This column’s boner is pulsating with righteous Fury.
Comics are a singular artform with an unlimited budget and story potential housed within the dimensions of a couple dozen pieces of paper, able to captivate the imagination and present the unbelievable, the fantastic and the mind-boggling through the skill and magic of words and artistry.
They are not movies. They are incorruptible. Or they should be.
As most know, Ultimate Nick Fury is a blatant Sam Jackson ripoff. I mean…homage. Sam Jackson then was cast as Nick Fury in the movieverse, because David Hasselhoff won the rights to all white portrayals of Fury in a game of checkers back in the ’90s.
Not a KITT to be found in that movie. Lame.
But that’s fine. Sam Jackson added some diversity, plus he’s awesome. And the movies borrowed from the Ultimate universe in many ways. And nobody can deliver a line like he can.
But that’s the movies.
Comics are not movies.
In what is referred to as the traditional 616 marvel universe, Nick Fury is a cigar chomping eye-patch wearing gray-fringed white dude. Always has been.
But now in an effort to cross-pollinate movie and comic audiences, they’re bringing in his recently contrived son…who’s conveniently a Sam Jackson look-alike, with a convenient eyepatch (Well, I don’t know if they’re convenient. I’ve never worn one. I’d imagine they chafe. And cut down on peripheral vision, and make parallel parking pretty hard) who will conveniently be taking his father’s name.
Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreally.
This all seems highly convenient, doesn’t it!
That was not a question, because this is highly convenient.
We wouldn’t want the movie-going audience to go into a comic store and be completely confused that Sam Jackson isn’t wearing an eyepatch in a comic, would we? They may freak out, and start rampaging. Shrieking as they start lighting the store on fire with spare copies of X-force # 1 that still have the little trading cards tucked inside the plastic wrapper. What will little Timmy think when he opens up a comic with his stubby chubby little fingers fresh from the movie theater, with popcorn grease still dripping from them and finds not the dude that’s cooking gazpacho and talking to Siri in that new commercial, but somebody else called Nick fury?
How will little Timmy go on?
Will he have to somehow read that there’s a difference between Ultimate universe and the regular Marvel Universe?
Will he be curious enough to learn about anything?
Will he go to Wikipedia, and learn about the rich and varied history of the source material behind the movie?
Or will he instead smack his momma and call her a faithless skank because Nick Fury doesn’t look like Mace Windu, and then swear to never read a comic again?
HIGHLY LIKELY!
And that—the possibility of skank smacking—is what concerns Marvel. So enter the brand new son: Marcus Samuel Nicholas Jackson Johnson Fury John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.
He’s wearing Steve Rogers’ old clothes. Probably wearing one of his dad’s old eyepatches. But he’s a new Nick fury for a new post-movie world. And he brought along his little pal Coulson too.
Because there’s sequels to think about, donchaknow.
As an artist and a fan I love the Nick Fury character. All forms and variations. I really hope the original 616/Earth Prime Nick is NEVER phased out of existence and supplanted by any other other form. All “Nicks” are important. I love how Kirby plugged elements of himself into Nick, Dr.Strange, and Mr.Fantastic. The grey temples and in Nick’s case the cigar chomping! Love it!:-D
Since superheroes tend to reflect their audience and their creators they tend to look Caucasian. Superman is prime example. Strange visitor from another planet who looks like a White Anglo Saxon Earthman.
It’s only logical for the period. It was the American 30’s Depression era when Kal-El was invented thus,decades before 1960’s Civil Rights movements-No Brown faces in the bullpen. It’s 2015.
The 21st century.
Many social standards have changed for the better. Some have not.
Query;
If any major iconic team was given a MAJORITY of darker skinned doppelgangers, how do you think that would be received?
Would general audiences like a “RED TAILS” type of team?
(The Tuskegee Airmen with superpowers)
Is the world ready for an ALL Black/Brown/POC(people of color) Fantastic Four or Avengers?
A fellow fan’s original premise is that one HALF ,a whole 50% of the fantastic 4 team,the twins Sue and Johnny Storm are both made Poc in the new film.
The “blacklash” from the simple progressive premise to make Johnny a black man is palpable. One could imagine what the reaction would be by simple multiplication, if they BOTH were made black.
That is only half the team. One black guy is 1/4th and not the majority.
Ps
Before someone out there starts up the whole making black characters white and reverse discrimination race card sophistry, consider that the justice and equality that superheroes champion is an idea of balance. There’s no balance in a white majority or balance in a black majority and therefore no equality or justice. There must be a majority for ALL.
Storm can be white when there are a major number of poc women heroes. (Just name 10 active female marvel poc women) [crickets]..Indeed. Then shall there be balance.There’s room for everyone in a Multiverse of infinite parallel worlds.
Yeah. I do not like that. But then I don’t like the absence of Hank and Janet Pym in the Avengers and the new Starlord sans miltary jacket and leather trenchcoat!
Obvious money grab tactic here.
Thanks for making fun of it.
Humor the most powerful infinity gem of them all.
I spoke a bunch about this in the RML3 thread in the Marvel board. SO annoying. I didn’t like seeing SLJ’s cheesy-lined (BEN-DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS!) post-credit cameo, outside of establishing the shared universe, as I saw it as the first sign that the most likely only live-action filmed versions of these classic characters would be more based in the “modernized” take in the Ultimates, another tool to try to bring in more readers. Bringing it back to the original comics, rather than just letting the two takes co-exist, side by side, as THERE ALREADY IS A BLACK, SLJ-INFLUENCED FURY IN COMICS, is kind of insulting, beyond just dumb. I don’t mind bringing in Coulson, like X-23 and Harley Quinn before him, but this new Fury Jr. is absurd. The highly-Ultimate aspects of the film-universe still take me out of it more than anything.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m super-psyched for Avengers, but with the army being who they are, Cap’s wings not sticking out in the least, and Thor not being tethered to a Midgardian alter-ego to humanize him more, and let his relationship with Jane work on another will likely continue to bug me. Don Blake as a passing reference to some jerk ex, just to be used as a cover name was dumb. Including something as an “easter egg” for the fans is dumb, when it’s important to the character, and the fans of the original source material are the ones who let these movies ever get made in the first place, as nobody heard of Iron Man prior to 4 years ago, outside of us, and now he’s a household name.
-Zach
Ugh, this is what happens when corporations think the public is stupid(-er than usual). Why couldn’t they just keep the Ultimate timeline and the classic timeline? There aren’t that many differences, in the Ultimates some characters are missing and some are Black. If anything, I would’ve expected Marvel to learn from the backlash that DC is facing and stay away from crowbarring any characters/storylines into the official storyline. The rich history of the comic universe(s) is what gives writers ample fuel to work with, expound upon and tinker with. You don’t just wash it away and pretend all that never happened. Well, I guess you do if your name is DC, and now Marvel, apparently. Smh…
Comics are an extraordinarily low commercial art form–not because they can’t be great–but because 90% of what makes it market is crap. Anyways, this rates a 2 out of 10 among the ridiculous, contrived, asinine, etc. decisions that are made in mainstream comics.
I couldn’t stop laughing when I heard about this. I love ultimate Nick Fury but this doesn’t make any damned sense. When did having one eye become hereditary?
Ninjak – If you truly have a love of superhero comics but don’t want to put up with this kind of BS, I’d recommend picking up some good creator-owned superhero titles like Invincible, Irredeemable, Savage Dragon, or Astro City.
And back to the topic at hand, yeah, this is pretty silly and seems to be an example of pandering to something that there wasn’t even a demand for in the first place.
Y not just one day/month change Nick fury to the SJ archetype and then the next month make him the classic and keep doing that for 6 or 8 months. That’d be more entertaining! Who can blame them though? They are trying to right a clear wrong in comics where black people barely existed. Certainly easier to do here than say A New Hope! I don’t begrudge them that. Be better if they just came out and said “hey, we are going to make some changes to make our books fit our world and then just did it!
Be cool if they did that 6 month thing if when he was black in the regular verse, he’d be white in the ultra verse!
Ugh. I KNEW this was going to happen eventually. I AM torn, however, because I really do like both versions of Fury an awful lot. I can’t pick a favorite between the two. Hell, The Ultimates, at least Millar’s run, is probably my favorite version of The Avengers ever.
Enough is enough! I have had it with these motherf@#&ing snakes on this motherf@#&ing Helicarrier!
That seems so contrived and ridiculous. Can’t they just let him go bald and then say he’s got re-vitiligo… you know, the opposite of whatever Micheal Jackson had? Happened to Uncle Ruckus.
totally plausible.
Niiice one Benty! A prime example of why I gave up on new comics a few years ago (right around Civil War to be exact). They have descended into mindless, gimmick fueled dreck.