Nick Fury must be a difficult character for Marvel to know what to do with. For the average Joe, Fury is the guy who founded the Avengers while looking a lot like Samuel L. Jackson. That’s not the Nicholas J. Fury you’ll encounter in most comics: Jackson’s depiction is based on a version of the character from the now-defunct “Ultimate Universe” line, an attempt to modernize Marvel for a new audience, free of decades of continuity. In fact, artist Bryan Hitch based the likeness of his Fury on Jackson long before he’d ever been cast for the Marvel Cinematic Universe!
In the main comics, meanwhile, the director of SHIELD is an old white World War II veteran who usually has little to do with the Avengers, let alone their creation. Nevertheless, the need for MCU synergy eventually reached Fury too, and the old man was retired from service while his hitherto unknown son, who looks a lot like a younger Jackson, took over as an agent of SHIELD. Before all that mess, however, “classic recipe” Fury had half a century of stories focused on him and in the SHIELD organization that he runs (if only sometimes!). There is a lot of classic material here, from the Silver Age to this past decade, most of which hasn’t yet been collected in omnibus format. So let’s change that, shall we? With the Secret Invasion Disney+ show starring Jackson’s Nick Fury coming soon, this may not just be an exercise in daydreaming. [Read more…] about Omnibussin: Nick Fury, from World War II to S.H.I.E.L.D.
is the most influential comic ever to be released. That comics wouldn’t be where they are without it, for good and for ill. But how did we get here, exactly? More to the point, just what influence did Watchmen provide to the larger world of comics? What, ultimately, is the legacy of Watchmen? Who watched the Watchmen?
and I’m joined by