Sunday, May 5, 2019

Sgt. Fury and The Unknown Soldier



When did Nick Fury lose his eye in the comics?  I'm sure the story has been told but I forget where.  What about the new comic book Fury that looks like Samuel L. Jackson?  However it happened for either version of the character, it has to be better than "a cat scratched it" like we got on the big screen.  I guess that moment was supposed to be funny, but I was just kind of annoyed that that was the best they could come up with.

12 comments:

Jarrod Buttery said...

I think it was Sgt Fury #27 (Feb. 1966). WWII grenade injury, I think...

Carycomic said...

Jarrod is right. As for the SLJ doppleganger in the comics? He started out as Caucasian Nick's African-American counterpart in the Ultimate Marvel-verse. But, post-Doom-as-God-of-Battleword, the former has been ret-conned as Caucasian Nick's long-lost son!

Anonymous said...

Great cover. Make it a two parter with The Haunted Tank rolling in to save the day!

Slarti said...

Not exactly. Yes, the original SLJ-looking Nick Fury was in the Ultimate Marvel universe (from which the MCU borrowed a lot of stuff), but the 616 version -- Nick Fury, Jr. -- predates the "Secret Wars" convergence of Ultimate and 616 Earths by a few years, and is actually positioned as a follow-up to the "Fear Itself" event rather than any sort of retcon involving the Ultimate universe.

However, yes, Nick Fury, Jr. is introduced in 2011-2012's "Battle Scars" mini-series as "Marcus Johnson", an Army Ranger who, after his mother dies, finds out that his father is Old Nick Fury, that his mother was ex-CIA and "disappeared" into a normal civilian life with "Marcus" (whose real legal birth name is "Nick Fury, Jr.") so they wouldn't be in danger from people knowing that they were associated with Fury.

His mother's death is revealed to be part of a plot by Orion, head of Leviathan, to get "Marcus" so he can restore his youth using the Infinity Formula that "Marcus" has inherited from his father. His losing an eye is literally because Orion looks at him, says he doesn't see the resemblance, and has a henchman cut out an eye, so possibly even more stupid than "flerken scratch".

David Welsh said...

Jarrod's right. That was the issue. Fury caught a grenade but couldn't throw it away fast enough to avoid the shrapnel and it got in his eye. He put a quick patch on it and stayed behind to lay down cover fire to get his men to safety before getting out himself. He got medical attention, but too late to save his eye.

Bob Greenwade said...

Like Jarrod said, it was a shrapnel injury for the 616 (main Marvel Universe) Fury -- originally World War II, later retconned to Vietnam, and I'm not sure what it is/would be now (Desert Storm?).

I'm not clear on when it happened for 1610 (Ultimate Universe), and I'm not sure that it was ever revealed.

As for the 199999 (MCU) Fury, it wasn't a cat scratch, but a Flerken. The two species are externally indistinguishable, but there's a quite significant difference, as several Kree warriors experienced firsthand.

Count Petofi said...

It was a shrapnel injury during WWII but he didn't immediately loose the eye. If I recall correctly, without having to dig through my old comics, Fury was told he would eventually loose it and needed surgery to save it but that would mean a long recovery away from the war - so he declined.

Aaron Ramos said...

I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt that way about that scene

Simreeve said...

Wasn't the grenade incident retconned at one stage as having happened during the mission which led to Fury being given the longevity potion (which itself was an attempt at re-creating the 'super-soldier' formula)?

Carycomic said...

Depends on when he got drafted as Uatu's replacement. Before or after Dr. Doom appointed himself as god of Battleworld (discourtesy of the Cosmic Cube).

Brother Kellymatthew said...

"And they still come to the pool." The Pool (DC Comics short story)

Anonymous said...

"Dang! I thought that was about me."
---Deadpool.

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