Nicholas Joseph Fury is a fictional character portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) media franchise, based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. Fury is depicted as the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., and enacts the Avengers Initiative after encountering Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers and the Skrulls, while also learning of extraterrestrial threats such as the Kree.
Fury assists his assembled team as they battle a range of threats, including Loki, the Winter Soldier, and Ultron. He later assists Captain America in taking down S.H.I.E.L.D., after it is found to be compromised by the terrorist organisation Hydra. He fakes his death and hands over directorship to a resurrected Agent Phil Coulson. After falling victim to the Blip and being restored to life, Fury dedicates his time to developing the aerospace defense space station, S.A.B.E.R. He is later called back to Earth to stop an invasion of rogue Skrulls, before returning to S.A.B.E.R. Fury and S.A.B.E.R. then investigate an outer space anomaly with S.A.B.E.R. agent Monica Rambeau, Danvers, and the young vigilante Kamala Khan, and they work together to defeat the Kree Supremor Dar-Benn.
Prior to the formation of the MCU, Marvel Comics incorporated Jackson's likeness into the reimagined design of the character for The Ultimates (2002). , Jackson has gone on to portray Fury in twelve MCU films, beginning with an appearance in the post-credits scene of Iron Man (2008). He also appeared in two episodes of the television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013–2014) and starred as the protagonist of the Disney+ miniseries Secret Invasion (2023). Alternate versions of the character appear in the Disney+ animated series What If...? (2021–2024), with Jackson reprising the role. Jackson has received critical and fan acclaim for his role.
Concept, creation, and characterization
Fury originally appeared in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer/artist Jack Kirby and writer Stan Lee, Fury first appeared in Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos No. 1 (May 1963), a World War II combat series that portrayed the cigar-chomping Fury as leader of an elite U.S. Army unit. In 1998, David Hasselhoff portrayed Fury in the Fox television movie Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., which was intended to be a backdoor pilot for a possible new TV series, which did not materialize.John Kenneth Muir, The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film and television, 2d ed. (2008), p. 407. In 2002, Marvel Comics designed their "Ultimate" version of the character Nick Fury after the likeness of Samuel L. Jackson. However, Marvel Studios initially discussed a potential film role with George Clooney, who turned it down after reviewing some of the comic book source material and finding Fury to be too violent of a character. According to the audio commentary of the 2007 film Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, director Tim Story said the script originally contained Nick Fury, but the role eventually became that of General Hager (played by Andre Braugher), as having Fury would have forced 20th Century Fox to purchase the rights to that character.
In the mid-2000s, Kevin Feige realized that Marvel still owned the rights to the core characters, which included Fury. Feige, a self-professed "fanboy", envisioned creating a shared universe just as creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had done with their comic books in the early 1960s. In 2004, David Maisel was hired as chief operating officer of Marvel Studios as he had a plan for the studio to self-finance movies. Marvel entered into a non-recourse debt structure with Merrill Lynch, under which Marvel got $525million to make a maximum of 10 movies based on the company's properties over eight years, collateralized by certain movie rights to a total of 10 characters, including Nick Fury.
Jackson was then offered the role, initially signing a nine-film contract with Marvel to portray Nick Fury in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In 2019, Jackson confirmed that, while that year's Captain Marvel marked the end of his nine-film contract with Marvel, he would continue to portray Fury in future films. Jackson thereafter appeared in a cameo in Avengers: Endgame, and in a substantial role in Spider-Man: Far From Home.
The MCU version of Nick Fury jettisoned a number of details from the original comic book version. Aside from the original Nick Fury character being white in the primary Marvel Comics multiverse Earth-616 (the multiverse in which he would have a mixed race son named Nick Fury Jr instead), the original comic book Nick Fury was a World War II veteran who knew Captain America and led the Howling Commandos; losing sight in his left eye during a grenade attack in that war. In both the original comic book and the Ultimate Marvel versions, Fury was able to remain active many decades after the war because he aged unnaturally slowly due to regular doses of an Infinity Formula. A popular character over a number of decades, in 2011, Fury was ranked 33rd in IGN's "Top 100 Comic Book Heroes", and 32nd in their list of "The Top 50 Avengers". He has sometimes been considered an antihero.
Fictional character biography Early life at S.H.I.E.L.D.
Nicholas Joseph Fury was born in Huntsville, Alabama on July 4, 1950. He joined the United States Army after graduating from high school, eventually becoming a Colonel. He later left the army to join the Central Intelligence Agency, where he served as a spy during the Cold War. He was eventually recruited to the covert espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D.
In 1995, Kree Empire Starforce member Vers crash-lands in Los Angeles, drawing S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Fury and Phil Coulson to investigate. In an ensuing Skrull attack, Fury kills a Skrull impersonating Coulson. Skrull commander Talos, disguised as Fury's boss Keller, orders Fury to work with Vers and keep tabs on her. Vers, escaping capture by the Skrull, uses memories they have extracted to bring Fury to the Project Pegasus installation at a U.S. Air Force base. They discover Vers was Carol Danvers, a pilot presumed to have died in 1989 while testing an experimental jet engine designed by Dr. Wendy Lawson, whom Vers recognizes as a woman from her nightmares. They then encounter Lawson's cat, Goose. Fury then informs S.H.I.E.L.D. of their location and a team led by Talos disguised as Keller arrives. Fury discovers Talos's ruse and helps Danvers escape in a Quadjet with Goose. They fly to Louisiana to meet former pilot Maria Rambeau, the last person to see Danvers and Lawson alive. They also meet her daughter, Monica. Later, Danvers, Talos, Fury, Goose, and Rambeau locate Lawson's cloaked laboratory orbiting Earth, where Lawson hid several Skrulls, including Talos's family, Soren and G'iah, and the Tesseract, the power source of Lawson's engine. Danvers is captured by Starforce, and in the subsequent fight, Fury retrieves Goose, who is revealed to be an alien Flerken. Goose swallows the Tesseract and while on a spaceship over the Mojave Desert, scratches Fury's face, blinding his left eye. Danvers departs to help the Skrulls find a new homeworld, leaving Fury a modified pager to contact her in an emergency. Meanwhile, Fury adopts Goose and drafts an initiative to locate heroes like Danvers, naming it after her Air Force call sign, "Avenger".
In 1997, Fury meets with the Skrulls again on Earth after he and Danvers are unable to find a home for them. He and Talos hold a meeting with Soren, G'iah, and other Skrull refugees including Varra, who introduces him to Gravik. He tells them he and Danvers will keep their promise in finding them a home if they help to protect Earth in the meantime.
In 1998, Fury goes to New York City and meets in a restaurant with Varra, who has assumed the appearance of a human named Priscilla, where she discloses top secret information about the Red Room. At some point thereafter, Fury marries Priscilla.
Later, Fury became the Deputy Chief of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Bogotá station, where he "proved his leadership mettle" by engineering the rescue of hostages captured by Colombian rebels at the country's embassy, including the daughter of then-S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Alexander Pierce, prompting Pierce to make him director of S.H.I.E.L.D., while Pierce joined the World Security Council.
Assembling the Avengers
In 2010, Fury visits Tony Stark in his Malibu home and recruits him into the "Avengers Initiative".
Six months later in 2011, Fury approaches Stark at Randy's Donuts, revealing that Stark's recently acquired new assistant "Natalie Rushman" is S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Natasha Romanoff and that his father Howard was a S.H.I.E.L.D. founder whom Fury knew personally. Fury explains that Vanko's father Anton and Howard invented the arc reactor together, but when Anton tried to sell it, Howard had him deported. Fury gives Stark some of his father's old material, enabling Stark to synthesize a new element for his arc reactor that ends his palladium dependency. Later, Fury informs Stark that because of his difficult personality, S.H.I.E.L.D. intends to use him only as a consultant.
In 2012, Fury enlists Dr. Erik Selvig to study the Tesseract.
In New York City, he oversees the reintroduction of Steve Rogers into society.
Fury is present with his colleague and friend, Maria Hill, at the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility when Loki arrives to steal the Tesseract and take control of Agent Clint Barton and Selvig. Fury recruits Rogers, and sends Romanoff to recruit Bruce Banner, while Coulson recruits Stark, to help Barton and fight Loki. Later, Fury uses Coulson's death to motivate the Avengers, now including Thor, to work as a team, leading to their stand against Loki and the invading Chitauri army in New York City. When the World Security Council authorizes the nuclear bombing of the city to defeat the invasion, Fury uses a rocket launcher to take out one of the two jets launching for that mission, but is too late to stop the second, which fires a missile that is intercepted by Stark.
After Loki's defeat, Fury authorizes the use of alien technology to resurrect Coulson from death and, in response to the invasion, convinces the Council that the world needs "a quantum surge in threat analysis".
Fighting Hydra and Ultron