In every installment of I Love Ya But You’re Strange I spotlight strange but ultimately endearing comic stories. Feel free to e-mail me at brianc@cbr.com if you have a suggestion for a future installment!

I continue a month's worth of I Love Ya but You're Strange's (as a sort of "April Fool's" month) with a spotlight on the time that Nick Fury fought World War II...in outer space!

The adventure took place in 1979's What If...? #14 by Gary Friedrich, Don Glut, Herb Trimpe and Pablo Marcos (based on an idea by Roy Thomas) and the whole thing kicks off with this hilariously odd opening, where the Watcher's like, "Okay, so, let's just take for granted that in the Earth, the galaxy is split up into factions like in World War II and Nick Fury and his buddy Red Hargrove are on the space station Pearl"...

Naturally, the Pearl is attacked in a sneak attack by the evil Beta aliens...

Way into the story, we discover WHY Earth has developed so much technology that they space stations in the 1940s. It all comes down to Leonardo Da Vinci's designs being turned into actual machines back in the Renaissance...

My favorite part of the whole issue has to be Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos' new commanding officer (as Sam Sawyer died saving Nick and Red earlier in the story), which is a ROBOT!

It doesn't make any sense, but it is wonderful and I am HERE for it.

Okay, so there's a mysterious Admiral for the space fleet that is secretly working with the aliens and it turns out that it is Baron Strucker and he is pissed that Nazis weren't able to really be a thing (it doesn't actually explain what World War I was in this universe) and so he sold out Earth to cut a deal with the aliens, but he's defeated and sucked into outer space...

And the Commandos then get the Earth fleet to Midway in time to defeat the aliens...

The war is very much not over at the end of the issue and since the cover alluded to Star Wars, it makes it seem like Marvel was saying, "Hey, if anyone wants more of this, let us know!"

They did not. But I do!

If anyone else has a suggestion for a future I Love Ya But You're Strange, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com! Again, we're going to have a whole month of these, so, well, more suggestions would be great!