Get Fury

It’s 1971, the Vietnam War is still in full swing, and Col. Nick Fury has just been captured by the North Vietnamese Army.  He’s being taken to the infamous prison known as the Hanoi Hilton where he’ll be interrogated and every bit of military intelligence in his head will be extracted by any means necessary.  That’s something the United States military, as well as the C.I.A., can’t allow to happen.  Which is why Special Forces veteran Capt. Frank Castle has been tasked with infiltrating Hanoi and taking Col. Fury out.

Sounds simple, right?  Except, what if the bonds between these two men are such that Castle isn’t just going to shoot one of his only friends and comrades in the head?  Also, what if the reason Fury got caught wasn’t why the C.I.A.’s men on the ground thought he was in the first place?  In a time of dire struggle and moral compromise, it may take the worst instincts of humanity to ensure that these two make it out of there alive.

Which isn’t much of a question since we know they both do in order to show up in writer Garth Ennis’ subsequent “Punisher” and “Fury” series that take place after this, chronologically.  That’s the one big thing working against “Get Fury” as it’s a continuity-insert miniseries that seeks to plug a gap that wasn’t exactly begging to be filled in the first place.  So the question is whether or not Ennis, and artist Jacen Burrows, can do something interesting in the space that they’re given between knowable outcomes.

If nothing else, it’s good to know that Ennis can still muster up some of the discipline that informed his best works when writing about Frank Castle.  His batting average has been increasingly uneven over these past few years whether he’s working in comedy, fantasy, or horror-infused crime stories.  “Get Fury” has him telling a mostly well-constructed story that generates enough interest from the reader as we see Castle deal with this extremely difficult task.

Being flown into the north under heavy fire.  Having to pose as a Soviet advisor when in the city.  Dealing with pesky NVA soldiers who keep wanting to see his papers.  Trying to break into one of the most secure prisoner-of-war camps in the country.  These all come across as a tall order, even for someone with the level of competence that the writer has imbued him with over the years.  All of this is complicated by the arrival of characters from Fury’s past as well as Castle’s own increasing desire to be done with the war and return home.

All of this is depicted with the kind of excellent pacing and attention to detail that has marked Ennis’ more serious work with the character.  This can’t quite measure up to the best of that work, however.  In addition to the fact that we all know how this is going to end, the story also feels padded out by the constant rationalizations offered by the two C.I.A. agents who kick the plot into motion.  

Not only do their conversations feel superfluous to the main plot, they also come off as a particular obvious example of telling and not showing.  They’re basically here to assure the reader that some consideration is being given as to how Castle and Fury could possibly walk out of this story alive after all that’s been done.  I don’t think that’s something this story needed, given that we know that was going to happen in the first place, and it could’ve been achieved in the same way through the dialogue transcripts included at the end of the story.  If the job was to extend what could’ve been a tight five-issue miniseries into a longer-than-it-needed to be six, then mission accomplished.

Burrows returns from “Punisher:  Soviet” to illustrate this miniseries and he delivers the kind of sharp and emotive work that you’d expect from him.  Grisly, too, as you can expect to see the envelope of allowable violence in a mature-readers series from Marvel pushed as far as possible here.  Those moments are rare, however, and stand out more given how most of the story is focused on its characters and their actions.  Which Burrows conveys extremely well, even showing the normally stoic Castle to have some expressiveness beyond grim determination.

Even if it doesn’t feel like an essential chapter of Frank Castle’s time in Vietnam, “Get Fury” still succeeds as an engaging story of a man trying to succeed against impossible odds.  That it also fills in more bits of his character and ties together other stories from Ennis’ run doesn’t hurt either.  In fact, this would slot nicely into an omnibus edition of the character’s time during this war from “The Platoon,” after “Fury” #’s 7-9, and before “Born.”  Not bad for a story written years, or even a more than a decade, out of sync with them.