Nick Fury

Nick Fury's full name is Nicholas Joseph "Nick" Fury. Nick Fury is a World War 2 army hero and present-day super-spy in the Marvel Comics Universe. It is revealed that Fury takes a special medication called the Infinity Formula that halted his aging and allows him to be active despite being nearly a century old. Fury was ranked 33rd in IGN's Top 100 Comic Book Heroes. Nick Fury's early life and wartime states that: "Nicholas Joseph Fury is the elder of three children born to Jack Fury in New York City. His father is a United States citizen who enlists in the United Kingdom's Royal Flying Corps during World War 1. Jack enlists in 1916 and is stationed in France. He reportedly shoots down Manfred von Richtofen early in his flying career, and is a highly decorated combat aviator by the end of the War in 1918. Discharged after the War, Jack returns home, marries an unnamed woman, and becomes the father of three children. Nick, probably born in the early 1910s or early 1920s, is followed by Jacob "Jake" Fury (later the supervillain Scorpio who co-founded the Zodiac cartel) And their sister, Dawn. All these children grow up in the neighborhood known as Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, New York City, New York. Nick is an amateur boxer through the Police Athletic League where he learns marksmanship. With his friends Red Hargrove, he eventually leaves the neighborhood to pursue his dreams of adventure, eventually setting on a daring wing walking and parachuting act. Their death-defying stunts while training British Commandos in 1940 catch the attention of Lieutenant Samuel "Happy Sam" Sawyer, then serving with the British Commandos, who enlists them for a special mission in the Netherlands. Nivk and Red later join the U.S Army, with Fury undergoing Basic Training under a Sergeant Bass. Nick and Rebel are stationed together at Schofield Barracks, Oahu, Hawaii when the Imperial Japanese Navy ambushes the base on December 7, 1914. Red is among the many killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor, with Fury swearing vengeance against both the Japanese and the Nazis. Sawyer, now a captain, assigns Fury command of the First Attack Squad, a unit of U.S Army Rangers, who are awarded the honorary title of Commandos by Winston Churchill after their first missions. They are nicknamed the "Howling Commandos" and stationed at a military base in the United Kingdom to fight specialized missions, primarily but not exclusively in the European Theatre of World War 2. During this period, Fury falls in love with a British nurse, Lady Pamela Hawley, who dies in a bombing raid on London before he can propose to her." Nick Fury's C.I.A story states that: "At the end of World War 2 in Europe, Fury is severely injured by a land mine in France, and is found and healed by a Berthold Sternberg, who uses him as a test subject for his Infinity Formula. After making a full recovery, Fury begins working for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), precursor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Six months into his service, he learns the extent of Sternberg's life-saving operation: the Infinity Formula has retarded his aging, but if he does not receive annual doses, he will age rapidly and die. The doctor begins a 30-year period of extorting large sums of money from Fury in exchange for the injections. Fury segues into the CIA as an espionage agent, gathering information in Korea. During this time the Howling Commandos are reformed where Fury receives a battlefield commission to lieutenant. He later reaches the rank of colonel. During this time, He recommends the recruitment of married agents Richard and Mary Parker, who will go on to become the parents of Fury's occasional superhero ally Spiderman. Much later, the CIA uses him as a liaison to various superpowered groups that have begun appearing, including the Fantastic Four. Despite Marvel's "elastic chronology", which puts the early-'60s stories as roughly only 10 years before modern-day stories, Marvel has never retconned an explanation for that chronological discrepancy, as the company has for many others. During his time with the CIA, Fury begins wearing his trademark dispatch (an issue of Sgt. Fury had revealed that he had taken shrapnel to one eye during the War, which caused him to slowly lose sight in it over the course of years)." Nick Fury's S.H.E.I.L.D. story states that: "Recruited by Tony Stark, Fury become the second commander of S.H.E.I.L.D. as its Public Director. The ultimate authority of S.H.EI.L.D. is revealed to be cabal of 12 mysterious men and women who give Fury his orders and operational structure, leaving Fury to manage the actual implementation of these orders and strategems. The identities of these people have never been revealed; they appear only as shaded figures on moniters. Initially, his organization's primary nemesis is the international terrorist organization HYDRA, created by Fury's worst enemy of World War 2, Baron Wolfgang von Strucker (after retconning of the original continuity). Under Fury, S.H.E.I.L.D. grows into one of the world's most powerful organizations, reaching covertly into national governments and forming strategic alliances with the Avengers and other superhero groups, while always maintaining independence and deniability. Fury soon becomes the superhero community's main contact when government-related information is required in order to deal with a crisis. After years at helm, Fury discovers that S.H.E.I.L.D. and HYDRA have both fallen under the control of a group of sentient Life Model Decoy androids known as Deltites. Betrayed, Fury goes to ground, hunted by his fellow agents, many of whom are later revealed to have been replaced by Deltites. Although Fury ultimately exposes and overcomes the Deltite threat, the conflict is so destructive to S.H.E.I.L.D.'s personnel and infrastructure, and leaves Fury so disillusioned, that he disbands to prevent it from again being subverted from within. Fury rebuilds S.H.E.I.L.D. from the ground up, initially as a more streamlined agency small enough for him to personally oversee and protect from being corrupted. This new information changed the acronym to stand for "Strategic Hazard Intervention, Espionage and Logistics Directorate". Sometime later, Frank Castle, the vigilante known as the Punisher, is captured and sent to a maximum-security facility with a S.H.E.I.L.D. escort. During a hypnosis session with Doc Samson, a character named Spook interrupts and has the Punisher conditioned to believe Fury is responsible for the murder of the Punisher's family. An escaped Punisher eventually kills Fury, who is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. The Fury that the Punisher has "killed" is later revealed to have been a highly advanced Life Model Decoy android. Returned to his post as S.H.E.I.L.D. director, Fury independently enlists the superheroes Captain America, Spiderman, Luke Cage, Wolverine, Daredevil, and the Black Widow to launch a covert assault on the leadership of Latveria, which is plotting a massive attack on the U.S. One year afterward, Latveria launches a counterattack that results in Fury's removal as S.H.E.I.L.D. commander, forcing him again into hiding with numerous international warrants out of his arrest. His successors as Director of S.H.E.I.L.D. are first Maria Hill and then Tony Stark. Both Hill and Stark, keeping Fury's disappearance secret from the S.H.E.I.L.D. rank and file, uses Life Model Decoys to impersonate Fury on occasion. Fury is the only "33rd-degree" S.H.E.I.L.D. officer, meaning he is the only member of S.H.E.I.L.D. present or past, to know of the existence of 28 emergency, covert bases scattered across the globe, secretly providing the Anti-Registration faction in the subsequent superhuman civil war with bases where they can rally their forces without worrying about their Pro-Registration enemies finding them." His abilities include: halted aging from the Infinity Formula, skilled and experienced solider, and skilled with many weapons and fighting techniques.