This is a Marvel Knights title that may not take place in Earth 616, so it might be out of scope for this Web site, but it’s written by Garth Ennis so…I’m at least going to acknowledge that it exists. Because as far as I’m concerned, anything Ennis writes is worth a read. His work doesn’t always land perfectly, but it’s always solid and tough. Plus, he’s teamed up with Darick Robertson and when the two of them are working together the results are usually off-the-charts.

The focus of this story is on Nick Fury in WWII but before he joined up with The Howling Commandos. Nobody has looked at his origin this far back, so maybe we could consider it canon? Characterwise, it sows the seeds for Fury’s ruthless, end-justifies-the-means attitude and his mastery of strategic approaches to challenges. Storywise, his unit gets killed in battle and Nick Fury feels like giving up. A superior officer who also survived the massacre gives Fury some advice…

“Learn to enjoy” the violence. The rest of the series finds him doing just that.

He gets shot in the face towards the end of the story and loses his eye.

But he does learn to toast with his uneasy alliances and welcome the wars to come.

Yeah, this is a real good book. I’m going to say it IS canon. Prove me wrong.