| Format: | Ongoing |
| Publisher: | Marvel Comics |
| Date: | May 1963 – Dec. 1981 |
| Issues: | 167 |
| Main Char Team: | Sgt. Fury Izzy Cohen Dum Dum Dugan Gabe Jones Junior Juniper Eric Koenig Dino Manelli Pinky Pinkerton Rebel Ralston |
| Writers: | Stan Lee (1-28, Annual #1) Roy Thomas (29-41, Annual #2) Gary Friedrich (42–57, 59–73, 75–76, 83, 94, 96–98, 100, 102, 104, 106, 108, 110, 112, 115–116, Annual #3–4, 6) |
| Pencillers: | Jack Kirby Dick Ayers |
| Inkers: | Dick Ayers George Roussos John Severin |
| Creators: | Stan Lee Jack Kirby |
Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos is a comic book series created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee and published by Marvel Comics from 1963 to 1981. The main character, Sgt. Nick Fury, later became the leader of Marvel's super-spy agency, S.H.I.E.L.D. The title also featured the Howling Commandos, a fictional World War II unit that first appeared in Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #1 (cover dated May 1963).
Stan Lee has described the series Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos as having come about due to a bet with his publisher, Martin Goodman that the Lee-Kirby style could make a book sell even with the worst title Lee could devise.[1] Lee elaborated on that claim in a 2007 interview, responding to the suggestion that the series title did not necessarily seem bad: Comics-artist contemporary John Severin recalled in an interview conducted in the early 2000s that in the late 1950s, Kirby had approached him to be partners on a syndicated, newspaper comic strip "set in Europe during World War Two; the hero would be a tough, cigar-chomping sergeant with a squad of oddball GIs - sort of an adult Boy Commandos",[2] referring to a 1940s wartime "kid gang" comics series Kirby had co-created for DC Comics.
Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos followed an elite special unit, the First Attack Squad, nicknamed the "Howling Commandos", which was stationed in a military base in England to fight missions primarily, but not exclusively, in the European theatre of World War II. Under Captain "Happy Sam" Sawyer, Fury was the cigar-chomping noncom who led the racially and ethnically integrated unit (racial integration was unusual for the then-segregated U.S. military, though possible in elite special forces units).[3] Lee was obliged to send a memo to the color separator at the printing plant to confirm that the character Gabe Jones was African American, after the character had appeared with Caucasian coloring in the first issue.
The series ran 167 issues (May 1963 - Dec. 1981), though with reprints alternating with new stories from issue #80 (Sept. 1970), and only in reprints after issue #120 (July 1974); at this point the formal copyrighted title in the indicia, which had been simply Sgt. Fury, was changed to match the trademarked cover logo, Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos.[4] [5] Following seven issues by creators Lee and Kirby (who returned to collaborate on #13 and on the opening and closing pages of #18), penciller Dick Ayers began his long stint on what would be his signature series, penciling 95 issues, including two extra-length annuals.[6] John Severin later joined as inker, forming a long-running, award-winning team; he would, additionally, both pencil and ink issues #44-46. The series' only other pencilers came on one issue each by Tom Sutton (which Ayers said was "done that time I asked for a furlough and reassignment")[7] and Herb Trimpe ("They shuffled Trimpe and me around, [him] to Fury and [me] and Severin to [The Incredible] Hulk]]" Ayers recalled.)
Roy Thomas followed Lee as writer, himself followed by Gary Friedrich, for whom this also became a signature series.[8] Ayers said in 1977, "Stan Lee left Fury first to Roy Thomas because the superheroes were gaining in popularity at that time it was best he concentrate on them", referring to the young Marvel's then growing line of superhero comics, such as Fantastic Four and The Amazing Spider-Man. "I must admit I resented somewhat those superheroes taking Stan away from Fury!"[9]
Friedrich began as a co-scripter of issues #42-44 (May–July 1967). The Friedrich-Ayers-Severin team began in earnest, however, with #45 (Aug. 1967), the first of what would be several of the series' "The" stories: "The War Lover", a shaded exploration of a trigger-happy soldier and the line drawn, even in war, between killing and murder. Daring for the time, when majority public sentiment still supported the undeclared Vietnam War, the story balanced present-day issues while demonstrating that even in what is referred to as "a just war", a larger morality prevails. As one writer in the 1970s observed,