I remember the initial announcement of this series.  It was a much ballyhooed new Nick Fury book, written by Brian Bendis with brand spanking new talent from Image, Jonathan Hickman.  From the start it never seemed to be the book that the promotion would have you believe, and I don't mean that as a bad thing.  It was just different.

This was never a Bendis book.  It never had that conversational style of scripting, it always had Hickman's more economical turn of phrase mixed with his gift for the perfect single line.  It always felt tightly plotted, and everything was clearly connected even if you didn't always know exactly how.  It was also espionage in a clearly superhero world, and I wonder if a lot of the people who jumped ship were kind of hoping for the Nick Fury equivalent of Queen and Country, something which SHIELD has never been.

The thing is, for those of us who hung around it's been a real treat.  There was a bombshell in issue one that had everyone talking, but Hickman managed to keep us guessing in much the same way throughout.  There were doublecrosses, triple agents and government intrigues.  He gradually moved away from the young heroes that the early months focussed on, and started to bring in the old Howling Commandoes and familiar faces from the various SHIELD stories of yesteryear.  It was an intricate, and sometimes complicated, web of glorious nostalgia for those of us that loved this stuff in the past, which always felt right at home in the Marvel U of the 21st century.

Issue 28 is the epilogue, a neat wrap up to all the little plots and subplots that cam before.  It's not really a jumping on point I have to say, but it's a really satisfying end for those of us that stayed.  There's a nice exchange between Nick and the Contessa, before it sets all the surviving characters on course for a promising future.  The real finale though is reserved for the man himself, the man who, in many ways, the Marvel universe almost seems to revolve around.  Nick Fury meets with Steve Rogers in Arlington, in the shadow of the statue built for Cap when he died 3 years ago.Here the art deserves due credit, as Vitti fits each panel perfectly to what's said, utilising little movements and gestures to convey the flow of the confrontation.  The colours too come into their own, IFS painting the cemetery in a lovely evening glow.

In the end  Fury makes no apologies for doing what he knows he had to do, while clearly regretful of just what his duty costs those around him.  The script is almost lyrical in that it's one of those conversations where every line seems to be essential, with not a word wasted.  It's a pitch perfect summation of these men's relationship and the history they share.  Finally, it leads to a playful final page that promises, as always in comics, that the story's not over and there's plenty of fun yet to be had.  This was a series that defied expectations all along, and really was one hell of a ride.