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Eye-Patch Foreshadowing: A Masterclass

Published 2006

I was 13 when the first Iron-Man movie came out. And like I’ve said before, I didn’t have comics as a kid, I just read wiki pages for superheroes. And if they didn’t have a costume and a secret identity, I really wasn’t interested. All of these factors conspired so that Samuel L. Jackson was the first version of Nick Fury I was exposed to.

And since then, whenever I see… let’s call him “Hasselhoff Fury.” Hasselhoff Fury and Jackson Fury.

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Whenever I see Hasselhoff Fury, I’m reminded how spoiled I’ve been with Jackson Fury. I’ve read a few of the Nick Fury-centered stories from the 90s and 00s and he seems very… One-note a lot of the time.

An angry, prideful boomer. That’s always been the vibe I’ve gotten from Hasselhoff Fury. I think its why his character has been essentially phased out, even in the main Marvel timeline, and replaced with a Sam Jackson lookalike. I think Hasselhoff Fury was chained to the moon or something along those lines, we’ll get there on this journey eventually.

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Now interestingly, this is listed as being set in an alternate universe, according to the reading order. I imagine that was decided partially because this is a “Marvel Knights” mag, which was an imprint where Marvel did more violent and sexual things with their characters. For example:

And this is the real reason why this is set in another universe: it gives us Nick’s eyepatch origin story. And this is the true tragedy of comic book writers. Someone will be put in charge of an important character’s backstory, they’ll do a pretty good job with it, a ton of “fans” complain online for years, a new backstory is written, and the original writer’s work is labeled “Alternate Universe.”

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I’m thinking its in the list for characterization reasons, this is meant to give you a sense of Fury’s personality and why he’s a prick. It also gives us an important distinction about him: Nicky is a Soldier. Capital S.

Nick Fury is a military strategist and fighter. If he doesn’t get to use both of those skillsets often, he gets incredibly bored. It’s something I’ve seen visited a few times with Hasselhoff Fury. And anyone who stands in the way of his boots-on-the-ground, ragtag warfare is the enemy.

Actually that’s made me realize: no wonder he started working so closely with the Avengers and other heroes later in life, he loves a ragtag team of weirdos. The Avengers are like a dream team version of the Howling Commandos for him.

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So this does an ok job with Fury’s character, but just feels like more of the same for the 2000s era of him I’m familiar with. But oh-so-soon we’ll be in the era of the original Howling Commandos, and maybe he can finally surprise me.

Oh and here’s my favorite panel of Fury I’ve ever come across: