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Quote1 You must'a been born under the sign of the band-aid! Quote2
Nick Fury

Appearing in "Who Is Scorpio?"

Reprint of the 1st story from
Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #1

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

Other Characters:

Races and Species:

Locations:

Items:

Vehicles:

  • Rocket Sled (First appearance)

Synopsis for "Who Is Scorpio?"

Reprint of the 1st story from
Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #1
Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD Vol 1 1 012-013

Nick Fury climbs up the side of a mysterious building while waves crash against the rocks below. Upon reaching the top he gains access to the building and drops inside. He burns his way through a door, and takes out a hapless guard with high-tech armor and weapons. As he pauses to figure out how to get through a sophisticated door, a mysterious figure rises out of the floor behind him, armed with a pistol. Before Nick Fury even knows his assailant is there, shots ring out and Fury collapses! The figure removes its mask...

...only to reveal Nick Fury! Speaking through a walkie-talkie, Fury tells Dugan that the Life-Model Decoy they were testing will never replace real agents in the field. Dugan makes an offhand comment about how Fury got the LMD four times, but Fury objects that he only shot three bullets! Putting 2 and 2 together, Nick realizes someone just tried to assassinate him! He also finds a mysterious poker-chip sized disk with the symbol of the astrological sign Scorpio on it, and wonders if the mysterious assailant is connected to it.

The scene switches to a nightclub in San Francisco, where lackluster comedian Flip Mason finishes up his show. He asks the manager for another advance, but gets turned down. Turns out the comedian has a gambling habit, and he needs the money to pay off a man named Hackett, a man whose thugs are waiting for him.

In Kansas City, Mitch Hackett, a woman, and another man named Lester are in an executive suite. They're getting ready to head to Vegas on a job. Mitch brags he's going right to the top with the Syndicate!

In New York City, Nick Fury and Val take a stroll, and he tells her about the Scorpio token he found. He begs off further walking as it starts to pour, claiming he has to get back to HQ.

Elsewhere yet again, race cars are zooming around the track in the Monza Autodrome. A car with a Lamborghini engine wins, driven by one Count Julio Scarlotti. While he holds up the trophy triumphantly, a Scorpio tattoo can be seen on his arm.

Several days later, S.H.I.E.L.D. is testing weapons in the Nevada Desert using Nick Fury as the dummy! The first test of the EPB G-System[1] goes off without a hitch, and they prepare to hit it with something bigger. However, as Dugan gives the command we see the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent has a Scorpio tattoo!

Out on the testing range, Fury is kicking back and thinking while he waits for the missile to impact. All of the intelligence agencies have completely different rumors about Scorpio, and no idea who he is! Suddenly, Nick Fury notices a breeze—which can only mean the EPB has been turned off! He tries to radio Dugan, but the line is now dead on their end. Knowing he has to get outside the blast radius, some quick thinking leads to him radio S.H.I.E.L.D. unit 2 for a rocket-sled that runs on a track near him, and tells them to get it started in exactly ten minutes. Then he starts running towards the tracks, having a little over two miles to cover, and jumps on as it starts taking off, praying that it'll get him outside the blast radius.

Back in the Las Vegas S.H.I.E.L.D. bunker which Dugan and the others occupy, a mysterious figure mentally congratulates himself on the efficacy of his "sleep fumes." Suddenly, Fury crashes the rocket-sled through the wall to find the mysterious figure is none other than ... Scorpio! Fury is ready to rumble, but then Scorpio pulls out the Zodiac Key! Fury grabs Val and starts to make a run for it.

At that moment in a Las Vegas casino, Flip Mason has exhausted the last of his money gambling. Almost shaking, he resolves that he has no choice now but to hold up the casino! Suddenly, a man calls him over, thinking he's Hackett! The man hands Flip a briefcase that he claims has $200,000, and Flip leaves just as Mitch Hackett enters. Mitch asks the guy about the money, and he tells him he gave it to him two minutes ago. He's also trying to figure out if Mitch realized he was set up and figured out the briefcase was a bomb! However, Mitch, suspecting a double-cross, draws and fires at the guy as the guy also goes for his weapon.

Back in the S.H.I.E.L.D. bunker, Fury returns to battle Scorpio after making sure Val is safe. He's unprepared for the power of the Zodiac Key however, and Scorpio stuns him with a blast from it. Scorpio triumphantly announces his intention to kill Nick, but Nick isn't nearly as out of it as he seems, and a hand-to-hand battle ensues.

Nearby, the two mobsters are having a running gunfight which has gotten dangerously close to the S.H.I.E.L.D. research labs. Inside, Fury is about to unmask Scorpio when a stray bullet catches him. Scorpio seizes the upper hand and knocks Nick unconscious before escaping to his ship, promising to destroy the building and all inside. Outside, Hackett is fatally shot by his assailant, but he manages to squeeze off one more shot as he collapses. It goes horribly wide, however, and hits the flying ship above him in a critical spot! Spiraling out of control, the ship plunges nose-first into the desert. Val and Fury look on helplessly, sure that Scorpio must have perished in the crash—and still they don't know who he is.

Nearby, Flip Mason is placing a call to San Francisco to tell his wife about the money and thinking happy thoughts about how the conversation will go, when suddenly the suitcase bomb detonates and utterly destroys the phone booth and the man inside.

Appearing in "So Shall Ye Reap Death!"

Reprint of the 1st story from
Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #2

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

Other Characters:

  • Sam Hill (Invoked)
  • Suwan (Mentioned) (Robot) (Destroyed)
  • FBI (Mentioned in narration)
  • Yahweh (Mentioned in narration)

Races and Species:

Locations:

Items:

  • Hydro-Capsule (First appearance)
  • A.R.C. (Automated Rebirth Colonizer) (First appearance; destruction)
  • T-Viewer (First appearance)
  • Evolution Ray (First appearance)

Vehicles:

Synopsis for "So Shall Ye Reap Death!"

Reprint of the 1st story from
Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #2
Jimmy Woo heads into a circus funhouse - but things are not quite what they appear. The funhouse is actually a series of death traps, but Jimmy Woo is up to the challenge. After many harrowing escapes and near misses, he emerges to find three men waiting for him - Clay Quartermain, Dum-Dum Dugan and Nick Fury! Jimmy has just passed the final test for acceptance as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., though Dugan is still worried about the history between Fury and Woo.

The next day Jimmy and Nick are flying to the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier when suddenly a strange beam knocks their plane into a spin. Fury ejects Jimmy, but stays with the plane to try and pull it out, only to be forcibly removed by a bizarre insectoid alien creature moments before the plane crashes.

Soon, Fury is greeted by the master of the creature, a humanoid who goes by the name Centurius. While claiming peaceful intentions, the man has his servants remove Fury's weapon, but Fury is none too happy about the loss of his plane or the weird circumstances involved. Suddenly, Jimmy Woo also enters the room, and reveals that he was grabbed by a strange creature as well. At this point Nick and Jimmy are anxious to hear what Centurius has to say for himself.

Centurius, disgusted by human greed, and ridiculed by other scientists for his theory that life "evolved from internuclear space", set about creating this lab to develop an "evolution process". His process quickly produced many species, some of which were totally alien and some of which were much like prehistoric creatures. Centurius is then beaming pairs of these creatures into his Automated Rebirth Colonizer (ARC), which is in orbit around the Earth. Fury tells him that the world would be thrilled to hear of these discoveries, but Centurius reveals one final detail - he's going to wipe out life on Earth with 40 days and nights of powerful radiation, and then recolonize it with the ARC. Centurius claims it'll be the end of intimidation, fear, and the threat of mass murder on Earth. As he removes his helmet, Jimmy Woo recognizes him as Nobel Laureate Noah Black, who had disappeared back in the 1930's.

Noah Black turns his attention back to his experiments, but Fury and Woo have an obvious philosophical disagreement with the doctor, and agree he needs to be stopped. Fury escapes the compound looking for help, while Jimmy remains to cause mischief.

Elsewhere on the island, a film crew is shooting on location for a motion picture. P.D.Q. Werner is shooting a King Kong movie on location, but his leads (Brad and Tiffany) seem to have no chemistry whatsoever. Turns out they've done a lot of work together, and this is routine for them.

Their bickering ends when they see in the distance Nick Fury fall into a puddle of quicksand, and what appears to be a dinosaur bearing down on him. The movie makers quickly move into action, first with a smoke charge to distract the dinosaur and then Brad himself swinging from a vine Tarzan-style and grabbing Fury out of the quicksand pit. Fury explains the situation to them, and they agree to help. Using their special effects wizardry and giant King Kong robot, they go to war with the very real monsters on the island, while Fury works his way back to where Jimmy Woo and Centurius are fighting.

Fury discreetly works his way inside Centurius's lab disguised as one of his servants, and then the battle is on. When Centurius realizes he cannot defeat the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and that everything he's worked for will go to waste, he uses the same evolution ray that has kept him young all these years to, as Woo describes it, "completing the evolutionary cycle... turning back into a handful of protoplasmic slime!" As this happens, the ARC suddenly descends back down towards the island, but Fury, Woo and the movie makers are safely aboard a boat just in time to avoid the inevitable explosion.

Appearing in "Today Earth Died!"

Reprint of the 2nd story from
Strange Tales #168

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

  • Vaengr (Dream) (First appearance)

Other Characters:

Races and Species:

Locations:

Items:

  • Warp-Vest (Mentioned in narration)
  • Prism of Miracles (Dream) (First appearance)
  • Mold Coccoon Pellet (Dream) (First appearance)

Vehicles:

Synopsis for "Today Earth Died!"

Reprint of the 2nd story from
Strange Tales #168
In this surreal story, Nick Fury appears to dream that a gold skinned alien lands in New York and no one is able to stop him from annihilating the earth, or was this a strange premonition of things to come?

Solicit Synopsis

This first issue, collector's item represents some of the best of Jim Steranko's legendary work on the Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. series! If you missed these classic tales the first time around or would like to see them reproduced on high-quality Baxter paper, then this special, direct sales only edition is for you!

See Also

Links and References

References

  1. Entrope Phase Barrier Guard-System. Aren't you sorry you asked?
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