Are You Receiving Me? — The Annotated Boris (Day 5)
By Mike Faloon
I paid off the last of my grad school loans today. I celebrated by running errands and cleaning the house. Productive? Sure. Satisfying? Indeed. Time to read? No. When I had time for a break I w
atched a couple episodes of Batman: The Brave and the Bold with my kids. My son calls it "Batman and His Friends Who Help."
I forsaw some version of this taking place and emailed Norb a question yesterday. Prepare to get your comic book geek on! (Although that phrase reminds of when my teachers used to say "get your thinking caps" on--why wasn't it assumed that such lids were always in place?)
Part 1 – The lyrics to Boris the Sprinkler's "113th Man"
"She Cola Cool like Fury's eyepatch"
Part 2 – Footnote #563 from The Annotated Boris
“As we all now know, thanks to Samuel L. Jackson, the Marvel Comics character Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., wears an eyepatch, and is the coolest, most stubbly-ass mofo in the Marvel Universe ((i was actually awarded a No-Prize for pointing out a discrepancy involving Nick Fury's eyepatch being used in a story set in 1959, when had been previously established that Fury didn't wear the eyepatch until 1963, Marvel time. Ask me about it sometime if you've got about an hour to kill)).”
Part 3 – I take Norb on that offer
As I said above I expected today to be light on the “reading and responding” time. I emailed Norb and asked for album version of the Nick Fury/No Prize story.
Part 4 – Norb’s response to my request
Norb: After New Avengers Vol. 2, #10 ((May 2011)), i dashed off an epistle of the following tenor to the magazine's editorial offices:
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Ay yi yi yi yi...you've got Nick Fury wearing an eyepatch in 1959? That, i'm afraid, is wrong as wrong can be! According to the events of SGT. FURY & HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS #27 ((Feb. 1966)), a delayed result of Fury's refusal to undergo an eye operation during WWII led to his finally losing the vision in his right eye in 1963. This was, presumably, intended to explain why Fury wore no eyepatch in his first "present-day" appearance ((FANTASTIC FOUR #21, Dec. 1963)), but did wear an eyepatch starting with the onset of the "Agent of SHIELD" strip starting with STRANGE TALES #135 ((Aug. 1965)). In other words, in 1959, when this story takes place, Fury's eye won't fail for four more years. My solution to this deathless quandary is that, in the years leading up to 1963, Fury's eye -- as the doctor warned him might happen -- began failing intermittently, causing him to wear an eyepatch off and on from 1959 thru 1963, when his injured eye failed completely, and he began wearing the eyepatch full-time. I'll take my vintage 1959 no-prize with extra tailfins, s'il vous plait.
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...to which (Marvel Editor) Tom Brevoort replied...
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Norb,
I'm well aware of that issue of SGT FURY, but I made the conscious decision at this point to not be handcuffed by a limitation to explain a single off-handed story published close to 50 years ago. Had Stan and Jack known that they would soon thereafter be doing Agent of SHIELD, they would have given Nick the eyepatch in FF#21. And to me, in 2011, it was more important that readers of today be able to easily recognize Nick in 1959 than it was to be faithful to that one slightly-absurd story.
That all having been said, you fulfilled the criteria, so if you want to send me along an address, I will send you a No-Prize.
Tom B
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...and that's the short and long of it! Thanks for caring!
Regards,
Norb
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