Garth Ennis, writer of many memorable Punisher stories during the Marvel Knights and MAX eras, will re-team with his Punisher Soviet and Crossed collaborator Jacen Burrows for Get Fury, a new MAX miniseries that kicks off in May.
Ennis mentioned the project back in 2019 in an interview with The Lakes International Comic Art Festival, right before Punisher Soviet kicked off. Set in Vietnam, the out-of-continuity story features Nick Fury being held hostage by the Viet Cong — and the CIA sends in Lt. Frank Castle to protect their secrets.
“There’s a nice sense of things coming full circle with Get Fury; the editor is my good friend Nick Lowe, who handled Born back at the beginning some 20+ years ago, and just like that story, this one sees Frank Castle as a U.S. Marine in Vietnam (in fact, it goes some way to explaining how he ended up at Firebase Valley Forge in the first place),” Ennis said.
Marvel hasn’t used the MAX imprint in a few years — in fact, I believe the last time it was used was for Ennis and Burrows’ Punisher Soviet. Marvel first started using it back in 2001, after breaking with the Comics Code Authority, as a way to distinguish their more adult-oriented content. Ennis was a staple of the line, working not only on the Punisher but also some Nick Fury stories.
“As the two most violent men in mainstream comics, Fury and Frank work well together—just like they did in the Vietnam sequence of Fury: My War Gone By. All in all, if Get Fury turns out to be the last time I write Frank, I think it’ll make for a worthy farewell,” Ennis said.
Here’s premise of Get Fury, as described ny Marvel:
It’s 1971, there is a war raging in Vietnam, and Nick Fury has been captured by the Viet Cong. At this moment, they don’t quite understand that they have in their possession a man who knows enough secrets to damage the United States beyond comprehension. The C.I.A., however, DOES realize this, and they can’t risk their enemy getting those secrets, so they dispatch the most deadly man in the U.S. Army: LT. Frank Castle.
“I never have more fun on a project than I do with Garth, and his work with these two characters is world class,” Burrows said. “Getting to bring this chapter of their saga to life was extremely exciting to me as a huge fan of those previous books. And I think I am in the minority of artists that really enjoy the research aspect of doing a period book, so getting to draw a comic set at the tail end of the Vietnam War was a fun challenge.”
While Dave Johnson provides the main cover for the first issue, Burrows did a variant:
And here’s a look at one of this interior pages:
Look for the first issue of five on May 1.