Stan Lee holds the art for the cover of Strange Tales #151, 1966.

After a few months of drawing over Kirby’s layouts, Steranko was handed the reins—solely generating not just the art, but the scripts as well. For the first time since Wally Wood’s Daredevil, Lee allowed someone else to write and draw everything in a comic. Jack Kirby, unsatisfied with his own lack of writing credits, took notice.

“I remember the straw that broke the camel’s back. I had drawn a double-page spread in one of the Strange Tales sequences featuring Nick Fury on trial by Baron Strucker and the agents of HYDRA. I had something like a hundred figures in the background, all individual figures. I wrote a note to the colorist, Stan Goldberg, saying, “Stan, color all these men individually.” Stan would probably put a sheet of blue over the whole thing, and that seemed criminal, because—although it might look good—after all I had done all that work putting in all those figures, I didn’t want them all obliterated.

I took the story up to Marvel, and Stan looked at it and said, “I’ve had it, Steranko. Do it yourself. Take it away. I never want to see you again; just take the stuff away and color it yourself.” So I started coloring all my material at that time, at $2.00 per page; later it went to $3 per page. I could only color about ten pages a day, so you can see I was losing a lot of money. I could have just been penciling for two or three times as much; but the strip emerged a more perfect marriage of concepts as a result. So I was willing to take less money, by using that time to color and thereby make the story come out better.”

—Jim Steranko to George Olshevsky, 1977

Fred Hembeck’s eulogy for Jack Kirby, 1994.

MARVEL COMICS, 1962

“Stan Lee is introducing a new character in TALES OF SUSPENSE—Iron Man! This goes on sale Dec. 10th. Watch for it.

Also on sale Dec. 10th—an entire mag devoted to THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN! You won’t want to miss this one.

Stan also has a new war mag in the making—SERGEANT FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOES. This one won’t be out until March 5th, but don’t you forget it!

Starting with issue #91 of JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY, Joe Sinnott (who inked FANTASTIC FOUR #5) will be drawing The Mighty Thor. I think you are going to like his work.”

Judy Walsh sure had the inside track at Marvel Comics.

themarvelageofcomics:

A page from NICK FURY, AGENT OF S.H.I.E.L.D. #3 by Jim Steranko and Dan Adkins.

List of Marvel Characters, Ranked by Importance. Circa 1972.

Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #10. Art by Frank Springer. Words by Gary Friedrich.

S.H.I.E.L.D. Vs. The Horrors Of The Modern World
(Panels from STRANGE TALES #151, December 1966. Layouts by Jack Kirby. Illustrations by Jim Steranko. Words by Stan Lee. Lettering by Artie Simek.)

Suddenly almost everything in the Marvel Universe was reaching some kind of critical juncture, a point of no return. Nick Fury’s modern-day S.H.I.E.L.D. adventures in Strange Tales merged with Captain America’s missions in Tales of Suspense as the heroes teamed against high-tech organizations like A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics) and HYDRA for a kind of sci-fi paramilitary feedback loop. Here, too, science bounded forward at a dizzying, almost alarming rate—even the flurry of good-guy gadgets like Life Model Decoys carried disconcerting post-atomic associations of that which humanity is not ready to harness. A.I.M.—which consisted of shady industrialists outfitted like futuristic beekeepers—created the Super-Adaptoid and brandished a talisman known as the Cosmic Cube (“The ultimate weapon! The ultimate source of power! The only such artifact known to man—which can convert thought waves—into material action!”), which fell into the hands of the Red Skull, who’d just reemerged from the rubble of the Führerbunker after two decades. All you could pray for was to have the Orion Missile, or the Matter Transmitter, on your side.

Text from Marvel Comics: The Untold Story

Nick Fury by Francesco Francavilla.

Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D., 1988

“SOL: CALL ME BEFORE ANYONE MUTILATES THIS”
 
Jim Steranko cover and note to Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #7

Cover art for Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #4, by Jim Steranko.

You’ll want to click to enlarge this one.

Frank Miller’s Nick Fury.

Detail from color guide to WHAT IF? #28. Pencils by Frank Miller, Inking by Klaus Janson, Colors by Glynis Wein, Letters by Joe Rosen. Written by Frank Miller and Michael W. Barr.

Click to enlarge and better appreciate the colors.

Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. poster, 1970

From Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #15, November 1969. Art by Herb Trimpe and Dick Ayers. Words by Gary Friedrich. Lettering by Jean Izzo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4WeqP2G6pI