Nick Fury has always been the MCU’s man with the plan. Always several steps ahead of the guy who thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room, Samuel L. Jackson‘s old spy has seen it and done it all. By the time the Chitauri invaded Earth in 2012’s The Avengers, ol’ Nick was already a seasoned veteran of alien affairs, having dealt with the Kree-Skrull War in the 1990s-set Captain Marvel. Next up for Fury is an alien invasion of a different kind in the Marvel Studios Disney Plus streaming series Secret Invasion and it’s set to show MCU audiences a whole new side of Fury.
Secret Invasion will see Fury faced with his inability to keep a promise he made to the group of Skrull refugees he set out to help find a new home world nearly 30 years prior. As series co-star Emilia Clarke said, Fury “promised a lot of stuff a long time ago, and not a lot has happened. So understandably, a certain amount of resentment has been built.” According to Jackson, that Fury is not the same man featured in Secret Invasion. “Here you have a guy who’s showing his face, and showing his age,” said Jackson in a new interview with Empire, adding “It’s an opportunity to humanize someone that everybody thinks is superhuman.“
In Marvel Studios’ new series “Secret Invasion,” set in the present day MCU, Nick Fury learns of a clandestine invasion of Earth by a faction of shapeshifting Skrulls. Fury joins his allies, including Everett Ross, Maria Hill and the Skrull Talos, who has made a life for himself on Earth. Together they race against time to thwart an imminent Skrull invasion and save humanity.
Official synopsis of Marvel Studios Secret Invasion
As opposed to the comic book event from which it takes its name, Marvel Studios Secret Invasion is anything but a superhero cameo fest. That’s by design, according to executive producer Jonathan Schwartz, who wanted to take the focus off the MCU’s godlike icons and place it on the shoulders of its mere mortals. “One of the things we really wanted to bring to this show that makes it a little bit unique in the Marvel universe is vulnerability,” explained Schwartz and that means putting characters like Fury, Maria Hill, Everett Ross and newcomer Olivia Colman‘s Sonya Falsworth at the center of the show’s action. “Nick Fury is just a human, Maria Hill is just a human. A single bullet could take them out. That’s something we don’t always get in the MCU. To bring that level of tension, fear and vulnerability into one of our shows was really exciting,” said Schwartz.
And so when audiences reconnect with Fury at the beginning of the series, gone is the eye patch and trenchcoat so long associated with the character. “All those things are part of a Nick Fury that’s invulnerable,” Jackson explained and Secret Invasion is more about peeling back the layers of who Fury is…and who he has been behind all the secrets. “It’s great to have an opportunity to find out who he was and delve into how much of a toll his job actually takes on his personal life,” said Jackson adding that the new spin on the character has given him a renewed interest in continuing to portray the character, “I love playing him, and I love the fact that they’re opening him up to all these other possibilities and this whole life that he has.” With Secret Invasion hitting Disney Plus in just over a month, audiences will get to find out just what that life has been and what the cost of it might be.
Sources: Empire, Vanity Fair
