Board Thread:Site-Related Tasks/@comment-61022-20160927205025

So I've been trying to make sense of the history of SHIELD and I think we need to make some editorial decisions on how to proceed as there is a lot of conflicting information. There have been some opinions made Al Ewing that aren't cannon because he's stated them on Twitter and they certainly don't jive with what has been established. I think the best thing to do is look past those things and come up with a game plan on how to talk about this going forward so we provide the clearest picture of SHIELD as an organization that also addresses all the inconsistencies.

Here they are:

S.H.I.E.L.D. Vol 1 & S.H.I.E.L.D. Vol 2: I bring this up because the Brotherhood of the Shield has some undefined connection with SHIELD the spy agency. They're responsible for inventing LMD technology and the Infinity Formula. Howard Stark was a member. The Brotherhood worked to defend Earth from unseen threats. They've been around since ancient Egypt. Their full connection is unknown as the last two issues of SHIELD Vol 2 are complete but haven't been published (And no official date in site). The plot thread ends around 1960 where there is a war between different factions of the Brotherhood. There's also a little talked about organization called the Spear. The Spear was located in Asia, while the Shield was in Europe.

states that Fury's eye was injured by shrapnel and that injury led to the loss of his eye in more recent times.

When it comes to Hydra... - and states that Baron Strucker first tried to form the modern version of Hydra as early as 1941. Hydra was partially formed through a union between Strucker and the Japanese organization known as the Hand.

states that Fury left the military in 1944 to join the OSS, the precursor to the CIA, and was with the organization when it became the CIA.

and states that Fury was first given the Infinity Formula by Berthold Sternberg. It required regular injections to maintain Fury's youth.

Original Sins Vol 1 states that in 1955, Fury began secretly dealing with secret threats to Earth, a position given to him by Howard Stark. Fury operated in secret between his work for the CIA. Although not implicitly stated here, Stark's missions were probably tied into the Brotherhood of the Shield.

is the earliest point in history that Fury began wearing an eye patch (1959).

Secret Warriors Vol 1: Goes into some lengthy history of Fury's past. It implies that the Brotherhood's sister organization the Spear was the precursor to what is now Hydra. It also shows the connection between the Brotherhood and Nick Fury's SHIELD when he joined the Great Wheel. This was in 1961. It's also the point in time when Fury procured the LMD technology among other things. It's stated that it was shortly after this that Fury began forming SHIELD. It should also be pointed out that Fury is seen wearing glasses with one of the eyes blacked out. He was later shot through the same eye. Another point to bring up here is that Fury is identified as one of the world's greatest spymasters and that he has been operating in secret covert missions.

Winter Soldier: The Bitter March Vol 1 shows SHIELD full operational and battling Hydra circa 1966. Fury was an agent. He's wearing an eye patch here.

states that Dum Dum Dugan was killed in action in 1966 in a battle with Hydra and replaced with a LMD. Again the eye patch.

this story takes place sometime in the 1980s. Fury isn't wearing an eye patch and is said to have a bionic eye. It's at this point that the United States government taps him to be the leader of an organization called SHIELD.

states that SHIELD was the brainchild of Tony Stark and that he proposed the idea to the government. It was formed in the modern age. Rick Stoner was selected to be SHIELD's director but he is assassinated. Fury is picked as his successor. Also Fury is not wearing an eye patch here, he's eventually stabbed in the eye by his brother resulting in the need to wear an eye patch.

Some points of contention here: Secret Warriors confirms that Rick Stoner was the original head of SHIELD. Also there are a lot of facts in this story that conflict with...

on... Which states that SHIELD was formed by Stark during the modern age. Hydra is identifies as a new organization etc.

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My thoughts on this are as such:

SHIELD as an Organization

The whole point of the Brotherhood is to defend Earth from destroying planetary threats and making sure the Earth lives for some higher purpose. They are a hush hush organization that has often used various manipulations to pursue this goal.

The connection between Howard Stark and Nick Fury in the 1950s suggests that the Brotherhood has been somehow involved in grooming Fury for years as a solo operative. This likely led to him being one of the chosen members of the Great Wheel and access to the various technologies soon employed by SHIELD.

There are conflicts between WHEN the SHIELD spy agency came to be. It's either the 1960s or the Modern Age.

The difference I see between the two is this: in the 60s, SHIELD was very much a secret organization and when they were "created" in the modern age, it was very very public.

Both the Brotherhood and Nick Fury have been shown to have long running manipulations for the preservation of the planet Earth. These influences run within governments and corporate entities.

It also appears that there was a schism between the Brotherhood of the Shield and the Brotherhood of the Spear some time ago and it became what is now Hydra near the end of the World War II.

I suspect that SHIELD was 100% covert and not known to the general public when it was formed in the 1960s, Fury maintained his cover as a CIA agent during the period. I could see Fury, or an agent of the Brotherhood manipulating US government officials into forming SHIELD as a covert military operation. All the tech was either given secretly by the Brotherhood or invented by Howard Stark.

But there must have been a point where Hydra became too much of a public danger that SHIELD also had to become public. My theory is the "creation" of SHIELD in the modern age was just to create plausible deniability for their covert actions in the decades before hand. The idea of making Tony Stark the "creator" of SHIELD was just legacy idea. Certainly the idea of Howard Stark arranging it so that his son "founded" SHIELD and created tech for them is highly plausible.

S.H.I.E.L.D. Vol 1 even goes so far as to say that Howard Stark is still alive and his death was faked.

Hydra as an Organization

Not a lot to go with here. I wouldn't be surprised if the Spear had it's connections with the Hand, since both were stationed in Asia and considering that Hydra was formed by a union of disenfranchised Nazis and the Hand.

Same deal with Hydra as with SHIELD. They operated covertly until they became more public closer to the modern age.

The Eye Patch Thing

Is really just an fickle point, but it's interesting. Fury's original injury stated that he would eventually lose the eye after a time. Secret Warriors mentions some of the Howling Commandos placing bets as to when Fury really lost his eye.

Sure it was injured during the War, but I bet the Infinity Formula slowed the degradation of said eye (since he was injected near the end of the war). I think he didn't lose it until he was shot in the face in 1961. He then got the cybernetic eye somewhere around 1980 and that was the eye that was damaged in Fury #1. I think from that point on Nick didn't bother with prosthetics and just went with the eye patch.

All that said. I'd like to bounce around ideas on how we can clean all this up and make sense of everything with the information we have available (and also to see if there is anything I missed) 