Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD #1-6 (1989): 1st Werner Von Strucker, Network Nina

Marvel has been teasing and promoting a new Nick Fury book for literally years, and it’s been over a decade since he got a feature, so I suppose it’s about time.  And you can tell from the splash page that it will imitate Jim Steranko’s Strange Tales stories, the high water mark for Fury (and, frankly for 1960s comics).

As an agency, SHIELD was shut down in the Nick Fury miniseries, and now its ex-agents are being killed by a Hydra subgroup that calls itself Death’s Head. They try to kill Dum Dum but instead kill his wife (and yes, she’s actually dead) and a Dugan life model decoy.

That’s how it starts.  From there, we learn that the Death’s Head are Nazi aliens indoctrinated by Baron Strucker during World War II. They are now led by his descendent, Werner Von Strucker (in his first appearance).

There’s a lot of development about government conspiracies, a bunch of lesser agents who work with Fury, blah blah blah.  

Dum Dum Dugan “dies” (but doesn’t really, of course).

And Fury poses.

This spy stuff is rarely very good (unless Ed Brubaker is writing it), but it’s also not terrible.  If it’s your thing, or if you’re a big fan of Fury, you’ll probably like it.

Also if you like SHIELD agents. Lots of the old favorites are pulled out of mothballs.

And some new ones introduced, like psychic Network Nina.

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