Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. Vol 1 6

Earth (Main story and flashback)
- Earth Orbit (Main story and flashback)
  - S.H.I.E.L.D. Satellite (Destruction) (Main story and flashback)
- United States of America (Main story and flashback)
  - New York (Main story and flashback)
    - New York City (Main story and flashback)
      - Manhattan (Main story and flashback)
        Midtown (Main story and flashback)
        S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters (Main story and flashback)
        
        United Nations Headquarters
Heaven (Invoked)

Items:

Infinity Formula (Mentioned)
S.H.I.E.L.D. Uniforms

Vehicles:

S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier (Mentioned)
A.I.M. Ship (Destruction)

Synopsis for "Light of Truth"

With Nick Fury captured on board SHIELD's space station, the Deltites proceed to extract the Infinity Formula and arrange an encoding process to transfer it to themselves. The plan was to apply it first to their most advanced Deltite, Quartermain, but the Deltite creator alarms his followers by deciding to experience it himself. The ultimate encoding begins, a process that brings agony to both Fury and the Deltite as the essence is drained from the former to the latter. The Deltite suddenly demands the process halted, having experienced a revelation through the first living encoding putting him in touch with what he believes is true humanity. He has Fury released and takes him aside for a private conversation in which he reveals his origins as a simple laborer LMD that somehow followed a sense of curiosity and ambition that led him to the LMD lab where he took the place of its technician and began experimenting with combining several different personality tapes into his own while also seeking to develop a new, advanced type of organic LMD that would rapidly age to take the place of the person it replaces and gradually impose order on the world through these replacements. The part of the story that shakes Nick to the core is the revelation that it was the Deltite's own machinations in search of a stabilizing agent for his creations that saw Fury recruited as SHIELD's Director years ago. Fury eventually hears enough and tries to fight the Deltite, but soon encounters the encoding's effect of continued draining of his essence into his opponent.

Meanwhile, the captive human SHIELD agents, Madame Hydra, and other Delta candidates stage a rebellion against the Encoders spearheaded by Pierce. Quartermain can't accept his artificial nature and begins to wander the station until he finds the location of the power core. Sitwell, Rollins, and Woo attempt to reason with him, arguing that being a Deltite is better and they're as good as the real thing, but Quartermain can see how deluded they are. In a desperate move, Quartermain releases the core, causing a massive surge of radiation that begins to consume the station. The survivors eventually converge on the creator Deltite's chambers, where the Deltite muses that for all his plans as a soulless machine, human nature couldn't be conquered. He turns towards the escape pods with the plan to start anew now that he has the Infinity Formula to make him immortal, however his lover and closest confidant, who has witnessed his departure from the original plan with the most concern, declares that his creations can no longer accept him as their god and orders him excomminicated. The remaining Encoders surround the creator Deltite and vaporize him, then accepting that the reason for their existence has failed, stand aside so that their captives can use the escape pods to flee and allow themselves to be consumed by the power core's energy field. Fury lingers behind to try and convince the Deltite Quartermain, Sitwell, Rollins, and Woo to come with him to redeem themselves, but they have now all accepted that they're mere shadows of men that died and want to close the loop on themselves. With no one left to save, Fury heads for the last escape pod just before the station is annihilated, and all the remaining Deltites along with it. Outside, the pods are picked up by a ship piloted by Dum Dum and Gabe, who followed the other pods' trajectory after the Ascension Call.

Later, Fury and his remaining operatives organize the complete dissolution of SHIELD in light of the corruption it had fostered for so long.

Notes

Chronology Notes

A flashback in this story affects the chronology of the following characters:

⏴ Deltite ⏵
Deltite's lover ⏵ (First appearance chronologically)

Continuity Notes

The Deltite revealed that he was the one who selected Nick Fury as the new S.H.I.E.L.D. director; however, this has been revealed to be false in Fury #1: according to that issue, Fury was selected by Tony Stark and the U.S. President.
The Deltite's origin has been retconned in Fury #1: here it was revealed that the Deltite was an advanced Life-Model Decoy created by Arnim Zola and Baron von Strucker.
The Deltite confirms that the Deltite LMDs were only encoded with the minds of the deceased agents, meaning the original templates like James Woo, Jasper Sitwell, Laura Brown, Jack Rollins and Gail Runciter were killed behind the scenes; however this was retconned in Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Vol. 3) #43, where the original agents were found by Nick Fury in stasis, placed in the S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters' basement.

Publication Notes

This issue is reprinted in comics and books, see references for more info.^[1]

Links and References

References

↑
This issue is reprinted in the following comics/TPB's:
- Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. #1

[1] This issue is reprinted in the following comics/TPB's:
Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. #1

[2] Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. #1

[1]