Merge:Nick Fury

Colonel Nicholas Joseph "Nick" Fury is a fictional World War II army hero and present-day superspy 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). Then, beginning with Strange Tales #135 (August 1965), the character was completely transformed into a suave, James Bond-like spy and leading agent of the fictional espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D. Although artistically influential, the series Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. did not outlast the 1960s and subsequent Fury series have been sporadic. 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.

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, penciler 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 Commandoes 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 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 by Kirby, who in the Golden Age 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 Bond girls, essentially, in skintight leather, green hair with matching eyeshadow and accessory whip, pushing what was allowable under the Comics Code at the time.

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 pencilled by Steranko. Upon his departure, several other creators, both veterans and newcomers, worked on the increasingly directionless series; it was canceled with issue #15 (Nov. 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 of comic books.)

In 1988, Marvel produced the six-issue Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. miniseries, following it up with a second Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. series. In 1991, Marvel changed S.H.I.E.L.D. to stand for "Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage and Logistics Directorate". A pivotal event of the second series was "the Deltite Affair," where S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were replaced with Life Model Decoy androids. The second series lasted 47 issues (Sept. 1989 - May 1993). The books also resurrected (again) 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 into a series of 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.

Early life and wartime
Nicholas Joseph Fury was the eldest of three children born to Jack Fury. 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 under the Third Republic. 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 neighbourhood 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.

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. 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. S.H.I.E.L.D. occasinally recruited non-superpowered costumed adventurers such as the Black Widow into its ranks.

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. 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 becoming strained, and Fury being 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 Maria Hill.

It has been revealed in Civil War #2 that Nick Fury is the only 33rd-degree S.H.I.E.L.D officer, meaning that he is the only member of S.H.I.E.L.D (current or otherwise) to know of the existence of 28 emergency, covert, back-up bases scattered across the globe. For the interim, he has given at least one of these bases to Captain America and his Resistance.

Alternate versions
Different versions of Nick Fury, not part of the regular Marvel Universe, have appeared from time to time, including:
 * In the Ultimate Marvel Universe, General Nick Fury is a significant figure. His characteristics are similar, although he ranks General and is portrayed as African American, with his features modelled after those of Samuel L. Jackson, with the actor's consent (according to liner notes in one Ultimates book collection). 
 * The Fury miniseries under the Marvel MAX imprint imagined a world where Fury was a burned-out Cold War veteran unable to cope with the modern world. This version, created by Garth Ennis, continues to appear in Ennis' Punisher.
 * Fury: Peacemaker, a six-part miniseries written by Garth Ennis, was published in 2006 under the Marvel Knights imprint. It portrayed a young Sergeant Fury during World War 2, who meets up with members of the newly formed British SAS and joins them in a mission to assassinate an important German General.
 * In the 1996 Marvel/DC Amalgam comic Bruce Wayne: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Nick Fury appeared as a retired army colonel alongside General Frank Rock.
 * In the miniseries 1602 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.
 * A throw-away 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).
 * In Marvel comics's Earth X continuity, Nick Fury is dead. However several LMDs (Life Model Decoy) exist and seek to fight Cold War-era "no-good pinko commies".
 * 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.

Other media

 * David Hasselhoff portrayed Fury in the 1998 Fox TV movie Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
 * Paramount is developing a live-action theatrical film for possible 2008 release, according to trade reports.
 * Main Article: Nick Fury: Spider-Man: The Animated Series
 * Jim Byrnes did Fury's voice in the X-Men: Evolution animated series.
 * Mark Gibbion did Fury's voice in the Spider-Man Unlimited TV series.
 * Andre Ware did Ultimate Nick Fury's voice in the direct to video animated feature Ultimate Avengers (2006) (in which the character of Nick Fury was portrayed as an African-American), it's sequel, and in the video game Fantastic Four,
 * Dave Fennoy provided the voice of the Ultimate version of Fury in Ultimate Spider-Man.
 * Khary Payton voiced Ultimate Fury in X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse.
 * In the video game Fantastic Four, Nick Fury witnesses the Fantastic Four saving a fire truck, and arrests them after they've destroyed a giant robot. When they later escape from the Vault, he asks them to investigate a bizarrely mutated S.H.I.E.L.D. laboratory.
 * Nick Fury is the second player's character in The Punisher arcade game.
 * The Tick animated 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.
 * The satirical magazine National Lampoon parodied Nick Fury in "Nick Penis and the Brassball Brigade".
 * Nick Fury and his S.H.I.E.L.D organization appears as NPC in the Punisher game, interesting note is that Nick is smoking a cigar the whole time.
 * Nick Fury also made a brief appearance in Marvel's Godzilla series (1977-1979).