"Original Sin" is a 2014 comic book storyline published by Marvel Comics. The story features Nick Fury and the Avengers investigating the murder of Uatu the Watcher, only to suffer trauma from what they see in his eyes. They also come into conflict with a group of misled self-appointed investigators led by Black Panther and Punisher.
Publication history Writer Jason Aaron and Mike Deodato conceived the "Original Sin" storyline as one in which different heroes worked together in different investigations to find out who murdered Uatu the Watcher.
Main plot Sam Alexander, while training with Uatu the Watcher at his moon base, stumbles across Uatu's weapons storage. Sam asks about it and Uatu tells him the origin story of the Watchers. Sam learns that Uatu's father was the Watcher who originally gave nuclear technology to the Prosilicans, with Uatu's search of parallel universes being motivated by the desire to find the one world where his father's act of charity was proved to be the right thing to do. Uatu reveals that Sam's missing father, Jesse Alexander, is alive.Waid, Mark (w), Cheung, Jim; Medina, Paco Medina (p) (Various) (i). Original Sin #0 (June 2014). Marvel Comics
Later on the Moon, Uatu realizes something big is going to happen to him. Though scared, he confronts his soon-to-be-killer and tells him "I see you." With that, his base explodes. On Earth, Captain America, Wolverine, Black Widow, and Nick Fury are contacted by a panicked Thor. The group journeys to the Moon, where they discover Uatu dead, killed by gunshots to the head, his eyes missing. They deduce that the killer was a professional, and that Uatu's equipment was stolen.Aaron, Jason (w), Deodato, Mike (a). Original Sin #1 (July 2014). Marvel Comics
Fury warns that given the few people who knew of Uatu's existence and had the ability to murder him, his killer could be one of their allies, but Captain America insists on discovering the truth. In Wakanda, a shadowy source whose face is not revealed gives Black Panther various possible leads. The source tells Panther that while the trail goes in different directions, they all lead back to one: the unseen "original sin". Three teams are formed to investigate the leads: Emma Frost, Scott Lang and Black Panther go to the center of the Earth; Moon Knight, Winter Soldier, and Gamora head into deep space; and Doctor Strange and Punisher travel to another dimension. On the Moon, Black Widow removes fragments from Uatu's skull that Captain America believes may be bullet fragments. He and Fury are alerted to a battle between a Mindless One and the Thing in New York. Spider-Man arrives and observes that the creature has telepathic abilities, which the Mindless Ones typically do not have. The Mindless One screams in agony over the things he has seen and done, and kills himself with the Ultimate Nullifier. When Fury and the Avengers arrive, Fury declares the battle zone a crime scene and assumes authority over it. Elsewhere, Orb and Exterminatrix realize that they and the other Mindless Ones are evolving. Orb wants to know what is inside one of Uatu's eyes, which they have in their possession.
Panther, Frost, and Ant-Man discover a graveyard of giant monsters that Panther believes were killed by the same person who murdered Uatu. Ant-Man examines one of the creatures, and finds evidence. Meanwhile, Doctor Strange and Punisher's investigation takes them to an extradimensional realm where they discover a giant dead monster, out of whose corpse the Punisher extracts a giant, green, glowing bullet. The Avengers and their allies trace the evolved Mindless One back to Orb and Exterminatrix, and a battle ensues between the two forces, during which Orb activates Uatu's eye in order to reveal its secrets.Aaron, Jason (w), Deodato, Mike (a). Original Sin #2 (July 2014). Marvel Comics
Ant-Man reveals that the glowing green bullets are gamma-irradiated, leading Panther to conclude that the murderer has been killing large creatures for some time, and that Uatu was murdered because he observed something that compromised the murderer's activities. The Orb reveals to Fury that he was hired by Doctor Midas to break into Uatu's home, but that he did not commit the murder. Moon Knight, Gamora and Winter Soldier find the murdered hulk of a sentient planetoid, but their actions are observed by Panther's shadowy source, who tells a subordinate that they will need more gamma bullets. Winter Soldier maroons his comrades there while he teleports to another location and kills Fury, decapitating him.Aaron, Jason (w), Deodato, Mike (a). Original Sin #3 (August 2014). Marvel Comics
Doctor Strange deduces that the Panther's source, who sent them on the various trails the Avengers have been following, is the murderer himself. They find Wolverine and the Hulk with Fury's corpse at Avengers Tower, and after a brief confrontation, take the corpse and the Orb. Panther traces the signal his source used to contact him to a satellite in orbit around the Earth, where Fury's corpse is found, and where all three teams converge to confront one another. Winter Soldier reveals that the Fury he killed was a Life Model Decoy (LMD). They are then confronted by Panther's shadowy source, a real, elderly Fury, and several of his LMDs.Aaron, Jason (w), Deodato, Mike (a). Original Sin #4 (August 2014). Marvel Comics
Fury tells the heroes an account from 1958, when as a member of U.S. Army Intelligence, he fought off an invasion of alien Tribellians in Kansas. It was in that battle that he witnessed the heroic death of Woodrow McCord, who defeated the aliens before being fatally injured. When McCord's partner Howard Stark arrived on the scene, he recruited Fury to continue McCord's work as defender of Earth, single-handedly neutralizing any potential threat to the planet. Over the decades, Fury secretly fought superhuman threats, from aliens to subterranean monsters and extra-dimensional beings, as a side job to his work with the Army, the CIA, and later, S.H.I.E.L.D., one that no one at either organization ever knew about. The corpses discovered by the superhero investigators were threats that Fury had neutralized. Orb says there is more Fury has not revealed, but Orb collapses, due to his body's absorption of what he stole from Uatu.Aaron, Jason (w), Deodato, Mike (a). Original Sin #5 (September 2014). Marvel Comics
Fury reveals that he has rapidly grown elderly and is dying because the Infinity Formula in his body has been depleted. He explains that he chose each of the heroes assembled so that one of them can replace him. His refusal to answer Panther's demand for an explanation of what happened to Uatu leads to a battle between the heroes and the LMDs, during which Fury activates Uatu's eyes.Aaron, Jason (w), Deodato, Mike (a). Original Sin #6 (September 2014). Marvel Comics The Avengers try to stop Nick Fury but fail. Fury whispers something into Thor's ear during their fight and Thor becomes incapable of picking up his hammer. At the same time, Orb escapes Fury's custody just as Doctor Midas arrives.Original Sin #7
Fury confronts Doctor Midas, who is trying to acquire more power by attacking the citadel. Nick fought Midas' Mindless Ones during which fight one of the Watcher's eyes was taken from him by the Orb and was almost defeated, until the heroes chosen by Fury got to him, and also managed to get the confession from Fury that he was the one who had killed Uatu and taken the second eye. Fury had done this because when he went to aid Uatu after being attacked and robbed by the Orb and Midas, the Watcher refused to tell him the names of the culprits, as it was against the Watchers' oath of non-interference. Fury had realized the eyes were where Uatu kept what he had seen, and that the only way to know the identities of the criminals before they did something with Uatu's armory was to kill Uatu and take his remaining eye. Fury then confronted Midas, who was becoming more powerful by absorbing the powers from Uatu's corpse. By forcing Midas to absorb the power of the Watcher's eye, Fury overloads him and kills the villain in an explosion, which also seemingly kills Fury. The Avengers arrive, but find nothing. After the Avengers leave the Moon, Fury reveals himself to be alive and to have absorbed Uatu's powers. Because of this, he has become the new watcher of Earth, called The Unseen. Meanwhile, the Winter Soldier takes the mantle of the "Man on the Wall".Original Sin #8
Tie-ins
The Amazing Spider-Man #4–5 At Parker Industries, Peter Parker (a.k.a. Spider-Man) is summoned by the Avengers. Hoping to rehabilitate his reputation after it was damaged during the period when his body was occupied by Doctor Octopus' mind, he goes to assist in their battle with the Mindless Ones. When he arrives there, the Orb activates the gouged-out eye of Uatu, causing everyone present to instantly attain heretofore hidden knowledge about their lives, Spider-Man sees that the spider whose bite granted him his superhuman abilities had also bitten a girl named Cindy Moon. Unable to control her powers, Ezekiel Sims convinced her parents to allow him to take her into his custody. Seeing that her mastery over her powers was growing "too fast", Sims placed her inside a sealed vault. Spider-Man departs the battle scene to search for Moon. He recalls Madame Web's prior statement to him (during the 2011 "Spider-Island" storyline) that someone would take his place if he chose not to continue being Spider-Man. He also recalls the hideout that Sims offered to him to hide from Morlun (during the 2005–2006 storyline "The Other"). Although Sims told him that he made the room years before he knew Spider-Man's identity, Spider-Man realizes that Sims knew his secret from the outset, and that the vault in which Moon has been imprisoned was built for him as well. Spider-Man frees Moon, an event that causes Morlun, residing far away, to sense her presence. Moon fashions a costume out of her spider webbing, takes the name Silk, and leaves the facility. She angrily informs Spider-Man that opening the vault will alert Morlun, and after Spider-Man tells her that he has come back from the dead at least once, she realizes Morlun could be at large. Despite her anger at Spider-Man's flippant attitude toward the danger they are both in, the two superhumans find themselves in a romantic embrace. Meanwhile, Black Cat kidnaps Sajani Jaffrey, Parker's partner at Parker Industries.Slott, Dan (w), Ramos, Humberto (p), Olazaba, Victor (i). The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 3 #4 (September 2014) Marvel Comics