This new spin on the Howling Commandos concept makes a lot of sense, given the name and the more extreme nature of the world in which Nick Fury operates. The notion of monsters acting as soldiers is a fun one, but it's certainly not a new one. For the uninitiated, seek out back issues of DC war comics featuring the Creature Commandos, and you'll find a character lineup practically identical to this one. Of course, Giffen and Francisco bring an edgier, more frenetic, seizure-inducing-video-game-like pace to the premise that has potential (though I wonder if this is project started out as a Creature Commandos pitch for DC). Unfortunately, Francisco's art is almost completely impenetrable, rarely giving the reader a clear glimpse of the title characters. This book, though pretty much by the numbers, has some personality going for it, but it's impossible to tell what's going on.
NIck Fury has assembled a new elite team of tactical soldiers, one that must remain a secret to all save a select inner circle within S.H.I.E.L.D. The team is dispatched to Afghanistan to stop two terrorist factions from established a counter-intelligence network to bring down world governments, and the elite agents not only use their skills to do the job, but fear to intimidate the enemy. See, these soldiers are not your typical shock troops... they're monsters. A werewolf, a vampire, a zombie, a living mummy, a Frankenstein-esque monster and an intelligent ape may just prove to be S.H.I.E.L.D's greatest secret weapon -- and the smelliest.
Francisco's style reminds me of that of Duncan Rouleau. Exaggeration, sharp angles and big, rugged shapes converge to form characters... kind of. We never get a clear sense of what the Howling Commandos really look like beyond the cover art and a page of facial profiles toward the end of the issue. Another problem is that even the human characters look like hulking brutes, seemingly as sinewy and impossibly large as the inhuman heroes themselves. I realize that in the first half of the book, the effort to hide the heroes' appearances is purposeful, but that effort is pointless. The cover gives away their true nature; hiding it for the sake of a big reveal moment serves no purpose.
The banter among the characters is somewhat derivative, but it's fun and full of personality. Giffen has married each of the Commandos with a grounded, sarcastic personality, and their dialogue makes them seem human, brings them to a level the reader can relate to. Giffen's sense of humor, for which he is well known, shines through, especially in the latter scene in which a reluctant new S.H.I.E.L.D. commander discovers the nature of his new assignment. The scripting for the bad guys, on the other hand, is overly verbose, uninteresting and confusing all at once.
Clay Quartermain's involvement in the story and the reference to an obscure evil cult that once appeared in an Avengers spinoff title years ago makes it clear that this book is clearly set in the Marvel Universe, even if it is just on the periphery. However, Nick Fury's presence will raise some continuity questions for die-hard Marvel fans. I thought Fury was out of commission (as per references in The Pulse and a couple of other Marvel titles), but he pops up here, as he has in other titles, still sitting at the top of the S.H.I.E.L.D. heap. 4/10
