Customer Rating:  
Summary: Landmark comic art - horribly mangled.
Comment: The appeal of this book is that it contains the full Jim Steranko run of Nick Fury, Agent of SHEILD from Strange Tales. His unique page layouts, use of halftone shading and photography, and pop art aesthetic created something truly new in comic books.
This poor anthology tries its damnedest to hide all of these qualities. The black lines are muddy, and the halftone is rolled into this mud - and utterly lost. The original color has been discarded and replaced with an amateurish, over-saturated, dark, contemporary approach. It attempts to throw a "realistic" dimensional spin on what were designed as the flattish pop art offspring of Roy Lichtenstein and Jack Kirby.
Neither the layouts nor the black line of the art can overcome this wet blanket - and the result looks like any generic Marvel art from the 1960s.
If your interest is Steranko's art, avoid this book like the plague. It will just make you sad and mad. Wait for a Marvel Masterworks or Omnibus edition, which will probably get it right.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Erratically good
Comment: I have going through a lot of Marvel's Essentials books over the past couple of years, revisiting the comics of my youth (or even before my birth). Nick Fury, Agent of Shield, is not really an Essentials book - it is in color, shorter and on higher quality paper - but it is essential an Essential, reprinting a series of Nick Fury stories that originally appeared in the mid-1960's magazine, Strange Tales.
The big difference between this and the other Essentials titles is that while the others focus on a character or group of characters, the focus here is really with the artist (and later writer) Jim Steranko. My initial exposure to Steranko was in a couple Captain America issues (in, of course, the Essential Captain America). It was easy to see that Steranko was a different sort of comic book artist than was typical of the era, with a style that broke with the conventions of the genre, often with an abstract quality that defied the normal attempts at the more realistic style of the standard comic art. I am not really a student of art, so my ability to describe Steranko may be limited, but it is definitely distinct, and I liked its look.
Although he did a bit of other art for Marvel - including a small bit with the X-Men - Steranko's biggest contribution to Marvel was with the Nick Fury stories. Sadly, I have to say I was a little disappointed with this collection. The writing is never very good, often involving Fury getting into cliffhanging messes that he is bailed out of in some deus ex machina fashion. There are two storylines, the first featuring the rather mindless organization known as Hydra and the second involving the politically incorrect Fu Manchu knock-off known as the Yellow Claw.
The real highlight of this book is not the writing, but the art, and even here, I was a bit disappointed. Yes, it all looks nice (you can definitely see Jack Kirby's influence on Steranko's work), but the touches that make Steranko special are only intermittent. It is really only in the final issue ("Today Earth Died") that Steranko really cuts loose, and it is clearly the best issue in the bunch.
One issue, however, is not enough to justify the full volume (the front cover is also pretty nice). While certainly this book has its plusses, especially for fans of the era, it may not satisfy everyone. With decent (and occasionally spectacular) art and weak writing, this may be worth reading, but it is no classic.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Sound and Nick Fury
Comment: Nick Fury is one of the pivotal characters of the Marvel Universe, yet also the least 'super'. He has no special powers, no latent mutant abilities, and no expertise in kung fu or the dark arts, yet he is the focal point of most of the Marvel action since the brewing of the Marvel Universe in the early 60s. The eyepatch is a good touch (although has never been explained, at least not to my knowledge) making him the Odin of the superheroes. His role changes with the times, in the 60s a Bond-like figure, in the 70s and 80s he took to the shadows and more covert ops, and today his role is more political and policy oriented. This early collection is a good addition to your collection, perhaps not the best stories, and perhaps not the most complete collection (an Essentials collection assembling early Capt Am, SHIELD, and Iron Man books would provide some character continuity, as well as a pre-quil Howling Commandos, which maybe would say something about the eye). Good reading, not the best, and really reserved for the obsessive afficianado. But, you wouldn't be reading this if you weren't, right?
Customer Rating:
Summary: Jim Steranko tranforms Nick Fury into Comic Book "Pop Art"
Comment: I know I could never tell you where Jim Steranko came from before he started drawing Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage, Law-Enforcement Division), in Marvel's "Strange Tales" comic book in 1966. Actually, way back when, I was more interested in Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystical Arts. Besides, it was hard to believe Nick Fury, from "Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos," was a one-eyed spymaster. But the development of Steranko's signature style as an artist became THE reason for bothering with a comic that was, in many regards, the bottom of the line at Marvel. Steranko began by doing the finished artwork over layouts by Jack "King" Kirby and ended up not only drawing the series but scripting it as well. The rest was most definitely comic history.Included in this collection are "Strange Tales" 150-168, which provides one of the greatest examples of artistic growth ever seen in the field of comic books (Barry Windsor-Smith's legendary run on "Conan the Barbarian" is the only other example on the same plateau). Here we have Nick Fury's one-man assault on Hydra and the epic battle with the Yellow Claw. Early in the Sixties Marvel had labeled its comics as "Pop Art," in a feeble attempt to market themselves as more than just comics for kids. Well, when Steranko started incorporating elements from the psychedelic films and art of the time you could argue he achieved "Pop Art" in comics. Steranko used photography, optical art effects and unorthodox page designs to create his own unique style. Ultimately, his work had much more to do with cutting-edge cinema than it did with traditional comic books, which is why his reputation endures. It is hard not to look at these Steranko's striking designs in these super spy stories and find yourself thinking more of "Bladerunner" and "The Matrix" more than James Bond. But as much as we admire Steranko's use of fine, defined ink line we also need to pay attention to his use of pacing, which is undeniably cinematic. I heard Steranko went on to do storyboards for movies, including "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" and "Bram Stoker's Dracula," which is fitting, but also rather ironic. Speaking of irony, Steranko's best work in comics, both with Nick Fury and other characters (most notably Captain America and The X-Men) was yet to come. So while this collection does not represent Steranko's best work, it does capture the evolution of a major talent in comics. Besides, it will probably cost you more than the price of this collection to pick up just ONE of the comics reprinted within.
Customer Rating:
Summary: WHAT?!?
Comment: Reading level: ages 4-8. Ages 4 to 8?!?! Come on, Amazon, how many four year olds are going to pick up a 60's mod spy books? Have some common sense, please. I'm twenty-two and these books aren't exactly "Goodnight Moon". Why America has such a disrespect for graphic storytelling, when it is highly respected in essentially the rest of the world, is beyond me. [...]
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