Welcome, true believers, to a tale of horror and suspense...
A cold day in August, 1909, a young man dropped by the office of Austrian occultist, Jörg Lanz Von Liebenfels. Pale and shabby in appearance, the Young Man politely introduced himself and requested to purchase some back issues of Lanz's self-published periodical, Ostara. Lanz's Ostara was dedicated to propagating an esoteric doctrine, known as Ariosophy, which prophesied the resurgence of a lost Aryan civilization peopled by Nordic "God Men".
Touched by the visitors sympathetic appearance and earnest demeanor, Lanz offered the Young Man some copies of Ostara free of charge and two crowns for a street car home. The visitor according to Lanz's 1951 memoir, was Adolf Hitler.
This minor encounter of a man seeking knowledge was the first step toward the terrifying nightmare of a second world war and Hitler's burgeoning obsession with the occult and arcane knowledge.
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It is now the winter of 1943. The world is in the grip of war.
Three quarters of the European continents lay in ruins, crushed beneath the heel of a German Jackboot. Neither the sands of Africa, nor the steppes of Russia are safe from the Nazi scourge. On the other side of the Earth, the waters of the Pacific run red with blood. While the Allied Forces struggle against seemingly overwhelming odds, the opposing dictators in Berlin, Rome, and Tokyo, gleefully divide the world amongst themselves for conquest. As the sun sets over Europe, freedom is soon to become little more than a fond memory.
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An urgent telegram is hand-delivered by a non-commissioned private to the recipient Sgt. Nicholas Joseph Fury. Sgt Nicholas Joseph Fury had been the eldest of three kids to grow up in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, New York to Jack and Vivian Fury in 1918. Nick was an amateur boxer through the New York City Police Athletic League, where he learned advanced marksmanship. As a teenager in 1937, he went overseas for the first time to fight with the International brigades in the Spanish Civil War. He was on leave in Guernica when the fascists had bombed it.
After he returned to America, Fury and a friend Red Hargrove left their humble neighborhood to pursue dreams of adventure, eventually settling on a daring wing-walking and parachuting act. Their death-defying acts caught the attention of Lieutenant Sam Sawyer, who was then training with the British Commandos, who enlisted them for a special mission in the Netherlands. Nick and Red later joined the US Army, and we're stationed together at Shofield Barracks, Hawaii, when the Imperial Japanese Navy ambushed the base on December 7th, 1941. His best friend Red was one of the many killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor, leaving Nick Fury swearing bloody vengeance on the Japanese and the Nazis.
Sawyer, who had been promoted to Captain, assigned Fury command of the First Attack Squad, a unit of U.S. Army Rangers, who were awarded the honorary title of Commandos by Winston Churchill after their first missions. They were nicknamed the 'Howling Commandos' and stationed at a covert military base in the United Kingdoms to fight specialized missions.
Sgt. Nick Fury now holds the expedited telegram from Happy Sam Sawyer in his hand.
The Telegram reads as follows:
'Dear Sgt. Fury {STOP}
Your presence is requested on Tuesday November 19 at 1700 hrs. At the Nepherites Cafe in Cairo Egypt {STOP}
There is a matter of great importance that requires your particular set of skills and discretion in our continuing battle against the Axis forces {STOP}
I know this may come as an inconvenient interruption to your current mission with The Howling Commandos, but trust when I say circumstances are indeed dire {STOP}
I have made arrangements with your superiors and travel to the above location at your earliest convenience. {STOP}
Room and board will be provided upon your arrival until the time of the meeting. {STOP}
I look forward to meeting with you personally after so long {STOP}
Truly yours, General Samuel sawyer {STOP}'
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Sgt. Fury meets his private transport on the military airstrip the following morning and is greeted by his pilot, Cliff Secord. In 1938, Los Angeles, Cliff was a local racing pilot and barnstormer. He then discovered a package hidden inside one of his planes by the two Maggia Family gangster members who had stolen it, while they fled the police. When Cliff opened the package he was surprised to learn that it contained a Rocket-pack originally engineered by Howard Stark, but altered and reconstructed by Cliff's personal mechanic. When he decided to take it for a spin, his life was turned upside down--in more ways than one! The Maggia family returned seeking their stashed loot to submit it to their current partner, a German Nazi sleeper cell who had infiltrated American media as an actor, who also pursued Cliff's girlfriend an actress, by grooming and using her. The FBI and Howard Stark also came investigating the whereabouts of the missing rocket. Because of his Ace piloting skill, accompanied with the heroics performed in assisting a federal investigation and exposing a German spy, Clifford was recruited into the American Air Force, and also requested to personally and discretely transport Sgt. Nick Fury to the appointed meeting place with the general.
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They are not long into their trip over German-Occupied Europe in an especially modified American P-51D-30-NA Mustang Airplane, and are attacked by a squadron of four German Junkers Ju-87 dive bombers. The horrifying clarion call of the plane's Jericho Trumpet siren rings out, demoralizing soldiers and refugees alike. The Junkers begin firing upon the American craft with remarkable accuracy.
It takes all of Cliff's skill and focus to evade the ammunition being exhausted towards extinguishing their lives, Nick Fury observing as the bullets whizz past the cockpit or clang loudly into a metallic component of the plane nearby.
In an act of Daring, Cliff then exerted tremendous force on the controls and veered the plane into an impossibly steep aerial incline. Surpassing the limits of the plane's power, and within minutes would force the engine to explode. All 4 of their attackers sped their planes in hot pursuit and also began to climb high into the atmosphere behind their quarry. They climbed higher and higher, until the inferior engine of the Junkers began to sputter and stall. Cliff watched as the German pilots began to lose control of their aircraft, and so turned their vessels around and dropped back towards land. Nick and Cliff's plane sputters weakly, but does not stall, and so Cliff sends it into a controlled plummet down into the earth. The prey has now become the predator, the Hunted becoming the hunter, the Junkers bested by the faster and better-armored fighter plane.
Saving themselves from crashing into the water below, unlike one of their enemies, Cliff pulled up dramatically and found himself chasing the Germans as they skimmed the surface.
The German pilot then turned sharp and hard to the left, causing Cliff to slightly break as he attempts to get his enemy in sight for a torrent of gunfire, so as not to overshoot the corner and end up in front of the pilots again. Cliff succeeded in his turn and was directly behind one of the German aircraft, firing his planes artillery and only slightly missing. Nick watches as the Tracers of the bullets rocket past the right wing of the target. The three remaining German planes then begin an ascent of their own to regain their dominant position, but their planes will be unable to do so. Continuing to fire, eventually a shot collided with the body of the German plane and it explodes before the pilots could jettison themselves. Flying through a tremendous white plume, the American plane soars close enough for Nick to see the wheel well, rivets, and grease of the enemy plane suspended in air next to them.
Both planes drop 20,000 feet at ludicrous speeds, the German plane trailing thick black smoke. At the last moment, Clif Secord violently pulled back on the controls and pulled back up while the German plane crashed into the water.