Sgt. Fury and the Howling Commandos

Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos
Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #1 (May 1963). Cover art by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers.
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
Format	Ongoing
Publication date	May 1963 - Dec. 1981
Number of issues	167
Main character(s)	Sgt. Fury Izzy Cohen Dum Dum Dugan Gabe Jones Junior Juniper Eric Koenig Dino Manelli Pinky Pinkerton Rebel Ralston
Creative team
Writer(s)	Stan Lee Roy Thomas Gary Friedrich
Penciller(s)	Jack Kirby Dick Ayers
Inker(s)	Dick Ayers George Roussos John Severin
Creator(s)	Stan Lee Jack Kirby

Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos are a fictional World War II unit appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, they first appeared in Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #1 (cover dated May 1963). The main character, Sgt. Nick Fury, later became the leader of Marvel's super-spy agency, S.H.I.E.L.D.

Occasional other members would join for an issue or two before being killed, transferred, or otherwise leaving (such as Fred Jones in issue #81). Also daringly for the time, the series killed Fury's girlfriend, British nurse Pamela Hawley, introduced in issue #4 and killed in a London air raid in #18 (May 1965).

Fury's company commander was Captain Samuel "Happy Sam" Sawyer.

Stan Lee has described the series Sgt. 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. 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. First of all, it was too long for a title — we didn't have any that were six words. And "Howling" was a long word, and "Commandos" was a long word. I got the name "Howling Commandos" because in the Army there was a group called the Screaming Eagles. And I loved the sound of that. So I figured we'd have the Howling Commandos.

Comics-artist contemporary John Severin recalled in an interview conducted in the early 2000s that in the late 1950s, Kirby had approached him to be partners on a syndicated, newspaper comic strip "set in Europe during World War Two; the hero would be a tough, cigar-chomping sergeant with a squad of oddball GIs — sort of an adult Boy Commandos", referring to a 1940s wartime "kid gang" comics series Kirby had co-created for DC Comics.