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Nick Fury: Seven Against The Nazis/Nick Fury: Agent Of Nothing

featuring Stan Lee, Jonathan Hickman and Brian Michael Bendis

(Art by Jack Kirby, Dick Ayers, Stefano Caselli and John Beatty)

Marvel's Mightiest Heroes Book 14.  First of all this book gives us the original appearance of Sgt. Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos as they infiltrate occupied Europe to protect the secrets of D-Day during the Second World War.  We are then given a story set after S.H.I.E.L.D. has been dismantled and replaced by H.A.M.M.E.R. by Norman Osborn.  In hiding and with limited resources, Fury and his team of Secret Warriors uncover a deadly secret buried within S.H.I.E.L.D.'s past.

I was admittedly dubious about the first part of this book.  Knowing Nick Fury from his role in the larger Marvel Universe, reading a straight WWII action story felt initially like this was a different incarnation of the character altogether.  However, I grew up reading Biritsh WWII comic books like 'Commando', so I actually found myself liking it on its own merits.

The second story here was much more engaging from the outset, however.  I'm a big fan of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV show and The Winter Soldier is one of my favourite MCU movies, so reading the comic book story that lays out the infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D. by Hydra was great.  I also always enjoy an underdog team story, so seeing Fury and the young inexperienced Secret Warriors, led by Daisy 'Quake' Johnson, try to take on not only Hydra but H.A.M.M.E.R. too was something I really enjoyed.

What I found most surprising and interesting in this book is that in Fury's first appearance from (I think) 1963, he's a mean and unlikable S.O.B and in the modern story from more than forty years later, the character is still a mean and unlikable S.O.B.  It was a consistency that I was not expecting to find.

4 out of 5

Nightcrawler: X-Men Origins - Nightcrawler/The Devil Inside

featuring Adam Freeman, Marc Bernadin and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa

(Art by Cary Nord, James Harren, Chris Sotomayor, Darick Robertson and Wayne Faucher)

Marvel's Mightiest Heroes Book 59.  This book begins by telling the story of Nightcrawler's childhood as a circus acrobat after which he becomes a fugitive from the man who exploited and abused him.  The second story then tells of how Kurt becomes the X-Men's de facto paranormal investigator, trying to save a young boy from demonic possession and investigating reports of ghosts in the New York subway.

The key component to Nightcrawler's appeal as a character is that despite looking demonic, he is true of heart and genuinely heroic in nature.  It's a nice inversion of all of the heroes who hide darker sides to their natures under a facade and makes Kurt one of the most endearing of the X-Men.  Both of these stories explore the way that his looks colour how the world around him reacts to him but his moral compass defines him as a hero.

I particularly enjoyed seeing Kurt being tasked with the paranormal investigations that come the X-Men's way, since he looks like something from a demonic dimension but absolutely is not.  He's almost a fish-out-of-water when trying to tackle demons and ghosts but his refusal to let that stop him from saving people makes the story very compelling.

4 out of 5