm having nightmares again.

Nick Fury and SHIELD are back too! With Dum Dum Dugan helping out, the team is testing out yet another LMD with predictably disastrous effects.

Finally, the Avenger reservist Stingray is exploring the Pacific Ocean's Ring of Fire when he's attacked by Lava Men!

This was a great issue. Well, sorta. I mean, I didn't like that Diabolique killed off a pretty likable character. That's a death that is going to haunt Michael Badilino for years to come. 

I never complain when Nick Fury is around. I'll take a series of one-and-done stories if that's the only way to get more SHIELD into this book. The Stingray story had some amazing artwork by Mark McKenna (G.I. Joe: Order of Battle). And I thought the Lunatik story was funny. But I also feel like this was a Lobo story over at DC once before. 

Speaking of Lobo. Look at this cover by Simon Bisley, Jeff Moore and Tim Dzon. It's got Lunatik on the cover; but doesn't it look like something you'd see on a Lobo cover? That's because Simon Bisley did a whole bunch of covers for Lobo. With Keith Giffen at the helm!

I got a couple other things to say about this cover. One- Skreets is hot. There, I said it. It's not appropriate. But the artists really upped the image rating to a hard PG-13. Then, I must ask why does the previous issue have Silver Surfer on the cover when the character appears in this book? Shouldn't the covers or stories have been switched? Seems like somebody goofed...

A good issue that didn't turn out with 4 happy endings nor the right cover starring Lunatik it so appears.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.