Nick Fury
Nick Fury is a male comic character who features in Marvel Comics.
Contents |
Biography
Origin
Nicholas Joseph Fury was a male human born as the son of Jack Fury and Katherine Fury. It was noted that his father had served as a pilot during World War I where he flew combat missions as late as 1916. (Sgt. Fury v1 #76) After the war he returned home and married Katherine and had three children, Nick, Jacob, and Dawn. He raised his family in Hell's Kitchen, and when Katherine died, Jack remarried. His second wife was forced to raise the children alone when Jack apparently died in 1918. Fury has reminisced that his childhood was best spent playing with a mutt. He and his childhood friends growing up often saved up their money to watch the the latest matinee films. They also brawled frequently with the rival Yancy Street Gang. (Strange Tales v1 #159) His favorite radio program growing up as a boy was the Phantom Racer. (Captain America v3 #27) While his step-mother tried to provide for his family best they could, growing up in poverty Nick was not above stealing in order to eat and often got into trouble with the law. (Marvel Holiday Special v1 #1994) During these early years Nick also had a close relationship with his brother Jacob. They would regularly dress up as the "Boogie Man" and play on the rooftops in their neighbourhood. (Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. v1 #4) He and his brothers were the best night stickball players on Yancy Street. (Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD v1 #5) However, Fury had a hot temper where as a young adult he frequented pool halls and could not hold a stable job due to his constant fighting with co-workers. His hot temper also affected his romance night and he regularly got in brawls at youth functions. (Sgt. Fury v1 #7) Nick's best friend at the time was Red Hargrove and the two often looked out for each other. Nick promised Red's older brother that he would always look out for him. (Sgt. Fury v1 #34)
In 1944, he along with the Howling Commandos were dispatched to rendezvous with Captain America and Bucky to intercept the Red Skull who was receiving a weapon. This turned out to be the Amulet of Agamotto that was taken from the Ancient One who had been taken captive alongside his servant Hamir. Fury and his allies charged the Nazi forces where they nearly gained a victory when the Red Skull was transported to another dimension by Dormammu with Captain America and Bucky in pursuit. Nick Fury was then briefed on the nature of the magical threat they faced by the Ancient One who teleported the Howling Commandos to that other dimension to retrieve the Amulet of Agamotto as Dormammu threatened to invade Earth. Once there, they alongside Captain America battled the Red Skull along with his troops that were working for Dormammu where they managed to defeat their foe with the secret assistance of Clea. The Ancient One managed to craft illusions of an assault by Mindless Ones on Dormammu's domain forcing the Faltine to allow his foes to escape. Upon returning the Amulet of Agamotto to the Ancient One the Sorcerer Supreme wiped the heroes memories of the incident to shield them from the threats posed by the mystical world before departing. Fury and the Howling Commandos then proceeded on their next mission against Nazi forces. (Captain America - Nick Fury The Otherworld War v1 #1)
In 1945 during Spring, he and the Howling Commandos were on an airplane when their transport was damaged during a bomb testing causing the aircraft to crash. The team managed to survive on the seemingly empty island where they waited for rescue. They came to notice that the island was acing unusual and during his exploration of it Fury came to encounter a beating heart showing that the landmass was actually alive. The creature was known as Krakoa who had gained sentience during an atom bomb testing and was angry at humans for the pain it received. Fury managed to make a deal with Krakoa where it stopped preying on his team and allowed them to survive on its surface by cleaning any lingering traces of radiation until rescue arrived whereupon they would leave and hide the fact that the island was alive. (Journey into Mystery: The Birth of Krakoa v1 #1)
In 1958, he encountered an alien invasion of the world conducted by Tribellian which was where he encountered Woodrow McCord who operated as the Man on the Wall. McCord managed to thwart the aliens but this came at the cost of his life with Fury bearing witness to his demise. Afterwards, he encountered Howard Stark who worked to clear any trace of the invasion before taking Colonel Fury to Woodrow's secret headquarters in the Rocky Mountains. He revealed that for years, McCord had operated as a secret operative that defended Earth from various threats that were hidden from the world but with his death there was a need for someone to replace him as the Man on the Wall. Fury accepted the role and agreed to take over on the condition of wanting to know more about Woodrow's life. Stark agreed to help him but told Fury that McCord had broken all ties from Howard's group but showed him the fallen hero's journal. (Original Sin Annual v1 #1) In 1959, he and his comrades were hunting down Nazi's criminals that had escaped the war when he was approached by government agents with a message from the U.S. President who wanted Fury to head a project known as the Avengers Initiative. (New Avengers v2 #9) He later decided to move forward with his black-ops Avengers initiative that involved the creation of a team of super-operatives. He and Dum Dum Dugan thus went about recruiting the team members that included Sabretooth, Dominic Fortune, Kraven the Hunter, Namora, Ulysses Bloodstone and Ersnt Sablinova who operated as the Silver Sable. (New Avengers v2 #10) Their first assignment as a team involved tracking down the Red Skull who had formed a new Fourth Reich with him being in Sweden. (New Avengers v2 #11) By 1961, he was invited by Aries to form the Great Wheel of the Zodiac where he saw on the group of intelligence agents including John Garrett, Thomas Davidson, Vasili Dassaiev, Cornelius van Lunt, Baron Strucker, Dum Dum Dugan, Shoji Soma, Jake Fury, Daniel Whitehall and Viktor Uvarov with Nick being given the codename Gemini. (Secret Warriors v1 #25)
S.H.I.E.L.D.
In 1966, S.H.I.E.L.D. was investigating possible Hydra activity in Scandinavia when they discovered the presence of a large dragonic alien organism frozen in the ice. The creature was studied and was discovered to be a symbiotic organism that could bond to a host and enhance their capabilities. Thus, a period of experimentation was made with the goal of using the Symbiotes to produce supersoldiers as part of the Sym-Soldier Program. A team of soldiers were bonded with the Symbiotes and led by Rex Strickland with them being deployed into Vietnam. However, the creatures went rogue and began massacring friendly troops with S.H.I.E.L.D. unable to recall them. To recover the creatures, he recruited Logan where they went to activate the killswitches for the soldiers but these were removed. They discovered Strickland who was freed from the Symbiotes though Fury was incapacitated where it was revealed that he had sent an LMD on the mission rather than himself. The Fury LMD's self-destruct sequence was activated where the managed to render the Sym-Soldiers unconscious except for Strickland with them being recovered and put in stasis as the projected was halted. (Web of Venom: Ve'Nam v1 #1)
Afterwards, he went into hiding abroad at a safe location which was when he was approached by Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine with the two sleeping together. The next day though Fury followed her whilst cloaked and found her meeting some unknown people where she revealed that she was attempting to steal S.H.I.E.L.D. passcodes from him. When she returned, Fury confronted her and shot Valentina whereupon she turned into a Skrull revealing that the real Fontaine had been replaced. Nick Fury then determined that the Skrulls were possibly infiltrating the planet and began to make preparations for a possible invasion. He warned Maria Hill to be suspicious of others and observed Spider-Woman where he asked her to return to S.H.I.E.L.D. to watch over it for possible infiltrators. Fury then remained in hiding as he kept a watch over various people on the planet in order to determine who was real and who was a possible Skrull infiltrator. (Mighty Avengers v1 #12)
Secret War
The next session of training involved readying up on files on the various dangers in the world. At this point, Ares had tracked the Secret Warriors to the Safehouse as he had followed his son Alexander who was part of the superhero team. The war god broke through the walls of the Safehouse with Fury telling his team to stand down as he had words with the Olympian. Ares confessed that he was worried for his son but that he did not know how to communicate with the boy as he intended for him to live a different life than the one lived by himself. When asking Alexander, the boy stated that this was the path he had chosen and Ares allowed him to stay with Fury but warned him that he would face the god of war if the child died. Afterwards, Fury told the Secret Warriors to evacuate the base as though the war god left on good terms it was Nick who believed it prudent to relocate to a new base. (Dark Avengers v1 #9) Nick then received a message stating that Steve Rogers was back with him investigating the site of the now destroyed Avengers Hideout that had been discovered by H.A.M.M.E.R. Whilst there, he saw Rogers and called out an LMD killswitch command in case Steve was a robot copy but it turned out to be the real Captain America. He joined Steve alongside Fury's own Secret Warriors as they joined up with the New Avengers at their new safehouse. Whilst there, they saw the news that Director Osborn had launched an attack on Asgard in Oklahoma where they had taken down Thor. Steve Rogers decided to intervene and asked for Fury's aid where Nick stated that his Secret Warriors had been trained by him with them read to take part in the Siege. (New Avengers v1 #62)
He then came to Robert Ralstons grave where recently deposed S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Daisy Johnson was attending to pay respects as she blamed herself for his death at the hands of A.I.M. Fury came to console her. (Secret Avengers v2 #9)
The Unseen
Eventually, the Infinity Formula came to run out and be depleted from his body's system causing him to age quickly. To hide this, he began to operate remotely from his hidden satellite and worked through LMD's with none of his allies being aware of this fact. (Original Sin v1 #6)
He came to feel a threat in the Multiverse that was the Time-Eater which was consuming entire realities and heading towards his own but his punishment meant he could not act to prevent its coming. However, a version of Nick Fury from a dying reality arrived with the Tallus and left it on the Moon. The device called out with Blink arriving after sensing it with the Unseen informing her of the coming threat with the Tallus taking her across realities to assemble a team of heroes to save all of existence. (Exiles v3 #1)
The Unseen came to observe the Empyre incident when the invading Cotati were defeated by Earth's heroes and the Kree/Skrull Alliance. Fury came to inspect one of the plant-based invaders weapons and found it to be composed of ancient technology predating some of the universe's most ancient civilisations. He quickly came to realise that these were weapons composed of technology of the First Race at which point he was overcome from energy that resulted in the rebirth of Uatu now possessing only one eye. Earth's Watcher then warned that a 'reckoning' was soon to engulf the cosmos. (Empyre: Fallout Fantastic Four v1 #1) After coming up to speed on events, he decided to make the Unseen his herald and dispatched him to investigate signs that the Reckoning were returning to the universe. (Fantastic Four v6 #25)
Overview
Personality and attributes
As a member of the Great Wheel of the Zodiac, he operated under the code name of Gemini whilst he was part of that cabal of intelligence operatives. (Secret Warriors v1 #25) He also came to inherit the title of the Man on the Wall where he was the first and last line of defence for the planet with this being a position he had in secret. (Original Sin v1 #5)
At one point, he had an affair with Amber D'Alexis who was a wealthy entrepreneur who his brother Jake Fury had been dating. She became pregnant with his son who she named Mikel Fury but claimed that the boy was Jake Fury's child instead. D'Alexis then instilled a hatred of Nick Fury in Mikel Fury that sparked him becoming the new Scorpio where he sought to kill his biological father. (Wolverine, Nick Fury: The Scorpio Connection a Marvel Graphic Novel v1 #1) He once had a romance with a former CIA agent named Nia Marie Johnson around thirty years ago where she became pregnant with his son that she named Nicholas Fury, Junior. She kept the birth of his son a secret from him and instead he lived under the name of Marcus Johnson. (Battle Scars v1 #5)
Powers and abilities
Nicholas Fury was a seasoned unarmed and armed combat expert. He was a heavy weight boxer in the Army with him holding a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and a brown belt in Jiu Jutsu. (Secret War v1 #5)
He had completed Green and Black Beret Special Forces training whilst also being an agent of the Office of Special Services (O.S.S.) and a liaison of M5 British Secret Intelligence. (Secret War v1 #5)
During World War II, he came to lose his left eye from an exploding grenade. (Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos v1 #27)
Fury required annual boosters to sustain the longevity serum in order to maintain its effects. Without it, he would age 60 years overnight and die shortly afterwards of old age. However, with the booster shots, he was able to maintain his youthful form and potentially live forever. (Marvel Spotlight v1 #31) Eventually, the Infinity Formula came to be used up and disappeared from his system causing him to rapidly age over time. To compensate for this, he began to make use of LMDs to hide the fact that he could no longer operate by himself. (Original Sin v1 #6)
As the only '33rd-degree' S.H.I.E.L.D. officer, he knew the existence of 28 emergency, covert bases scattered across the globe. (Civil War v1 #2)
After the death of McCord, Fury came to inherit his position as the Man on the Wall where he was outfitted by Howard Stark who allowed him to operate in this role in secret. In this role, he was the first and last line of defence for the planet where he fought numerous alien invasions, destabilized galaxies and dethroned gods on a proactive basis. These duties were done so in secret whilst he also served as the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. where he utilised Life Model Decoys to aid him to maintain this disguise. (Original Sin v1 #5)
In this form, he gained the ability to see into the past, possible futures and even alternate timelines. (Exiles v3 #2) After Uatu's resurrection, Fury seemed to had lost this power and returned to his former status. (Fantastic Four v6 #25)
Notes
- Nick Fury was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby where he made his first appearance in Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos v1 #1 (May, 1963).
- In an interview in Alter Ego v3 #104 (2011), Stan Lee recalled that, "[T]here was a very popular television show called The Man from U.N.C.L.E., sort of a James Bond type of thing. And I thought, just for fun, I'm going to bring Sgt. Fury back again. But it's now years later and I'm going to make him a colonel, and I'm going to make him the head of an outfit like U.N.C.L.E., a secret military outfit. So I had to think of a name, and I love names, so I came up with the name S.H.I.E.L.D. … [A]nd I think this was Jack's idea, and it was a wonderful idea — they were headquartered in a floating helicarrier, which was like a super-dirigible...."
Alternate Versions
- In Mutant X v1 #1 (1998), an alternate version of Nick Fury appeared in the Mutant X reality that was designated as Earth-1298 in the Multiverse. He became the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. an American organisation bent on eliminating all super-powered beings. They have attacked the super-powered beings on many an occasion, always led by Nick Fury.
- In Ultimate Marvel Team Up v1 #5 (2001), an alternate version of Nick Fury appeared in the Ultimate Marvel reality that was designated as Earth-1610 in the Multiverse.
- In Captain America v5 #10 (2005), an alternate version of Nick Fury appeared in the House of M reality that was designated as Earth-58163 in the Multiverse. Nick Fury was a Colonel in the United States Army; he fought alongside the Invaders with his friend Dum Dum Dugan against the forces of the Nazi Germany. During the mutant purges of the armed forces which involved outright executions of most of the human field-officers. Nick Fury was kept on as a subservient Drill Instructor, because his talents were deemed 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 Amazing Spider-Girl v1 #12 (2007), an alternate version of Nick Fury appeared in the Marvel Comics 2 reality that was designated as Earth-982 in the Multiverse.
- In Age of Ultron v1 #5 (2013), an alternate version of Nick Fury appeared in the Age of Ultron reality that was designated as Earth-61112 in the Multiverse. He came to reside in a secret bunker in Savage Land when Ultron took over the world. While he was trying to make plans to stop Ultron, heroes discovered the existence of the bunker and went to there.
In other media
Television
- In Spider-Man, Nick Fury appeared in the 1990s animated television series where he was initially voiced by actor Philip Abbott and later by actor Jack Angel.
- In Wolverine and the X-Men, Nick Fury appeared as an animated television series where he was voiced by actor Alex Désert
- In The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Nick Fury appeared in the animated television series where he was voiced again by actor Alex Desert.
- In Secret Invasion, Nick Fury appeared in the setting of the live-action television series where he was portrayed by actor Samuel L. Jackson.
Films
- In Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., Nick Fury appeared in the setting of the 1998 live-action television film where he was portrayed by actor David Hasselhoff.
- In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Nick Fury made multiple appearances in the shared continuity setting:
- In Iron Man, Nick Fury made his first appearance in the live-action film where he appeared in the post-credit sequence and was portrayed by actor Samuel L. Jackson. This version was a black male who was the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. who approached Tony Stark about joining a project called the Avengers Initiative.
- In The Avengers, Nick Fury appeared in the setting of the live-action film where he was once again portrayed by actor Samuel L. Jackson.
Video games
- In Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, Nick Fury appeared in the video game where he was voiced by actor David Kaye. He was an unlockable character that could be played upon completing the game.
- In Marvel: Avengers Alliance, Nick Fury appeared as a NPC character in the Facebook video game.
- In Marvel Heroes, Nick Fury appeared as an NPC in the MMORPG video game where he was voiced by actor Keith David
- In Marvel Contest of Champions, Nick Fury appeared as a playable character in the setting of the mobile video game.
- In Marvel: Future Fight, Nick Fury appeared as a playable character in the setting of the mobile video game.
Appearances
- Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos v1: (1963)
- Mighty Avengers v1:
- New Avengers v1:
- Secret Warriors v1:
- Dark Avengers v1:
- Secret Avengers v2:
- Winter Soldier:
- Original Sin v1:
- Exiles v3:
- Web of Venom: Ve'Nam v1:
- Journey into Mystery: The Birth of Krakoa v1:
- Fantastic Four v6:
External Links
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