Ennis jumps ahead nine years to Vietnam. Nick’s sidekick is all of a sudden out of joint about the events in the last issue–a rare misstep from Ennis in this series–so Frank Castle comes in.

Much like Nick, Ennis is just using Frank to exploit a brand. He hasn’t done anything Punisher-like to make his identity essential. He’s just a good sniper and Nick’s just a good spy who’s having an affair with a senator’s wife.

Ennis has had to remold the Nick Fury character for this series. Gone is all the flash to make him memorable; Ennis goes with the patch, the cigar, some of the history and the personality. But he’s now got a character who isn’t going to exist beyond this series (presumably), which makes it a little hard to care about him.

I suppose the brand makes up the difference.

As usual, excellent.

Fury MAX gives Garth Ennis the opportunity to do one of his favorite things–historical war stories–with one of the things he does really well, world-weary protagonists. Well, I suppose he takes the opportunity to use the series to do those things, not so much it gives him the chance.

This first issue is set in Indochina in the mid-fifties, while America’s involvement in Vietnam is just to monitor the French’s progress.

Ennis gives Fury a mismatched sidekick, he introduces a knowing dame–Ennis and artist Goran Parlov don’t turn the espionage genre on its head, they just tilt it quite a bit–and some hints at the supporting cast.

Reading Fury isn’t so much to see what happens next–he’s narrating from present day, so he lives and the reader hopefully knows how Vietnam turned out–but enjoying Ennis’s excellent storytelling abilities.

He’s in his element.