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Quote1 Here we all are, with nothing, but our wit and our will to save the world. So stand and fight. Quote2
Nick Fury[src]

History

Nick Fury was the executive head of the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division, internationally and publicly known as "S.H.I.E.L.D." Fury is also credited as a possible co-creator/designer of the Avenger Initiative as well as the special operations commander. He has been in active service since the 1980s at the earliest, where he participated in a black-ops, off-the-books raid that saved several hostages. At some point he was betrayed by someone he trusted, resulting in the loss of his left eye and leaving him disinclined to trust anyone he is not completely sure of.

Avengers Initiative

After Tony Stark publicly announced his identity as Iron Man, Fury went to Stark's home in Malibu, California to talk to him about the Avenger Initiative.[2] Stark initially did not want anything to do with Fury, and ordered him to leave.[2] As Fury drove away, he ordered Agent Coulson to contact Agent Romanoff, saying that they would need her help.


File:Fury&Stark.jpg

Nick Fury handles his problem

Fury's Big Week

Six months later, after Stark's out-of-control behavior resulted in the Mark II Iron Man armor falling into the hands of the U.S. military, Fury confronted Stark for becoming a problem that he had to deal with. As well as providing information on the background of Ivan Vanko, Fury and Romanoff provided Stark with information and materials from his father, which proved instrumental in finding a replacement power source for his personal arc reactor.

Fury met with Stark once again after Stark had defeated Ivan Vanko's attack on the Stark Expo. Stark had proven himself unsuitable for the Avenger Initiative, but after informing him of this, Fury offered to recruit his services as a consultant.[3]

Fury's recruitment drive then turned to people who had been involved in a destructive incident in Puente Antiguo, New Mexico. He summoned Culver University astrophysics professor Erik Selvig, who had been closely associated with the incident, to an underground S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, and then drew the scientist's attention to a secure, portable storage case. Fury revealed a glowing cube within the case and suggested that it was a source of immense power, although nobody had been able to determine a means of tapping that power. Selvig accepted the challenge to investigate the object further.[4]

Shortly thereafter, the World Security Council officially approved the activation of the Avenger Initiative, but ordered Fury to recruit Emil Blonsky. Unhappy with this decision, Fury put Agent Coulson on the case, who in turn scuttled the plan of recruiting Blonsky by sending Stark as an intermediary instead.[5]

Finding Captain America

The Initiative was slowly losing traction by the time another potential recruit was found. Steven Rogers (Captain America), the world's first "superhero" had been frozen in Arctic ice since World War II, and had miraculously survived his entombment. Fury oversaw his recovery and rehabilitation, personally intercepting him when the man awoke and escaped into the heart of New York City.[6]

Phase Two

With little to show for his efforts in bringing together a group of extraordinary people, Fury shelved his plan and began focusing on weaponry instead. "Phase Two", as the offshoot idea came to be called, involved re-engineering weapons technology that had emerged in the hands of Hydra years earlier, as well as other cutting edge, or alien, technology. The Tesseract, that he'd assigned Professor Selvig to investigate, formed a significant part of this puzzle.

When the Tesseract began emitting unexpected levels of gamma radiation, Fury was quick to personally take charge of the operation. The emissions proved to be a prelude to the appearance of Loki on Earth, and neither Fury, nor his personnel had the power to stop Loki escaping with the cube.

Assembling The Avengers

Desperate for a solution to the problem of Loki's possession of apparently limitless power, Fury reactivated the Avengers Initiative. He effortlessly brought Steven Rogers in and dispatched agents to call in the help of Tony Stark and Dr. Bruce Banner. In short order, Loki made his first public appearance, and was apprehended, heralding an unexpected further addition to the collection of extraordinary people when Loki's brother Thor arrived, making demands of his own for Loki's extradition.

File:DirectorFury.jpg

Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Fury could do little to quell the rising tensions in a ship now packed with egos, and problems only escalated when some of these people uncovered his deceptions surrounding Phase Two. With arguments boiling over, Loki played his hand, and Fury and the others were caught completely off guard when the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier came under attack in a daring commando raid by Loki's soldiers. Fury returned to his post on the bridge to take command of the situation and was instrumental in warding off an assault there.

In the wake of the battle, Fury found agent Coulson mortally wounded by Loki's hand. He resolved to use Coulson's sacrifice to his advantage, exploiting it to give a "push" to Stark and Rogers. Despite the ethically questionable nature of the plan, it proved to be effective, and the men set off in pursuit of Loki shortly thereafter.

Battle of New York

The Avengers Initiative may have finally come to fruition, but Fury's role in their battle was not yet done. The World Security Council issued orders to send a nuclear missile into the vicinity of Manhattan, which Fury refused, but then overriding orders saw one fighter jet escape him after he knocked another out of action with a rocket. He radioed a warning to Stark however, thus giving time for Iron Man to avert the crisis.

The Avengers Initiative ultimately won out. Fury's defiance of the World Security Council may not have been forgotten, but his methods and actions had saved the world. He resolved to call upon the Avengers should they be needed again, and made further assurances that they would come.[7]

Agent Coulson

Some time afterwards, Fury resolved to revive Agent Coulson, and had Coulson's body sent to a secret facility called the Guest House, hidden even from S.H.I.E.L.D. records. There numerous, unethical procedures from Project T.A.H.I.T.I., a project once supervised by Coulson to heal a mortally wounded Avenger, but was deemed too dangerous to a person's mental health, were used to resurrect the agent, and later Fury took further steps in granting Coulson's requests for assets and personnel to furnish a new S.H.I.E.L.D. team.[8] Fury assigned Agent Melinda May to come up with the parameters for the team, knowing that Coulson would recruit her, and to keep him updated on Coulson's status.[9]

Fury later reprimanded Coulson for the damages to the Bus following an altercation with Peruvian soldiers over a Hydra weapon. He refused any new aesthetic additions be placed on the Bus and further warned Coulson that his civilian consultant, Skye, a known member of the Rising Tide, was a risk.[10]

After Coulson learned the truth behind his supposed recuperation in Tahiti, Fury sent over a folder containing all the information regarding his resurrection.[11] Subsequently, Fury went off the grid when Coulson sought to contact him for the truth behind the Guest House and the GH-325 drug used to heal his wounds.[12] When May later informed him that Coulson knew of the Guest Host corpse from which the GH drug comes from, Fury returned to the Triskelion to give Coulson the full truth. However, circumstances prevented them from meeting, as Coulson's plane was remotely hijacked by Victoria Hand.[9]

Project: Insight

Following the battle for New York, the government granted S.H.I.E.L.D. more funds to invest in homeland security, for which "Project Insight" was created, a security network formed by three heavily-armed helicarriers to protect the Earth. However, Fury discovered something dubious was going on and hired the mercenary Georges Batroc to hijack a S.H.I.E.L.D. boat related to Project Insight, so during the rescue mission, Black Widow would secretly recover confidential files.

After recovering the data, Fury attempted to open the files but discovered they were highly protected. He persuaded his friend and World Security Council member Alexander Pierce to delay Project Insight as S.H.I.E.L.D. could've been compromised.[13]

The Winter Soldier

Fury was soon attacked by the mysterious Winter Soldier and corrupt S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. He barely escaped alive and made it to Captain America's house, where he told Steve that S.H.I.E.L.D. was compromised and should trust no one. Before being gunned down by the Winter Soldier, who had tracked him down, Fury gave Steve a flash drive with the confidential files. Nick was transported to a hospital, but once there his vital signs failed and the doctors were unable to revive him. His body was recovered by Maria Hill.

Fury had successfully faked his death by using a drug which greatly reduced his pulse, and was taken to a secret location to recuperate. Only a small handful of trusted people had any knowledge that he had survived, and this small group expanded when Maria Hill returned from a rescue mission with Captain America, the Black Widow, and their ally Falcon in tow.

The fugitives related spoke of their discovery that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been influenced by Hydra almost since its foundation, and Pierce was the conspiracy's leader. Pierce wanted to use the three helicarriers to massacre any person who could interfere with Hydra's new world order, and planned to launch them soon. Fury gave them a set of three control chips (one for the core of each helicarrier), with which to override the helicarriers' fire control systems and scuttle Pierce's plans.[13]

Fight Against Hydra

As Captain America and Falcon got into the helicarriers and successfully reprogrammed them, Nick revealed his survival to Alexander Pierce, and with the help of Black Widow, forced him to release every single one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secrets to the world. He even managed to circumvent his deleted retinal scans by revealing to Pierce that he had a second retinal scan in the form of a scan of his damaged left eye. Pierce snatched an opportunity to escape, whereupon Fury shot and killed him.

After leaving S.H.I.E.L.D. in ruins behind him, Fury burned his possessions and, after saying goodbye to Steve Rogers, went to Europe in order to hunt down Hydra's remaining cells.[13]

Fury would make his survival a secret to all but a few select agents, such as Maria Hill, Eric Koenig, and Phil Coulson.[14]

Fury made a surprise reappearance when he came to the rescue of Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz after they were ejected from the Bus into the ocean. He implored Simmons to lead him to Coulson, which enabled him to join his colleague in an under-resourced assault on a Hydra cell led by John Garrett. Fury came prepared however, and provided Coulson with the Destroyer gun to wear down the Centipede soldiers defending the Cybertech facility. He and Coulson then trash-talked Garrett, long enough for Skye to break Garrett's control over Mike Peterson, allowing Peterson to turn on Garrett.

Back aboard the Bus, Coulson gave the former director of S.H.I.E.L.D. a stern rebuke over using TAHITI to resurrect him. In turn, Fury calmly pointed that he was not suffering any major mental side effects and stated that the reason he brought Coulson back was because in his eyes, Coulson is an Avenger. He then gave Coulson a little black box, with the instructions needed to rebuild S.H.I.E.L.D., and appointed Coulson as the new director. Fury then departed to pursue a clandestine undertaking of his own.[15]

Age of Ultron

After the Avengers lost their first major confrontation against Ultron and retreated to the Barton farm to regroup, Nick Fury made contact with the team to inform them that he had been tracking Ultron's movements, including his attempts to access Earth's nuclear weapons stockpile and his efforts to create a new body for himself. Realising that something was acting to counter Ultron's hacks, Tony was able to recover what remained of J.A.R.V.I.S. while Rogers, Barton and Romanoff stole Ultron's new body, allowing them to combine the two with the Mind Gem in Loki's scepter to form the new entity that came to be known as the Vision. When Ultron attacked Sovokia, Fury used an old Helicarrier to help the Avengers evacuate civilians while destroying Ultron's robot army. He later became a member of staff at the New Avengers facility[16]

Infinity War

After Thanos wiped out half of all life in the universe, Fury along with Maria Hill were disintegrated, but not before Fury managed to send a distress signal to someone.[17]

Attributes

Abilities

Nick Fury is a master strategist and an astute judge of character. He uses these talents to great effect in his leadership of S.H.I.E.L.D., coming up with various plans for a variety of scenarios.

Weaknesses

Fury has impaired depth perception due to the loss of vision in his left eye.

Paraphernalia

Equipment

Fury formerly operated with technology years ahead of traditional forces.

Weapons

  • US military firearms (standard and automatic).
  • Smith and Wesson M&P (sidearm)

Transportation

Formerly S.H.I.E.L.D. vehicles

Notes

Trivia

  • Samuel L. Jackson was the actor that inspired the looks of Nick Fury's Ultimate Universe counterpart, when he appeared in Ultimates #2 written by Mark Millar and illustrated by Bryan Hitch (although the character debuted in Ultimate X-Men #9 with a different look illustrated by Tom Raney), six years before Jackson would portray the character in the 2008 film Iron Man.
  • Like his Earth-616 counterpart, this version of Nick Fury has his left eye damaged instead of missing.[13]
  • Nick Fury was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent level 10 and had an Alpha Level at the World Security Council.[13]
  • After portraying Nick Fury in the film Avengers: Age of Ultron, the record for most appearances as the same character in a comic book film, was shared between Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine in 7 films. Since then, Jackman has portrayed Wolverine in 9 films, while Jackson will eventually have portrayed Nick Fury in a total of 10 films.

See Also

Links and References

References

  1. Hot Toys's Official Artwork
  2. 2.0 2.1 Iron Man (film)
  3. Iron Man 2 (film)
  4. Thor (film)
  5. Marvel One-Shot: The Consultant
  6. Captain America: The First Avenger
  7. Marvel's The Avengers
  8. Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
  9. 9.0 9.1 Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S1E16
  10. Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S1E02
  11. Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S1E14
  12. Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S1E15
  13. 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 Captain America: The Winter Soldier
  14. Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S1E18
  15. Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S1E22
  16. Avengers: Age of Ultron
  17. Avengers: Infinity War
  18. D'Alessandro, Anthony (2017-07-06) Samuel L. Jackson Bringing Nick Fury To 'Captain Marvel' Deadline. Retrieved on 2017-07-09.
  19. Buchanan, Kyle (7 August 2018) Spider-Man: Far From Home Adds Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders Vulture. Retrieved on 7 August 2018.
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