Nick Fury: Where Do I Start?

He’s been everything from soldier to spy, but in all of that Nick Fury has remained one thing: elusive. IGN has ranked him 33^rd in a list of top comic book heroes of all time, and he’s arguably be more if some of the missions that’s been kept classified were ever discovered.

Nick Fury first saw the light of day in 1963 as a cigar-chompin’ head of a WW2-era special forces unit called the Howling Commandos. At the same time his 1940s adventures were being told in one comic, Marvel fast-forwarded to the then-modern day of the 1960s and showed Nick Fury trading in his war-time fatigues for the spy trade, first as a CIA agent, and later as head of the espionage agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D. Using a derivative of the Super Soldier serum called the Infinity Formula, Fury’s prolonged his age and is one of the few years who operated both in the WW2 era of Marvel and the present day, uninterrupted.

While Nick Fury’s been a part of the Marvel U for over forty years, it wasn’t until the early 2000s that he and S.H.I.E.L.D. was repositioned as a key catalyst for the hero world at large. In the advent of Bendis on Avengers and the Ultimate & Marvel Cinematic Universe, Fury has become a, if not the, lynchpin for all things super in the 20^th and 21^st century. With Samuel L. Jackson set to reprise his role of Nick Fury in this week’s Captain America: The First Avenger and the finale of his comic series Secret Warriors due in weeks, we pulled the file to give you the five books you need to read to know Nick Fury.

Nick Fury Vs. S.H.I.E.L.D.: Although Nick Fury is synonymous with the organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D., he’s found himself on opposing sides with his creation on a number of occasions including recent years. But this 1988 gem does it best, with Fury taking on corruption inside the organization by going underground and disassembling it one by one. Fury pulls no punches even when it comes to long-time friends inside the organization, making this brutal Bond-esque story a classic for fans of Nick Fury.  The book, created by writer Bob Harras and artist Paul Neary, Marvel is putting out a new edition of this come December, but if you can’t wait then you can track down the original six issues from 1988 or a collection done in 1991.

Marvel Masterworks: Nick Fury & His Howling Commandos, Vol. 1: Although best known these days as a spymaster in the Marvel U, Nick Fury first began life as a swift-talking soldier on the front lines against the Nazis in World War II. This volume collects his earliest stories by creators Lee and Kirby, and shows Fury and his long-time friends Dum Dum Dugan and others go up against Nazis, the Third Reich and Hitler himself. If you enjoyed the war-time scenes in Captain America: The First Avenger, they owe themselves more to these stories than Cap’s own adventures.

Secret Warriors, Vol. 1: Nick Fury, Agent of Nothing: Although his name’s not in the title, writer Jonathan Hickman has said numerous times that Secret Warriors is little more than a defacto Fury book – and he’s not wrong. It’s Fury leading a post-SHIELD group of covert ops teams against H.Y.D.R.A. and a new organization called Leviathan. Crosses and double-crosses abound, and through it all Fury weathers the storms and finds way to get the odds on his side.

Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Although Fury was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, it’s writer/artist Jim Steranko whose name will forever be identified with the eye-patched spy. Steranko came onto Nick Fury’s adventures in the late 60s as a relative unknown, and left as one of the top stars in comics. His mod-meets-espionage work brought in influences of psychadelia, op art and the current crop of spy movies associated with James Bond. Steranko put Fury into one-man onslaughts on HYDRA and battles with the Yellow Claw, and gave the old war-horse a new lease on life as cutting edge before there was cutting edge.

Fury MAX: Make no doubt about it, this is a different shade of Nick Fury than you’ve seen in comics or movies, but it’s still Nick Fury. Epic Preacher and Punisher MAX writer Garth Ennis tells the story of a modern-day Nick Fury as a cold war dinosaur who pines for ‘the good old days”. Years ago he left S.H.I.E.L.D. behind in disgust, and he’s only coaxed out of his cave by a chance to for one last mission that turns out to be more than just nostalgia when the bodies start dropping. This team-up between Ennis and artist Darick Robertson presages The Boys by years, but their quality here is still high. Robertson in particular knows how to mix the vicious with the darkly hilarious in this off-beat war story.