NoKo Crushers SGT FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS "Commission in Korea!" Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...

...the Howling Commandos under Colonel "Happy Sam" Sawyer, are sent into North Korea to blow up a secret air base!

With a slightly shaken-up "Happy Sam" stationed outside the base as backup, Sgt Fury and the Howlers attack in their own inimitable style...

Why all the set-up for Nick Fury?

He had recently-appeared in Fantastic Four (V1N21 [1963]) as an eyepatch-wearing CIA colonel (though he's named "Sgt Fury" and wearing ripped Army fatigues on the cover) to help them stop the Hate Monger and reminisce with Reed Richards/Mr Fantastic, whom he'd met during WWII when Reed was an OSS agent.

So we knew the crusty noncom-turned-officer had survived to the (then) present day.

But bigger plans were in store for Nick...

Fury had just replaced The Human Torch and The Thing as Dr Strange's co-feature in Strange Tales as of #135 (1965), making him the first comic character to have two simultaneous strips set in two different time periods!
(Howling Commandos in the 1940s, S.H.I.E.L.D. in the "present day" 1960s!)
Several of the Howlers joined Nick at S.H.I.E.L.D., including Dum-Dum, Gabe, and eventually, Eric Koenig.

Fanboy Trivia:

Eric isn't in this Annual set in the period between World War II and the 1960s because he wasn't even introduced into the WWII-era Howling Commandos comic until six months after the Annual was published (#27 in late 1965)!
And, we finally got to see the only exclusive Sgt Fury-themed Marvel merchandise of the 1960s...a Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos t-shirt (which, unlike most of the other Marvel shirts of the 1960s, had never been reissued by Graphitti!)

Would I love to have a Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos shirt (in XXL, sadly)...

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NoKo Crushers SGT FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS "Commission in Korea!" Part 1

Though Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos were best-known for their World War II exploits...

...many of the current comic readers don't know how they battled Commies in the 1950s!

And, no, this ain't rebooting Marvel history with retroactive continuity like the recent Ben Grimm and Logan mini-series presentation!
This was written and illustrated during the Silver Age of Comics by the original Marvel Bullpen crew and has been officially part of Marvel continuity since!

This tale from Marvel's Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos Annual #1 (1965), gives the details...

We'll observe, Commie...NEXT MONDAY!

In the 1960s, Marvel's Annuals were a mixed bag.

Unlike DC's 80-Page Giants which were all-reprint, Marvel's combined a new lead story with new behind-the-scenes featurettes and pin-ups along with a couple of reprinted stories into a 72-page package for the same 25₵ price as the aforementioned Giants.

This Stan Lee-scripted, Dick Ayers-penciled, Frank Giacoia-inked tale ("Frankie Ray" was Giacoia's pseudonym because he was doing a lot of freelance work for DC at the time.) covered a major, but untold, event in the group's history...their only battle during the Korean War!

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Clobberin' Korean Commies with The Duke! JOHN WAYNE ADVENTURE COMICS "Bridgehead"

You know John Wayne did a Vietnam War movie (Green Berets)...

...but he never did a Korean War flick!

(Jet Pilot is a Cold War movie involving Russians.

No Koreans or scenes set in Korea.)

Comic books were a different matter...

Trivia: Besides not doing a Korean War movie, Wayne never did a film set in World War II Europe!
Correction: Wayne did appear in a film with flashbacks to WWII, Cast a Giant Shadow, and an actual WWII movie, The Longest Day, as part of an all-star ensemble!
(Though, to be fair, neither one had a comic adaptation!)
Thanks to reader Lawrence for catching my gaffe and inspiring me to do a little more research!
This never-reprinted tale is from Toby's John Wayne Adventures #15 (1952), penciled by Mel Keefer.(The other credits are unknown)
You'll note that Wayne is referred to as "John Wayne", not "John Wayne as Sgt Stryker" or some other character he played in movies...or a totally-new character!
The conceit of this 31-issue series, John Wayne Adventure Comics, was that Wayne was always himself in the stories, no matter where or when they were set!
Tales ran the gamut from Wayne in the French Foreign Legion to putting out oil-rig fires to big-game hunting in Africa to tracking spies in Hong Kong, with at least one Western-themed story every issue.
Oddly enough, though there are numerous comic adaptations of Wayne's Western movies, and even a comic based on The Conqueror (where he portrayed Genghis Khan), there are no comics adapting any of his war movies!

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Russkie-Smashers / NoKo Crushers BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25th CENTURY "Adventure of the Flying Discs!"

Yes, the 20th Century Guy Who Survived to the 25th Century returns to the 20th Century...

...(1950, to be exact) to Take On Commies of Various Ethnicities...and Explain What Flying Saucers Are...and Who's Piloting Them!

(Cover by Murphy Anderson and an unknown inker)

This never-reprinted tale illustrated by Ray Chatton, from Toby Press' Buck Rogers in the 25th Century #100 (1950) was done specifically for the comic, unlike Buck's previous comic book appearances, which were newspaper strip reprints.
(BTW, though the book is "#100", it's actually the first issue from this publisher!)
"Korosa" is, obviously, Korea, where the Korean War broke out on June 25, 1950.
It's interesting to note that, in the 25th Century, peace reigns on Earth and there are rocket bases and other facilities in Korosa/Korea!
Plus, the unknown writer apparently wasn't exactly conversant in the concept of time travel...which, even at this stage in science fiction literature, pretty much stated that interference in the "past" usually-resulted in catastrophic rewriting of history in the "future/present" as shown in stories like "A Sound of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury!

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CoronaVirus Comics PLASTIC MAN "Fight Against Germ Warfare!"

Perhaps the least-likely superhero to deal with either the Korean War or biological warfare...

...was the usually light-hearted Ductile Detective, Plastic Man!

As you can see, this never-reprinted tale from Quality's Plastic Man #38 (1952) is a loooong way from his usual surreal antics.

After World War II, while most surviving superheroes were going from serious to light-hearted, Quality's characters took a dive into the Dark Side of the pool, following whatever trend was popular at the moment!

Monsters (including vampires, zombies, and werewolves), Korean/Russkie/Chinese Communists, and aliens from outer space became their primary opponents!

For other characters like Blackhawk and Kid Eternity, it wasn't much of a transition since they had battled fairly realistic Nazis and Japanese both on the battlefield and on the homefront, but the usually-fun Plas went through a particularly-jarring change as writer/artist Jack Cole departed his creation early in 1950!

The decidedly non-humorous trend continued until Plas was laid to rest in 1956.

Though DC bought up the Quality Comics line that year, the only titles they continued were Blackhawk, G.I. Combat, Heart Throbs and the short-lived Robin Hood Tales.

Plas languished without even a reprint until he was revived in 1966 in all-new stories in a short-lived series!

(Note: around the same time, IW/Super Comics reprinted several issues of Plas's Golden Age book since they had purchased the actual printing plates from a facility where they had been abandoned by Quality.

The timing appears to have been a coincidence.)

Since then, he's been revived and revamped several times under a variety of creatives including Kyle Baker and Phil Foglio, and eventually incorporated into the DC mainstream universe.

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