Izzy Shoots the Works!

Book: Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos

Issue No.: 149

Published: August 22, 1978

Title: “Izzy Shoots the Works!” (reprint of Sgt. Fury no. 54)

Cover Price: 35¢

Format: Digital scan

Like the Iron Man book I wrote about last week, this issue of Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos is a page-turner. Despite the title, there’s no Sgt. (Nick) Fury here, and there is only one Howling Commando. That Howler is Izzy Cohen, and he’s been captured by the Japanese in Burma. The excitement starts when Izzy makes his escape from the Japanese prison camp.

This is where I throw in a reminder that this book is set during World War II. That’s why the Japanese are the bad guys and why they’re running a prison camp in Burma. Also this is one of those double-retro 1978 Marvel books. Not only is the story set in the past, the story was first published in 1968. Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos was a reprints-only book by 1978.

The story opens with a few of the Howling Commandos getting new orders to go on some non-combat training missions. So I misspoke when I said there’s only one Howler in this issue. (Is this whole post going to be disclaimers? Hopefully not!) However, the stuff with the other Howlers just serves as bookends to the main story with Izzy, and that stuff is pretty clunky. Basically the Howlers get non-combat orders and they grouse about it. Then there’s a “meanwhile...” segue where we get to the main story with Izzy. And then the story ends with the other Howlers and, oh, never mind, turns out they are going to get to go on a combat mission after all.

Anyway, like I was saying a couple paragraphs earlier, the story of Izzy’s escape from the prison camp is a page-turner. The one-person-agains-high-odds story is something of a trope, especially in war fiction. But it’s a trope for a reason — people like to root for the underdog.

Izzy’s story is packed with twists and turns. First he almost starts a prison camp riot. Then he escapes the camp during a botched attempt by the enemy soldiers to execute him. After a run through the jungle, Izzy teams up with a Burmese guerilla, and the two of them have to contend with an air attack and a hungry alligator. The Burmese guerilla gets wounded, and Izzy is on his own again. It looks like he’s about to make it to freedom when he’s recaptured by the Japanese.

It’s a downer ending for sure. But, hey, sometimes the underdog fighting against impossible odds loses. Izzy does live to escape another day. Though I am guessing that when Izzy does finally make his escape, it will be with the aid of the Howling Commandos, and I expect that a lot of the enemy soldiers at the prison camp will get their comeuppance.

One more note: Sam Rosen did the lettering for this story, and it’s great. I’ve noticed that Rosen lettered several of the stories that show up in these reprint books — apparently he did a lot lettering for Marvel in the 1960s. Anyway, I need to read more Rosen books, because I really dig his work.

Next time — Shang-Chi! Or maybe Power Man!