Nick Fury and His Agents of SHIELD #1 - When the Unliving Strike

This reprint comic has the SHIELD stories from STRANGE TALES #146 and #147 (1966), "When the Unliving Strike" and "The Enemy Within", knocking out parts of two pages in the former and the first two full pages of the latter story bringing it down to 21 pages. Both stories have layouts by Kirby, pencils by Don Heck and inks by Mike Esposito (whose name the reprint editor actually took the time to fix from the "Mickey Demeo" pen-name of the original).

It's the men of SHIELD against the forces of Them this time, continuing their pursuit from the previous issues. But of course you know those yellow bee-suit costumes better as...



AIM, Advanced Idea Mechanics. It turns out the Them are affiliated with AIM, a private group of geniuses bent on world domination, who at this point are still considered a reputable organization, as one of their members tries to undermine Fury's role as director of SHIELD. Fury foils their immediate plans, an attack on the famous barber shop which serves as a SHIELD front, but AIM's Count Royale has other schemes.

Some fun stuff in here. A few hints of Kirby, though the Heck/Esposito combination overpowers most of it, but is good in its own right.

Published 1973