Fury and his Howling Commandos as having come about due to a bet with his publisher, Martin Goodman that the Lee-Kirby style could make a book sell even with the worst title Lee could devise.

[1] Lee elaborated on that claim in a 2007 interview, responding to the suggestion that the series title did not necessarily seem bad: It did at the time.

[8] John Severin later joined as inker, forming a long-running, award-winning team; he would, additionally, both pencil and ink issues #44-46.

... Future stories in that fashion — all but one written by Friedrich — would center on what war could do to "The Assassin" (#51), the tragedy of a man turned hired liquidator, his family held hostage by Hitler's Gestapo; "The Informer" (#57), an observation on loyalty and trust, staged in a German POW camp; "The Peacemonger" (#64) [about a World War II conscientious objector]; "The Deserter" (#75), an allusion to the real-life execution of Private Eddie Slovik; "The All-American" (#81), Al Kurzrok's tale of a man [caught] between the twin microcosms of sport and war; and ultimately, "The Reporter" (#110), an account of a journalist faced with the [question of] when might a human life be forfeit?

Many feel, also, that #46's tale, "They Also Serve", should be included ... for that story might as easily have been called "The Medic"....[12]At his best, Ayers' art in Sgt.

Fury showed "a clear, forthright storyteller, excellent in medium close shots with a subtly out-of-focus background.

He blended large panels with thin or small ones for movement, and often provided vast, cinemascopic panoramas for his writers to work with.... [E]ven in a scene that would ordinarily be static you could feel his characters breathing.

"[13] Inker Severin "took the art even further, laying dark, scratchy inks" that gave grit to Ayers' pencils.

[16] In addition to Fury, the elite special unit of U.S. Army Rangers nicknamed the Howling Commandos consisted of the following: In issue #34 (Sept. 1966)[10] it is shown that a young Nick Fury with his friend Red Hargrove, left their childhood neighborhood to pursue their dreams of adventure, eventually settling on a daring wing-walking aviation act.

Their death-defying stunts caught the attention of Lieutenant Samuel "Happy Sam" Sawyer when Fury and Hargrove were training British Commandos in low-level parachuting.

Nick and Red later joined the U.S. Army, with Fury undergoing basic training under a Sergeant Bass at Fort Dix in New Jersey.

"Ricketts" Johnson),[20] and, later, Jim Morita's Nisei squad[21] were stationed in a military base in England to fight specialized missions, primarily, but not exclusively, in the European theatre of World War II, eventually going as far afield as the Pacific theatre, Africa, and, once each, in the Middle East and on the Russian front.

Fury fell in love with a beautiful English nurse, Pamela Hawley, who is killed in a German bombing raid on London before he could propose to her.

They were to recover British rocket scientist Dr. Henry MacMillan from a German military base in occupied Norway.

Their number includes Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Dum Dum Dugan (Neal McDonough), Gabe Jones (Derek Luke), Montgomery Falsworth (JJ Feild), Jim Morita (Kenneth Choi), Jacques Dernier (Bruno Ricci),[23] Happy Sam Sawyer (Leonard Roberts), Junior Juniper (James Austin Kerr), and Pinky Pinkerton (Richard Short).

To this day, Stan claims that [the replacement for the canceled title The Incredible Hulk] was the result of a bet between him and Goodman.

As Stan tells, Goodman told him their books were selling because of buzzwords like Amazing, Fantastic, Mighty, and Incredible.