Get Fury #5

In the penultimate issue of this 2024-25 miniseries, Frank Castle initiates his rescue of Nick Fury from the confines of the Hanoi Hilton. Meanwhile dirty CIA operatives Steve and Dave convince General Mackie to send out a group of commandos to eliminate Castle and Fury, branding them Communist double agents. 

It's a really powerful chapter, especially when seen through the eyes of Lt. Castle. As much as he needs to free Nick Fury from the notorious North Vietnamese prison, it's killing Frank to have to overlook the hundreds of other American POWS being held under deplorable conditions. 

Man, I just brainstormed  what would be a freaking awesome What If... What if the Punisher existed during the Vietnam War? Have Castle's wife killed while he's in Nam. Have him lose all care and go all Rambo, armed to the teeth, staging a raid on Hóa Lò. Through in a few characters from 1990's The 'Nam series. Have Larry Hama and Garth Ennis pen it together. Give it the Marvel MAX treatment. I would be first in line, pre-ordered for that epic! Think it over CB Cebulski! 

An awesome issue that opens up a multiverse of opportunities.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Get Fury #4

Col. Nick Fury has arrived at the notorious Hanoi Hilton. Lt. Frank Castle has established himself in the capitol city of North Vietnam, posing as a Soviet army advisor. But his Russian is limited and he's leaving a trail behind him everywhere he goes. Thankfully, Castle has found a pair of allies that have a way of getting inside the prison and they both have a history with Nick Fury. That's because one of them is Fury's former lover and the other is Nick's daughter.

Meanwhile, back at base, CIA agents Steve and Dave have uncovered further evidence that Castle and Fury are working together to end the agency's drug trade in Cambodia. Instead of following his orders to execute Nick Fury, it's becoming increasingly clear that Frank is going to rescue the Colonel. This is calling for a Plan B, which will mean the elimination of both Fury and Castle.

The scenes involving Frank Castle were perfect. I wouldn't change a thing; especially the whole added dimension of Nick's daughter being added to the mix. As for the scenes where Dave has figured out that Frank Castle was the last person to select for the Nick Fury mission, I understand the importance of those scenes. I just found that they went too freaking long. This is a 6 issue miniseries. But if Garth Ennis could have made the CIA scenes a little more streamlined, Get Fury could've ended in 4 issues. 5 tops.

I know that nothing that the CIA did in Southeast Asia was anything but concise or ethical. But I still felt like I could have done without a majority of it.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.

Get Fury #3

So you might be wondering how in the heck is Frank Castle able to operate in downtown Saigon in the middle of daylight. He's over 6 feet tall and whiter than paper. Not exactly the most Asian looking bloke in the heart of Communist Vietnam. He sticks out like a sore thumb.

It turns out that just as the South Vietnamese had American advisors, the North had advisors from the Soviet Union. This was totally new information to me but it makes total sense. So using what little amount of Russian he knows and his amazing array of survival skills, Castle is making do. But he's also leaving a rather long trail of bodies in his wake 

Back at base camp, there's a third party at play that I haven't mentioned in my previous 2 reviews: a pair of dirty CIA operatives named Steve and Dave. They've been involved in the illegal drug trafficking scheme in Cambodia; which is where Fury was captured by North Vietnamese forces. They believe that Col. Fury discovered the illicit trade and was in route to spill the beans on the whole operation. Thus why the push to send Lt. Castle into enemy territory to neutralize the future Director of SHIELD.

However, when a different pair of CIA spooks wind up dead in a locale that neither man would have frequented in a million years, Steve and Dave smell a rat. It turns out that the one guy to send to eliminate Nick Fury was the wrong G.I. to send. Because Fury and Castle have history. It turns out Nick has been using Frank to wipe out the loose threads dangling from the Cambodian drug trade.

Things just got complicated. Why couldn't Garth Ennis have just made this a simple extraction caper? Maybe you can't have the Punisher going after Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD without any sort of permanent repercussions. But did Ennis have to make the reason for Castle not eventually going through with his mission so freaking complex that I feel like I need one of those charts with the red strings going all cattywampus like an obsessed conspiracy theorist might have up in their bedroom??? 

The action parts are fantastic. The introduction of clandestine government programs was muddling at best. Yeah, I know that the CIA did some really unethical and illegal stuff in Southeast Asia during Nam. I have no doubt that they're still doing something in the name of American interests that would result in plausible deniability if the agents running the scams were ever found out in the open.  I just didn't need it's historical insertion into this story.

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars.

Get Fury #2

Along with examining Nick Fury's time in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, Get Fury acts as another chapter in the origin story of Frank Castle, AKA the Punisher. A Marine Lieutenant on his third tour of duty, Castle has seen a lot of horrors and atrocities that have numbed him to the point of doing some very sinister things for the American armed forces. Hence his unquestioning ability to accept a CIA backed mission to infiltrate Hanoi and assassinate Nick Fury before he can be tortured into spilling all of his country's covert secrets.

With his wife, Maria, still alive and waiting for him back home, Frank still has his moral compass. His hands might be dirty. In fact, they're down right bloody. But Castle has yet to have lost his soul.

This issue sees Castle being snuck across enemy lines and taking up a presence in Hanoi. The process of getting the Marine into North Vietnam involves a thrilling dogfight sequence by Jacen Burrows, between an American jet (I'm not an expert but I am assuming that it's a Grumman A-6 Intruder based on looks) and some Communist surface-to-air missiles. I mean I know that Frank wasn't going to die because he's got to survive in order to one day become the Punisher. Yet I was enthralled by that scene. Plus, there's still the fate of the fighter pilot...

Another decent introductory issue that's setting up all the pieces to the chess board. Definitely not a wasted issue. Still pretty heavy on hard swears but it wasn't a chapter devoid of action.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Get Fury #1

When this miniseries was first advertised in Previews, I put it on my wish list. I didn't need to buy the issues new. But I am a big fan of Nick Fury, owning complete runs of many series, titles and one shots involving various incarnations of the character. Considering that Fury fought in World War II and Korea, it's natural to assume that the one-eyed super spy was poking around Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. 

In Get Fury, Nick has been captured by North Vietnamese forces while involved in a clandestine operation in Cambodia. CIA Intel has information that Fury is being transported to the infamous Hanoi Hilton POW prison, where he will be tortured until he reveals every little government secret hidden in the folds of his brain. To prevent sensitive information from getting to the Communists, Lt. Frank Castle, currently on his third tour of duty, has been assigned to enter Hanoi, infiltrate the prison and assassinate Nick Fury before his torturous information sessions can begin.

Get Fury was written by Garth Ennis. Had I known that, I probably would have skipped putting this title on my radar. I'm just not a fan of the North Irish writer. His stories have tons of blood, viscera and the F-word. Plus he's no fan of the American government, or just about any world power, unafraid of upsetting the skeletons in any nation's closet. Ennis is a lot like Tarantino; only without the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia. At least he refused to kill the puppy!

This 2024-25 miniseries marks the long awaited return of the Marvel MAX imprint. In other words, the House of Ideas version of Vertigo. If you ever wanted to see Nick Fury operating outside of the confines of the Comics Code, this is your chance. It's rather unsettling as I prefer the character when presented as a Our Man Flynn type of secret agent with an unlimited budget and madcap imagination. I'm going to trudge through this 6-issue series all the way through to the end. I just don't think that I'm going to like it.

Fantastic cover by Dave Johnson. Love this homage to the first appearance of the Punisher!

Worth Consuming, so far...

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Rawhide Kid: Slap Leather

Rawhide Kid: Slap Leather is Ron Zimmerman's 2003 retooling of the Rawhide Kid legend. The big controversy behind this book was that through all the thinly veiled hints and innuendo, it's supposed to be implied that the Rawhide Kid was gay. Here's the thing, I don't think Rawhide is really gay. I think it's one big joke that fans of Marvel Westerns are in on and the prank was pulled on the House of Ideas.

The late Ron Zimmerman was among things besides a comic book writer, he was also a stand-up comedian and satirist. I think Zimmerman took the idea of homo-eroticism in Western lore, especially with cowboys, got Marvel on board and took a chance to make his version of Blazing Saddles. 

The entire story was a comedic farce. There's absolutely nothing serious here. The mayor of the town is an ancestor of the Bush family (He looks like W too!). There are also ancestors of some of your favorite funny men from 60s and 70s sitcoms. Icons of the classic TV Westerns such as Laura Ingalls Wilder, the Cartwrights of Bonanza and many more guest star as well. Only the spelling of the characters is changed slightly; probably to avoid copyright issues. Slap Leather is satire. Slap Leather is parody. 

The addition of comic book legend John Severin on artwork added some gravitas to this project. It's probably why Marvel to this day still claims the Rawhide Kid as an LGBTQ+ icon. Severin was an artist on the original Rawhide Kid series. Yet I am telling you, this 5 issue miniseries is anything but serious. If this book was published in the 70s or 80s, today's readers would probably criticize it today as being unsympathetic or homophobic. But Zimmerman pulled the wool over everybody's eyes and was able to take a whole lot of stereotype and humor about gays and somehow fooled everyone into thinking that this was a book full of pride. But I think it's really a secret thumb-nose to any and everyone on both sides of the issue. 

That's not to say that this wasn't a funny read. The gang of outlaws who seek to 'rape and pillage the town' of Wells Junction are hilarious. They're totally incompetent and yet their wordplay is so clever. Catastrophe Jen is one of the best Western comics characters to be introduced in the past 40 years!  The banter between the inept Sheriff and his son who is embarrassed by the lawman's lily-liver was so brilliant. I thought Rawhide was great too in how he interacted with the Sheriff's bratty child. The scene where the Kid wants the townsfolk to leave before high noon and they all get insulted by not being recruited to help save their homes. Such great irony! I just felt that the part that everyone circles the wagons around, Rawhide's sexuality, was actually the joke and not some big step in helping the homosexual community become less marginalized.

If you are a fan of Westerns. If you can overlook the change to Marvel canon. If you can laugh at humor that is far from P.C., you will like this book. You might think I am wrong and decide that Rawhide Kid: Slap Leather really is pro-LGBTQ+. That's okay if you do. Just as it's appropriate for me to think that the joke is on you!

No matter what, this is an essential classic of modern comics. It's just up to the reader to decide what merits of this work make it a paradigm of sequential art.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 10 out of 10 stars.