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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Russkie-Smashers ATOMIC ATTACK! "Tomorrow's War!"

RUSSKIES!

In 1953, we thought we'd still be fighting them in the not-so-distant future...

... of 1972!

Now that's scary!

This wild tale was from the first issue of a "future war" title from the 1950s called Atomic Attack!

(It was called simply Attack for it's first four issues and added "Atomic" to the title as of the fifth issue, so the first issue of Atomic Attack was #5!)

Oddly, only the lead story in each issue was future-based!

The other tales were set in contemporary (Korean War) times!
Sadly, because the publisher, Youthful Publications, is long defunct and left no successor company, there are no records of the writer or artist(s) for this story!

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Russkie-Smashers SPURS JACKSON AND HIS SPACE VIGILANTES "Spurs Sees RED!"

Space Western Comics (the ORIGINAL Cowboys vs Aliens) returns...

...once more with Spurs Jackson and His Space Vigilantes battling Commies...piloting a flying saucer!

(Hey it was the 1950s!)

Sadly, the Russkies didn't even salvage a crashed alien ship and retro-engineered it's tech.

It's just a disguised Flying Wing...which both we and they were working on at the time.

(We were also working on our own flying saucers, but don't tell the Russkies!)

Art was by John Belfi, with a script by Walter (The Shadow) Gibson!.

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Russkie-Smashers PLASTIC MAN "Monster of Flame"

He's not creator Jack Cole's wacko version of the Ductile Detective...

...but he is the Russkie-Smasher Quality Comics' editors thought we wanted in the 1950s!

Written by Joe Millard and illustrated by Al Luster, this tale from Quality's Plastic Man #43 (1953) was typical for the era, emphasizing Commies and monsters over the surreal humor Jack Cole had embedded into the series' concept!

BTW, when the story was reprinted only a couple of years later in Quality's Plastic Man #60 (1956), the newly-created Comics Code Authority insisted on a title change...

...as well as minor alterations in a couple of panels renaming the FBI the "NBI" and cutting back on violence and name-calling!

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