Nick Fury, former director of the now-defunct S.H.I.E.L.D, has gathered a special handpicked team. Young and untested, the Secret Warriors are the offspring of the most powerful forces on Earth...and with Fury's guidance, they might just have what it takes to save the world. But their mission is upended when Fury uncovers a bombshell Hydra conspiracy that reaches back for decades, to the very beginnings of S.H.I.E.L.D.! COLLECTING: Secret Warriors 1-16, Dark Reign: The List - Secret Warriors 1, material from Dark Reign: New Nation 1
Jonathan Hickman is an American comic book writer and artist. He is known for creating the Image Comics series The Nightly News, The Manhattan Projects and East of West, as well as working on Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four, FF, and S.H.I.E.L.D. titles. In 2012, Hickman ended his run on the Fantastic Four titles to write The Avengers and The New Avengers, as part the "Marvel NOW!" relaunch. In 2013, Hickman wrote a six-part miniseries, Infinity, plus Avengers tie-ins for Marvel Comics. In 2015, he wrote the crossover event Secret Wars. - Wikipedia
Now that's some high quality espionage right there!
Now I understand I have a bias for Hickman's writing, but the grand tapestry of his marvel work, this is the least connected. Nick Fury is a man without a country, as in the wake of Dark Reign, he discovered the secret history of Shield, it's transformation into HAMMER leaves him on the streets, and a mission to build his own army to replace it. Enter the Secret Warriors, led by Quake aka Daisy Johnson of Agents of Shield fame.
What you get here is one of the best Nick Fury storys ever, as he fights a long standing war on three fronts, one with era defining Hydra, and the newly revived Leviathan. Twists, betrayals, and double agents are a plenty, and fury even recruits old allies the Howling Commandos.
This is what that lame Agents of Shield show should and could have been if they tried harder, but at least I'll always have this. It's been so fun to revisit this, into the back half.
Jonathan Hickman - writer Stefano Caselli, Alessandro Vitti, and Gianluca Gugliotta - artists
In the wake of Secret Invasion, S.H.I.E.L.D. is disbanded and Nick Fury disavowed. The H.A.M.M.E.R. organization is created to replace S.H.I.E.L.D., with professional crazy person Norman Osborn being given the position of America's top spy. As if things aren't bad enough for Fury, a shocking revelation shakes the old war horse to his core - it is revealed that throughout the organization's entire history S.H.I.E.L.D. was essentially a subsidiary of Hydra, with the bloody battles between the two organizations holding as little real world significance as choreographed play acting.
Instead of letting this disheartening news defeat him, Fury decides to strike at the very heart of his enemy. To this end he recruits a group of young, super-powered free agents - metahumans who managed to stay off the radar of the world's intelligence community. With his group of anonymous super-heroes - his Secret Warriors - Fury initiates n intricate operation to destroy Hydra, bring down H.A.M.M.E.R., discredit Norman Osborn, and restore S.H.I.E.L.D. to it's rightful position. But in this world of super-powered espionage, nothing is as it seems. There are plots within plots, and double and triple-crosses only lead you further down the rabbit hole. What is The Great Wheel, and what role do the leaders of Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D. play in it? Who or what is Leviathan? What exactly happened in Pieta all those years ago, and how is the fallout from that mysterious event still controlling the lives of Fury and Strucker? For each answer Hickman gives us, three new questions are brought up.
In Secret Warriors Hickman weaves a riveting, complexly layered tale of super-powered espionage. The art by Caselli, Vitti and Gugliotta is top notch. For fans of super-heroes, spy thrillers, cool comic book stories, and Jonathan Hickman, this book is highly recommended.
De las obras que he leído de Hickman creo que Secret Warriors es la menos "Hickmanesca" de todos. Hickman se ha vuelto popular por sus historias llenas de ciencia ficción contemporánea, apoyada en teorías físicas y cósmicas actuales. Se ve que el autor es un apasionado de la ciencia y que se mantiene informado, eso da como resultado que sus historias de cierta manera se sientan relevantes a la ciencia actual. Secret Warriors no es una historia de ciencia ficción. Si tuviera que encasillar esta historia diría que es una historia muy a la Bendis. Los autores (ya que la mitad la escribe Bendis y el resto Hickman) escogen el espionaje como el género conductor de la historia y creo que eso está bien logrado. A través de los 3 volúmenes de esta historia vemos a Nick Fury siendo el súper espía que siempre nos dicen que es. Tras todos los cómics que he leído de Marvel, era común que reverenciaban las habilidades de Fury pero más que apreciarlo como un personaje, se volvía una especie de Deus Ex Machina. Aquí tenemos una mirada más íntima al personaje y lo que tiene que hacer para evitar que el mundo se vaya al carajo cada cierto tiempo. La historia no es enredada y me gusta la estructura en la que la cuentan como flashbacks del pasado de los personajes. Podemos ver el pasado de los villanos, más que de los héroes, y eso nos ayuda a dimensionar el peso real del conflicto para Fury y su equipo. El arte es consistente sin ser asombroso. Lo que menos me gustó fue que lamentablemente el equipo de Fury queda sin ser construido mucho. Aún cuando tocan profundamente a un personaje como el caso de Phobos y Ares, no te dan una idea real de quién es el personaje o cuáles son sus motivaciones. La historia se queda con una especie de cliff hanger interesante y sin duda estaré leyendo el segundo volumen de esta colección. Me gustó mucho también que puedo empezar a comprender las cosas que se estaban moviendo detrás del Reino Oscuro que derivaron en el Asedio. Leí ambos eventos sin los tie in y debo de admitir que al menos esta serie es crucial para Asedio.
Off to a rocking Secret Warriors hits the ground running and flits all around the time line with various flashbacks and the like. S.H.I.E.L.D VS Hydra has never been so good. Anchored by a mixture of new and old characters, this is the Marvel comic that put Hickman on my radar.
I really wish more of the source material was used in the Agents of SHIELD show. The team was pretty solid. Looking forward to the showdown between Hydra and Leviathan and what it will do for Fury and the future of S.H.I.E.L.D.
I really enjoyed this. I only rarely read Marvel so I do t know a lot of the history but even as a casual reader I knew enough to really enjoy the story. There’s plenty of twists and turns and I’m excited to get volume two.
This was originally one of Hickman's titles that I wasn't really interested in, but then I heard that Agents of SHIELD was going to be drawing from this and my interest was piqued.
I have some complaints - the main team characters don't really seem all that developed, and in general this feels like a lot of setting up of the pieces and very little actual action. However, the sheer Byzantine nuttiness of the plot (what's Fury's plan? what does Leviathan want? why are they all weird bug-squid people? what's with the Zodiac thing?) kind of makes up for this and kept me enthralled. The art is just kind of serviceable - there's very little that actually wowed me - but I'm intrigued enough to hunt down volume 2.
How many double-crosses can you introduce in a story before they stop making sense? The writer of this graphic novel might have a different answer than you would have. The story starts on a promising note with enough intrigue that should be enough to carry a major portion of the story, however, the above-mentioned "double-crosses" took it downhill for me. So probably not for me.