Jan-Ken-Pon – Secret Warriors #1 review

    
When I first saw the previews and the image of the return of Nick Fury with his Secret Warriors I can’t admit to being too thrilled. Don’t get me wrong, I love Nick Fury, love the classic Steranko covers, the howling commandos, the recent characterization of him, and I appreciate the idea that he was this character that modern readers – seemingly in unison – pretended was actually cooler than he had ever been. The lie itself actually made him cooler. His disappearance, or recent scarcity, made him bigger than he really ever had been when actually applied. Let’s face it, through the last couple of years we have considered Fury an essential and fundamental to the working of the Marvel Universe, possibly even giving him a borrowed swagger associated with his Ultimate doppelganger. It could be said that he has been more romanticized in the time he’s been gone, and while we see others trying to fulfill his role disappoint. This is not a slight, it speaks on the unique quality of Nick Fury, and the understanding of not only how we view Fury, but also – and more importantly – how we want to view Fury.

The hard part is to be able to reinsert Fury back in a manner that pays off without removing that cloak and dagger mystique you gain by simply not using him much beyond shadows and off-panel machinations. and what Hickman does is not make the return the story– he instead makes why he has returned, not only a story, but one that permeates – and always has – through the Marvel U. Fury is not the end of an invasion; he is the beginning of one. When a man who is used to knowing everything, to whom nothing is truly clandestine finds out he has been played from the very beginning, it is not a new addition to the storytelling file, but remains an always interesting one– it goes against decades of that Nick Fury we thought we knew. It is so unsettling, we almost feel it can’t be true; that perhaps there is another player under more curtains. For the uninitiated, welcome to Jonathan Hickman’s wheelhouse.

What I like best about the book, however, is that it adds another layer to what is occurring elsewhere, and does so without diluting this book. The Osborn junta is enhanced by not being the focus, it merely is a layer among more layers, and there are no single fronts or factions in the Marvel U. as we exit Secret Invasion, and find ourselves already infiltrated from the beginning. Again. Fury is actually shook. The man who has a Greek God playing X-Box and under guard is worried. It’s not even the U.S. government; Fury clears the Oval Office and it’s new occupant first. It’s beyond the Executive level and crosses international and corporate hierarchies, but none of this is new to Fury. That Fury himself had been rendered a tool is what shakes the core of Marvel U and reverberates throughout not just the now, but history as well. The idea has the potential to be hated on simply hearing about it, but beyond that it is introduced in a very effective manner, it (Hydra) is made into what an entity of its kind really would be. For something so lasting with the powers levied against it, it would have to be more than even a highly organized and backed terrorist organization. It would have to be some mishmash of a fictionalized Trilateral Commission with an army. It could never resemble a goofball organization like a Cobra in ’80′s JOE cartoon. So in some sense Bendis and Hickman do justice now to a classic (Hydra dates back to the ’60′s and hasn’t really been absent ever since) villain and making them not only matter, but suggesting to us that they always have. It’s not the first time they have been posed as so viable or so believably far-reaching, but it’s always been as a threat—not as the institution.

It could be said that the start, the Secret Warriors on a recon missions stuck between Hydra and Osborn’s Hammer, wasn’t the most engaging of beginnings (and for me the Sentry just has a way of making anything just seem silly), but as soon as we see them get back to base and hear the answer to the question levied to Fury by Daisy, “What’s got you spooked old man?” the issue quickly becomes something that takes on true weight.

Don’t we usually feel a bit ripped off by back matter? Even if it’s an addition to our usual or extended number of pages it’s very much something that tends to be either superfluous or new and unneeded. We see excellent applications in books like Criminal or Casanova, but rarely do we see it in a mainstream title. That said, I have to admit that I was getting my study on in this issue. Jonathan Hickman books tend to have this level of fact checking and research as an in-story feature, but I legitimately felt that I was being let on to a secret! The only thing I find myself disappointed in is that the comic industry is in place now where even ) the two big dogs seem to not have confidence in the fan base enough not to reveal this information months in advance. I don’t think we lose truly good comics to this, but I do think exceptional comics become good comics. I realize this level of information is completely a reader’s choice, but it is something that crossed my mind as I read Secret Warriors#1.

More and more as Dark Reign continues ones tries to find mismatches or fat that they don’t have to follow in an effort to find that core streamlined story to follow Marvel in 2009. I have to admit that when I first saw the previews, even with a Hickman (who has magnificent books like The Nightly News and Pax Romana out there) on board this had the look of a short-lived sideshow later to be consolidated into another title or disappear altogether. I just love that Marvel put him on what turns out to be a key Marvel Book, and it reminds me a bit of when Marvel plucked a Bendis or more recently Fraction. That Bendis is credited with co-scripting (and no doubt has some overview on the project) looks to have made any potential transition issue smoother, and what was a title I was approaching with trepidation is clearly a significant new title, a new kind of title that is more than just build-up to something else. Secret Warriors#1 claims ground of its own, and to paraphrase Denny Green for a moment, Fury is who we thought he was.

- Jay Tomio

_{Jan-ken-pon is the time traveling, force-walking, multiverse crossing column of Jay Tomio, owner of 1/3 of everything you see currently on screen and the editor of Heliotrope. He is the lost Boy Commando. Some call him the Bodhisattva.}