Super Heroes as Cold Warriors
How Nick Fury, and Other Super-Patriots, Fought the Cold War
Oct 6, 2009
As the Cold War created world-wide tension, the comic book industry was quick to respond. In the mid to late 1940s, small, niche, publishers such as the Catholic Catechetical Guild Educational Society published melodramas which helped create belief in a constant threat of the insidious Communist conspiracy to overthrow America. By 1950, the two-fisted war comic was making a strong comeback thanks, in part, to a patriotic surge due to the Korean War.
War Comics
The patriotic surge from the Korean war fuelled a creative bubble in comics similar to that which led to comics' golden age at the start of World War II. The first genre of comics to benefit from this creative bubble were war comics and many of the titles, and their success, were a by-product of the Communist scare which was, by the early 1950s, sweeping the nation.
It was in May, 1963, that Marvel editor, Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby hit upon the most unlikely sounding combination of names and characters for a successful serious war comic when they created Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos. One version of the story, according to Scott Tipton's "Comics 101", is that Lee, and Marvel publisher Martin Goodman, had a bet regarding the potency of the Mighty Marvel "house style." Lee bet Goodman that he could create a hit from any genre.
Enter the Howling Commandos
For Goodman's part of the bet, the story goes, he requested a comic set in World War II with the "worst name he could think of": Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos. Lee and artist Jack Kirby went to work and created an elite fighting unit of GIs who just happened to be as racially and ethnically balanced as a documentary on diversity. Fury led the Howlers through 120 original issues from May of 1963 until July of 1974 (the series continued as reprints until 1981). Annuals would feature the Howlers being called back to action for missions in Vietnam and Korea.
In these books, Nick Fury was a hard-charging, witty, warrior who always came through for his men and his country, no matter the odds stacked against him. This was the typical cold war propaganda of the war comic, heroic melodrama where the hero is willing to give his all for his country. By the mid-1960s. however, the nation's view on the war in Vietnam and the Cold War was no longer drawn in the clear black and white strokes of the war comic; rather the view was cast in many shades of Gray.
Strange Tales Indeed
By 1965, Fury found himself caught in the comic book version of some horrible time-stream experimentation gone awry as he was appearing on newsstands in books set in World War II and, as of August, 1965 with the publication of Strange Tales #135, Fury was appearing in books set in the present.
Stan Lee argues that Sgt. Fury readers had been writing in wanting to know if Fury had survived the war and were asking about his role in the post-war Marvel Universe. However, a strong case could be made that Lee's love of utilizing existing characters plus his desire to capitalize on the success of the James Bond franchise of films made Colonel Nick Fury the natural man to run Marvel's most secret spy organization: SHIELD.
Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law-enforcement Division
SHIELD was the acronym for a rather unwieldy set of defence related terms. This hyper-secret agency featured gizmos and gadgets which would have shaken James Bond. In addition, most of the Howlers were un-retired and returned as agents. However, it was the hard-charging, savvy, and wise-cracking Nick Fury who drove the book's action.
The villain, HYDRA, which matched up against SHIELD was a collective (read Communist) organization who was bent on taking over the world only after they destroyed Nick Fury. The initial 15 issue run of SHIELD stories in Strange Tales (June 1968 through November 1969) were only 12 pages each as the book split time between Fury and the occult tales of Dr. Strange. During the 12 issue run, Nick Fury Agent of Shield appeared as a stand alone title.
Melding Pop Art and Comics
The Strange Tales run and the 1st solo series are important for a number of reasons. One is that, beginning with ST #151 Jim Steranko was brought in as the artist. Steranko introduced elements of Pop Art, Psychedelia, Op Art, and even found object art to mainstream comic book readers in a way which produced powerful results and resonated with the times. Steranko is, today, heralded as one of the most innovative and ground-breaking comic book artists of all time, despite the brevity of his career.
The other reason that Nick Fury is important is that, during the Cold War, and beyond (as illustrated in the recent Iron Man film), Americans positively respond to heroes who are cocky, wise-asses; but have America's best interests at heart. At the same time, that character could no longer be a one-dimensional hero, spouting hackneyed cliches. Rather, he (or she) had to be a hero who could see and react appropriately to the shades of gray which colored the American world view of the era. Fury was such a hero and his refusal to fade away speaks to the fact that Fury's approach to politics was more subtle and humane, despite the bluster, than the other Cold War-spawned comic book war hawks.
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