Battle Scars #6(of 6):
Summary: While Orion is torturing Nick Fury in order to keep him distracted long enough for Orion's telepaths to tear the info about the new SHIELD from Fury's head, Marcus Johnson is sneaking through Orion's base, stealthily taking Orion's goons down out. Orion manages to get the info he wanted out of Fury's head, but gets shot in the head by Marcus while gloating(luckily for Orion, he was wearing a helmet!). That pisses Orion off so he attacks Marcus, but that's exactly what Marcus wanted, as the building suddenly shakes with several explosions, explosions set up when Marcus sabotaged Orion's ammunition bunkers before confronting the villain. The explosions take out Orion's computers, which causes him to lose all of the information he had gotten from Fury's mind. With that, Orion has had enough and moves in to kill Marcus, at least until his friend Cheese and the Avengers(!) burst onto the scene. During the fight, Orion decides to make a break for the door, and Marcus, not wanting the man responsible for murdering his mother and turning his life upside-down to escape, lunges at Orion, affixing a grenade to Orion's chest... You can guess what happens next. Marcus, being close to the blast, ends up going unconscious, but blacks out with the satisfaction of knowing he had accomplished his mission. Some time later, Marcus wakes up in the hospital, with Nick Fury standing there. Fury tells Marcus that Marcus had two choices... Go into hiding and hope that no other villains of Fury's try to hunt him down, or get into the game himself and hunt down the scum before they came for him. With that, Fury has a quick bonding moment with Marcus, telling him that he too was an army ranger, before gracefully heading off into the sunset. As for Marcus? It turns out his birth name was actually Nicholas Fury, Jr, and the newly named Nick Fury joins up with SHIELD to carry on the family name.
Thoughts: Okay, I KNOW I'm going to take A LOT of heat for saying this(although not as much heat as I took for that Iron Man/Magneto fight... I'm STILL puzzling THAT out!), but I LOVED turning Marcus into a total rip-off of the Samuel L. Jackson version of Nick Fury(right down to his name!). Most casual fans only know Nick Fury from the movies anyway(it's only us more hardcore fans who know the LOOOONG history of the 616 Fury), so why not make the change? The fact that this mini-series was really strong helps make the change more palatable for me too. If this mini-series sucked I'm sure I wouldn't be so willing to forgive the switch, but this mini WAS really good! It made Marcus into a character I wanted to root for. He's a good guy. He does the right thing. He's likable. His history is easy to understand and isn't as convoluted as the 616 Nick Fury's. Seriously, if you would have told me 6 months ago that Marvel was going to swap out the 616 Nick Fury for the Ultimate/movie version, I'd have told you I hated the idea. But as it is, I not only like the idea, I'm extremely interested to see where Marcus pops up next and look forward to seeing him rise through the ranks of SHIELD to claim his rightful position as director.
Score: 9 out of 10.
Sweet, they even gave Marcus Cap's awesome Super-Soldier outfit!
So does this mean that actual Nick Fury just dies now and he we never see him again? Or we'll see him and he just wont be quite as awesome.
ReplyDeleteI could see Fury... um, Fury 1, popping up in a mentor-ish type of role to Fury 2. Calling him on the phone with pointers and stuff. As for never seeing him again, after Bucky and Jason Todd came back to life(two characters I thought would stay dead for sure, Bucky in particular), I'd never say never. Especially if there's REALLY stiff backlash from the fans about the change. Marvel has backed down and retconned character changes that didn't work out in the past(Mags->Joseph, Mr Sinister->Ms Sinister, Peter Parker->Ben Reilly, etc), so I could easily see them doing it again here.
ReplyDeleteHere they explain their plans for both Nick Fury's
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newsarama.com/comics/tom-brevoort-nick-fury-agent-coulson.html
Geez, they made him Nick Fury, Jr.? And, Cheese is the other guy from the Marvel movies? And, they shaved his head? Wow, that is blatant.
ReplyDeleteOh well, I will admit they made Marcus very likable before the bait and switch. He was a great underdog throughout the arc.
Sorry, Cheese is Agent Coulson.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Coulson
Wow, hard spamming this thread. Should really think what I am going to say before I write this post.
ReplyDeleteI could see Marvel making a move where they put the new Nick Fury as the head of Shield, and I could be for this. I am starting to dislike Captain America and the Avengers being seen as agents of the U.S. Government. I rather them be an independent force. The huge debate in the Vs. post makes me realize that a lot of the issues stem the Avengers' actions being representative of the U.S. Government. Instead of it being the Avengers taking out a dangerous, crazy cult (yes, I still think they are a cult) we have the U.S. government invading a sovereign nation through the Avengers.
Yup, they LITERALLY made him Nick Fury, Jr, Jermox. AND gave him the full Samuel L Jackson/Ultimate Nick Fury treatment looks wise. I'll admit, when he was shaving his head towards the end of this I both laughed and then rolled my eyes, because it was so obvious that Marvel wasn't even TRYING to hide what they were going for!
ReplyDeleteAnd I'd be all for some separation between the Avengers and SHIELD(I take it you're avoiding that AvX post too!), I always liked the idea of the Avengers as a UN sanctioned team, although the fact that they reside on US soil and usually deal with US based threats kind of muddies the waters with regards to the Avengers/US split. I will say this, I thought Marvel did a pretty good job of showing the Avengers/SHIELD as a true international force during Fear Itself. They were deployed across the globe to deal with the Serpent's antics. So yeah, while having a guy named Captain AMERICA leading SHIELD will make SHIELD look like a US force, I think Fear Itself DID try(not very successfully apparently) to show that SHIELD and the Avengers weren't only a US based force. That's something they probably should have hit upon more in the Avengers books instead of Norman Osborn, 24/7.
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ReplyDeletehttp://www.the-gutters.com/comic/288-richard-clark
Huh, if those were the choices I'd probably have gone with pirate...
ReplyDeleteLooking through Wikipedia it states that SHIELD is suppose to be an UN based team, but that different writers seem to confuse whether SHIELD answers to the US or the UN. Through a lot of CA's leadership they show CA having to answer to the president, which I rather SHIELD going back to being an international force.
ReplyDeleteAnd I might jump back into the AvX thread. I just have a short attention span and I consider conversations dead when they no longer show up on the front page. I will note that lack of paragraphs (which I am also guilty of) make reading comments painful.
Yeah, there was also a time when the Avengers answered to the UN as well, which is ideal. It kind of gets them out of US political disputes, although as long as Cap is there, they'll always look like an American team.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the lack of paragraphs can make the conversation tough to follow at times. In case you're wondering, I consider it dead, so it's probably not worth the time.
This is shit. Just because some writer liked Samuel L. Jackson in movies we turn a beloved character into Samuel L. Fury. Now that is creative thinking! Way to go Marvel! And as for "most fans only know Nick Fury from the movies anyway" I say BULLSHIT.
ReplyDeleteThe key word you missed out on when you quoted me was "casual". Most "casual" fans only know the Nick Fury from the movies. I get that a longtime Marvel reader would be pissed by this mini and the end result(and I would have been as well if the mini sucked), but I'd wager that most people who know Marvel from the movies and/or cartoons were confused by the Nick Fury they found in the comics. With the movies becoming as big as they've gotten, I can understand why Marvel wants the Fury from the screen to resemble the Fury from the comics. I'm not saying it was the right or wrong move, I'm just saying I understand why they did it and that I enjoyed the story.
ReplyDelete