As the Marvel universe has expanded over the last 20-odd years, Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury has remained a constant.
Fury was created in 1963 by the two comics legends, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, then re-imagined in 2001 with the character modeled on Jackson’s big-screen image. Jackson, 74, first claimed the role of Fury in 2008’s “Iron Man.” Wednesday’s new “Secret Invasion,” a six-episode Marvel series on Disney + about an alien invasion of planet Earth, marks the 14th time the actor has suited up for Fury.
“This is my second appearance post Snap. Nick’s kind of been gone for a while since the Snap,” Jackson, sockless in a pink suit and pink shoes, said last week of Fury’s disappearance during a virtual global press conference. “He’s been gone for a while. He’s a little tired, a little vulnerable but he’s coming back to Earth because he was summoned.”
How’s he doing?
“He’s got a bad knee now. We’ll see what happens.”
Actually, a lot happens in this “Invasion” with the Skrulls, alien shape-shifters, mounting an attack to take total control of the globe.
Marvel honcho Kevin Feige explained how the series sprung from the comics but with a difference.
“It’s a human story,” Feige, 50, emphasized. “Nick Fury is a human story. It’s putting his feet back on the ground. I liked the espionage-political thriller element. We looked back at (espionage classics) ‘The Third Man’ and ‘The Conversation’ and hoped we have enough of that to create the tone.
“At a certain point Nick Fury realizes he’s alone and then in the last episodes we switch to Nick Fury as John Wayne.”
Viewers will be surprised – and probably pleased — to discover several of Fury’s secrets in the Episode 2. Does Jackson worry that to know more is to lessen the character’s mystique?
“The more you find out about him, the more you like him. It’s about peeling the onion and having a good time,” he answered. “It was wonderful to do and have that abrasive thing happen there in relationships.”
One mightily combustible relationship here is between Nick and Olivia Colman’s Sonya Falsworth.
“There is no tension!” Jackson insisted with mock sincerity.
“I can’t think about Fury, I was excited to meet Samuel L. Jackson. It doesn’t strike me as much of a friendship, they have history,” she said. “But maybe they don’t.”
“Sonya works for MI6 and wears red and is potentially not nice. Possibly,” Jackson added, “she lives in the most dangerous corner in the UK, a dark corner nobody can access.”
And for Marvel fans, they would not have Sonya and Nick any other way.
“Secret Invasion” streams on Disney+ Wednesday
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