Random Happenstance

I mentioned this issue the last time we mentioned Nick Fury: issue #39, part three of the four-part "Cold War of Nick Fury." And this issue was written off as a lie told by Nick Fury: while being questioned by a questionable group of spooks, Fury spins this little yarn, since he knows any real intelligence operatives would know it was baloney. At least, that's how it was spun, which isn't the worst way of fixing continuity.

Working undercover in Vienna in 1953, Fury is on his way to a dead-drop pickup, when another agent gives Fury a new assignment. The other agent goes to the pickup, and is killed in place of Fury; while Fury begins training with a band of specialists, to blow a dam near Pyongyang, North Korea. While bombers would be flying a raid, they were going to blow it from the inside. Fury's team makes it out, but half are killed when their bomb goes off.

Finishing the story, Fury explains the destruction of the dam did a lot of damage to the countryside; between that and a crop failure, "a lot of North Koreans went hungry that year." The spook says America wouldn't target the crops of civilians...Fury does have a pretty big grin in the end, that may hint he was lying and the retraction the next issue was planned, but I'm not sure.

This issue is a dense read, more wordy than the average comic, but not in a bad or overblown way. The art is a little bare-bones, but it does the job. This kind of straight-espionage story can be done with Nick Fury, but I think a bit more flamboyance is expected--there's no flying cars, helicarrier, or babes in this one.

From Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #39, "The Cold War of Nick Fury, part three: A Hunger for Freedom." Written by Eliot Brown and Don Sharp, art by Don Hudson.

Oh, and I found this issue, not at the comic shop, but in the dollar store; bagged with a copy of Jim Lee's X-Men #2. Last time I was there, they had a good batch of Magneto #0, a foil-covered thing; and Infinity War #2, an issue I love.