All this is told from Fury's point of view, from monitoring the progress of Tony Stark following his offer about the Avengers Initiative at the end of Iron Man to Stark's drunken fit from his condo in Iron Man 2 to the recruitment of Clint Barton, aka. Hawkeye in Thor as well as Natasha Romanov's confrontation of Dr. Samuel Sterns in his lab in Hulk 2 after Banner storms thru the streets of New York battling the abomination General Ross has created.
As not everything can be told or divulged in the movie versions or even in the bonus scenes, the comics are the best medium to provide additional material that will complement and enhance once's knowledge of the Marvel cinematic Universe and equally provide a little more character insight into our favorite heroes.
Fury has got his hands full with keeping the peace in different situations that stem from one Marvel movie to another and he doesn't need a man like General Ross on his hands either who remarked the best line of this graphic novel for me.
Ross - "The World needs people like us Fury. I'm out on the battlefield killing our enemies and you're safe behind a wall protecting all the secrets that everyday citizens can't handle. You're the SHIELD and I'm the SWORD."
Fury - "You're not sharp enough to be a SWORD, General."
This may be an Avengers Prequel graphic novel but most of the solo films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe are a way of building up to the Avengers itself and so its only natural that the flow of 4-issue graphic novel be of the same vein.
So is there Continuity in this graphic novel? YES
Is there a fair amount of exposition for our characters? YES
Do other secondary but equally important characters like Coulson, Sitwell, Selvig and others make an apperance? YES
Should you at least borrow or get a copy?...........(in full FURY mode) ....Hell YEAH!
