Review by Solomon Yeoh

Get Fury is writer Garth Ennis’ most recent foray into the MAX imprint. Ennis is best known for successfully rebooting the Punisher with Welcome Back, Frank after a disastrous arc involving Frank Castle gaining supernatural powers. This is a universe with no superheroes and one where Nick Fury is a long-serving CIA officer.

Ennis places this story firmly within the Vietnam War, taking place between the ninth and tenth chapters of his remarkable Fury: My War Gone By. After more than fifteen years with the CIA, Nick Fury has been captured by the North Vietnamese and the CIA are concerned that he may spill state secrets, so they send Frank Castle to kill him. However, the conspiracy does not stop there; the people who sent Castle on the mission are doing so in order to save themselves from the potential fallout of an illicit heroin trade that the CIA has been participating in. 

Ennis appears to struggle when attempting to convey large portions of information, resorting to large text bubbles of exposition, which seriously affects the pacing. Rather than the punchy, terse dialogue most readers will be accustomed to, this dialogue is slower and bogged down with the weight of an established universe, which Ennis appears to be fighting against rather than embracing. Many references to his other works are ham-fisted and unnecessary. Get Fury is also thematically heavy-handed with Ennis doing away with his past nuance in favour of bluntness particularly when dealing with the idea of American imperialism. 

Jacen Burrows’ forensic art is supported by Guillermo Ortego and Nolan Woodard on the inks and colours respectively, but a significant majority of the art from looks stiff and stagnant. However, Burrows excels at illustrating violence, with many sequences being simultaneously horrific and enthralling. 

If you are a fan of Ennis’s past work, this could be worth picking up. However, bear in mind it’s a weaker moment in Ennis’s otherwise excellent run on the MAX imprint.