Across its next three issues, Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos quickly settles into a formula.
Fury and the Howlers finish one impossible mission. They return to base. Fury intimidates anyone who isn’t a Howler. The Howlers ignore normal military discipline. Captain “Happy Sam” Sawyer tries to keep everyone under control.
Then they’re handed another impossible mission. And somewhere along the way, something explodes.
A lot of things explode.
Taken individually, the stories can start to feel repetitive. But zoom out and something more interesting emerges. Characters develop. Relationships form. Missions have consequences. Major events carry forward. Connections to the larger Marvel Universe begin to take shape.
Lee and Kirby may not be building an ongoing story quite like Fantastic Four, where almost every issue feels like another step forward, but these are clearly becoming more than paint-by-numbers war comics.
Issue #2 – The Kirby War
Script by Stan Lee – Art by Jack Kirby – Inks by Dick Ayers – Letters by Art Simek
The second issue sends the Howlers into occupied Europe to sabotage a Nazi atomic research facility, and Jack Kirby’s artwork remains the biggest reason to read the series.
Kirby’s war doesn’t happen neatly in the center of a panel. It spills everywhere. Kirby isn’t simply drawing men firing guns. He’s drawing chaos.
Soldiers crowd the foreground and background. Buildings crumble. Bullets tear through walls. Bodies dive for cover. Vehicles crash into one another. Fury and the Howlers rarely seem to have enough room to move, creating a claustrophobic quality that makes the action feel frantic rather than choreographed.
Even the quieter moments barely stay quiet. Fury wakes the Howlers by firing live ammunition through their barracks, because apparently alarm clocks aren’t hardcore enough for Nick Fury.
Looking at these pages decades later, it’s easy to see echoes of Kirby in the artists who followed. The stark compositions, heavy shadows, crowded streets, and exaggerated perspectives make it hard not to think of later work like Frank Miller’s Sin City.
The mission itself establishes the basic structure the series will repeatedly return to. The Howlers infiltrate enemy territory, adopt disguises, inevitably get discovered, someone gets captured, and whatever careful plan existed gives way to improvisation and overwhelming violence.
Issue #2 also grounds the comic in the realities of the war. The Howlers encounter forced laborers while operating inside Nazi territory, and supplemental pages provide information about German infantry and military equipment.
Lee and Kirby want the comic to be outrageous entertainment, but they continually remind readers that the world surrounding these characters was real.
Issue #3 – Welcome to the Marvel Universe
Script by Stan Lee – Art by Jack Kirby – Inks by Dick Ayers – Letters by Sam Rosen
Issue #3 doubles down on the formula, opening right in the middle of the action.
After returning to base, the Howlers receive some time away—and promptly get into a bar fight. They cause enough trouble that sending them back behind enemy lines becomes the safest option for everyone involved.
Kirby once again fills the pages with enormous battle sequences, including an assault on a Mediterranean beach that somehow manages to cram nearly the entire squad, enemy soldiers, gunfire, explosions, and military equipment into the same panels without losing the action.
But the most noteworthy moment comes when Lee and Kirby connect their World War II series to Marvel’s expanding superhero universe. The Howlers encounter Major Reed Richards, years before he would become the leader of the Fantastic Four, working with the OSS.
It’s a small appearance, but an important piece of world-building. Marvel isn’t just connecting its characters in the present anymore. It’s beginning to give its universe a shared history.
The rest of the issue involves suspicious war correspondents, German spies, explosions, gunfire, and enough property damage to keep the Howlers comfortably on brand.
Issue #4 – Someone Doesn’t Come Home
Script by Stan Lee – Art by Jack Kirby – Inks by George Bell – Letters by Sam Rosen
The issue begins during a Luftwaffe bombing raid over London. Fury and the Howlers help civilians caught in the attack, including a Red Cross nurse named Pamela Hawley. Fury later discovers she’s the daughter of Lord Hawley, who asks the Commandos to undertake a deeply personal mission.
His son is broadcasting Nazi propaganda under the name Lord Ha-Ha. The family believes he’s being forced to do it. So the Howlers head into Germany.
Naturally, this requires disguising themselves as circus performers and German officers.
Kirby once again turns the rescue into controlled chaos. The Howlers leap through windows with guns blazing, race through enemy territory, and improvise their way through another mission that seems impossible from the beginning.
But this time, there isn’t a clean victory.
They discover Lord Ha-Ha isn’t a prisoner at all. He’s a genuine Nazi sympathizer who ultimately dies trying to alert German soldiers to the Howlers’ presence.
Then, during the escape, Jonathan “Junior” Juniper is shot and killed.
And he stays dead.
Death certainly wasn’t new to comic books, but Marvel’s new superhero universe had largely operated on last-minute escapes, miraculous survivals, and villains returning from the dead.
Unlike Lord Ha-Ha, Junior wasn’t a civilian introduced to die in this story. He was the youngest member of the team. He had fought beside the Howlers since the first issue.
Lee and Kirby have spent four issues portraying the Howlers as nearly indestructible. They survive impossible odds, crack jokes, and shoot their way out whenever a plan collapses.
Junior’s death punctures that fantasy. These aren’t superheroes. No matter how outrageous the missions become, they’re still soldiers fighting a war where someone may not come home.
The final pages understand that.
Fury seeks out Pamela Hawley, ostensibly to comfort her after the death of her brother, but there’s a sense that Fury needs some comfort himself. They’ve both just lost someone, and for once Fury doesn’t have a mission, a fight, or a wisecrack to hide behind.
It’s a surprisingly quiet ending for a series that rarely stops shouting.
Across these three issues, Lee and Kirby establish the rhythm of Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos. Impossible missions. Questionable disguises. Real-world history. Marvel continuity. Kirby action. Lots and lots of Nazis getting punched.
But issue #4 adds the element that makes all of it matter.
Consequences.
Marvel in the 60s – Entry #65
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