Quarter Bin 94 "Howling Commandos of S.H.I.E.L.D. #1"

Howling Commandos of S.H.I.E.L.D. #1 (Marvel)
From December 2015

writer: Frank Barbiere

artist: Brent Schoonover

I have little enough to say about this one, which I think is dedicated to the kind of hardcore Marvel reader who will care about this attempt to keep the Howling Commandos brand alive, but I will say that I love the idea of Dum Dum Dugan as the lead, and I'll expand a little on why:

First, it's a Marvel tradition I don't normally get to see a lot of, because it usually turns up in all the stuff I don't read from the company, because I've just never been a dedicated Marvel fan.  Dugan is officially a Life Model Decoy, which in the past has been a gimmick used to explain away (retcon) things that didn't prove popular among readers.  Dugan is part of the original Howling Commandos, who fought with Captain America in WWII (they're in Captain America: The First Avenger to prove it, and Dugan is played by Neal McDonough, who's long been a favorite of mine).

Dugan as a LMD plays into my DC/Star Trek roots.  Cadmus is a cloning facility familiar to "Reign of the Supermen" fans as the secret origin of Superboy, plus it employs the Guardian, another WWII legacy character who looks like the blue/yellow version of Captain America (which I'm sure is no coincidence), who's also a legacy clone.  In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the Vorta Weyoun appears in various clone units throughout the series (the last one dies in the last episode).

So Dugan dealing with being a clone is the best thing I can take from this, and the fact that he dies this issue, and his replacement is activated, and asks where S.H.I.E.L.D. keeps his trademark bowler hats.  That much is good stuff, and I'll just leave it at that.