Nicholas Fury (Earth-616)/Expanded History

Preface

A number the incidents recounted of Nick Fury's life are cited to have occurred in specific decades relative to the era of publication. However, it should be noted that the so-called "modern era" of the Earth-616 universe operates on a Sliding Timescale. As such these events could not have occurred in the times they appeared due to the fact that it would drastically age the character. Fury is unique in that he has operated in two distinct time frames, the 20th Century and the "Modern Era" which has carried on for roughly 14 years in Marvel time relative to current publications. More specifically, Nick Fury's aging has slowed down considerably thanks to the Infinity Formula he was injected with during World War II.

That basic understanding is that any of Fury's appearances that occurred prior to the events of Fantastic Four #1 are considered to have actually happened in the time periods specified as Fury was born in the Early 1900s and his earliest noteworthy activities happened in the 1940s. That said, any events that are categorized as happening after Fantastic Four Vol 1 1 are subject to the rules of the Sliding Timescale, any specific references to dates, times, conflicts, and public figures should be considered topical references per the date the story was originally published. These topical references are generalized in the main body of this page, and explained in further detail in the footnotes where applicable.

Early life

Nick Fury as a child.

Nick Fury came from a line of fighting men that may have played a role in the man he would eventually become. Unconfirmed sources state that the Fury family is descended from the Slade family, of whom many members operated during the American Frontier as the masked hero known as the Phantom Rider. He was the son of Jack and Katherine Fury. Jack was a fighter pilot during World War I and flew combat missions as late as 1916. 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. His favorite radio program growing up as a boy was the Phantom Racer. 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. 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, and the brothers were the best night stickball players on Yancy Street. However Fury had a hot temper, as a young adult he frequented pool halls and couldn't 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. 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.

Possibly in an effort to curb his temper and focus his efforts on other things, Fury got involved in the New York City Police Athletics League. There he was highly competitive winning many awards including archery and marksmanship. He was interviewed by the Daily Bugle newspaper about his activities with the PAL sometime in 1939.

Early Covert Operations

Nick Fury and Red Hargrove before they joined the military.

As adults, Nick and Red scraped their money together to purchase an airplane and became stunt fliers. The fearless Fury often performing acrobatic feats on the wings of the plane before parachuting to safety. This earned them a modest living. By 1940 they were putting their show on in England just as World War II was erupting in Europe. During a tour of England, they were hired to train infantrymen how to parachute out of a plane to ready them for combat. There they met Lieutenant Sam Sawyer. Impressed with their parachuting skills, Sawyer convinced them to help in the war effort by flying him into Holland to recover plans stolen from the Nazis. The trio fell afoul of Nazi operatives. While trying to track down the secret files they crossed paths with Timothy "Dum Dum" Dugan a Chicago native who was the strong man in a travelling circus. Although Fury and Dugan scrapped with each other they quickly became fast friends. They also located their agent in Holland and recovered the plans. Fleeing Nazi forces and escape back to Britain. Sawyer was so impressed with Fury and Hargrove he suggested them to upper command to use in a series of top secret missions that required plausible deniability. Fury and Hargrove heard the proposal made by Sawyer and agreed to go on the mission to extract a Nazi scientist seeking to defect to the United States. This scientist turned out to be Abraham Erskine, the future inventor of the Super-Soldier Serum. In February 1940, Erskine was being relocated to Holland to meet with Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler. Flown into European airspace by the Sky-Devils, Nick and Red parachuted near the convoy transporting Erskine and liberated him from it, a successful mission that would change the direction of the war. Later Fury participated in the Battle of France in the spring of that year, under the command of Colonel Phil "Pillbox" Parker. Fury and Hargrove went back to training soldiers how to parachute until the summer of 1940 when they were approached by Lieutenant Sawyer again assigning them to locate hidden Nazi fortresses in occupied France. While in France, Fury and his unit crossed paths with John Steel an American soldier recently freed from captivity after being captured by the Germans during World War I. Seeing that Steel was bullet proof and super-strong and had an interest in killing Nazis he was quickly accepted into the unit. This was around the time that the Nazi official known as the Red Skull began butchering people who were assisted in their covert actions. Fury and his unit were once too late to stop one town from being entirely wiped out. However they were soon called back to the United States. When Fury asked John to join them, he refused deciding that he did not want to be a guinea pig and went off on his own to fight the Nazis.

Nick Fury enlists in the United States Army.

Fury's return to the United States was likely to fortify the plausible deniability, and he quickly resumed a civilian guise and returned to his home in Hell's Kitchen. There he was recorded giving an interview to the Daily Globe expressing his desire to fight for his country. In early 1941, Fury was placed among new recruits at Fort Dix for basic training. He was under the command of Sargent Bass, who took an immediate disliking to Fury right away. Fury, either through his trademark temper or in order to complete the plausible deniability stance was frequently confrontational and Bass reacted in kind. During his training at Fort Dix the only friend he made was Jim Shaeffer. When Fury tried to pick a fight on Bass for constantly tripping him up, the other men tried to stop him so the Sargent would not take out Fury's antagonisms on the entire unit. Fury was able to hold his own against his fellow soldiers with the help of Jim. Fury also tried to get discharged from the military, but the commanding officers on base would not allow it. It was during war games that Fury's apparently true colors showed when it was learned that Nazi spies had loaded the cannons with life rounds and explosives. Fury led his unit on the counter attack and although he was injured he stopped the spies. While in recovery he passed basic training and moved on to the next point in his career.

Nick Fury meets Captain America for the first time.

In November 1941, Fury was dispatched unofficially to Africa to join a joint American, British and Canadian operation in conjunction with the Free French resistance. He was involved in Operation: Blue Boy, which saw Fury travel working along side a Canadian soldier known only as Logan. Part of their mission was to rendezvous with a party of American soldiers flying in along with the recently created super-soldier Captain America and his partner Bucky. The American plane was shot down and Fury, Logan and the other soldiers came to their rescue. They learned that Cap was on orders to recover a Nazi defector, Major Hans Guettzer to learn what they could about Rommel's Afrika Corps. As a secondary mission Bucky was to locate Nazi operative Baron Strucker who was reportedly starting a Nazi offshoot organization called Hydra and eliminate him. The following morning they secured Guettzer in combat, but Bucky went off after Strucker unaware that both Captain America and Logan were following after him. When Fury and his soldiers finally caught up with the others at the Hydra lair, Bucky had managed to kill an impostor of Strucker but they faced impossible odds. Fury and his men helped turn the tide of the battle and Strucker was eventually taken alive as prisoner. Fury went off to turn Guettzer with his men, leaving Logan and the others to deal with Strucker. Strucker however eventually escaped thanks to a betrayal on the part of Logan.

Red Hargrove dies in Fury's arms.

Later Fury returned state-side where he was reunited with Red Hargrove and both men were stationed at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii to await the United States eventual entry into the war. On December 7, 1941 the Imperial Japanese Army attacked Pearl Harbor. Joining the battle Fury witnessed as Red was gunned down by enemy zero fighters. As his best friend died in his arms, Fury vowed to fight the Axis powers until they were wiped off the map. By this point Sam Sawyer, now a Captain in the British Commandos. Put behind a desk due to a war injury, Sawyer sought to gather a collection of the best soldiers to represent his unit, Able Company. He selected Nick Fury, now a Sargent, Timothy "Dum Dum" Dugan, now a Corporal, as well as Izzy Cohen a mechanic from Brooklyn, Reb Ralston a former horse jockey from Kentucky, Italian-American actor Dino Manelli, African-American jazz musician Gabriel Jones, and Jonathan "Junior" Juniper a youthful gunner.

The Howling Commandos

1942

Early Missions

Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos circa 1942.

Sawyer pushed his new unit hard to try so that they would perform at their best. In the fall of 1942 they were given their first operation to test their mettle when Sawyer was given orders to assist the British military in recovering a rocket scientist that was captured by the Nazis. Fury and his team were air dropped outside of Paris, France, where they clashed with enemy forces. Greatly outnumbered they were forced to hide in the woods. Knowing that their foes were outclassed the Nazi officials gave them an hour to surrender and played Fury's team music over loudspeakers while they made up their minds. Inspired by the story of Gideon from his Bible, Junior suggested they create a loud enough noise to make the Nazis think there were more troops in the forest than they thought. Fury then ordered his troops to capture the loudspeakers which they used to amplify their weapons and the their woopings and howls. This frightened the Nazis that they were ill prepared when Fury and his team attacked the fortress. They managed to rescue the scientist and fight their way back to the rendezvous point. Back at base Sawyer was initially upset by their performance however when the scientist relayed the rescue to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill Fury and his team received a personal commendation. Churchill also gave them the title commandos to coincide with their status as US Rangers. Flabbergasted by the whole recounting of the battle, Sawyer decided to code name the unit the Howling Commandos. Under this title Fury and his crew became the most well known military unit during the course of the Second World War. After further training the unit was dispatched back behind enemy lines in France to recover Free French resistance fighter who was captured by Nazi soldiers. This was a vital rescue mission since they knew the date and time of an impending Allied landing on the beaches of Normandy. With the help of Free French resistance fighters they rescued the man from the Nazis before he could be forced to talk.

After seeing combat in a French coastal town, Fury was called back to base where he was informed that the Nazis were getting ahead in the race to develop an atomic bomb. Posing as sailors the Howling Commandos managed to smuggle their way into Germany to seek out the laboratory in the town of Heinemund where the atomic weapons were being developed. Initially captured, they broke free and realized the only way they could get near the lab was to allow themselves to be captured and placed into a nearby concentration camp. Breaking free, Fury and his Commandos attacked the Germany laboratory, sabotaging the scientists works there. After they fled the exposed rods of nuclear material reached critical mass and destroyed the lab in a massive nuclear explosion. It is possible that this set back is what caused Nazi leader Adolf Hitler to call off any further development of atomic weapons. After defending the British shores from Nazi saboteurs, the Howlers were dispatched to Italy to meet with members of the O.S.S. and help liberate American soldiers that were trapped on Massacre Mountain who had obtained vital intelligence. The team fought their way to the other American soldiers and with directions leading to a secret tunnel, they managed to launch a sneak attack on the Nazi soldiers stationed in the area and decimated their ranks. During a Nazi air raid on London, Fury went for cover in a bomb shelter where he met and became smitten by Lady Pamela Hawley who worked for the British Red Cross. As fate would have it, Fury and his Commandos were asked by Pamela's father Lord Peter Hawley to recover his son, Percy who had been discovered as the Nazi radio personality known as Lord Ha-Ha. Smuggled into Berlin, the Howling Commandos hid among a circus which opposed the Nazis. Learning the location where Lord Ha-Ha was to be that night, the Howling Commandos attacked and captured Percy. However tragedy struck when they were waiting at the shores of for rescue. Percy gave their position away to a passing battalion of Nazi tanks and a battle erupted. During the course of the battle Percy was slain by the Nazis trying to seek cover. The Howlers also lost a man that day when Junior took a bullet and later died from his wounds after they were rescued. Upon returning to England, Fury told Pamela that her brother died a hero, unwilling to tell her the truth lest it break her heart. This began a budding relationship between the two.

Fury faces Baron Strucker

On August 30, 1942 Fury and his Howling Commandos were deployed to El Alamein, Egypt to assist Allied Forces in pushing back against Erwin Rommel's Afrika Corps. To this end they were assigned a mission to capture the newly designed Panzer VII-IV tank. During this operation Fury and the Howlers were captured and made prisoners of Erwin Rommel himself. However they managed to escape thanks in part to Otto Freissel, the creator of the Panzer VII-IV who sought to prove his worthiness to Rommel. In the end the heroes managed to capture a Panzer and destroy all the other units and escape. Freissel was executed by Rommel during the battle for disobeying his direct orders. Thanks to the Howler's assistance the Allied Forces were able to push Rommel and his forces back the following day. Soon the Howling Commandos gained quite the notoriety for themselves to gain the attention of Baron Strucker. Strucker sought to quash the Howling Commandos by utterly defeating their leader and issued a challenge to Nick Fury to meet him in a one-on-one battle on the island of Norsehaven. Fury was determined to battle Strucker, but Captain Sawyer refused him to do so. Unwilling to back down, Fury sneaked to the island, disobey direct orders to do so. On the island Strucker challenged him to a duel with wooden swords. When he suggested a toast before the battle Fury agreed unaware that his drink was drugged. Although Fury was able to hold his own against Strucker, once the drugs began to kick in he was quickly defeated and this defeat was photographed by Nazi soldiers to use in propaganda. Fury was then dumped near his base. When Sawyer found out what happened when the battle became front page news in the Nazi newspapers, he stripped Fury of his rank reducing him to a private. With Dum Dum Dugan as the commanding officer, the Howlers were then dropped in west Germany where they were to destroy a Nazi rocket base in the town of Dortstadt. Although Dugan was their commanding officer, the group could not break from looking to Fury for advice and orders. When they attacked the rocket base they found that it was under the command of Baron Strucker. Seeking a rematch, Fury agreed to another duel. But when Dino realized that Strucker was drugging another beverage he tipped Fury off. This time Fury easily defeated the Baron in combat and his comrades took photographs to counter the propaganda of Fury's defeat before fleeing the ruins of the base. Back at headquarters, after being commended by his superiors for a job well done, Fury's previous rank of Sargent was reinstated. After stopping another group of Nazi saboteurs while en route to a date with Pamela, Fury began training for a mission in Africa to stop Erwin Rommel's Afrika Corps. Dino was injured during training and needing a German speaking operative, Fury took on George Stonewell. Tensions between the new recruit and Fury's unit soon began when it became obvious that Stonewell was a racist. While on their mission Fury and his unit taught George the errors of his ways of thinking and managed to destroy an entire fleet of Rommel's tank, but were forced to retreat before finishing their mission. However, when they returned to base they learned that their mission was cancelled due to recent intelligence that Rommel was involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler. Soon after their mission was completed, Dino was released from the hospital and George was reassigned to a new unit.

Nick Fury in combat

New Recruit

The Howlers were next sent on a mission to France to capture a Nazi "Doodle-Bug" mine drone before being sent to join up with Lieutenant Spencer Parker, an old school friend of Fury. Their mission was to destroy an enemy rocket site. However during the confrontation, Nick remembered a Nazi he captured earlier telling him that the base was really a trap and rigged to explode. When Parker refused to listen to Fury's warning, he punched Parker out and took command, getting the troops far enough away to avoid any fatalities. Fury however was rocked by the blast and when he came to back at base he had a hole in his memory regarding why he disobeyed Parker's orders and was now facing a court martial. However during the case a Nazi air raid rocked the court house and Fury's memory was restored. He was then able to get the Nazi prisoner to corroborate his story and release him of any wrongdoing. Not long thereafter the Howling Commandos recruited a new member, Percival "Pinky" Pinkerton an Englishman who was seldom seen without his umbrella, even in combat. With their new recruit, Fury led the Commandos back into Germany where they infiltrated the fortress of Nazi scientist Baron Heinrich Zemo who had developed a powerful death-ray for the Nazis. Although the Howling Commandos managed to destroy Zemo's base and the weapon, the Baron managed to escape capture. Fury and the Commandos were next sent to Berlin once more, this time in an attempt to capture Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. This led to another clash with Baron Strucker with most of the group captured, save for Fury and Izzy Cohen. The pair managed to get the drop on Strucker and force him to convince a man who they thought was Hitler to witness the execution of the captured Howling Commandos. At the last moment, Fury, Cohen and a resistance fighter freed the Commandos and captured "Hitler" and escaped back to Britain. Unfortunately, they did not capture the real Hitler, but merely an actor, confirming that the Nazi leader was utilizing doubles to pose as him in public. Soon after this, Fury and his troops were deployed to the island of Okinawa in the South Pacific to rescue Colonel Phil Parker whom was captured by the Imperial Japanese Army while trying to steal secrets. It was during this mission that he first met Colonel Simon Savage of the United States Navy, whose sub crew carried the Howlers on their mission. Fury, led his troops to rescue Parker and the other prisoners of war before an American air strike on the island. On their next mission Fury and his men were ordered to destroy a German convoy carrying parts vital for the construction of V-2 Rockets. The mission was jeopardized due to the fact that Captain Sawyer was put on a brief assignment and replaced with Captain Flint, a strictly by the book commanding officer who insisted in taking part on the mission and demanded the Commandos to go by the book. When this nearly got them all killed, Flint was inspired by Fury's methods of dealing with a crisis and changed his ways once they came back from their mission successfully.

After London had been attacked by a series of German V-1 Buzz-Bomb attacks the Howling Commandos were dropped in German territory to learn its location. Military triangulation of the Buzz-Bomb's point of origin stumped Fury and his men as it led them to a train yard with no sign of any launch sites. Attacked by Nazi forces, Fury ordered Dino Morelli to pretend to defect so he could learn the location of the launch site. Keeping this a secret, Fury fled with the other Howler but was captured covering their escape. Knowing that if Dino succeeded in his mission, nobody would believe that he "defected" under Fury's orders, Fury broke out of the prisoner of war camp that he was confined in and fought his way back to England. While he was doing so, Dino learned the location of the bombs and fled home as well only to be branded a traitor and put before a firing squad. Luckily, Fury arrived in the nick of time and saved Dino from the firing squad. By this time the costumed hero Captain America and his partner Bucky were gaining a lot of press attention, something that made Fury jealous. However he changed his tune when Captain America asked specifically for the Howling Commandos to assist in a mission to destroy a tunnel the Nazis were digging under the Channel River for an invasion of Britain. Seeing how selflessly Captain America battled, gave Fury a new appreciation for the costumed hero and they succeeded in destroying the underground tunnel and freeing the forced to build it. The Howlers activities continued to earn the ire of Adolf Hitler, who soon called in Baron Strucker and ordered him to eliminate Fury and his team once and for all. Deciding to fight fire with fire, Strucker gathered a group of loyal Nazis who had similar skills to those of the Howlers. Strucker and his Blitzkrieg Squad then built a fake V-2 rocket site in order to lure the Howling Commandos out on a mission to destroy it. Sure enough when the site was spotted by Allied fighters, Captain Sawyer sent Fury and his group to go and destroy the phony site. Initially Fury and his men were captured by the members of the Squad, but due to their superior training they managed to defeat the Blitzkriegers and leave them tied up while they fled the scene. Fury and his Howlers were next sent to Holland where they were given orders to destroy a portion of a dyke to flood Nazi forces operating in the area. They were to meet with an undercover spy known only as "Agent X" who would point them to the right part of the dyke to blow up. This proved difficult as they did not know the identity of their informant, and they were warned to avoid Rijk Rooten the mayor in the region as he was reportedly a Nazi sympathizer. With the aid of Rijk's son Hans, Fury and his men tried to find their contact to no avail and decided to attack the dyke and take the risk of flooding innocent people. During the course of the battle Agent X finally surfaced and provided them with the precise spot to blast. With their mission successful Agent X bid them farewell, and asked them to take Hans with them back to England. Realizing that Agent X was Hans' own father, Fury agreed but kept this secret from the boy. Back in England, Fury made Hans the mascot for the Howling Commandos.

Nick Fury in Yugoslavia circa 1942

Fury and the Howlers were next dispatched to the Sahara desert where there were reports of a Nazi super-weapon being built. They located a desert base and soon learned that it was where the Nazis were developing new "super" V-2 rockets which could strike anywhere on Earth from the stratosphere, making their location impossible to triangulate. With the help of a local tribe of Bedouin people, Fury and the Commandos managed to destroy the rocket base. On their way back to base they shot down a Nazi plane and used its radio to ask for a pick up. However Captain Sawyer had other plans for them and ordered them to travel to a jungle to their south and rescue some capture American soldiers. Reaching the jungles they found that the Nazis had convinced a local tribe to allow them to build an airbase on their land and were forcing the captured soldiers to build it. Fury had Gabe pose as a tribal witch doctor to convince the tribes people to assist them in fighting off the Nazis. The gambit paid off and with the help of the local tribe the Howlers fought back the Nazis and destroyed their airfield. Upon their return to England, Fury and his men were awarded oak leaf clusters for their valiant efforts. Near the end of the year, Fury and his men were dispatched to Nazi held Yugoslavia to investigate where a set of mysterious train tracks led, and were given strict orders not to engage the enemy. This proved impossible as they were spotted right away and the Howlers were forced to battle the enemy. During the conflict they also crossed paths with Anya Derevkova one of Russia's earliest Black Widow operatives, who joined them on their mission. Battling their way to the end of the line, they found that the rail tracks led to a massive fortress under the command of Baron Zemo who was trying to construct a nuclear weapon. The Howlers and the Black Widow destroyed the experiment and defeated Zemo. However they were betrayed by Derevkova who sought to steal the plans and return them to Russia. Fury and his men tracked her to a nearby airfield and boarded the plane she commandeered and recovered the plans. However the plane was operated by remote control and they were forced to land and were taken prisoner. The Howlers were then brought to Baron Strucker who was testing out his new robot the "Panzer Max" putting it on display for Admiral Nakamuria of the Imperial Japanese Army. When Fury and his Howlers managed to destroy the Panzer Max, both Strucker and Nakamuria tried to flee. Strucker escaped, but Nakamuria was gunned down. As the Black Widow also fled the scene, the Howlers took control of the Japanese sub full of gold to pay for the construction of an army of Panzer Max units and returned it to Britain.

1943

Romance with Pamela Howley

Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos attacking Baskerville Castle circa 1943

After a brief furlough to New York City, Nick Fury's life had a brush with the supernatural for the first time. While out at a pub with Pamela Hawley and Dum Dum Dugan a bar fight broke out. During the chaos, Morgana Blessing a latent mystic from decades in the future appeared before Pamela who quickly took the confused woman aside. Following shortly after was the modern era Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Strange who stopped the bar brawl, mystically undid the damage and erased everyone's memory of the fight. Strange, on a quest top stop his mortal foe Baron Mordo left Morgana in the care of Pamela and left to complete his task. That evening Fury and the Howlers were dispatched to remote Baskerville Castle a site where military intelligence were picking up Nazi transmissions. There they found Nazi soldiers and battled through them interrupting a mystical spell being conducted by Lord Baskerville to merge the essence of Baron Mordo with Morgana Blessing, who had been captured along with Pamela earlier in the evening. Baskerville fled with Pamela and Morgana with Fury and Dum Dum in tow. Fury followed Baskerville through a portal that brought him to a hall in the center of London owned by a dark cabal of mystics, just as a Nazi air raid was commencing. The mystics were in the middle of channeling the collective hate of the people of London created by the bombing. This entire mystical incantation was being facilitated by mystic Viscount Krowler who was possessed by the Dark Dimension ruler Dormammu. Dormammu sought to gain access to Earth's dimension through this mystical spell. As Fury fought to get to Pamela, Strange's disciple Clea cast a sympathy spell channeling the love of Nick Fury for Pamela, and Morgana's love for Dr. Strange. This caused a disruption of the spell which was shuttered by Strange and Morgana (fighting of Mordo's influence) channeling mystical attacks at Krowler. This ended the spell, driving Krowler insane, and dissipating both Dormammu and Mordo. In the aftermath of the battle, Strange erased Fury and Pamela's memories of events and sent them back to Baskerville Castle before he and his allies returned to their own time.

Nick Fury and Pamela Howley together for the last time

The romance between Nick Fury and Pamela Howley ended up having a tragic end soon after. Following another Nazi air raid of London, Fury decided it was time to ask Pamela to marry him and purchased a ring, linking it to the chain that held his dog tags. Before he could propose to her, he and the Howlers were deployed to the shores of Norway to destroy the Deutschland, a Nazi vessel that was sinking supply ships heading to allied forces fighting there. During the operation Fury battled with a Nazi soldier who managed to pull the ring loose from Fury's dog tag before falling into the ocean. Fury dived in after it and recovered the ring just moments before the Howling Commandos detonated the ship. When Fury returned to England later he was informed that Pamela had been killed during another air raid while he was gone. Hungry for revenge, Fury wanted to get the man responsible for killing his lover. However Captain Sawyer ordered Fury and the Commandos to go on a furlough. Instead of doing so, Fury learned that the air raid that murdered Pamela was under the command of General von Krummpt of the Nazi Luftwaffe. Learning that Von Krummpt was located in Holland, Fury and his loyal Commandos went on an unsanctioned mission to attack the airbase there. With the assistance of Agent X, they managed to get to the airfield where Pamela's killer was stationed. While the Howlers sabotaged the planes there, Fury confronted Vom Krummpt directly. Although he was shot in both the arm and leg, Fury still managed to grab onto a World War I fighter plane which Krummpt attempted to escape in. While trying to throw Nick from the plane, Krummpt made the fatal error of forgetting to put on his seat belt and fell out of the plane himself, falling to his death. Fury quickly landed the plane and reunited with his unit and returned to England. Although his bullet wounds were only grazes, medics could not remove the bullet in Fury's arm, which would remain embedded in his arm for the rest of his life. Baron Strucker and his Blitzkrieg Squad resurfaced shortly there after, capturing Kerrydale Castle in Scottland where a number of Luftwaffe pilots were being held prisoner. They managed to hold the castle by keeping the Allied soldiers running the facility hostage. Fury and his Commandos were then sent in to take down the Blitzkriegers. This time the Howlers were more successful in defeating Strucker and his minions by capturing them and turning them over to military personnel for questioning. When Allied scientist Dr. Zenish refused to work for the Allies anymore due to fear that his wife and daughter would be harmed by the Nazis, Fury and his unit were dispatched to Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia and fought their way into the Dotschiwitz concentration camp. There they found that Zenish's wife died weeks earlier but were able to free his daughter. Fleeing into France, they were assisted by French freedom fighter Jacquest Dernier who smuggled them into Normandy the Howlers were able to smuggle themselves back home with the assistance of members of the Free French.

Rivalries

In the summer of that year, after months of antagonism, Fury and his Howlers finally broke into a fight against rival unit the Maulers under the command of Bull McGivney. After the fight was broken up, the two units were forced to work together on an attack on Ploesti Oil Fields in Romania on August 1. Fury and McGiveney were had to put aside their differences to destroy the flak gun placements that operated on railroad track in order to allow allied planes to bomb the area. Although the Allies suffered massive casualties, thanks to the combined efforts of the Maulers and the Howlers the flak guns were destroyed allowing the oil field to be destroyed, crippling the Nazi's fuel supply. Later, Nick and the Howlers were deployed to the China-Burma-India theater of war where they rescued a nun named Sister Theresa and the children under her care from Imperial Japanese forces that believed that she had important tactical information. Fury and the Howlers got Theresa and her charges into the hands of the Burma Dragons unit under the command of Percy's brother Lieutenant Colonel Pinkerton. Fury helped Percy get over his shame of leaving military academy and reconnect with his brother, who turned out to be proud of Percy's contribution to the war. When Fury and the Howlers returned to England, Captain Sawyer issued them a weeks long furlough to the United States. They traveled to New York City to see the sights and meet Izzy's parents in Brooklyn. Meanwhile, Reb had gone home to his native Kentucky to visit his folks with the other Howlers promising to meet up with him in a few days. When Nick later contacted Reb, he got a coded message warning him that Reb and his family were in danger. Fury packed up the Howlers and traveled to the Ralston estate where they found that a small army of German Bundists had captured the Ralson mansion to use as a base to steal supplies in the area that were being stored for the Manhattan Project. Fury and his men freed Reb and his family and defeated the Bundists, but Dum Dum was shot in the battle. After the military police came for the Nazis, Dugan was taken to a hospital and the Howlers were given express orders to return to England for a secret mission. Before leaving Fury left their mascot Hans in the care of Reb's parents.

On the flight back to base, Fury opened their sealed mission orders and learned that there was a spy somewhere on their base and that Fury and his Commandos were the only ones above suspicion and thus were under orders to smoke out the spy. Little did they suspect that the spy in question was the notorious Red Skull who, using his mastery of disguises to pose as Captain Sawyer. While he "briefed" the Howlers on their mission he sent Fury on a phony "secret mission" to assist the Free French resistance. However these turned out to be Nazi agents posing as Frenchmen, and Fury quickly saw through this ruse and fought himself free. While he was gone, the Skull disguised himself as Fury and planted bombs on the base intending to detonate them but the Howlers had caught on to him. As the Skull fled military authorities he happened to run into Fury and knock him down. The real Fury was arrested while the Red Skull escaped back to a captured gun emplacement out at sea where Sawyer was being kept prisoner to prepare to detonate the bomb. Knowing that the arrested man was the real Fury, the Howlers helped Nick break free from imprisonment and they followed the Skull back to his base. Although Nick and his men managed to free Captain Sawyer and stop the bombs from being detonated, the Red Skull escaped before they could learn his true identity. Later Nick learned that Dum Dum had recovered from his gunshot wound and was assigned as a gunner for the airforce. When Dugan and his unit were captured by Nazis aboard the Sea Shark, a Nazi vessel responsible for shooting down planes and sinking supply ships. Fury and his men were dispatched to rescue Dugan and sink the vessel but by the time they arrived at the scene Dugan had done their work for them. Fury welcomed his old friend back into the Howlers.

Eye Injury

The injury that eventually cost Fury the vision in his left eye.

Later Fury and his Commandos were air dropped in Germany to destroy a new Nazi weapon that produced a beam of light that would cause allied aircraft to fail and drop out of the sky. While they succeeded in destroying the lamp, Fury's left eye was injured while trying to toss away a grenade. He provided cover fire to allow the Howlers escaped and fled from the scene of the battle himself. Fleeing through the German countryside, Fury managed to get a disguise and had the incredible luck of happening into the very bar where Hitler's second in command Hermann Göring with Dr. August Draus the man who developed the anti-aircraft light. As Fury overheard Draus telling Goering that he did not commit the design for his invention to paper as he trusted nobody with his technology. When Fury was discovered he fought back and managed to escape by appealing to August's disgruntled assistant Eric Koenig to side with him. Both Fury and Koenig managed to escape with Draus as their prisoner. Stealing one of Goering's planes they manage to fly back to England and turn Draus over to Captain Sawyer. Fury was then sent to the base doctor to have his eye examined. The physician determined that Fury's eye could be saved but the operation would put him out of combat for an entire year. Fury refused to do so, not wanting to leave the Howling Commandos. As an alternative the doctor preformed an alternate surgery that would save his eye, but warned that it would eventually cost him his sight in his left eye at some undisclosed time in the future.

Nick Fury and Baron Strucker battle in the ruins of Cherbeaux, France circa 1943.

Fury and his men were sent to assist the Free French resistance in liberating the town of Cherbeaux, France. Upon their arrival they joined forces with the resistance and helped them on a series of raids that saw prisoners freed and Nazi supplies and weapons destroyed in various guerrilla raids. Fury and the Howlers soon learned that the commanding officer in Cherbeaux was none other than their old foe Baron Strucker. Strucker was under orders from Hitler himself to crush the resistance or slaughter the entire town. Reluctant to slaughter an entire city of people, Strucker was forced to comply once Fury and his raids began affecting Nazi rule over the region. To this end, Strucker rigged the entire town with explosives and threatened to blow it up if Fury and his men did not surrender. During a direct assault on the government building where Strucker was stationed, Fury tried to bluff Strucker with a remote detonator claiming that the building itself was rigged with nitro. Caught in a stalemate, the two men fought it out while the Howlers evacuated the town. During the course of the battle one of Strucker's minions managed to set off the explosives decimating the town. Fury and Strucker continued to fight on even though the very building they were in was at risk of total collapse. When Strucker almost fell to his death, Fury saved his life but the building eventually fell before they could escape. Freeing himself from the rubble, Fury presumed that Strucker had died in the collapse and reunited with his fellow Howlers. However Strucker had survived and went into hiding as Hitler ordered his death for failing to carry out his mission. When Fury returned to England he was called into a meeting with Captain Sawyer's commanding officer Colonel Rick Stoner. Stoner was unimpressed with Fury and the Howler's methods and Nick's own lack of respect for authority. When Stoner insulted the Howlers work, Fury struck the superior officer landing him in the stockade for a number of days. Meanwhile, Strucker had begun reforming his Hydra organization in secret.

After his release, Fury and the Howlers were air dropped in occupied Holland where they attacked a manufacturing plant where a new model of Nazi buzz-bombers were being made and stole the plans. When Izzy noted that his uncle Emil Geldberg lived in the nearby town of Roermond. Fury agreed to go looking for Cohen's uncle and the Howlers soon learned that Emil was taken to a nearby concentration camp. Allowing themselves to be taken prisoner, the Howlers then fought back against the Nazi guards and helped Izzy escape with the man they thought was his uncle while the other Howlers were captured. Fury and the others soon learned that the man with Izzy was actually a spy, while the real Emil Geldberg died resisting arrest. Breaking free, Fury and the rest of his unit caught up with the impostor and shot him dead. When military intelligence learned that Italian dictator Benito Mussolini had stashed a large supply of gold on a remote farm, Fury and the Howlers were dispatched to recover it. Upon arrival in Italy, Fury ordered his unit to surrender to Italian troops in battle. This was all part of their plan as the prison commander, Major Carlo, who was secretly a member of the Italian partisan movement. He assisted the Howlers in breaking out of the prisoner of war camp and recover the hidden gold. Not long after their return to England, Captain Sawyer was captured by Nazi forces under the command of Major Frobrich, Baron Strucker's successor. Before Forbrich and his minions could force Sawyer to reveal what he knew about Operation: Overlord, Fury and his Howlers fought their way into Germany to rescue him. Before going on their next mission the Howlers were forced to undergo physical examinations, completely unaware that their examiner Dr. Daneeka was really a Nazi spy who used a hypnotic serum to force Izzy Cohen to betray the Howlers on their next mission. Soon after Fury and the troops were deployed to the mountains of Norway where they were under orders to destroy another supply of hard water that the Nazis were attempting to utilize in their ongoing attempts to develop an atomic weapon. As programmed Cohen betrayed their position to the Nazis, but when he was ordered to shoot his comrades he fought the hypnotic suggestion and helped free the Howlers. Fury then led his men in destroying the supply of hard water and the research facility.

Koenig and Manelli

Nick Fury VS Adolf Hitler.

On their next mission, Fury and the Howlers were assigned to smuggle Greek royal Peter Kazantis into Greece in an attempt to unit the many factions of Greek guerrilla fighters who were opposing Nazi occupation in that country. After arriving in Greece, Fury and the Howlers were betrayed by a spy among one of the guerrilla fighters and were captured. Kazantis agreed to order the people of Greece to be loyal to the Nazis. Peter instead told the people to unit against the Nazis, and Fury and his men fought their way out of the broadcasting building. While Fury rushed Kazantis to safety, the other Howlers stayed behind to cover him and were captured. Back at headquarters in Britain Fury demanded a chance to rescue rescue his squad. When military intelligence learned that the Howlers were being brought to Berlin to be executed by Hitler himself, Captain Sawyer sanctioned Fury to take a squad of men to rescue the Commandos. Forming a strike team with former Nazi Eric Koenig and the Maulers Bull McGivney and Corporal "Rickets" Johnson on a mission to rescue the Howlers. However in order to avoid trouble with military brass, Sawyer also ordered them to obtain details regarding enemy troop movements. With the help of Koenig, Fury and his allies managed to smuggle themselves into Berlin. They then sneaked into the theater where Hitler was putting on his public execution of the Howling Commandos. Before Hitler could pull the trigger, Fury and his allies attacked, freeing the Howlers in the process. Fury briefly tussled with Hitler himself before the Fuehrer managed to escape. The Howlers also managed to flee the scene as well, but not before Dino Manelli was seriously wounded providing cover fire. Upon returning to England, Fury and the other Howlers learned that while Dino would survive, his injuries would take him out of the rest of the war and he was being shipped back to the United States. With a vacancy in the Howlers now open, Sawyer selected Koenig to take Manelli's place. Fury and the Howlers were next given orders to capture Colonel Ludwig von Baum, a Nazi strategist who was being sent to Italy via train through neutral Switzerland under the guise of a doctor. In order to not be arrested in Switzerland themselves, Fury and the Howlers posed as medical inspectors, who under the Geneva Convention were required to inspect trains passing through Switzerland in order to avoid an international incident. Although their mission was complicated because Eric's former friend Captain Wilhelm Hauser was Von Baum's bodyguard, the Howlers boarded the train. Although they failed to capture Von Baum, they exposed him to Swiss inspectors and he was interred in that country, preventing him from entering Italy. Fury and the Howlers were next sent on assignment to the deserts of North Africa to stop raids on Allied camps by a band of nomads led by the so-called Desert Hawk. Fury and the Commandos quickly learned that the bandits were being forced to commit the raids thanks to Nazi Colonel Otto Frick who held their leader Ben Ali Mussim prisoner. With the help of Ben Ali Mussim's daughter Sheila the Howlers took down Frick and his forces and the desert bandits agreed to end their aggression toward the allies.

Not long after this the Howlers learned that a Dr. Warren Parker could perform a surgery on their friend Dino Manelli that could potentially restore him to fighting order. However, getting Parker proved to be a challenge—he was captured by the Nazis as a political prisoner and was interred in a concentration camp on the island of Danton. While Captain Sawyer refused to officially allow Fury and the Howlers to go on a mission to rescue Parker, he covertly allowed them to do so. Fury and the Howlers then raided the island, and rescued Parker with the assistance of Japanese-American soldier Jim Morita. Following the success of their mission, Parker was shipped back to the United States to perform surgery on Manelli. Fury and the Howlers were next sent on a mission to the Bavarian Alps where they were under orders to destroy the Nazi's latest invention an aircraft which operated with a jet engine called Operation: Thunderer. Fighting their way into the Bavarian fortress, Fury clashed with Colonel Klaue a Nazi whose strength was augmented thanks to a metal hand. Despite this advantage, Klaue failed to stop Fury and the Commandos from stealing the Thunderer and detonating the base. Unfortunately while using the Thunderer to return to headquarters in Britain, the Howlers were forced to crash land, preventing the Allies from studying the new technology. After this the Howlers were sent back into Nazi occupied France where they helped the French resistance free their ally Jacques Dernier from a Nazi strong hold. Upon their return to Britain, Fury and the Howlers were happy to learn that not only was Dino's surgery was a success he was back at base and would be in fighting shape in a number of days of recovery. During this down time, Dino convinced Fury and the Howlers to participate in a military backed film recreating some of the Howler's victories. However none were aware that Nina Bergson, Dino's co-star and fiancee-to-be, was really a Nazi spy. When it was learned that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was coming to commemorate Fury in person who tipped off the Nazis of his coming visit. During the appearance, the base was attacked by the Blitzkrieg Squad, now under the command of Colonel Klau. Having fallen in love with Dino, Nina shielded Churchill and Fury from shots fired and died saving their lives. Fury and the Howlers soon made short work of their Nazi counterparts, however Nina's death had a profound impact on Manelli. When Dino went AWOL before a mission, Fury went after him leaving the Howlers to be sent into Germany on a mission under the command of Bull McGivney. After convincing Manelli to come back to base, both Fury and Dino were confined to quarters. The pair disobeyed orders and managed to smuggle themselves into Germany to help their fellow Howlers. When they learned that Eric had gone into Berlin to rescue his sister, Fury and Dino went after him and rescued the Koenig siblings. They then raced to the factory they were under orders to destroy and helped the Howlers destroy it. Despite disobeying orders, Fury was commended on a job well done and he managed to avoid a court martial for his insubordination. Later, Fury and the Howlers found themselves grudgingly working with known thief and Special Assignments Operative Jean-Luc LeBeau to recover a temporal jewel known as the Momentary Princess which appeared in the city of Leipzig, Germany every 25 to 29 years. While battling Nazi forces to get to the jewel, they also clashed with Baron Strucker and the immortal mutant known as Candra who both sought to claim the Momentary Princess for themselves. The Howlers and LeBeau managed to keep their mutual enemies at bay long enough but lost the jewel as it traveled forward through time.

Nervous Breakdown

Fury suffers a mental breakdown.

Fury and the Howlers were next deployed to the Congo to battle Nazi forces there. En route their plane was shot down and in the resulting crash, Fury was thrown clear from the other Howlers. He was then found by Baron Strucker, who was in the region attempting to curry favor from Hitler once more. He quickly absconded with Fury to the local village that he had taken over and began exposing Fury to a hallucinogenic drug. The drug caused Fury to have life-life hallucinations breaking down his ability to tell the difference between reality and fantasy. He was forced to relive a nightmare where the Howlers died in the plane crash and Strucker and his aborigine servants were hunting him in the jungles. The strain of the constant dosages of the drug were so powerful it threatened to drive Nick insane. As Fury continued to be torture, the Howlers—alive and well—managed to track down Struckers base and attack. Hearing the battle going on outside, Fury shook off the effects of the drugs long enough to break free and fight back, sending Strucker and his minions fleeing into the jungle. However upon seeing the Howlers alive and well, Fury couldn't trust himself to believe what he was seeing and suffered a mental breakdown. Fury was taken back to Britain but his mental state was too far gone for the doctors there. Learning that Dr. Irving Levine could restore Fury's sanity, the Howlers learned that he was a prisoner of the Nazis in Germany. Just like when they sought to rescue Dr. Parker, the Howlers had their request to rescue Levine officially refused by Captain Sawyer but preparations were made to send them in secretly. The Howlers then recovered Levine and brought him back to England where he succeeded to cure Fury. However Fury was briefly relieved of command of the Howling Commandos until he was able to prove he was fit to command again. To this end Captain Sawyer put him in charge of training new recruits Irishman James MacReedy, ladies man Lon Wilcox, ex-cop Larry "Frosty" Freese and the massive Russ "Tiny" Talbert. Although Fury drove them to the bring of breaking, they succeeded on a mission to destroy enemy mines, although MacReedy died in battle. Because the mission was as success, Fury was reassigned to the Howlers. Fury and Gabriel Jones were next assigned on a secret mission to track down Danny "Drummer" Bellman a G.I. from Gabe's days as a musician who escaped a Nazi concentration camp with a vial containing a deadly virus. Bellman was loose in London trying to keep the virus away from both the Allies and the Axis fearing that it would be used as a weapon. Although Fury and Jones stopped Nazi spies from recovering the virus, they were too late to prevent Bellman from consuming the virus to keep it out of the hands of both sides. In order to prevent the virus from spreading, Jones was forced to killed Drummer before the virus ran its course.

Back in Command

Fury and his Howlers were next sent back out into the Sahara to guard a USO show with additional instructions to learn if rumors that Rommel had developed a new super-tank were true or not. Not long after the USO show Rommel's forces attacked the Allied based, revealing their new super-weapon, but it was destroyed by Fury and his Howlers. After more training, Fury and his Howlers were sent behind enemy lines in Germany to rescue Private Paul Ryan, the son of a high ranking General. This mission was endangered thanks to Paul's kill-crazy attitude. Despite this, they managed to extract Paul out of enemy territory and bring him back to Britain. Back at base, Fury spent time with Eric's sister Ilsa. The two were attracted to each other, but Fury was still haunted by the memories of Pamela Hawley. When Ryan started a fight with Fury later, Fury beat him in a bar brawl in front of Captain Sawyer and General Ryan. Finding his son a disgrace, the General had him arrested and taken to a psychiatrist. Fury and his Commandos were next sent to Nazi occupied France to rescue Bull McGivney and Ricketts Johnson who were wounded behind enemy lines. With the help of medic Cliff Powers the Howlers managed to rescue their rivals in the Maulers. Following this mission, Fury and his men were given a three day furlough in London, and refused to let a sudden air raid stop them. Spending time at a nearby pub they were unaware that Nazi spies in the country under the command of "Gorgeous" Gerta Heinz had planted a bomb in the pub to eliminate the Howlers as part of a larger attempted invasion of London. Thanks to the efforts of Pinky, Fury and the others were warned in time to escape the pub. While battling the Nazis out to eliminate them, Gerta was extracted from the fight by Colonel Klau who had just succeeded in liberating the Blitzkrieg Squad. Fury and his men were pulled off furlough to assist in fending off an attack on their headquarters by the Blitzers who were leading a Nazi invasion force. While the Howlers, the Maulers, and Jim Morita's Nisei Squadron battled Nazi forces, Fury went after Colonel Klau who had taken the command center and took Captain Sawyer prisoner. With Hitler himself listening over the radio, Fury and Klau battled it out but ultimately Fury had to stand down in order to save Sawyer's life. As luck would have it Dum Dum Dugan managed to arrive on the scene and shot Colonel Klau. With the Nazi invaders defeated, and Hitler's plan foiled Fury and his men captured the Blitzkrieg Squad and took them to the stockade. In July 1943, Fury and his Howlers participated in the liberation of Italian city of Messina, fighting alongside American General George Patton and Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery.

Nick Fury learns the truth about Dracula.

Later in the year, Fury and his Howlers were once again dispatched to the Ploesti Oil Fields in Romania to disrupt the flow of oil to the Axis forces. As the team entered into a small Romanian village they soon found themselves under siege by Nazi forces. Fury and the Howlers were assisted in combat by the vampire Dracula who was seeking allies to rescue the loyal Romanians who were interred in a nearby concentration camp. Unaware of Dracula's true identity, Fury agreed to lend the Howlers to this cause as the camp was on their path to the oil fields. However their would-be ally raised the suspicions of both Dino and Pinky who both suspected Dracula's true identity. A suspicion that was later confirmed when they found Dracula sleeping in a coffin within his castle the following morning. Learning the true identity of Dracula, Fury decided that the Howlers would continue to work with him to free the prisoners unless he attempted to betray them. This bizarre alliance proved successful as the Howlers and Dracula freed the captive Romanians and routed the Nazi forces leaving the oil fields open to attack by Allied bombers. In the aftermath of the battle, Fury and his Howlers parted amicably with Dracula and returned to England.

On October 30, 1943 Fury and his Howlers were deployed to the island of Tarawa to push back Imperial Japanese forces there. They were assisted in their mission by Australian soldier Rolfe Harrison. However during the initial strike the Howlers were captured. With the help of Harrison, all the Howlers but Izzy Cohen managed to escape capture and regroup off the island. Fury and his Howlers joined a larger attack party in the hopes of rescuing Izzy from the Japanese but they soon learned during the course of the battle that Cohen had been lifted off the island and taken to Japan. After Fury and his men helped Allied Forces gain ground they were ordered back, but Fury vowed that if he could he and his Howlers would rescue Izzy no matter the cost. Fury and his Howlers were next seen aboard a sub en route to Australia on November 22, 1943 where they were reunited with their old ally Simon Savage who had just recently been assigned to his own team of soldiers the Leatherneck Raiders. Fury and his unit were next deployed to Tehran to act as security for a meeting between American president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Russian leader Joseph Stalin during the Tehran Conference near the end of the year. During this mission they prevented would-be Nazi assassin Jorgen Klein from assassinating the three world leaders. In December, Santa Claus was captured by Hitler in order to destroy the morale of the United States of America. After the situation was described by President Roosevelt, Fury, Captain America and Bucky managed to locate Hitler and Santa.

1944

In early 1944, Fury took part in the Battle of Anzio.

Trials and Tribulations

Fury and his Howlers were next deployed along with Captain Sawyer to Poland where they were on a mission to rescue Dr. Karl von Rusteg from the Treblinka concentration camp. Stealing prisoners' garb, Fury and his Howlers sneaked into the camp and helped liberate Von Rusteg and the other prisoners and flee back to Britain. Back in England, Fury and his Howlers met with Lee Mayer of the OSS who sent them on a mission to Bavaria to capture Nazi strategist Otto Froebe. Although Froebe was located in a neigh impenetrable fortress, Fury and his Howlers succeeded on their mission. Back at base, Fury and his Howlers grudgingly attended High Specialty School to learn new skills. Deployed behind French enemy lines, Fury and his Howlers were caught in a bombing raid and were knocked out in a blast. When they awoke they found themselves in a German hospital as prisoners. They also learned that Gabe Jones was uninjured and being held prisoner elsewhere. At first it appeared that their nurse, a woman named Irma, was part of the German rebellion and offered to help them reach the French Underground. Along the way Fury became smitten by Irma due to her resemblance to the late Pamela Hawley. However when they reached the Underground they soon learned that Irma was really a Nazi spy who was tricking them into exposing the location of the resistance. During the ensuing firefight, Fury—reluctant to believe the truth—found out when Irma was caught in the cross fire and died in his arms cursing him and pledging her eternal loyalty to the Nazi cause. Getting news that Gabe had broken free and was hiding out somewhere in Paris, Fury and his Howlers went after him. Fury and his men were soon captured by Nazi forces but were rescued when Gabe located them and got the drop on the Nazis. Back in England, Fury and his men were assigned to liberate Jim Morita and his men who were captured in Germany and were being held prisoner a Prison Camp 13 located outside of Berlin. Like the Treblinka operation, Fury and his Howlers allowed themselves to be captured, and while ferreting out a spy among the prisoners, the Howlers managed to break everyone loose and escape.

Hitler later sent the operative known as the Agent of 1000 Faces to lure Fury and his Howlers into a trap. Capturing Dino Manelli, the Agent posed as OSS Agent Pierce and tricked the Howlers into a trap within the Fjords of Denmark. The Howlers initially walked into the trap, a phony Nazi aircraft carrier, but managed to fight their way free and rescue Dino, however the Agent managed to escape in the conflagration. Not long after this, Izzy was rescued by the Leatherneck Raiders and returned to base. Shortly thereafter, Fury was issued a challenge to meet Colonel Klau aboard a supposed neutral Swiss vessel for a one-on-one fight. However, when Fury went to accept the challenge he was refused to do so. Seeking to prevent his commanding officer from being called a coward, Dum Dum Dugan disobeyed orders to battle Klau and had to be rescued by Fury and the Howlers. As a result for his actions, Dugan was arrested. Dugan was put through a court martial hearing, and Fury and the Howlers took the stand to recount tales of how Dum Dum risked his life for each member of the team countless times on other missions. During the trial, Fury began to suspect that there was something wrong with Captain Sawyer. Later when Dugan was found guilty, Fury finally figured it out—the blue eyed Captain Sawyer now suddenly had brown eyes—and unmasked "Sawyer" as the Agent of 1000 Faces, who had took Sawyers place.. A prisoner in a German facility, Sawyer was able to radio his location thanks to a transceiver hidden in his boot, leading Fury and his Howlers to him. The Howlers rescued Sawyer, and escaped with a number of stolen maps and plan that would prove to be integral to the war effort.

Fury and the Howlers were next assigned to work with Captain Savage and his Leatherneck Raiders on a mission to a Japanese held island to recover American scientist Dr. Terry Reiker who had defected to the Japanese and been providing atomic secrets. Fury and the Howlers provided cover fire for the Raiders during the initial attack, although the Raiders lost Private Lee Baker in combat. When Fury and his Howlers stormed the Japanese castle, they were shocked to find not only was Dr. Reiker a woman, but she had defected to the Japanese because they had tricked her into believing that her atomic energy research was being put to peaceful use. Fury and the Howlers managed to secure her and escape, convincing her that the Japanese were seeking to use her research to create an atomic bomb. Although the Howlers succeeded in this mission, the Reiker—a pacifist—committed suicide shortly thereafter in order to prevent the Allies from using her knowledge as well. Not long after this, Fury accepted university football pro Fred Jones into the Howling Commandos. After a number of missions with Jones, Fury and his men were assigned on a mission into France to capture Hitler's lover Eva Braun who was vacationing at a French chalet. While they failed to capture Braun, they managed to recover plans that detailed the shipment of V2 rockets into France giving Allied Forces the information needed to destroy them before they were assembled. However this victory did not come without its own price, during their escape Fred was shot in the leg, which had to be amputated in order to save his life, ending both his military and football careers. Not long after this, Fury and his Howlers were on an undisclosed mission where they met Scottish soldier Murdo MacKay. In the aftermath of the battle, Fury told MacKay that if he ever needed a favor from himself or the Howlers all he need do was ask.

Nick Fury and Captain America circa April 1944.

In April 1944, Fury and his Howlers were dispatched to Germany on a mission to rescue scientist Howard Stark and his wife Maria who had been captured by the Red Skull who sought to exploit Stark's technological genius. Along the way the Howlers they were joined by Captain America and his partner Bucky and the pair assisted Fury in his mission. Storming the Red Skull's castle, Fury and his Howlers were successful in freeing the Starks, escaping in a stolen Nazi airplane. That same month Fury and the Howlers joined Captain America and Bucky on a yet another mission against the Red Skull. This time around they were answering a call from the German resistance who warned that the Red Skull was digging up some ancient ruins along the border of Austria and the nation of Latveria. There they prevented the Skull from unearthing a massive Sleeper robot that was built 500 years ago. While Fury and the Howlers provided cover fire, Cap destroyed the robot, foiling the Skull's plans..

Betrayal

Fury, Captain Sawyer, and Eric Koenig began secretly plotting a plan to try and capture Hitler and end the war. To this end, Koenig agreed to pretend to defect to the Nazis in order to get them closer to the Fuhrer. To this end, Koenig sought out Gerta Heinz and proclaimed his defection back to the Nazis. Meanwhile, Fury and Eric's sister Ilsa were working together to make Dino Manelli finally make romantic advances with her. Although this succeeded, Eric and a group of Nazis kidnapped both Ilsa and Dino during a romantic interlude. Koenig then sent a telegram to Fury telling him to come after them alone. Although Fury complied the Howlers arrived to lend a hand. During the course of the battle, Koenig and Heinz trapped the Howlers and took Fury prisoner, fleeing back to Nazi Germany, just as military intelligence intended. Fury was taken before Adolf Hitler himself and was brought before the public. When Fury refused to renounce his allegiances and join the Nazis, Hitler ordered him to be publicly executed. Before Fury could be killed by the firing squad, Allied Air Force fighters bombed the area, allowing Fury to escape and meet his connection, Coral Liebowitz, a German born Jew who was part of the German resistance movement. Coral assisted Fury in getting to safety and then tried to lure a Nazi soldier to her home so Fury could steal his uniform. However this attempt was interrupted by Eric Koenig, who revealed to Fury that he had actually defected. Furious, Nick tried to beat Koenig within an inch of his life, however the Nazis had more firepower forcing Fury and Coral to flee the scene, but Fury vowed to get revenge on Eric for his betrayal.

Nick Fury almost succeeds in assassinating Adolf Hitler.

While Fury went into hiding with the German resistance movement, Captain Sawyer sent Bull McGivney and his Maulers to find Fury due to the fact that the Howlers were sent stateside to train new recruits. Meanwhile, Hitler ordered his men to search and capture the Sargent no matter the cost. Meanwhile, Fury and Coral went to seek the aid of German actor and make-up artist Oscar Freund to disguise Fury as part of a plot to capture Hitler. However their arrival at Freund's house did not go unnoticed and Hitler decided to pay a personal visit with Koenig in tow. Realizing that Hitler was in the same house, Fury made an attempt to eliminate the Fuhrer right then and there. However, Fury's potentially history altering assassination was interrupted by the Mauler's untimely arrival, blowing his cover. When Fury attempted to grab Hitler, Koenig got in the way and the two fought it out. Thanks to interference by Bull, and a subsequent argument between the two rivals Coral managed to secretly assist Eric in escaping the scene. His plan to kill Hitler and get revenge against Koenig ruined, Fury went back to with the Maulers and was brought back to England where he was put on a furlough and sent back to the United States.

Nick Fury brainwashed by the Nazis.

Fury returned to his home in Hell's Kitchen where he was reunited with his step-mother, sister Dawn, and brother Jacob. However the home coming was not entirely a happy one when Nick learned that his kid brother was against the war. When Jacob left the apartment after an argument with Nick he was captured by Colonel Klau who was dispatched state side for espionage missions. Catching Klau in the act, Fury tried to stop him only be captured himself. They drugged Fury into being their loyal slave and went back for the rest of the Fury family, only to be confronted by the Howling Commandos who had just arrived there. The Howlers fought back against Klau and his men, but Fury's sister Dawn was captured in the ensuing fight. The Howlers then sent Jacob back to the apartment with Fury. By the time Howlers smashed the Nazi spy ring and rescued Dawn the drugs in Fury's system had worn off and he was back to his normal self. With the crisis over, Jacob was convinced that the war was necessary and promised his brother that he would enlist. Fury stayed in New York for the rest of the week before returning to England with the Howlers.

D-Day

In May 1944, Fury and the Howlers were next assigned to destroy a supply bridge in France ahead of preparations for D-Day. To assist them on their mission they were teamed up with the Missouri Marauders. After they were air dropped in the area they were attacked by Nazi forces but managed to win the fight thanks to a mysterious Luftwaffe fighter plane that buzzed by and shot at the Nazis instead of the Howlers and Marauders. Fury and the two commando units made it to the bridge and although they managed to fight off ground troops Nazi Tiger tanks were on their way forcing them to rush their demolition job. They would have failed on their mission thanks to a freak rain storm, but they were once again assisted by the mysterious Nazi fighter plane which blew up the bridge.

The Howlers were soon given a new recruit to replace the loss of Koenig, a fresh trainee out of boot camp named Duane Wilson. Soon after Wilson joined them they were sent on a mission to rescue an important British general from Nazi Germany before they could learn any of his secrets. Although Wilson showed initiative at the beginning of their mission, when the unit was almost wiped out by a mortar, Wilson began to suffer from shell-shock and abandoned the Howlers during their mission. Although Fury and his men rescued the British general, Wilson was court martialed for deserting his post and the Howlers had to watch him be executed. After a brief break from fighting, Fury and the Howlers were sent ahead of the Allied invasion on the beaches of Normandy on June 5, 1944. Fighting past some shoreline defenses, Fury and his Howlers succeeded in capturing a number of high ranking Nazi officials in the area by tricking them into attending a party they thought Hermann Goering was putting on their behalf. They later destroyed the majority of the Nazis aircraft and then joined up with the storming at the beaches of Normandy, decimating the Nazi beachhead defenses During this battle they also fought alongside Captain America. Days after the invasion of Normandy, Fury and his Howling Commandos joined the Invaders and Allied forces in liberating France from Nazi control. Following this, Fury and his Howlers were dispatched to Russia where they assisted Russian soldier Kyril Kuslov in holding off Nazi forces from Moscow and ruining their supply line, leaving them without supplies during the Russian winter. Although Fury and Kuslov had ideological differences, the two put them aside their differences long enough to succeed in their mission and parted company with mutual respect for one another. The Howlers were next assigned to Operation: Jigsaw, which was each Commando seeking out a portion of a map that detailed the location of a nerve gas factory in the area. Fury and the Howlers succeeded in collecting the portions of the map, but were stopped by Captain Sawyer from connecting them together thus releasing some of the gas and killing them. With the information, the destroyed the chemical plant making the deadly chemical weapon.

Weird War

Fury and his Howlers were next sent on a mission to the town of Gruenstadt to stop Baron Strucker once and for all. In the town, Strucker had discovered that an alien race known as the Gnobians had crashed landed in the town and that they had access to strange technologies that could advance his efforts to form his Hydra organization. Forming a mind link with the Gnobian queen, Strucker tainted it with his evil in order to convince it to provide him with the science the alien race possessed. In order to cover up the secret of the Gnobians in the area, Strucker had the entire town of Gruenstadt culled. Seeing this atrocity, Fury and his Howlers attacked, wiping out Strucker's forces and seemingly slaying Strucker. However the Baron managed to cheat death with special devices that contained the secrets of Gnobian technology. Back in England, Fury learned about his fathers battle against the Red Baron during World War I. Returning to the European front, Fury and his Howlers were sent on orders to capture Eric Koenig and to take him alive. To assist them on this mission they were given new recruit Sargent Hans Klaus, a German born young man who immigrated to the United States as a young boy and was loyal to the Allied cause. Fury was unable to trust Klaus and did not like how he disobeyed orders. Along the way Fury found himself conflicted when learning that it was Koenig who came to assist him during his past mission with the Marauders. Although Fury managed to capture the maps for a coming bombing raid, his attempts to capture Koenig were foiled thanks to the meddling of Hans.

Fury and the Howlers got another opportunity to go after Koenig, but grudgingly accepted that they would be under the command of Hans no their mission. While Hans rescued Koenig from a German Stalag prison camp, they learned that Eric's girlfriend Coral Liebowitz was placed in a concentration camp under the command of Oberst Johann von Braun who intended to end the war by bombing Berlin with specially made V2 rockets carrying chemical gas. Fury and the Howlers, with the assistance of Eric Koenig rescued Coral and stopped Von Braun before returning to England for Eric to face a military court martial. However it was during this court martial it was revealed that Eric was secretly acting as a spy for the Allies and was cleared of all charges and was quickly reassigned to the Howlers. Although Fury initially could not bring himself to trust Koenig right away, during a mission to destroy a Nazi fortress in the Swiss Alps, Fury regained his trust of Eric when he managed to steal a Nazi fighter plane and bomb the castle. Fury then went on solo to Paris, France, where he assigned Captain America, Codename: Bravo, and Peggy Carter. He sent them on a mission to destroy Baron Zemo's new base of operations where Baron Strucker's newest incarnation of Hydra was currently building up advanced weapons. In order to assist them on their mission Fury recruited the aid of a young boy named Jimmy Jupiter who could access a realm called Nowhere as a means of crossing over to Zemo's lair. The mission proved to be a partial victory, with Jimmy trapping the Hydra agents in Nowhere. However the young boy was bludgeoned by a Nazi spy with a typewriter putting him in a vegetative state and trapping Codename: Bravo in that realm as well. Jupiter was placed in convalescence for many decades the repercussions of this mission never coming to fruition until the modern age. Getting fed up with anti-war editorials by Daily Bugle reporter C. Thomas Cites, Dum Dum Dugan issued him a challenge to come and fight along side the Howling Commandos. Under Fury's command, Cites' pacifist nature and unwillingness to follow orders hampered their operations, however Fury managed to teach the columnist about the brutal necessity of war when they came across a church full of innocent women and children that were executed by the Nazis. Fury later managed to get himself locked in the guard house with Bull McGivney during a bar brawl over the upcoming wrestling match between Dum Dum Dugan and the Mauler's latest recruit, pro-wrestler Man-Mountain McCoy. While the pair were locked up both Dugan and McCoy were captured by the Agent with One-Thousand Faces. They were later taken into the home of Nazi spy Hans von Reichardt where they were held as prisoners. When the pair were reported missing, Fury and McGivney were released in order to lead both the Howlers and Maulers on a search and rescue operation. When they tracked down the pair and rescued them, both Dugan and McCoy had freed themselves and formed such a strong friendship they refused to wrestle each other.

Nick Fury circa October 1944.

Next Fury and his Howlers were deployed to the French town of L'Aision to destroy a chemical weapons plant where Nazi scientist Rueben Jabokwitz. Joining them on their mission was a soldier named Kevin Kenner, who had grown up with Izzy Cohen in Brooklyn. Kenner, a traitor to his country, led the Howlers into a trap. While Fury and his men held enemy soldiers, Izzy destroyed the chemical weapons plant, slaying both Kenner and Jabokwitz in the process. On October 10, 1944, Fury and his men were deployed to Bavarian Alps to eliminate the so-called Planner, a Nazi strategist who was reportedly over 100 years old. Attacking the Planner's headquarters, they learned that the secret to his longevity was that he was a cyborg, kept alive by various mechanical parts. Fury and the Howlers destroyed his castle, the Hawk Eyrie, and seemingly slew the Planner in the process. Later that same month, Fury and his Howlers were on a mission to prevent the Red Skull from recovering a mystical artifact stolen from Tibet. With the aid of Captain America and Bucky, the Howlers tried to prevent the Skull from absconding with the mystical Eye of Agamotto. During the course of the battle the Dark Dimension ruler Dormammu transported the Skull, his men, Captain America and Bucky into his home realm. With the help of the Eye's owner, the Ancient One, Fury and the Howlers were transported there to recover their friends and the Eye of Agamotto. With the assistance of a young Clea, Fury and his Howlers found Cap who were being pursued by the Skull and his men who agreed to recover the Eye for Dormammu. With the help of the Ancient One, they tricked the Skull into taking a mystical fake of the Eye. When Dormammu learned this he banished the Skull back to Earth. Before he could attack Fury and the others, the Ancient One also made it appear that some of the Dark Dimension's Mindless Ones had broken free, covering the heroes return to Earth. Upon their return to Earth, Fury and the others had their memories of the Dark Dimension erased by the Ancient One who then returned to Tibet with the Eye of Agamotto. Back in England, Fury was on hand to witness the court martial and execution of John Greycrow for the murder of eight of his fellow officers. Greycrow was shot by firing squads who were unaware that John was a mutant with incredible recuperative ability.

Prisoner of Baron Blood.

Not long after this Fury and his Howlers went looking for Gabe Jones when he went missing on the streets of London. Their search was fruitless as Jones was captured by a Nazi agent to be brought back to Berlin, however he fought himself free and was reunited with the Howlers. Fury and his unit were next dispatched to Germany along with Corporal Tom Tanaka to infiltrate a factory where the Nazis were developing a new long range weapon the A-10 rocket. To this end, they were to have Tanaka pose as Imperial Japanese liaison Ambassador Ihetu, who was en route to the facility to oversee the construction. Fury and the Howlers managed to make the switch, but were exposed while trying to escape. Tanaka sacrificed his life so that Fury and his men could complete their mission. With Tanaka hailed as a hero, Fury went stateside to deliver the tragic news to his family. There Fury saw the Japanese internment camps in the town of Cody, Wyoming, a sight that shamed him. Fury and his men were later on a mission to capture the Nazi vampire known as Baron Blood. The Howlers were captured and tortured by Blood, who was seeking to create an army of loyal Vampires to join the Nazis. Fury refused to be turned, but he and his men were rescued by captured soldier Colonel William Poprycz, who fooled Blood into thinking he was willing to join his cause. However while the Baron was called away to London, Poprycz killed all the Nazis within his base and freed the Howlers before exposing himself to sunlight and incinerating his body.

Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos during the Battle of the Bulge, circa December 1944.

Fury and his Howlers spent December 1944 in Belgium where they participated in the Battle of the Bulge. After destroying a Nazi supply line, they were captured by enemy troops and were put before a firing squad. Fury and his Howlers luckily were able to feign being killed, however the other soldiers that were with them were not so lucky. They then fought their way to the town of St. Vith where they bolstered Allied forces and help drive back the Nazis. During the coming days they pushed back enemy forces. On the field in Christmas Eve they constructed a make-shift Christmas tree and spent time with some local orphans. The mood was ruined when Nazi soldiers attacked again, but Fury and his crew wiped out these attackers as well. Shortly thereafter they were radioed and informed that the enemy had been stopped at all fronts, allowing them a reprieve to celebrate the holiday.

1945

Fractured Howlers

Nick Fury wounded in battle.

In early 1945, Fury and his Howlers were sent on a mission to evacuate a small German town before it was bombed by Allied forces who were seeking to destroy a munitions plant located there. Fury and his Howlers came up upon opposition from Nazi soldiers who revealed that there was no munitions plant there, that the "factory" was only a decoy to cause massive casualties to make the German people further support the Nazis. Despite their best efforts, Fury and his men were unable to sufficiently warn the people of the town and failed to evacuate it before the bombers arrived. Although they succeeded in saving some lives, many were lost and Nick Fury himself was wounded by shrapnel in the raid. The Howlers were forced to fight across Germany in an effort to get Nick to an evacuation point, surviving clashes with enemy troops and more Allied bombings. They were later separated from Eric Koenig during their travels. While fleeing from a Nazi battalion, the Howlers Eric was captured by the Nazis while the rest of the unit was pinned on a large butte where they expected to make their last stand against their foes.

Salvation came when an airlift came to pulled Fury and the Howlers out of there. However Fury's injuries were severe enough to take him out of action for a short time. While Fury was in hospital, command of the Howlers was turned over to Dum Dum Dugan and the team was folded into a new 12 man unit called the Deadly Dozen, whom Dugan trained and led on one mission, before it was turned over to Michael "Combat" Kelly, with Dino Manelli and Percy Pinkerton joining their ranks as well. Having fully recovered from his wounds, Fury was put back in command of a reduced Howling Commandos unit consisting of Dum Dum Dugan, Gabe Jones, Izzy Cohen, and Rebel Ralston. The group was next sent to an island off the coast of Italy on a decidedly different kind of mission. A mobster by the name of Lo Parino was using stolen money plates that he intended to use to flood the markets and ruin the economies of the world, thus hamper the war effort. Fury and his reduced team succeeded in infiltrating Lo Parino's castle and destroying it along with the counterfeit money operation within. Fury and his Commandos were next were called to provided assistance to the Deadly Dozen and other troops under the command of Captain Connor, a cowardly commanding officer who used his family name to get his position. While this mission reunited the Howlers with Dino and Percy, Connor put the Howlers lives at risk by sending them out on a scouting mission where they were woefully outnumbered. Forced to retreat they brought the enemy following in tow. Seeing the size of the enemy attack force, Connor began cracking up.

Seeing Cooper as unfit for command, Fury and Combat Kelly took command and ordered the Dozen's "Hillbilly" Wagner and "Bullseye" Miller to take Cooper to command and explain what was going on. While the Deadly Dozen and Howling Commandos fought hard against the enemy, Hillbilly, Bullseye and Cooper were attacked by enemy soldiers. While Wagner was killed instantly, both Bullseye and Cooper were wounded. Finally having completely cracked up, Cooper left Miller for dead and tried to take back command of his unit to repair the potential damage to his reputation. When he returned he found that thanks to the efforts of both Fury and Kelly he tried to shoot them on the spot. Before he could, he was shot in the back by Bullseye who used the last of his strength to follow after Cooper and get revenge before he died from his wounds. When military command came, Fury had the other soldiers keep their mouths shut about what happened even when Cooper was posthumously awarded a decoration. Fury pointed out that although Cooper would get all the credit, it wasn't with honor. The Howlers and the Deadly Dozen then buried their dead, all except for Cooper who they left out in the frozen battle field, with only his rifle and helmet as a marker. Following this, Dino, Percy and the recently rescued Eric Koenig rejoined the Howlers and went on a mission to rescue as many prisoners of war from the town of Dresden, Germany, before Allied bombers could land an attack. Going on another mission to save innocents from bombing raids again with the Howlers, Eric in particular but they went on their mission anyway. As part of this mission they allowed them to get captured behind enemy lines where they were transported to a nearby Stelag to ultimately be transferred to the prisoner of war camp in Dresden. With the help of Colonel Schiller, a Allied spy working in the Stalag, they were given weapons that allowed them to take control of the train heading to Dresden and free the prisoners. Before being killed by his own troops, Schiller also managed to give Fury and his men further orders: rescue as many people from Dresden as possible. However this operation was hampered thanks to Allied leaders ordering the bombers to fly hours earlier than planned, and although Fury and his Howlers once again managed to save lives, still many others were killed in the bombing, although this time none of the Howlers were physically harmed.

War's End

As the war began winding down, Fury was on an undisclosed operation in France where he was injured once again when he walked into an enemy mine field. His body was recovered by Doctor Berthold Sternberg who used Fury as a guinea pig for his new age-slowing Infinity Formula. While this helped Fury recover from his wounds faster, and slowed his aging process this seeming miracle would have grave repercussions later on.. It has been stated that many of the Howling Commandos were also likely exposed to the Infinity Formula via contact with Fury's blood after it was treated with the Infinity Formula. Although to date there is no specific explanation. Fury and his Howlers were next sent to secure a Nazi scientific facility that had recently been liberated by the Invaders. Allowing scientist Professor Truett Hudson inventory whatever he found in the facility. Later Fury and his Howlers went into Germany where they investigated reports that the Nazis were resurrecting their fallen warriors as zombies. At a German morgue, they discovered Nazi official Algernon Crowe using magic to create his armies. While the Howlers destroyed the zombies, Fury seemingly slew Crowe. Fury also fought side-by-side with the original Captain America and Bucky one last time before they were seemingly killed in action.

After sustaining another injury to his eye, Fury and his Howlers deployed to Germany to assist on the final push on Berlin. There they joined the robot Electro in saving a group of soldiers and masked hero the Phantom Reporter from a Nazi ambush. Fury also joined an army of super-heroes who were used in a final attack on Berlin on April 25, 1945. With the Hitler now dead and the seeming demise of Captain America and Bucky, Fury was next sent on a mission to recover Professor Claude Cramer as the United States was beginning to collect Nazi scientists before the Russian in an attempt to replace the lost of their super-soldier. Cramer was selected because he used the occult to try and create an army of werewolf soldiers. Fury arrived at Cramer's hideout on April 30, 1944 and stopped his one time ally Logan—the last survivor of the Devil Brigade—from killing Cramer. After the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Fury was pulled from the Howling Commandos and stationed on Okinawa where his experience with jungle combat made him perfect for hunting down elements of the Imperial Japanese army that refused to surrender. It was here that Fury was approached by Colonel Tom Lynaugh of the Office of Strategic Service the precursor to the CIA.

Other Activities

Fury has been involved in many other operations during the war, many of the details behind these operations and when they specifically happened are unspecified. During the war he fought along side other soldiers such as Scotsman Ken Astor,, and Russian operative Yuri Brevlov. He also saw combat in such exotic locations as the Caves of Hercules in Greece.

Government Spy

1950s

Early Operations

Fury being promoted to Second Lieutenant during the Korean War.

After Fury was assigned to the OSS, Colonel Lynaugh sent Fury on a mission to locate an escaped Japanese scientist named Colonel Ishii managed to flee from a Japanese biological weapon testing site with a deadly virus created there. Fury was paired with Colonel Figgs, Captains Johns, and Algernon and Lieutenant Baker of Britain's MI5 to search for Ishii who had crash landed in the jungles of Malaya. After weeks of hunting Ishii and his men down, they quickly realized that the Japanese scientist planned on unleashing the virus in India. They quickly tracked down Ishii's men and slew them and stopped the scientist from unleashing the biological weapon. When Fury turned Ishii to military intelligence he was angered when he learned that the United States decided to use him to strengthen their own biological weapons technologies to compete with the Russians instead of making Ishii pay for his war crimes. This greatly angered Fury, but he still remained with the security agency. A few months into his service with the OSS, Fury awoke to find that he had rapidly aged to about a man close to the age of 60. This was all part of Doctor Sternberg to begin extorting Fury for boosters of the Infinity Formula to keep his vital youth. Sternberg continued to hold his control over Fury for many decades thereafter.

Later on, Fury was reunited with the Howling Commandos for a one time battle during the Korean War. The unit completed a mission where they destroyed a North Korean MIG airfield. Colonel Sawyer took a back seat allowing Fury to command the attack. After the mission was a success Fury was promoted in rank of Second Lieutenant. It is stated that Fury and the Howlers were active during other operations during the Korean War, but these exploits are unrecorded. After the war he then returned to the CIA where he rose to the rank of colonel.

CIA

By 1955 the OSS had been replaced with the CIA, and Fury continued working as an operative for the organization. During the McCarthy hearings Fury was called before the hearing by supposed anti-communist Senator McMurphy who ordered Fury to out any members of the CIA who might be communist sympathizers. When Fury refused to name anybody he was reprimanded by the government. However soon thanks to the investigations taken by the new Captain America, Fury was able to expose McMurphy as a Russian sleeper agent, and uncovered that he was attempting to purchase a secret weapon from a former Nazi scientist. While Captain America prevented the weapon from falling into Russian hands, Fury outed McMurphy.

Fury secretly protecting the world from alien invaders.

Fury's subsequent activities are largely unrecorded, however he continued working with the spy agency throughout the 1950s. By 1958 he had a number of encounters with extraterrestrial invaders. In one such occurrence he led army intelligence to a small town in Kansas that was being invaded by the Tribellians. He entire unit was wiped out, but Fury was rescued thanks to the intervention of both Anthony Stark and his ally Woody McCord Jr. who died destroying the alien portal. Stark and Fury set the portal to an alien sun and sent all the Tribellian and human corpses through it. When it was time to transport McCord Fury protested saying that he deserved to be buried. Stark told him that nobody needed to know what they lost before they disposed McCord's corpse. Stark took Fury into his confidence, taking the spy to a secret mountain location and explained that for years both Stark and Maccord were secretly protecting the Earth from invaders from space and other dimensions for years. With Maccord now dead, Fury was asked to take his place. Fury, ever willing to serve the better good of his world agreed to take the job, with the condition of knowing who McCord was. Stark took Fury to Woody's war room and showed him McCord's autobiography, which was written in an alien language, and told him McCord spent more time in space than on Earth. Fury spent the convening years secretly protecting the world from alien invaders, subterranean dwellers, and other dimensional demons by night while continuing his operations with the CIA by day. Fury's operations were done in complete secret, seen only by Uatu the Watcher who observed Earth's history from the moon however Fury decided to take no action against the Watcher due to his pact of non-interference with the affairs of Earth.

Fury's Avengers

Nick Fury's Avengers.

Aside from his other activities, by 1959 Fury and members of the Howling Commandos began hunting down escaped Nazi war criminals and executed them on sight. By this point, Fury's old eye injury began to affect him and he began wearing an eye patch over his left eye. One such hunt brought Fury, Dugan and Gabe Jones to Bayamo, Cuba where they eliminated a pair of escaped Nazis. There Fury was tracked down by a General Hill who had sought Fury out on orders from President Eisenhower to gather operatives for a mission called the Avengers Initiative. Fury and Dugan then went to gather their operatives. Their first stop was the island nation of Madripoor where they recruited the feral mutant known as Sabretooth. In Paris, the soldier of fortune known as Dominic Fortune; the Atlantean princes Namora and her boyfriend master hunter Kraven the Hunter from the Emerald Coast of Florida; and immortal monster hunter Bloodstone and Nazi hunter Silver Sable in Boston, Massachusetts. With his team of Avengers, Fury took the group to Helsingborg, Sweden where reports of a Red Skull impostor who was gathering former Nazis for a new Reich. The group infiltrated the Nazi's stronghold and set it ablaze after discovering the Nazis to create their own Captain America. Fury and his Avengers slew the faux-Captain America and captured the Red Skull recovering his secret weapon. However before they could get answers out of him, Sabretooth killed the Red Skull impostor as well. After this, Fury disbanded his group, telling them that he would call for them when he needed them again. He then used his government connections to have some of the international charges against his teammates cleared. Turning over the Red Skull's briefcase over to General Hill, Fury learned that it contained a combination of the Super-Soldier Serum that created Captain America and the Infinity Formula to create a more powerful super-soldier.

In autumn of that year, Fury reformed his Avengers for another mission. However after a brief reunion, Bloodstone and Sable took a leave of absence from the group, the Avengers—and Fury in particular—were being targeted by escaped Nazis who were being manipulated by occultist Geoffrey Sydenham who used his influence within the United States government to form an agency known only as ICON. The purpose of ICON was to use the occult to summon the Dark Dimension's ruler Dormammu to protect America from Communist elements. After all the attempts on the lives of the Avengers failed, Fury was approached by the mystic Powell McTeague who offered his assistance to the Avengers in cracking the conspiracy.

With information obtained by McTeague, Fury traveled to the nation of Latveria to rendezvous with his old Howler ally Eric Koenig and the Blonde Phantom to learn what he could about the secret organization recruiting former Nazis. He also learned that T'Chaka, future successor to the title of the Black Panther, was also kidnapped from his home by Sydenham who claimed to be from the US Defense department. While they found Nazi operative Deiter Skul and the remains of the Lord of Death's Hollow Men zombies. Fury and the Blonde Phantom next traveled to Wakanda to learn more about T'Chaka's kidnapping. There they learned that Skul had fled to the nation of Madripoor and went there aboard one of Howard Stark's specially built ships. Along the way they were attacked by the Ubermadchen but the battle was ended when the other Avengers arrived on the scene and the Ubermadchen were captured. When they learned from the Ubermadchen that Nazi operatives were being summoned by an known force, Fury had Sabretooth kill the women. Searching their files, they tracked down Fury's old foe the Planner and attacked his estate as well. From him they learned that Skul was returning to Wakanda to launch an attack along, so Fury and his Avengers followed him there. The Avengers clashed with Skul and his minions, Doctorangutan, Count von Blitzkrieg, Vunderknight, the Leopard Woman and an army of Hollow Men and Kron-bots. Following the defeat of their foes, Fury and the Avengers took their place when Geoffrey Sydenham attempted to teleport the Nazis to Washington D.C. for his spell to contact Dormammu. There the group stopped more of his Nazi operatives: Baron Blood, Brain Drain, Spider Queen, Geist and more Hollow Men. The Nazi operatives were either captured and slain along with Sydenham. With the conspiracy taken down, Fury disbanded his Avengers and completed his promise to get them full pardons for their past crimes. However shortly there after, Fury learned to his shock and dismay that Sydenham was released even though he committed an act of treason. However the operation had one happy ending: Fury's friends Dugan and Koenig managed to rescue Wakandan chief T'Chaka, securing peaceful relations between the United States and Wakanda.

Late 20th Century

In the 1960s, Fury continued to work for the CIA, as well as secretly assassinating creatures that threatened the Earth. In 1961 he was contacted by a man claiming to be Leonardo da Vinci who was a member of the Brotherhood of Shield a secret order that protected the world from various threats both terrestrial and alien. They met at the Brotherhood's secret city of Pieta. There Da Vinci offered them the resources of the Brotherhood in exchange for this group carrying out secret missions on the promise of complete anonymity. This group became known as the Great Wheel of the Zodiac, with each member taking on the name of one of the signs of the Zodiac. Members included Da Vinci as Aries, Cornelius van Lunt as Taurus, Thomas Davidson as Virgo, Shoji Soma as Pisces, Jonathan Garrett as Aquarius, Daniel Whitehall as Leo, Vasili Dassaiev as Capricorn, Viktor Uvarov as Cancer, Fury's old wartime foe Baron Strucker as Sagittarius, his friend Dum Dum Dugan as Libra, his brother Jacob as Scorpio, and Fury himself as Gemini. Nick, Jacob, and Thomas were assigned on a mission for the Brotherhood to retrieve ancient Renaissance era androids known as Life-Model Decoys from below a chapel in Chateau D'Ambroise, France. The primitive life imitating androids duplicated both Jacob and Thomas and suspecting future betrayal Fury had the mentally unstable LMD's of his brother and Thomas take their place so that the two could work deep under cover while Fury secretly manipulated their unstable duplicates. The others recovered an alien power source from the Brood and in Giza, and suspended animation/rejuvenation chambers from a band of robots in the Zargos Mountains. When the chambers were prepared both Vasili and Viktor turned on their comrades, forcing them to flee and Fury was mortally wounded. While Fury survived thanks to the Infinity Formula in his system, the Wheel was broken and each member went their own way. Strucker returned his focus to Hydra, Soma to the ninja assassins known as the Hand, Van Lunt would form the Zodiac Crime Cartel along with him he thought was the true Jacob Fury, Vasili and Viktor eventually formed the organization known as Leviathan. Fury and the Thomas LMD remained in American espionage, while the real Jacob and Thomas secretly manipulated their opposing factions—particularly Hydra—into doing Fury's work for him.

During the Vietnam War Fury and the Howlers reunited again to fight in this conflict, however the records of these exploits are unrecorded. In 1965, S.H.I.E.L.D. discovered an alien dragon made of living darkness frozen in a glacier in a glacier in Scandinavia. Tasked by the government with replacing the MIA Captain America, Fury began experimenting on samples taken from the dragon, which had been codenamed Grendel, leading to the establishment of the Sym-Soldier Program: bonding wounded soldiers to samples of the dragon's living abyss. When the Sym-Soldiers lost control of their symbiotes and began rampaging, Fury contracted Logan into helping hunt them down; sending an LMD in his place to both keep himself safe and ensure he could eliminate any witnesses to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s wrongdoings. Logan and Fury’s LMD were joined by Rex Strickland - a Sym-Soldier whose symbiote, Tyrannosaurus, had separated from him - and battled the Sym-Soldiers until the Tyrannosaurus symbiote took over Logan and revealed what S.H.I.E.L.D. had done to them and the Grendel. Logan turned on Fury and attacked the LMD, prompting Fury to self-destruct it - killing Rex and incapacitating the Sym-Soldiers. The Tyrannosaurus symbiote assumed Rex’s form and personality, and was hired by Fury himself as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. At some point, Fury stopped wearing his eye-patch to test out a new prototype bionic eye. In the 1980s Fury led a group of CIA operatives in the nation of Halwani to assist the costumed heroes known as the First Line rescue a number of captured diplomats as well as their comrade Mister Justice. Fury lost a number of his men when they accidentally set off an explosive trap, despite this the First Line succeeded in their mission. A few years later, Fury was sent to investigate scientist William Carmody and his institute. He was surprised to find that it was now the headquarters of a newly formed independently-run version of the First Line. Fury's visit coincided with an attack on the headquarters by Deviants under the command of Warlord Kro who had come to slay the First Line's Pixie. As the First Line defeated their foes, Fury slipped away. After reporting back to his superiors, they were thoroughly impressed and began considering him to become a member of their new anti-espionage organization known as the Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law-Enforcement Division, called S.H.I.E.L.D. for short.

Fury was later put on a mission in Macao to investigate the illegal activities of Amber D'Alexis so that the authorities in that country could arrest her. Spying on her he learned that she had been also working with a legally run organization called Dimension Research, where to his surprise he learned that she had a relationship with his brother Jacob, who was now a scientist working on extra-dimensional energies. When Fury tried to tell his brother to stay away from D'Alexis, Jacob assumed his brother was trying to meddle in his business and told him to butt out. With no other choice, Fury seduced D'Alexis and had her confide her criminal operations to him, after which he had her arrested. This arrest turned the Fury brother's sibling rivalry into outright hatred on Jacob's part. A lasting hate that would have grave repercussions for Fury in the future. The CIA soon became interest in the discovery of Fury's old wartime ally Logan. In recent times Logan was discovered by Canadian scientist James Hudson and his wife Heather found Logan in the woods in a feral state and with the metal Adamantium bonded to his bones and claws. When Logan traveled to Washington D.C. to learn what he could from Adamantium inventor Dr. Myron MacLain he was targeted by the terrorist group Hydra and certain members of the United States government who wanted to keep Weapon X's existence a secret, and sent their operative Sabretooth to try and eliminate him. Fury and the Defense Department's Carol Danvers came to Logan's rescue. After the Hydra agents were slain and Sabretooth defeated, Fury decided to leg Logan go on his own way after learning that his old friend had lost his memory and was on a quest to find answers regarding his past.

Not long after this, after Logan rejoined the Canadian military, Fury had Logan and American test pilot Ben Grimm, and Carol Danvers called in on a mission to infiltrate Russian airspace to investigate why they were using ultra-low frequency transmitters for. On top of this, Fury was given sealed instructions to Logan for another mission that even Fury himself was unaware of. However soon after Fury learned from his superiors that the initial mission was merely a cover for the real mission that had Logan attempting to steal a new Russian weapon known as Red Storm. However the trio managed to escape, but failed to recover Red Storm. Following this operation, Fury found himself stuck in a desk job in Washington D.C. working for the CIA. He soon began to long for his days of action. He would get his wish in the coming years when a new age of heroes emerged.

Modern Age

Director of SHIELD

Nick Fury meets the Fantastic Four.

Fury's final mission with the CIA involved the investigation of a hooded figure calling himself the Hate-Monger, who was not only spreading xenophobia across America, but also starting a political uprising in the South American nation of San Gusto. Fury sought the assistance of the newly empowered heroes known as the Fantastic Four only to find that they had already been affected by the Hate-Monger's Hate-Ray. Despite this he convinced the FF's leader Mr. Fantastic to travel to San Gusto, prompting his teammates to follow after him. In San Gusto, Fury managed to obtain the antidote for the Hate Ray and cured the Fantastic Four. During the final clash with the Hate-Monger, the villain's was killed by his own men whom he accidentally bombarded with his weapon. After the Monger's death, Fury unmasked him and was shocked to learn that the Hate-Monger had been a clone of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos become agents of SHIELD.

By this time, the organization known as SHIELD was given full funding and was provided technology from leading scientist and inventors like Mr. Fantastic and Tony Stark (Secretly the hero Iron Man) once the a modern incarnation of the Hydra organization appeared and began stealing various technologies from around the world. SHIELD was originally run by Fury's old military rival, Colonel Rick Stoner, but Stoner while trying to expose a Hydra saboteur that was operating from within SHIELD's many scientists. Upon Stoner's death, Fury was recommended as his successor and was assigned to locate and capture the spy. Through his own investigation, Fury uncovered that his brother "Jacob"—now a scientist working with Stark Industries—was responsible. While clashing with Hydra agents, Fury was captured but managed to break away before they could execute him. However this desperate move came with a price, Fury's left eye was wounded again robbing him of his vision in this eye again. While he stopped the Hydra agents from stealing more SHIELD secrets, Fury could not bring himself to shoot his brother and Jacob escaped. Due to his eye injury, Fury began wearing an eye patch once again. Unknown to Fury at this time, Hydra was secretly run by his old foe Baron Strucker who had survived the convening years. Also, thanks to Jacob's treachery, Strucker was able to co-opt SHIELD's Life-Model Decoy technology and create the Deltite a specially crafted LMD that would spend the ensuing years compromising the entire SHIELD organization. From the day that Fury began working for SHIELD he became an instant target for Hydra operatives. In order to protect Nick from assassins on his inauguration, a number of LMDs of Fury were created to throw off the assassins. They successfully got Fury to the SHIELD helicarrier headquarters where his ascension to director of the agency was inaugurated before a number of world leaders. Discovering a Hydra bomb aboard the ship, Fury stopped it and had his newly appointed agents capture the spy responsible. One of Fury's first actions as head of SHIELD was to appoint the surviving members of the Howling Commandos into the ranks of SHIELD such as Dum Dum Dugan, and Gabriel Jones.

It was during these early days as the director of SHIELD that Fury that Nick began utilizing SHIELD resources on his secret missions to keep the Earth safe. He constructed a secret satellite with a number of Fury LMD's that helped him on these missions. Often Fury had these LMD's stand in for him on SHIELD business while he was occupied on his other mission. Fury began using these resources to investigate the appearance of other super-humans on Earth including the Hulk, and Spider-Man. In one such secret operation Fury captured and tortured a Skrull invader to learn what the aliens were plotting. Deciding to eliminate the hero Spider-Man, Fury changed his mind at the last moment, deciding to see if the novice super-human could prove himself a hero. Fury continued his operations, secret and unseen for many years.. Fury started distancing himself from Howard Stark, not telling him of his LMDs and stopped reporting for months as the Man on The Wall. Howard came to the Helicarrier to ask why Fury was on Earth, not knowing he was in his satellite and he was talking to a LMD. The Life-Model Decoy started failing, leaving Stark talking alone. Another unit informed Fury and he decided that what Stark didn't know couldn't harm him..

Early Operations

Early on in his career as a SHIELD agent, Fury continued to be a target for assassination by agents of Hydra. One of the earliest recorded instances, Fury was followed by Hydra agents seeking to learn where SHIELD's secret New York City headquarters was located. Realizing he had been trailed, Fury sought shelter at the SHIELD headquarters which was secretly hidden beneath a barbers shop and tricked the agents after him into believing that the headquarters was located in a nearby abandoned warehouse, leading to their capture. Soon after, Fury reconnected with the original Captain America who had recently been revived in the modern era by the super-hero team known as the Avengers. Fury personally allowed Cap access to SHIELD files to learn the truth about his successors over the years..

First SHIELD field uniform.

Fury later offered the services of SHIELD to provide security for the wedding of the Fantastic Four's Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Girl. Before the wedding the Fantastic Four's long time foe Dr. Doom used an "Emotion Changer" device to sent an army of super-villains to attack the wedding. Nick and his agents stopped the a Puppet Master controlled man from trying to enter the wedding to assassinate the couple. Fury also assisted the gathered super-heroes in fighting off the army of villains until Mr. Fantastic could banish them all with a "Time Displacer" provided by the Watcher. Afterward the wedding went off without further interruption. SHIELD's esper-unit soon uncovered a secret plot to invade America starting at the Statue of Liberty. In what was later dubbed Operation: Blackout, Fury and Captain America infiltrated Bedloe Island. While Fury battled the high tech invaders, Captain America was sent to seek out the assistance of Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four for his technical know-how. With an electro-amplifier ray provided by Richards, Captain America and Fury were able to destroy the invaders mind control weapons, but their foes were rendered mindless and unable to tell them who their leader was.

THEM

Fury soon focused his energies on Hydra, devoting all SHIELD resources to taking down the terrorist organization. Soon after Fury was outfitted with a number of specially made clothing to help him on operations. They began investigating Hydra and failed to obtain blue prints for a Betatron bomb the organization was building and failed to stop it from being launched. Soon the Imperial Hydra threatened to destroy the world if world leaders did not bow to Hydra. Fury began working with Tony Stark to deploy a counter device called the Braino-Saur to disarm the Betatron bomb from orbit. However before they could use the device, Fury was captured by Hydra agents and taken to their secret headquarters hidden within the head office of Imperial Industries International. Fury was subjected to psychological torture by the Imperial Hydra to learn the secrets of the Braino-Saur, but Fury refused to crack and he was locked in a cell. Agent G, the Imperial Hydra's daughter was sympathetic toward Fury and was against her father's attempts to take over the world later helped Fury escape from his cell. As Fury and Agent G fought through Hydra forces, they were located by SHIELD operatives led by Dum Dum Dugan and Gabriel Jones who had come to rescue Fury. Meanwhile, Stark successfully used the Braino-Saur to disarm the bomb. As Fury and his agents rounded up Hydra operatives, the Imperial Hydra was revealed as Arnold Brown, secretary to the CEO of Imperial Industries International. While Brown was gunned down by his own men who did not recognize him out of costume, Fury and his men secured the area. Seeing how Agent G -- aka Laura Brown—was as much a victim of her father than he was, he allowed her to flee custody. It seemed that Hydra was destroyed, however Fury would soon learn that Hydra was much harder to crush.

Enslaved by an Electro Mask.

Soon after, former SHIELD telepath Mentallo teamed up with the brilliant criminal known as the Fixer to take down SHIELD, using technology provided by an organization known only as "THEM". Informed of this impending threat by SHIELD's EPS-Unit, Fury attempted to prepare adequate defenses to keep the two villains at bay, but he and his unit were easily defeated thanks in part to Mentallo's mental powers. Captured, Fury was then enslaved with an "Electro Mask". Fury was then handcuffed to a hydrogen bomb which the two villains threatened to detonate if SHIELD did not surrender. However they were unprepared when Tony Stark used a neutralizer device to destroy the bomb. Fury, Mentallo and the Fixer were then bombarded by a mental barrage by the ESP Unit. This left the foes open for an attack by SHIELD agents and they were quickly defeated and taken prisoner and Fury was freed. Soon Fury and SHIELD were targeted by the Druid, whose organization combined magic and technology to create advanced "Satan's Eggs" to attack SHIELD directly. Fury and Dugan easily escaped an initial assassination attempt. Shortly thereafter, Fury welcomed new recruit Jasper Sitwell into their ranks. Fury very quickly became concerned by Sitwell's professionalism, and briefly began to fear that Jasper might someday replace him as director of SHIELD. In order to try and smoke out the Druid and his minions, Fury deployed an army of LMD's fashioned to look like him to search for their foe. In the meantime, Fury began interrogating the Fixer and learned of his connections with Them. Eventually, Fury's attempts to capture the Druid became a stalemate between the two forces until the Druid grew fed up of trying to capture Fury and challenged him directly. While his agents took down the Druid's organization, Nick easily defeated the Druid in hand-to-hand combat and he was turned over to the authorities. Also about this time, Stark's involvement with SHIELD lessened and Fury had to deal with military brass and secret tribunals in his place.

Nick Fury posing as a LMD.

Nick next sought out his old friend Captain America to see what he and his new allies the Avengers knew about the organization known as THEM. During the meeting the pair were attacked by a chemically powered android created by Them. The pair worked together to destroy the android, and in the aftermath of the battle Fury gave Captain America SHIELD A-1 priority clearance so that Cap could contact him in the future. Fury then began using SHIELD resources to hunt down THEM, whose agents had been tracked to a nearby swamp. Meanwhile, a group called Advanced Idea Mechanics began negotiations with the government to supply technology for SHIELD, however their leader Count Bornag Royale refused to deal with the agency so long as Fury was it's acting director. Meanwhile, Fury and his men trashed Them's secret android facility, and they quickly made the connection that AIM was a part of THEM. Also suspecting that the organization known as the Secret Empire was also a division of THEM, Fury sent Gabriel Jones to infiltrate the organization and take it down from within. Nick, Jasper, and Dum Dum then began formulating a plan to expose Count Royale and AIM as being part of Them. When AIM operatives attacked the SHIELD's barbershop front, Fury disobeyed direct orders to lead the counter attack knowing that he would be brought before his superiors. Knowing that AIM was seeking LMD technology, Fury went to his court marital, and when it appeared that he would win the case, he suddenly leap from the helicarrier and parachuted to the ground, leaving everyone present to believe he committed suicide. In reality, Fury posed as a Life-Model Decoy, which the AIM operatives then stole. This led SHIELD agents to capture most of the AIM operatives. However, Royale managed to escape but he was later killed in an explosion for failing his mission. Reunited with Gabe Jones after his mission infiltrating the Secret Empire, Fury, Jones and Dugan soon deduced that both AIM, the Secret Empire, and THEM were all part of an enduring faction of Hydra. prompting Fury to focus efforts on once more taking down the terrorist organization.

Later, Fury gave Captain America access to SHIELD's records on the racist organization known as the Sons of the Serpent. After the Avengers crushed the Serpents, Fury sent Captain America into a communist country to destroy the Z-Ray weapon they were developing. Also during this period, Fury had sent one of his agent Eric Payne deep under cover within the Corporation a Chicago based criminal empire. When Payne was forced to kill fellow SHIELD agents to maintain his cover, Fury ordered him to continue following orders. This proved to be detrimental to Payne who suffered a nervous breakdown and embraced his cover identity of Frankie Schlichting and became the Corporation's costumed operative known as the Constrictor. When the Constrictor later attacked SHIELD operatives in the filed, Fury decided to go to Frank's family with a fabricated story about how Frank died on a business trip.

Hydra Returns

Fury in a SHIELD rocket pack.

Fury and his agents soon began focusing on dealing with the return of Hydra, and intelligence reports that warned that the terrorist organization had developed a powerful sonic weapon dubbed the Overkill Horn. When SHIELD developed their own to see if it was possible, Fury volunteered to test it out himself despite the risk. The test was a success but both Fury and Dugan were injured during the test. Shortly thereafter, Fury was given an invitation to stay at the Egyptian resort of Don Caballero to stay. Knowing that Caballero had ties to Hydra, Fury accepted the invitation, leaving Jasper Sitwell in charge while he was gone giving him explicit instructions to destroy anything that they detected giving off the same wavelengths as the Overkill Horn.. Fury's suspicions were correct and the man calling himself Caballero was actually the Supreme Hydra and had his minions attack Fury upon arrival at his estate. Fury was captured and although he attempted to escape he was quickly subdued. Caballero then had Fury put in a place with the Over Kill Horn on board and sent him directly toward the SHIELD helicarrier in the hopes that Fury's own agents would inadvertently shoot him out of the sky. Fury managed to abandon ship before the plane was blasted out of the sky by SHIELD. Seeking to flee capture, the Supreme Hydra doffed his Caballero guise for that of Emir Ali-Bey and fled the estate, seeking to eliminate Laura Brown for her past betrayals for Hydra. Learning of this attempt on Laura's life, Fury gathered a crack team of SHIELD commandos and attacked Emir Ali-Bey's hideout and rescued Laura, but Ali-Bey escaped capture once again.

Laura was taken into SHIELD custody, but this did not stop Emir Ali-Bey and his agents from trying to eliminate her. When Jasper, Gabe and Laura were attacked on their way to a safe location, Fury and Dum Dum went to their rescue. During the confusion "Ali-Bey" changed his identity again, this time to a captured SHIELD agent named Bronson. "Bronson" was among SHIELD agents dispatched to help rescue Fury and the others from the Hydra agents and bring them back to the helicarrier. Unaware of the enemy in his midst, Fury sought out the aid of the former Russian spy-turned super hero known as the Black Widow and convinced her to go on a covert mission to spy on communist agents in Asia. Fury then began seeking out the true identity of the Supreme Hydra, relying on SHIELD's new Autofac Computer system that could decipher their foe's real identity. In order to stall for time, "Bronson" had his agents dispatch their Dreadnought robot to attack Nick. While Fury was occupied stopping this killer robot, Bronson knocked out Laura and then tampered with the Autofac's findings to make it appear as though Laura was the Supreme Hydra. SHIELD then began testing a new Q-Ray weapon designed by Professor Anton Trojak. Unknown to Fury Trojak had been replaced by a Hydra spy who also smuggled other minions of the Supreme Hydra aboard the Helicarrier. After exposing and defeating the spies, Laura Brown was found but she required immediate medical attention. Before Nick could get her aid, the President of the United States called in and ordered Fury to relinquish control of SHIELD and put Bronson in charge. It was around this time that Fury first started showing signs that he was slowly aging as the hair on his temples began going grey. While confined to quarters, Fury continued to keep tabs on the Black Widow's mission in Asia where she had been posing as a traitor to her newly adopted country in order to infiltrate enemy operations. Later, Fury had the Black Widow attempt to recruit the Scarlet Witch into SHIELD. While the Witch aided in a mission to stop Hydra along with members of the X-Men, she turned down the offer.

Nick Fury and Baron Strucker meet again.

When "Bronson" left the SHIELD helicarrier to get Laura "medical attention", he planted a bomb in Fury's room, unaware that Nick was onto him and stowed away on board. The Supreme Hydra then took Laura to Hydra Island where she was to face execution for her "crimes" against Hydra. The Supreme Hydra then announced to the world that he planted a Death-Spore virus aboard the SHIELD helicarrier and planned to detonate it once Laura Brown had been executed. Fury attacked and was captured. He was soon strapped to a Alpha-Tron weapon. Before throwing the switch to kill Fury, the Supreme Hydra revealed himself to be none other than Fury's old wartime foe, Baron Strucker. Fury managed to cheat death thanks to an invisibility pill provided by SHIELD technos, allowing him to escape from the Alpha-Beam device and making it appear as though the weapon disintegrated him. Fury soon made his survival known and fought off the various Hydra agents on base and battled once more with Strucker. Although Strucker had the upper hand thanks to his weapon, Satan Claw, Fury managed to gain the upper hand. Using Strucker's own disguise technology, Nick made himself look like Strucker and Strucker like himself. When Hydra agents came to capture "Fury", Strucker fled in a panic and into the Alpha-Beam seemingly destroying himself in the process. Fury, then posing as Strucker planted the death-spore bomb (which he removed from the SHIELD helicarrier when he stowed away aboard Strucker's ship) and fled with Laura Brown. Thanks to the protective dome around Hydra Island, when the Death-Spore bomb went off, it only slew the Hydra agents on the island which promptly sank as well.

Fury and his agents of SHIELD then began tracking down and crippling other Hydra operations operating over the globe. When Strucker's successor Otto Vermis who attempted to threaten the world with a death ray, SHIELD smashed this plot, however Dum Dum Dugan was fatally shot. Taking the injury badly and feeling as though Dugan worked best as a conscious for him, Fury used some of his most secret advanced technology to create a LMD body to where Dugan's consciousness was beamed from a stasis tube. The LMD body was so flawless that even Dugan believed it was the real deal. A cover story regarding a blood transfusion from Fury endowed Dugan with a slowed life spand visa-vie the Infinity Formula was given to explain why Dugan never seemed to age.

Yellow Claw

With Hydra seemingly destroyed once again, Fury got Laura Brown a full pardon and invited her to join SHIELD. Laura declined at that time, telling Fury she needed time to sort out her life. Shortly thereafter, Fury put on a sparring session with Captain America for new SHIELD recruits including Countess Valentina Allegra de Fontaine and inventor Sidney "Gaffer" Levine. Fury and Val's first encounter was an icy one but the two were attracted to each other and tensions soon began to soften. Fury later went on an undisclosed mission to the Savage Land. While exploring a cave his flying car was secretly stolen by the Wolverine and Invisible Woman, time travelers from the future of Earth-61112. Back in the United States, Fury and Captain America were met by FBI agent Jimmy Woo who was interested in learning what he could about Operation: Blackout. After hearing their recounting of events, Woo was convinced that this was the work of his old foe Yellow Claw

Fury seemingly slain by Yellow Claw from Strange Tales #164.

When Yellow Claw was tracked down to a secret headquarters in New York's Chinatown district, Fury went there to apprehend the terrorist himself. Posing as one of Yellow Claw's minions, Fury was exposed and quickly captured by the Claw and his aid Fritz von Voltzman and was left to die in the hands of a massive octopus. Fury managed to escape his fate and learned that Yellow Claw was targeting AIM in order to obtain a jade dragon statue, which secretly had the names of men assisting the rival organization in creating a powerful weapon called the Ultimate Annihilator. With the aid of new SHIELD recruit Clay Quartermain, Fury took the state from AIM instead. When Yellow Claw infiltrated SHIELD headquarters to steal it, Fury had a decoy made up. However this did not stop Yellow Claw from learning the identities of the scientists and he managed to slay them all and get the components he needed. When Fury attempted to stop Yellow Claw, the terrorist used the Ultimate Annihilator on Fury, seemingly slaying him in the process. However Fury was not killed he was saved at the last moment by Yellow Claw's niece Suwan, who teleported first to Yellow Claw's hideout then back to SHIELD headquarters. This had an impact on Fury's health and after medical examination he was warned that he could blackout, go blind, or die in battle if he exerted himself too much. Fury ignored these warnings, keeping them a secret and continued going after Yellow Claw anyway. Using an invisibility coat to sneak aboard a car driven by one of Yellow Claw's agents, Fury managed to infiltrate the Claw's Sky-Dragon Base where the terrorist was plotting to destroy Manhattan with the Ultimate Annihilator. Fury tried to fight back but his condition kicked in and he passed out. When he came to he found himself tied to the Ultimate Annihilator's barrel to be killed when the weapon went off. Yellow Claw never got the opportunity to activate the Ultimate Annihilator weapon as a SHIELD strike force led by Dum Dum Dugan attacked. When Fury was freed he attempted to capture Yellow Claw, but the foe bested him thanks to a suit of strength enhancing armor and fled.

Nick Fury wearing a H.A.W.K. Harness.

Fury followed after Yellow Claw as the villain escaped to his undersea base. Breaking into the facility, where he found that Yellow Claw had captured Jimmy Woo and was threatening to freeze him alive. While Fury and Yellow Claw battled it out, Woo was freed by Suwan who was frozen in his place. Horrified that the love of his life was seemingly killed, Jimmy vowed to get revenge against Fury and SHIELD. Yellow Claw fled just as a SHIELD strike force attack his undersea base, using a Hyper-Space Vest to teleport away. Fury continued his pursuit of Yellow Claw using a spare vest to follow after him. In their final conflict, Fury used Strucker's old Satan's Claw against his foe seemingly slaying Yellow Claw in the process. However, Fury was shocked to find that his foe was not the true Yellow Claw, but merely a robot. It was later discovered that Suwan, and Fritz von Voltzman were both robots. Unknown to Fury at the time this was all a grand scheme orchestrated by Dr. Doom to test out the strategic abilities of his newest creation, the robot known as the Prime Mover.

Avengers Alliance

After the Yellow Claw incident, Nick was called upon by the President of the United States to assist in an ongoing conflict occurring in Southeast Asia. To ensure plausible deniability, the President called for the Howling Commandos to be reformed. Fury, along with Dum Dum and Gabe were reunited with Eric Koenig, Dino Manelli, Percy Pinkerton, Izy Cohen, and Sam Sawyer—now a General. The Howlers, joined by SHIELD agent Jasper Sitwell were dispatched to a buovac area that was under the command of Fury's old wartime rival, Bull McGivney. Disguising themselves as peasants, Fury and the Howlers managed to infiltrate an enemy facility and destroy a nuclear bomb that was being developed there. Returning to the rendezvous point they were attacked by enemy soldiers who captured Bull. Nick sent his men back to base while he went after his old rival and rescued him from a firing squad. With their mission accomplished, Fury and the Howlers were sent back home where they were commended for a job well done.

Following this brief Howling Commandos reunion, Fury returned to his regular position as director of SHIELD, and much of his activities focused on the super-hero group known as the Avengers, particularly in the lives of founding member Iron Man, and Captain America. Fury had sent one of his agents, Sharon Carter to infiltrate AIM. When AIM sent another android to eliminate Nick Fury, the construct was interrupted by the timely arrival of Captain America, who was pursuing a romance with Carter at the time. Cap's interference led Fury to believe that he had compromised Carters cover, putting her in danger. Despite this, Captain America eventually managed to rescue Agent Carter from the clutches of AIM. When the villain known as the Mandarin had gathered a collective of Avengers villains in a plot to take over the world, Fury provided SHIELD intelligence to the heroes in order to bring their foes down. Fury soon had security of his helicarrier compromised by the Red Skull and a traitor SHIELD agent known only as Agent 9. While Fury and Dugan coordinated efforts to liberate the helicarrier, it was ultimately secured by Captain America and Agent Carter. Fury next dispatched Jasper Sitwell to act as a onsite SHIELD liaison for Stark Industries whose owner, Tony Stark, was a target of the Maggia crime family at the time. Also during this period the growing relationship between Captain America and Sharon Carter prompted the hero to retire from his costumed identity. When Agent Carter went to Fury asking to be relieved of duty so that she could further pursue her relationship, Nick informed her that SHIELD still needed her. After a series of Captain America imitators and the public revelation of Captain America's secret identity of Steve Rogers, Fury and his SHIELD operatives put a watch on Cap in his private life. After a botched assassination attempt by criminals, Fury convinced Rogers to resume his costumed identity. While Fury sent Agent Carter to investigate reports of a seemingly resurrected Baron Zemo, Fury himself looked into the a possible connection between Morgan Stark—Tony Stark's cousin—and the Maggia.. This led to a SHIELD raid on a Maggia owned off-short casino that was also being attacked by AIM. When the Maggia vessel sank during a battle between AIM, Iron Man, and Whiplash. Fury arrived on the scene and rescued Jasper Sitwell and his then girlfriend Whitney Frost from sea. Meanwhile, Captain America, Agent Carter and the Black Panther defeated the phony Baron Zemo and destroyed his death-ray satellite, earning commendations from Fury himself.

Focusing on internal SHIELD matters, Fury sent and invitation to Jimmy Woo to join SHIELD. He was also subject to surreal dream wherein an gold skinned alien calling himself Vaenger threatened to destroy the world. SHIELD next began investigating escaped Nazi war criminal Werner Von Krimm, and prevented Captain America from apprehending him in the hopes that Von Krimm would lead them to where the Red Skull had hidden the so-called Fourth Sleeper, a Nazi built robot intended to bring about a "Fourth Reich". When Cap went after the crystal key needed to stop the robot. Although Fury led everyone—including Sharon Carter—to believe that Captain America died when the Red Skull's secret island hideout was seemingly destroyed. Fury and SHIELD then recovered Captain America from the ocean, and set him on a mission that eventually saw the Fourth Sleeper destroyed. Shortly thereafter Captain America battled Red Skull and his Exiles and ended up with a strip of "nuclear tape" planted on his neck which if tampered with could be used to detonate a massive bomb. While Captain America was forced to return to Exile Island to battle his foes, Fury and Sharon Carter located the bomb and disarmed it. With SHIELD headquarters no longer at risk, Fury led a SHIELD strike force onto the island. Although SHIELD secured the island, the Red Skull and his minions managed to escape. Fury next asked Captain America to destroy a LMD of himself that was being used by the Chinese government to create propaganda films that depicted the star-spangled Avenger in a negative light. Not long after this Fury discovered that General Harry Kenkoy was involved in ghastly viral experiments in SHIELD agents, a project that was sanctioned by the Department of Defense. Although General Kenkoy outranked Fury and had DOD backing, Fury put a stop to the project when it was exposed.

Scorpio

Nick Fury in the EPB G-System suit.

By this time, Nick and Val's relationship grew into a blooming romance. Shortly thereafter, Fury became the target of an individual calling himself Scorpio, who attempted to assassinate Fury during the testing of a new EP8 G-System suit. Narrowly avoiding being blown up by a nuclear weapon, Nick rushed to the SHIELD facility to find Scorpio took over it with his Zodiac Key weapon. Although Scorpio claimed to be seeking revenge against Nick Fury, his identity remained a secret at that time and he was seemingly slain when his escape ship exploded. Soon thereafter, Jimmy Woo accepted Fury's invitation to try out for SHIELD and passed the training course. While on a flight mission, both Fury and Woo were captured by geneticist known as Centurius who as plotting to eradicate the human race from his secret island and repopulate the world with hyper evolved creatures that were apparently pulled from "internuclear space". Fury and Woo fought back, and during the course of the battle Centurius fell victim to his own evolutionary devices and was devolved into an amoeba and his island was destroyed. Nick was next called Ravenlock Manor in Scotland by his old wartime friend Ken Astor only to find that he was killed, seemingly by the ghost of Hugh Ravencroft, the original owner of the manor. With the assistance of some paranormal investigators Fury revealed that the real killer was Miles von Croff, who posed as Mycroft, the leader of the investigators who had a stake to own the property. On Christmas Eve that year, Fury was reunited once again with his fellow Howling Commandos to spend the holidays together.

Scorpio had survived his previous encounter with Fury, and attacked the SHIELD director head on, knocking him out with a blast from his Zodiac Key. Scorpio then took Fury prisoner and assumed his identity. In an attempt to eliminate Fury, Scorpio then had Nick disguised as a new model of LMD that was to be tested by SHIELD that day. When Fury awoke, he found himself in the training course used to test LMD prototypes. Nick easily bested the traps and broke into the control room while his impostor fled. Fury managed to catch up with Scorpio and unmasked him. Much to Fury's surprise, he recognized Scorpio as his brother Jacob. However before Fury could process this information agents of SHIELD arrived and began to fire at Jacob, for jumped out of a nearby window and into a nearby river where Fury lost his pursuit. Soon after this, Fury discovered that one of his agents, Cliff Randall was a spy of an alien Collective Intelligence. These were beings from another dimension who were seeking to return to their home world at the expense of all life on Earth. Fury escaped their clutches and appealed to Randall's newfound humanity. Cliff redirected the Collective's space shuttle toward a massive meteor they had trained toward the Earth, prevented the extinction level event that the Collective hoped to use to bring them home.

Policing Super-Humans

When the power mimicking android known as the Super-Adaptoid was in SHIELD custody, it was soon recovered by its creators in AIM. Suspecting a possible connection between the Super-Adaptoid and the Avengers newest member, the Vision, Fury assigned Jasper Sitwell with the task of taking the Vision into custody for interrogation.. Nick then paid a personal visit to the Avengers and a heated argument began between their chairman Goliath over the arrest of the Vision and with Hawkeye who was furious with SHIELD sending his girlfriend the Black Widow on missions. Fury calmed the group down explaining it was the only means to protect the group from sanctions against them by the National Security Council which had a rocky relationship with the team at the time. Nick then informed the Avengers that he had just learned that AIM was attempting to replicate the Super-Adaptoid. The construction on a small island in the Philippines went awry when an army of Adaptoids broke loose and began slaughtering the natives. With intelligence provided by Fury, the Avengers went to the island and destroyed all the Adaptoid duplicates, however the original managed to escape capture. Fury was later appraised of the Avengers victory.

Meanwhile, Fury began investigating a series of incidents where agents of SHIELD were injected with a hallucinogenic drug that killed them after six hours exposure. Fury himself soon found himself injected with the drug and struggled for his own sanity. Dum Dum and Jimmy Woo managed to rescue Fury from spies hired by a foreign nation seeking to discredit SHIELD and administer him the antidote. Fury then exposed a spy within SHIELD's ranks who was responsible for injecting his agents with the drug. Nick later met with Captain America in his civilian identity and learn of the heroes origins and some of his early exploits during the war. Fury also began putting the Black Widow through extensive training in order to prepare her for her next secret mission for SHIELD. However, Fury once again found himself dealing with the affairs of the Avengers to protect them from the NSC once again. He was shocked to learn that their "newest" member Yellowjacket was really long time member Henry Pym who had developed a new identity after a nervous breakdown. Despite his reservations, Fury allowed the Avengers to follow the advice of Agent Carpenter—a SHIELD psychiatrist—to maintain the illusion until Pym snapped out of it. Fury was then called back to SHIELD business when the Earth was threatened by Supremus a would be world conqueror who was eliminating the heads of various international security agencies with his armies of mutates. Fury tracked down Supremus to the Caves of Hercules located in Greece and eliminated his foe ruining his plans.

Soon after, the Wasp announced that she was going to marry Yellowjacket in the hopes of snapping him out of his mental state. Fury grudgingly provided security for the wedding party, which was crashed by the Circus of Crime who were looking to get revenge against the Avenger Thor Although Thor wasn't present, the Avengers made quick work of the attackers and Pym returned to normal during the attack. While Fury was occupied with the Circus of Crime, some of his agents were murdered by the Wakandan assassin known as Death Tiger. Soon Fury's faith in the Avengers was restored when the Black Panther took down Death Tiger, and the Vision incapacitate the Super-Adaptoid. When General Thaddeus Ross proved incapable of stopping the Hulk's current rampage through New York City the United States government called in Nick Fury and SHIELD to capture the jade giant. But, before Fury could arrive, the Hulk and his combatant—the creature known only as the Missing Link—were captured by Yuri Brevlov who was now running a Russian organization that was the equivalent to SHIELD. Fury and his agents followed Brevlov to Russian airspace where he found his opponent sorely outmatched against the Hulk and saved his life, but had Yuri locked up. Before Fury could capture the Hulk, the brute was teleported away by the Mandarin who hoped to use the creature to trigger nuclear conflict between China and the United States. Putting aside their differences, Fury and Yuri combined their resources to attack the Mandarin's castle. The pair were no match for the Mandarin's powerful rings, but were inadvertently rescued when the Hulk returned and destroyed the Mandarin's base of operations in retaliation for his previous enslavement. Fury and Brevlov fled in the destruction while the Hulk and Mandarin also managed to escape. When Captain America's secret identity became public knowledge, he soon became a target of Hydra and their new leader Madam Hydra. During the funeral for Cap, Fury and the Avengers were all gassed and taken prisoner by Madame Hydra and her forces. They were rescued by Captain America and his new partner Rick Jones and Madam Hydra was seemingly slain in the battle.

The Hate-Monger resurfaced shortly thereafter and sent his minions to get revenge against Nick Fury for his previous defeat. With the help of Dum Dum Dugan and Gave Jones, Fury was able to track the Hate-Monger to his secret hideout. There he stopped the Hitler clone from causing World War III with the help of Laura Brown, who had been under deep cover for months infiltrating the Hate-Monger's operations. In the ensuing firefight, the Hate-Monger was gunned down again and his island destroyed. With Laura Brown back in his life, Fury began splitting his romantic endeavors between Val and Laura. The Hate-Monger resurfaced shortly thereafter and threatened to unleash a deadly biological weapon from orbit on New York City at midnight on Christmas Eve. Fury then went on a solo mission, stealing aboard the Hate-Monger's space station. There the Hate-Monger attempted to slay Fury by dropping him with the payload of deadly virus. Fury managed to eject to safety while the missile carrying the deadly virus was completely burned up in Earth's atmosphere causing no harm. Fury later went on a date with Laura to see a band called the 1st Million Megaton Explosion. The band, as well as many young adults soon became under the thrall of a new hate-ray developed by the Hate-Monger and used from his space station. While the younger generation began rioting against old, Fury once more boarded the Hate-Monger's space station and destroyed the ray, restoring the status quo. The Hate-Monger met his apparent demise when he foolishly ejected himself out of the airlock and died in the vacuum of space.

Following his encounters with the Hate-Monger, Fury and SHIELD once more began focusing on super-humans. Learning that Dr. Doom was developing an army of Doombots, Fury sent the Fantastic Four into Latveria to investigate. The heroes managed to escape Doom's homeland after defeating their longtime foe. When Tony Stark was framed as a traitor to his country by the Mandarin, Fury and his agents began following Iron Man to learn where his employer was—unaware that Iron Man and Stark were the same person at the time—However Iron Man escaped their custody, and cleared Stark's name. Later when the mind controlling villain known as the Controller was bound for New York on a train, Fury was willing to sacrifice all the Controller's slave on board in order to prevent the villain from taking over the city. However, before this was necessary Iron Man stopped the Controller and saved his prisoner. Fury and SHIELD also monitored the situation when the Puppet Master, Mad Thinker and Egghead attempted to take over the world, but this plot was stopped by a number of Earth's heroes. When Agent Carter was once again put in danger in a battle against operatives of AIM, Fury, Captain America and Rick Jones saved her from their Walking Stiletto robot. Fury later employed Captain America's services in exposing AIM operatives who were operating from Manning University.

Assassination Attempt

Nick Fury as the Super-Patriot.

Nick soon became a wanted fugitive and hunted down by SHIELD itself when he was framed for acts of treason by Hydra through their operative Robert Rickard. On the run from his own people, Fury went to Valentina for help only to find that she had appeared to have started a relationship with Rickard while he was on the run. Suspecting that Rickard was a Hydra operative, Fury tracked him down, but accidentally killed him before he could get him to reveal the truth and he was apprehended by Dum Dum Dugan. While in SHIELD custody, Fury was placed under a Psycho-Projector by Dr. Karl Kraus another double-agent for Hydra working within SHIELD. Fury was then put through a dream simulation to test his loyalty. While still seemingly on the run from his fellow SHIELD agents, he became aware of a costumed being calling himself the Super-Patriot who was calling on the American people to tear down the United Nations. Fury stopped the Super-Patriot from destroying the UN Building in New York, and slew him in battle. When Fury unmasked his foe he was shocked to find that the Super-Patriot shared his face. Dugan was then convinced of Fury's loyalties and ordered Dr. Kraus to let Fury free and erase his memories of what happened. Dugan then monitored Fury as he went about his daily business unaware of everything that happened over the last few days. When Dugan refused Kraus' requests to further test Fury's loyalties, Kraus revealed his true identity and intentions and made a break for Nick to eliminate him. When Dugan and Jones followed after him Kraus then fled capture before he could complete his mission.

A Nick Fury LMD is assassinated by Bulls-Eye.

Fury was soon informed that Tony Stark had gone missing again while under Jasper Sitwell's watch, this time while being pursued by the armored Russian operative known as the Unicorn. While Fury and Gabriel Jones searched the site of Iron Man and the Unicron's most recent battle, the pair were away defeating their mutual foe the Red Ghost. Fury and SHIELD then captured Bruce Banner—the Hulk's alter-ego—and enlisted the aid of the X-Men's Marvel Girl to telepathically probe his mind. However when a hostile UFO was detected in the area, Fury left Banner in the care of Marvel Girl and Spider-Man while they handle that threat. By the time they were finished their mission, Banner had transformed into the Hulk and fled. Fury later took down one last group of Hydra agents under the command of their former leader Madame Hydra with the help of Iron Man and Captain America. At this time Hydra was still seeking to eliminate Fury, and hired the assassin known as Bulls-Eye to assassinate him.

Nick Fury posing as Scorpio

Unknown to Hydra at the time, Fury had discovered the existence of the Zodiac Crime Cartel, and that his "brother" was a member of it and spent time posting as Scorpio in order to infiltrate the organization. This required Fury to spend half his time in his capacity of SHIELD's director and maintaining his cover as Scorpio. Whenever Fury was absent from SHIELD, a Life-Model Decoy was used in his place. It was this Life-Model Decoy that accompanied Laura Brown on a date to see a rock concert in Central Park. Bulls-Eye completed his mission, thinking he killed the real Fury and attempted to flee, but was shot dead by Dum Dum Dugan. This allowed Fury to continue his undercover work posing as Scorpio. When Rick Jones came to Fury's home seeking to join SHIELD, Fury attacked him as Scorpio ensuring that the Avengers would band together to seek him out. When the Avengers gathered, "Scorpio" captured the heroes and brought them to the Zodiac's secret hideout. When the Avengers broke free and fought back against the Zodiac, Fury revealed his identity and helped them fight the criminal organization. However the Zodiac's leader Aries stole the Zodiac Key and used it to help himself and the rest of the Zodiac to escape.