Nick Fury
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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 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Fury first appeared in Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #1 (May 1963), a 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 vol. 1, #21 (Dec. 1963). In Strange Tales vol. 1, #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 chronologically nearly a century old.
Publication history
Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos
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.
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).
Strange Tales and solo series
In Strange Tales vol. 1, #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-penciler-colorist Jim Steranko began on the feature in Strange Tales #151
(initially over Kirby layouts), and quickly became one of the comics' most acclaimed and influential artists. In some of the
creative zeniths of the Silver Age, Streranko established the feature as one
of comics most groundbreaking, innovative and acclaimed.[1]
He introduced or popularized in comics such art movements of the day as psychedelia
and op art; built on Kirby's longstanding work in photomontage; and created comics' first four-page spread — again inspired[citation needed] 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 supplying his own version of
The feature ran through #168 (sharing the split book with the occult feature "Doctor Strange" each issue), after which it was spun off onto its own series of the same title, premiering with a June 1968 cover date. Four of its first five issues were written and penciled by Steranko. Upon his departure, several other creators, both veterans and newcomers, worked on the increasingly directionless series; it was canceled with issue #15 (November 1969). Three reprint issues followed from November 1970 to March 1971.
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 comics professionals, has made occasional cameos, in a tradition going back to the Golden Age.)
In 1988, Marvel produced the six-issue Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. miniseries, in which Fury discovers that S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA have both fallen under the control of a group of sentient LMDs known as Deltites. Fury is betrayed and forced to go on the run, hunted by his fellow agents, many of whom were later revealed to have already been replaced with LMD duplicates. Although Fury is ultimately triumphant over 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 Fury chooses to disband the agency to prevent it from again being subverted from within.
The following year, Marvel launched a revival of the ongoing Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. series, in which, faced with new threats, Fury rebuilds S.H.I.E.L.D. from the ground up, initially as a more streamlined agency that would be small enough for Fury to personally oversee and protect from being corrupted. This new incarnation of S.H.I.E.L.D. changed the acronym to stand for "Strategic Hazard Intervention, Espionage and Logistics Directorate". The second series lasted 47 issues (Sept. 1989 - May 1993), and featured the return (again) of the presumed-dead Baron von Strucker.
In 1994, the Fury one-shot retconned the events of Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. and the second Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. series, recasting them as a series of staged events designed to distract Fury from von Strucker's resurrection plans. The following year, Howard Chaykin wrote the four-issue limited series Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. (April-July 1995).
In the one-shot Over the Edge: Omega (Oct. 1995), 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 was responsible for the murder of the Punisher's family. An escaped Punisher eventually killed Fury, who was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
The Fury/Agent 13 two-issue limited series (June-July 1998) then retconned that the Nick Fury the Punisher "killed" was a highly-advanced Life Model Decoy and that Fury was never dead. Fury has since made a number of appearances in such Marvel series as Captain America, Deathlok, Iron Man, and Fantastic Four, and books in the "Marvel Knights" imprint.
In the 2004-5 Secret War miniseries, Fury recruited several heroes in an illegal attempt to overthrow the government of Latveria. Fury afterward went underground, and subsequent S.H.I.E.L.D. director Maria Hill has used Life Model Decoys to impersonate him on several occasions.
Fictional character biography
Early life and wartime
Nicholas Joseph Fury was the eldest of three children born to Jack Fury in New York City. His father was a United States citizen who enlisted in the United Kingdom's Royal Flying Corps during World War I. Jack had enlisted in 1916 and was stationed in France. He reportedly shot down Manfred von Richthofen early in his flying career, and was a highly decorated combat aviator by the end of the War in 1918.
Discharged after the War, Jack returned home, married an unnamed woman, and became the father of three children. Nick, probably born in the late 1910s or early 1920s, was followed by Jacob "Jake" Fury (later the supervillain Scorpio, who co-founded the Zodiac cartel), and their sister, Dawn.
All three children grew up in the neighborhood known as Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, New York City, New York. Nick was an amateur boxer. With his friend Red Hargrove, he eventually left the neighborhood to pursue his dreams of adventure, eventually settling on a daring wing-walking act. Their death-defying stunts caught the attention of Lieutenant Samuel "Happy Sam" Sawyer, who enlisted them for a special mission in the Netherlands. Nick and Red later joined the U.S. Army, with Fury undergoing basic training under a Sergeant Bass. Red was stationed at Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii when the Imperial Japanese Navy ambushed the base on December 7, 1941, and was among the many killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Sawyer, now a captain, assigned Fury the command of the First Attack Squad, nicknamed the "Howling Commandos" and stationed in a military base in England to fight specialized missions, primarily but not exclusively in the European Theatre of World War II. Fury fell in love with an English nurse, Pamela Hawley, who died in a bombing raid of London before he could propose to her.
C.I.A.
At the end of World War II in Europe, Fury was severely injured by a landmine in France, and was found and healed by a Berthold Sternberg, who used him as a test subject for his Infinity Formula. After making a full recovery, Fury began working for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), precursor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Six months into his service, he learned the extent of Sternberg's life-saving operation: The Infinity Formula retarded his aging, and if he did not receive annual doses, he would age rapidly and die. The doctor began 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, were detailed in Marvel Spotlight #31 (Dec. 1976): "Assignment: The Infinity Formula," by writer Jim Starlin and artist Howard Chaykin.
Fury segued into the CIA as an espionage agent, gathering information in Korea, where he earned a battlefield promotion to colonel. During this time, he recommended the recruitment of married agents Richard and Mary Parker, who would go on to become the parents of Fury's occasional super-hero ally Spider-Man. Much later, the CIA used him as a liaison to various super-powered groups that had begun appearing, including the Fantastic Four, whom CIA agent Fury first encountered in Fantastic Four Vol. 1, #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 began 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.
S.H.I.E.L.D.
Recruited by Tony Stark, Fury became the second commander of S.H.I.E.L.D. Initially, his organization's primary nemesis was 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. grew 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 became the superhero community's unofficial main contact when government-related information was required while dealing with their latest crisis, such as when the Hulk sought information about his new foe General Ryker, or when Spider-Man was investigating the apparent sale of a radiation-tracking satellite by Doctor Octopus. S.H.I.E.L.D. occasionally recruited non-superpowered costumed adventurers such as the Black Widow into its ranks. Although many heroes sometimes disagreed with his actions- such as when he allowed the alien Ord to develop a 'cure' for the mutant gene-, Fury always does the right thing when the time comes; when he learned that the 'cure' had been developed from the DNA of a captive Colossus without his knowledge, he threatened to leave the agent responsible for leaving Colossus to be held there alone with the very-enraged X-Men.
In the 2005 Secret War crossover, Nick Fury launched a covert assault on the leadership of Latveria, who were plotting a massive attack on America, using a small team of heroes consisting of Captain America, Spider-Man, Luke Cage, Wolverine, Daredevil and the Black Widow. One year after the assault, the Latverian forces launched a counter-attack, which resulted in Luke Cage being hospitalized, Fury's friendship with Captain America became strained, and Fury was removed as S.H.I.E.L.D. commander and forced into hiding, with numerous international warrants out for his arrest. His successor as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. is first Maria Hill and then Tony Stark, although a Life Model Decoy of Fury, often under Hill's control, is used in certain situations such as when the Hulk is sent off-planet.
The first story arc in the series New Avengers (2005-present) "Breakout," revealed an additional ranking, "Champion Status." This effectively removes a Champions Status holder from the traditional S.H.I.E.L.D. hierarchy and, as Captain America comments, gives one the right to assemble any team to carry out any mission he believes necessary. In addition, Civil War #2 (Aug. 2006) established Nick Fury as 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. In that issue, he gave at least one of these bases to Captain America for the use of the anti-Superhero Registration Act resistance.
According to preview information, Nick Fury will officially return to the Marvel Universe in the upcoming Secret Invasion storyline, when the heroes of the Marvel Universe must discover who among their number have been replaced by Skrulls.
Other versions
1602
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.[citation needed]
Amalgam Comics
In the 1996 Marvel Comics-DC Comics intercompany crossover series of one-shots, Amalgam Comics, Nick Fury and Batman are combined as Bruce Wayne: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Nick Fury appeared as a retired army colonel alongside General Frank Rock.
Avataars
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."
Earth X
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.
Fury
In the Fury miniseries by Garth Ennis, that is under the Marvel MAX imprint, 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, created by Garth Ennis, 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."[2]
Fury: Peacemaker
A six-part miniseries written by Ennis, was published in 2006 under the Marvel Knights imprint. It portrays a young Sergeant Fury during World War II, who rendezvous with members of the newly formed British SAS and joins them in a mission to assassinate an important German general.
House of M
In this alternate reality, Nick Fury has vanished some time ago. During the mutant purges of the armed forces (which involved outright executions of most of the human soldiers) 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.
Marvel Mangaverse
Nick Fury is still the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. He disappears for a time to mastermind the death of 99% of the superhuman population.
Marvel Zombies
Nick Fury organizes a resistance against the zombies but is eventually devoured by the zombified Fantastic Four on the Helicarrier.
Mutant X
Fury leads S.H.I.E.L.D., a mutant policing organization. It is corrupt and brainwashes its personnel to violently hate all mutants, no matter what.
Ultimate Nick Fury
In the Ultimate Marvel Universe, General Nick Fury is African-American, with his look tailored after actor Samuel L. Jackson. This was done with the actor's explicit permission.
In other media
Film
- Nick Fury is set to be one of the properties that Marvel Studios will produce as a film.[3]
- Samuel L. Jackson will play Fury in the Iron Man movie in 2008.[4]
Television
- David Hasselhoff portrayed Fury in the 1998 Fox TV movie Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
- Fury appeared as a guest character in the Iron Man animated series, voiced by Philip Abbott.
- Jim Byrnes did Fury's voice in the X-Men: Evolution animated series.
- Andre Ware voiced Ultimate Nick Fury in the direct-to-video animated feature Ultimate Avengers (2006) and its sequel.
Spider-Man: The Animated Series
Fury appears in episodes of Spider-Man: The Animated Series, initially voiced by Philip Abbott and later by Jack Angel. Abbott also voiced Fury in the second season of Iron Man.
- "Day of the Chameleon": Fury's first appearance on the series. His mission is to have the terrorist Chameleon taken into S.H.I.E.L.D. custody.
- "The Black Cat": Two-part episode. The Chameleon imitates Felicia Hardy's (the Black Cat), father John Hardesky, who knows of the secret formula that created Captain America.
- "Six Forgotten Warriors": Appears in first and last episodes of six-part arc. In the former, Fury calls Keane Marlow out of retirement to have him obtain the passports of the deceased Richard and Mary Parker, parents of Peter Parker (Spider-Man). In the latter, S.H.I.E.L.D. attacks Electro.
Spider-Man Unlimited
In the sequel series of the above, Fury cameos in the premiere. He is voiced by Mark Gibbon.
Video games
- Dave Fennoy provided the voice of the Ultimate Marvel version of Fury in Ultimate Spider-Man.
- Khary Payton voiced the Ultimate Marvel version Fury in X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse.
- In the video game Fantastic Four, Nick Fury, looking like the Ultimate incarnation, witnesses the Fantastic Four saving a fire truck, and arrests them after they've destroyed a giant robot in central New York, causing significant property damage. When they later escape from the Vault after a riot, he asks them to investigate a bizarrely mutated S.H.I.E.L.D. laboratory in exchange for being given access to the space station where they acquired their powers in an attempt to find a 'cure'. This was Andre Ware's first time voicing the character prior to the Ultimate Avengers animated features.
- Nick Fury is the second player's character in the arcade game The Punisher.
- Nick Fury and his S.H.I.E.L.D organization appears as a non-playable character in The Punisher.
- Nick Fury appears in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance game voiced by Scott MacDonald, serving as the coordinator of the heroes' campaign against the Masters of Evil after their initial attack on the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier. Captain America, Iron Man, and Deadpool have special dialogue with him. Nicl Fury can be unlocked by completing the game on easy mode or normal. Despite being partially based in the Ultimate universe, he looks more like his mainstream counterpart. His costume includes his classic, stealth, Ultimate, and General Fury.
- Nick Fury appears in the video game Spider-Man: Friend or Foe.
Parodies and homages
- The three-page opening sequence of Captain America (2004 series) #23 (Dec. 2006) is a panel-by-panel homage to writer-artist Jim Steranko's influential Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #1 (June 1968).
- The cover of Wolverine (2003 series) #27 (April 2005) is an homage to the cover of Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #4.
- The 50/50 variant cover to Iron Man (2004 series) #15 (February 2007) by Adi Granov is also an homage to that same cover.
- The Simpsons paid homage to parts of that same sequence, as well as to the splash page of "If Death Be my Destiny" in Strange Tales #166 (March 1968), in the Krusty the Klown parody "Krusty, Agent Of K.L.O.W.N." in Simpsons Comics #3 (March 1994). Fury was again spoofed along with Dum-Dum Dugan in Simpsons Comics #118.
- A scene in Planetary #11 shows a character with an eyepatch and a cigar being shot in the head by a villain in a flashback introducing John Stone, Agent of S.T.O.R.M. (himself a pastiche of Nick Fury and James Bond).
- The Nextwave team, in the comic of the same name, often have to contend with Dirk Anger, head of H.A.T.E, parodies of Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D.
- The Marvel 2099 comic X-Nation 2099 featured the Sisters of the Howling Commandments, a militaristic order of nuns, including a Sister Nicholas.
- In an episode of "Malcolm in The Middle, Francis is practicing a singing with a group of his marine comrades, being led by a man colonel with an eye patch. After a butcherd take, he says to "Take it again, with Fury "
- The Tick animated TV series has included secret agent Jim Rage, Agent of SHAVE. Unlike Nick Fury, there's nothing wrong with his eye; he wears the patch just to look cool.
- In the American Dad! episode "Con Heir", C.I.A. agent Stan's father resembles Fury.
- The satirical magazine National Lampoon parodied Nick Fury in "Nick Penis and the Brassball Brigade".
- In the animated TV series The Venture Bros., Brock Samson's mentor is a cross between Nick Fury and Raoul Duke, the Hunter Thompson-manque lead character of the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998).[citation needed]
- In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "As You Were", Xander Harris sarcastically refers to commando Riley Finn and his new wife as "Nick and Nora Fury", a reference to both the Marvel character and to the stars of the Thin Man film series, detectives Nick and Nora Charles. Xander would later lose his own left eye and wear a patch much like Nick Fury, requesting in season eight "The Long Way Home" he be referred to as "Sgt. Fury".
- In the 1994 film True Lies, spy Arnold Schwarzenegger's boss (Charlton Heston) is highly similar in appearance to Nick Fury, including the eye patch. Likewise, Big Boss in the Metal Gear video game series resembles Nick Fury, down to his signature eye patch and penchant for cigar-smoking.
- Dr. Betty Director, leader of the multinational Global Justice spy network in the Disney show Kim Possible. GJ, as it is called, performs a function very similar to S.H.I.E.L.D. Director also wears an eyepatch, albeit on the right eye instead of the left.
- In an episode of Fairly Oddparents, Timmy wishes his life was about Action, and when it did, it altered reality, everyone looked different and his father had a slight resemblance to Nick Fury with the eyepatch and style of hair.
- Falcon 7 from Birdman also has the signature eyepatch and mustache
Footnotes
- ^ Ron Goulart, in Comix: A History of Comic Books in America (Bonanza Books, New York, 1971; Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 75-169-104), wrote, "[E]ven the dullest of readers could sense that something new was happening. ... Which each passing issue Steranko's efforts became more and more innovative. Entire pages would be devoted to photocollages of drawings [that] ignored panel boundaries and instead worked together on planes of depth. The first pages ... became incredible production numbers similar in design to the San Francisco rock concert poster of the period". Larry Hama in his introduction to the trade paperback collection Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Who Is Scorpio? (Marvel Enterprises, 2001; ISBN 0-7851-0766-5), said Steranko "combined the figurative dynamism of Jack Kirby with modern design concepts. The graphic influences of Peter Max, Op Art and Andy Warhol were embedded into the design of the pages — and the pages were designed as a whole, not just as a series of panels. All this, executed in a crisp, hard-edged style, seething with drama and anatomical tension". The series won 1967 and 1968 Alley Awards, and was inducted in the latter year to the awards' Hall of Fame. Steranko himself was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2006.
- ^ James Adams, "Code Red in the new comicdom", The Globe and Mail, May 2 2002, p. R9
- ^ Marvel Updates Its Film Slate. ComicBookMovie.com. Retrieved on 2007-05-22.
- ^ Jackson to play Fury in Iron Man. Retrieved on 2007-05-22.
References
- Marvel Directory: Nick Fury
- Marvel.com: S.H.I.E.L.D. and Nick Fury
- Don Markstein's Toonopedia: Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
- Comics 101 (column, March 3 2004): "Secret Agent, Man", by Scott Tipton
- E. Favata's Comic Book Movies: Nick Fury
- ComicBookMovie.com: Nick Fury
- The Grand Comics Database
- Iron Man Movie on IMDB
External links
- Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe: S.H.I.E.L.D.
- Sneak Peek TV: Nick Fury
- Nick Fury (2008) at the Internet Movie Database
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