| Nick Fury | |
2001 trade-paperback collection, with repurposed cover art from Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #4 (March 1968) by Jim Steranko. |
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| Publication information | |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #1 (May 1963) |
| Created by | Stan Lee Jack Kirby |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Nicholas Joseph Fury |
| Team affiliations | S.H.I.E.L.D. United States Army C.I.A. Howling Commandos |
| Notable aliases | Scorpio, various others on undercover missions |
| Abilities | Halted aging from the Infinity Formula Skilled and experienced soldier Skilled with many weapons and fighting techniques |
Colonel Nicholas Joseph "Nick" Fury is a fictional World War II army hero and present-day super-spy in the Marvel Comics universe. Created by artist Jack Kirby and writer Stan Lee, Fury first appeared in Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #1 (May 1963), a World War II combat series that portrayed the cigar-chomping Fury as leader of an elite U.S. Army unit.
The modern-day Fury, initially a CIA agent, debuted a few months later in Fantastic Four #21 (Dec. 1963). In Strange Tales #135 (Aug. 1965) the character was transformed into a James Bond-like spy and leading agent of the fictional espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D. The character makes frequent appearances in Marvel comic books as the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. and as an intermediary between the U.S. government or the United Nations and various superheroes. It is eventually revealed that Fury takes a special medication called the Infinity Formula that halted his aging and allows him to be active despite being nearly a century old.
The Nick Fury character appears in several Marvel comic series set in alternate universes, as well as multiple animated films, television shows, and video games based on the comics. The character is portrayed by David Hasselhoff in the 1998 television movie Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and by Samuel L. Jackson in the 2008 film Iron Man. Jackson's appearance and personality is also the basis of the Ultimate Marvel version of the character.[1]
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Fury initially appeared in the World War II combat series Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, as the cigar-chomping NCO who led a racially and ethnically integrated elite unit. The series ran 167 issues (May 1963 - Dec. 1981), though only in reprints after issue #120 (July 1974). Following several issues by creators Lee and Kirby, penciller Dick Ayers began his long stint on what would be his signature series; John Severin later joined as inker, forming a long-running, critically acclaimed team. Roy Thomas succeeded Lee as writer, following by Gary Friedrich, for whom this also became a signature series. Annuals featured the "Howlers" called back to fight in the Korean War and Vietnam War.
The Howling Commandos encountered Office of Strategic Services agent Reed Richards (later Mister Fantastic of the Fantastic Four) in #3 (Sept. 1963), and fought alongside Captain America and Bucky in #13 (Dec. 1964).
In Strange Tales #135 (Aug. 1965), Fury, now a colonel, became a James Bond-esque Cold War spy, with Marvel introducing the covert organization S.H.I.E.L.D. (Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law-enforcement Division) and its nemesis HYDRA. (The name, for unexplained reasons, is not an acronym but capitalized regardless, according to Marvel.)
The 12-page feature was initially by Lee and Kirby, with the latter supplying such inventive and enduring gadgets and hardware as the Helicarrier — an airborne aircraft carrier — as well as human-replicant LMDs (Life Model Decoys), and even automobile airbags. Writer-penciller-colorist Jim Steranko began on the feature in Strange Tales #151 (initially over Kirby layouts), and quickly became one of comic books' most acclaimed and influential artists. In some of the creative zeniths of the Silver Age, Steranko established the feature as one of comic books' most groundbreaking, innovative and acclaimed.[2] He introduced or popularized in comic books such art movements of the day as psychedelia and op art; built on Kirby's longstanding work in photomontage; and created comic books' first four-page spread — again inspired by Kirby, who in the 1930s-1940s period fans and historians call the Golden Age of comic books had pioneered the first full-page and double-page spreads. All the while, he spun plots of intense intrigue, barely hidden sensuality, and hi-fi hipness — and supplied his own version of Bond girls, pushing what was allowable under the Comics Code at the time.
The 12-page feature ran through Strange Tales #168 (sharing that "split book" with the occult feature "Doctor Strange" each issue), after which it was spun off onto its own series of the same title, running 15 issues (June 1968 - Nov. 1969), followed by three all-reprint issues beginning a year later (Nov. 1970 - March 1971). Steranko wrote and drew issues #1-3 and #5, and drew the covers of #1-7.
Fury continued to make appearances in the other Marvel books, from Fantastic Four to The Avengers. In 1972, Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos celebrated its 100th issue with a present-day reunion of the squad, sponsored by Stan Lee and the creative team behind the title. (Lee, like other comic books professionals, has made occasional cameos in his own books, in a tradition going back to the 1940s Golden Age of comic books).
New S.H.I.E.L.D. stories did not appear for nearly two decades after the first solo title. A six-issue miniseries, Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. (June-Nov. 1988) was followed by Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. vol. 2. This second series lasted 47 issues (Sept. 1989 - May 1993); its pivotal story arc was "the Deltite Affair", in which many S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were replaced with Life Model Decoys in a takeover attempt.
A year after that series ended, the one-shot Fury (May 1994) retconned the events of those previous two series, recasting them as a series of staged events designed to distract Fury from the resurrection plans of HYDRA head Baron von Strucker. The following year, writer Howard Chaykin and penciller Corky Lehmkuhl produced the four-issue miniseries Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. (April-July 1995). Various publications have additionally focused on Nick Fury's solo adventures, such as the graphic novels and one-shots Wolverine - Nick Fury: The Scorpio Connection (1989), Wolverine/Nick Fury: Scorpio Rising (Oct. 1994), Fury/Black Widow: Death Duty and Captain America/Nick Fury: Blood Truce (both Feb. 1995), and Captain America/Nick Fury: The Otherworld War (Oct. 2001). He also starred in the 2004-2005 Secret War mini-series.
Nicholas Joseph Fury is the eldest of three children born to Jack Fury in New York City. His father is a United States citizen who enlists in the United Kingdom's Royal Flying Corps during World War I. Jack enlists in 1916 and is stationed in France. He reportedly shoots down Manfred von Richthofen early in his flying career, and is a highly decorated combat aviator by the end of the War in 1918.
Discharged after the War, Jack returns home, marries an unnamed woman, and becomes the father of three children. Nick, probably born in the late 1910s or early 1920s, is followed by Jacob "Jake" Fury (later the supervillain Scorpio who co-founded the Zodiac cartel), and their sister, Dawn.
All three children grow up in the neighborhood known as Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, New York City, New York. Nick is an amateur boxer through the Police Athletic League where he also learns marksmanship. With his friend Red Hargrove, he eventually leaves the neighborhood to pursue his dreams of adventure, eventually settling on a daring wing-walking and parachuting act. Their death-defying stunts while training British Commandos in 1940 catch the attention of Lieutenant Samuel "Happy Sam" Sawyer, then serving with the British Commandos, who enlists them for a special mission in the Netherlands. Nick and Red later join the U.S. Army, with Fury undergoing Basic Training under a Sergeant Bass. Nick and Red are stationed together at Schofield Barracks, Oahu, Hawaii when the Imperial Japanese Navy ambushes the base on December 7, 1941. Red is among the many killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor, with Fury swearing vengeance against both the Japanese and the Nazis.
Sawyer, now a captain, assigns Fury command of the First Attack Squad, a unit of U.S. Army Rangers, who are awarded the honorary title of Commandos by Winston Churchill after their first missions. They are nicknamed the "Howling Commandos" and stationed at a military base in England to fight specialized missions, primarily but not exclusively in the European Theatre of World War II. During this period, Fury falls in love with an English nurse, Lady Pamela Hawley, who dies in a bombing raid on London before he can propose to her.
At the end of World War II in Europe, Fury is severely injured by a landmine in France, and is found and healed by a Berthold Sternberg, who uses him as a test subject for his Infinity Formula. After making a full recovery, Fury begins working for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), precursor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Six months into his service, he learns the extent of Sternberg's life-saving operation: the Infinity Formula has retarded his aging, but if he does not receive annual doses, he will age rapidly and die. The doctor begins a 30-year period of extorting large sums of money from Fury in exchange for the injections. (These events, culminating in the end of said extortion, are detailed in Marvel Spotlight #31 (Dec. 1976): "Assignment: The Infinity Formula," by writer Jim Starlin and artist Howard Chaykin.)
Fury segues into the CIA as an espionage agent, gathering information in Korea, where he earns a battlefield promotion to colonel. During this time, he recommends the recruitment of married agents Richard and Mary Parker, who will go on to become the parents of Fury's occasional super-hero ally Spider-Man. Much later, the CIA uses him as a liaison to various super-powered groups that have begun appearing, including the Fantastic Four, whom CIA agent Fury first encounters in Fantastic Four #21 (Dec. 1963). Despite Marvel's "elastic chronology", which puts the early-'60s stories as roughly only 10 years before modern-day stories, Marvel has never retconned an explanation for that chronological discrepancy, as the company has for many others.
During his time with the CIA, Fury begins wearing his trademark eyepatch. (An issue of Sgt. Fury had revealed that he had taken shrapnel to one eye during the war, which caused him to slowly lose sight in it over the course of years.)
Recruited by Tony Stark, Fury becomes the second commander of S.H.I.E.L.D. Initially, his organization's primary nemesis is the international terrorist organization HYDRA, created by Fury's worst enemy of the Second World War, Baron Wolfgang von Strucker (after retconning of the original continuity). Under Fury, S.H.I.E.L.D. grows into one of the world's most powerful organizations, reaching covertly into national governments and forming strategic alliances with the Avengers and other superhero groups, while always maintaining independence and deniability. Fury soon becomes the superhero community's main contact when government-related information is required in order to deal with a crisis.
After years at the helm, Fury discovers that S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA have both fallen under the control of a group of sentient Life Model Decoy androids known as Deltites. Betrayed, Fury goes to ground, hunted by his fellow agents, many of whom are later revealed to have already been replaced with Deltites. Although Fury ultimately exposes and overcomes the Deltite threat, the conflict is so destructive to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s personnel and infrastructure, and leaves Fury so disillusioned, that he chooses to disband the agency to prevent it from again being subverted from within.[3]
Fury rebuilds S.H.I.E.L.D. from the ground up, initially as a more streamlined agency small enough for him to personally oversee and protect from being corrupted. This new incarnation changed the acronym to stand for "Strategic Hazard Intervention, Espionage and Logistics Directorate".
Sometime later, Frank Castle, the vigilante known as the Punisher, is captured and sent to a maximum-security facility with a S.H.I.E.L.D. escort. During a hypnosis session with Doc Samson, a character named Spook interrupts and has the Punisher conditioned to believe Fury is responsible for the murder of the Punisher's family. An escaped Punisher eventually kills Fury, who is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.[4] However, the Fury that the Punisher has "killed" is later revealed to have been a highly advanced Life Model Decoy android.[5]
Returned to his post as S.H.I.E.L.D. director, Fury independently enlists the superheroes Captain America, Spider-Man, Luke Cage, Wolverine, Daredevil, and the Black Widow to launch a covert assault on the leadership of Latveria, which is plotting a massive attack on the U.S. One year afterward, Latveria launches a counterattack that results in Fury's removal as S.H.I.E.L.D. commander, forcing him again into hiding with numerous international warrants out for his arrest. His successors as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. are first Maria Hill and then Tony Stark.[6] Hill, keeping Fury's disappearance from the S.H.I.E.L.D. rank and file, uses Life Model Decoys to impersonate Fury on occasion.
Fury is the only "33rd-degree" S.H.I.E.L.D officer, meaning he is the only member of S.H.I.E.L.D., present or past, to know the full existence of 28 emergency, covert bases scattered across the globe.[7]
During the time Fury spends in hiding, he learns that Valentina Allegra de Fontaine has been plotting to extract S.H.I.E.L.D. passcodes from him and kill him. Fury kills her first, after which she reverts to the form of an extraterrestrial shape-shifter from the hostile Skrull race, which has mounted an invasion of Earth. He recruits Spider-Woman to be his mole inside both HYDRA and S.H.I.E.L.D., and to watch for further Skrull impostors. Unbeknowst to him, she's replaced shortly after by Skrull Queen Veranke herself.[8] He later instructs former S.H.I.E.L.D agent Daisy Johnson to recruit superpowered children of various heroes and villains to help combat the Skrull invasion; these include Phobos, the 10-year old son of Ares and himself the young the god of fear; Yo-Yo, a misunderstood mutant speedster; Hellfire, a relative of Phantom Rider with supernatural powers; Druid, a magician and son of Doctor Druid; and Stonewall, a young man with super strength. Fury dubs them his "Commandos".[9]
Soon after the attack on Earth, Fury and his team are seen counter-attacking the Skrull attack in Times Square, Manhattan, with the new team. They manage to repel and kill the invaders in the area significantly, whilst saving the downed Initiative cadets and the Young Avengers.[10] He, along with his team and the rescued heroes, are next seen working and planning their next move in one of the scattered 28 covert S.H.I.E.L.D. bases.[11] He has also been seen talking to Deadpool, while Deadpool was on a Skrull ship after pretending to join them. It is also revealed that Fury hired Deadpool to infiltrate Skrull ranks by pretending to defect, with the intention of obtaining biological information of the Skrulls that Fury can use to stop them. However, when Deadpool attempts to transmit the data, it is intercepted by Norman Osborn.[12]
Fury leads the survivors of the Young Avengers and Initiative back to the fight in New York, where they are joined by Thor, the new Captain America, the New Avengers and Mighty Avengers, the Hood's gang, and the Thunderbolts, to take on Veranke's army of Super Skrulls.[13]
Nick Fury's aging has been slowed greatly by the Infinity Formula, a serum created by Dr. Berthold Sternberg. Fury was first inoculated with the serum in the 1940s. Fury took the serum annually for many years. Due to its cumulative effect, Fury no longer needs additional doses to prolong his life span. Nick Fury is a highly athletic man despite his advanced chronological age. He has 95% vision loss in his injured left eye, over which he wears a cosmetic eyepatch.
Fury is a seasoned unarmed and armed combat expert, was a heavyweight boxer in the army (during World War II), and holds a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and a brown belt in Jiu Jitsu. He has honed his unarmed combat skills sparring with Captain America.
Fury is a combat veteran of three wars (World War II, Korea, Vietnam), plus numerous "military advisor" missions and clandestine operations. He is trained as a paratrooper, a Ranger (commando), a demolitions expert, and a vehicle specialist (including aircraft and seagoing vessels). He has received Green and Black Beret Special Forces training.
Fury has access to a wide variety of equipment and weaponry designed by S.H.I.E.L.D. technicians. He wears a S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform made of 9-ply Kevlar (able to withstand ballistic impact up to .45 caliber bullets) and a Beta Cloth (type C), a fire-resistant material whose kindling temperature is 1700 degrees Fahrenheit.
Fury uses various types of handguns, including a .15 caliber needle gun, a government issue .45 caliber automatic, a captured German Luger in 9mm Parabellum, a modified semi-automatic Walther PPK in 9mm Parabellum, and the Ingram MAC-10 machine pistol in .45 caliber.
As the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Fury has access to the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. highly advanced arsenal of weaponry, and various air, land, and sea craft provided by S.H.I.E.L.D., and numerous S.H.I.E.L.D. paraphernalia including a radio-link tie, and a bulletproof suit.
In the 1602 miniseries, Nick Fury appears as Sir Nicholas Fury, Queen Elizabeth I's chief of intelligence. His character was modeled after Elizabeth's real life spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham.
In the Avataars: Covenant of the Shield miniseries Nick Fury appears as Regent Nicholas, who watches over the throne of Avalon "with his elite guard as its shield."
In the Earth X universe Nick Fury is dead. However, several LMDs still exist and fight against Cold War-era communists such as the current leader of Russia, Peter Rasputin. One attacks Peter when he is meeting with Captain America's party.
In the Marvel MAX-imprint miniseries Fury vol. 2, by writer Garth Ennis and penciller Darick Robertson, Fury is a burned-out Cold War veteran unable to cope with the modern world. He is swiftly drawn into a conflict with an old HYDRA enemy and the new bureaucratic version of S.H.I.E.L.D. This version continues to appear in Ennis' Punisher series. Writer-editor Stan Lee, a co-creator of Nick Fury, was critical of the extreme violence and gore of this new series: "I don't know why they're doing that. I don't think that I would do those kinds of stories."[14]
A six-part miniseries, also written by Ennis, was published in 2006 under the Marvel Knights imprint. It portrays a young Sergeant Fury during World War II, who learns the art of war in the deserts of North Africa with the newly formed British SAS and ultimately joins them on a mission to assassinate an important German general.
In the alternate reality of the crossover story arc "House of M", Nick Fury has vanished some time ago. During the mutant purges of the armed forces (which involved outright executions of most of the human field-officers) Nick Fury is kept on as a subservient Drill Instructor, because his talents are too valuable. He makes an enemy of one of his soldiers, Earshot, who has the power to throw his voice with precision over long distances. Earshot uses this power to trick Nick Fury into a trap, seemingly killing him.
In this manga imprint, Nick Fury, the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., disappears for a time to mastermind the death of 99% of the superhuman population. He is assisted by that universe's Black Cat. It is said, by his mind-controlled victim, Sharon Carter, that the motivation for the superhero deaths is jealousy.
Nick Fury organizes a resistance against the zombies but is eventually devoured by the zombified Fantastic Four on the Helicarrier.
In the alternate reality known as the MC-2 Universe, Nick Fury is alive and well and is still running S.H.I.E.L.D.
In the alternate reality of the X-Men-related miniseries Mutant X, Fury leads S.H.I.E.L.D., an anti-mutant policing organization. It is corrupt, and brainwashes its personnel to violently hate all mutants.
Fury and Dum Dum Dugan appear in the alternate-universe toy-license series The Transformers #3 (Jan. 1985).
In the Ultimate Marvel Universe, General Nick Fury is African-American, with his look and personality tailored after actor Samuel L. Jackson. This was done with the actor's explicit permission.[15] Jackson also played Nick Fury in the 2008 film Iron Man, appearing in a post-credits scene.
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