The One and Only Classic Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D: Nicholas Joseph Fury Appreciation

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD #2 Jul 1968
"So Shall Ye Reap Death!"
Jimmy Woo heads into a circus funhouse - but things are not quite what they appear.
The funhouse is actually a series of death traps, but Jimmy Woo is up to the challenge.
After many harrowing escapes and near misses, he emerges to find three men waiting for him - Clay Quartermain, Dum-Dum Dugan and Nick Fury!
Jimmy has just passed the final test for acceptance as an agent of SHIELD, though Dugan is still worried about the history between Fury and Woo.

The next day Jimmy and Nick are flying to the SHIELD helicarrier when suddenly a strange beam knocks their plane into a spin.
Fury ejects Jimmy, but stays with the plane to try and pull it out, only to be
forcibly removed by a bizarre insectoid alien creature moments before the plane crashes.

Soon, Fury is greeted by the master of the creature, a humanoid who goes by the name Centurius.
While claiming peaceful intentions, the man has his servants remove Fury's weapon,
but Fury is none too happy about the loss of his plane or the weird circumstances involved.
Suddenly, Jimmy Woo also enters the room, and reveals that he was grabbed by a strange creature as well.
At this point Nick and Jimmy are anxious to hear what Centurius has to say for himself.
Centurius, disgusted by human greed, and ridiculed by other scientists for his theory that life
"evolved from internuclear space", set about creating this lab to develop an "evolution process".
His process quickly produced many species, some of which were totally alien and some of which were much like prehistoric creatures.
Centurius is then beaming pairs of these creatures into his Automated Rebirth Colonizer (ARC), which is in orbit around the earth.
Fury tells him that the world would be thrilled to hear of these discoveries, but Centurius reveals one final detail -
he's going to wipe out life on earth with 40 days and nights of powerful radiation, and then recolonize it with the ARC.
Centurius claims it'll be the end of intimidation, fear, and the threat of mass murder on Earth.
As he removes his helmet, Jimmy Woo recognizes him as Noah Black, who had disappeared back in the 1930's.

Noah Black turns his attention back to his experiments, but Fury and Woo have an obvious philosophical disagreement with the doctor,
and agree he needs to be stopped. Fury escapes the compound looking for help, while Jimmy remains to cause mischief.

Elsewhere on the island, a film crew is shooting on location for a motion picture.
P.D.Q. Werner is shooting a King Kong movie on location, but his leads (Brad and Tiffany) seem to have no chemistry whatsoever.
Turns out they've done a lot of work together, and this is routine for them.

Their bickering ends when they see in the distance Nick Fury fall into a puddle of quicksand, and what appears to be a dinosaur bearing down on him.
The movie makers quickly move into action, first with a smoke charge to distract the dinosaur
and then Brad himself swinging from a vine Tarzan-style and grabbing Fury out of the quicksand pit.
Fury explains the situation to them, and they agree to help. Using their special effects wizardry and giant King Kong robot,
they go to war with the very real monsters on the island, while Fury works his way back to where Jimmy Woo and Centurius are fighting.

Fury discreetly works his way inside Centurius's lab disguised as one of his servants, and then the battle is on.
When Centurius realizes he cannot defeat the agents of SHIELD and that everything he's worked for will go to waste,
he uses the same evolution ray that has kept him young all these years to, as Woo describes it,
"completing the evolutionary cycle... turning back into a handful of protoplasmic slime!"

As this happens, the ARC suddenly descends back down towards the island, but Fury, Woo
and the movie makers are safely aboard a boat just in time to avoid the inevitable explosion.

Script and pencils by Jim Steranko http://www.comicsreporter.com/index....hday_steranko/ http://www.cnjcomics.com/site/2018/0...-at-cnjcomics/,
inks by Frank Giacoia and Joe Giella (assist).
Page 5, panels 9 and 11 redrawn by John Romita Sr. to allow the issue to pass the Comics Code Authority.

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #4 Nov 1963
" Lord Ha-Ha's Last Laugh"
Fury and his Commandos are ordered to rescue the son of an English lord

who has been captured by the Nazis and is forced to broadcast Nazi propaganda.

Except, he is not forced at all.

Script by Stan Lee, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by George Roussos

[Grapeweasel]

Pamela is never going to forgive Nick for letting her brother get killed.

Wait.

Never mind.

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

LOL Good one.