Bob Harras

I suppose, if you had an attachment to the old SHIELD series, this would not be to your liking, since it kills many of those characters and dismantles the organization. As someone who had never read many of those comics. I quite enjoyed this, and I think it still stands up. The art by Paul Neary is good (although there are some problems telling his characters apart) and the coloring goes a long way to adding to the oppressive mood of the story.

There's maybe four decent issues in this package of eleven issues, and it's a shame. The first arc is a huge misstep, as it's basically a science fiction story that isn't particularly well written or drawn and which seems to miss the point of what Nick Fury, at his best, is: a spy. The next arc is better and focuses on Fury and SHIELD vs. terrorists, but it's still missing a lot of personality.

The original bad-ass, template for all the cigar-chewing-one-eyed-dare-do heroes after - Snake Pliskens, Snake from Metal Gear, Punisher (to a degree) and others.

Excellent collection - but can be tedious at some moments due to the story style popular in the late 80's, early 90's.

Recommended.

Picked this one up used from one of the local comic book shops.

Here we have the revival of SHIELD after the Nick Fury vs SHIELD limited series which saw the good Colonel shut down the organization after it had been infiltrated and corrupted by the Deltites (too much to go into here, read the story if you want to know more). Of course, as terrorist organizations begin to pop up more frequently, one which seems intent on going after Fury personally, Nick is brought out of retirement with a show more small team of SHIELD agents for what should be one last mission. Things are never really that simple, though, are they?

This collection contains the first eleven issues of the SHIELD revival series from 1989; first up is the return of SHIELD as a group calling itself the Death's Head Commandos, which Nick could swear he took care of during WWII, returns with a personal vendetta against the Howler. Next the newly reformed SHIELD, now directly under the UN, comes up against Leviathan. Then we get a Nick Fury solo tale as he takes a "vacation" in Scotland.

What's interesting here is that the two opening stories involve plots and characters that would be used both in later comic stories as well as in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. First, Nick Fury vs. SHIELD would set the groundwork for the story used in Captain America 2 while the beginning of this series would provide the seeds that would make their way into the plot of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD Season 2. Also, Leviathan would creep into the storyline of the first season of Agent Carter.

If you want to see where SHIELD was in the late 80s, early 90s, then I definitely suggest picking up this book... and probably its two follow-up volumes, though I haven't read them yet. show less