The Howling Commandos is the name of several fictional groups in Marvel Comics.

Fictional team history

World War II

The first group of Howling Commandos was an elite special unit formed in World War II. The original team consisted of:

Occasional other members would join for an issue or two before being killed, transferred, or otherwise leaving (such as Fred Jones in issue #81). Also daringly for the time, the series killed Fury's girlfriend, British nurse Pamela Hawley, introduced in issue #4 and killed in a London air raid in #18.

Nick Fury's Howling Commandos

A second Howling Commandos team was introduced in the 2005 series, Nick Fury's Howling Commandos as a supernatural unit that works for S.H.I.E.L.D. Its members were:

Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos are a fictional World War II unit in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, they first appeared in Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #1 (cover dated May 1963). The main character, Sgt. Nick Fury, later became the leader of Marvel's super-spy agency, S.H.I.E.L.D..

Occasional other members would join for an issue or two before being killed, transferred, or otherwise leaving (such as Fred Jones in issue #81). Also daringly for the time, the series killed Fury's girlfriend, British nurse Pamela Hawley, introduced in issue #4 and killed in a London air raid in #18 (May 1965).

Fury's company commander was Captain Samuel "Happy Sam" Sawyer.

Publication history

Stan Lee has described the series Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos as having come about due to a bet with his publisher, Martin Goodman that the Lee-Kirby style could make a book sell even with the worst title Lee could devise. Lee elaborated on that claim in a 2007 interview, responding to the suggestion that the series title did not necessarily seem bad: