In Secret Invasion, Nick Fury Is Tired — Oh So Very Tired
This post contains spoilers for "Secret Invasion" episode 1.
It's been a decade and a half since Samuel L. Jackson first appeared onscreen as Nick Fury in the "Iron Man" post-credits scene. For comic book readers like Jackson, seeing him don an eyepatch and enlist Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) for the Avengers Initiative was like seeing Bryan Hitch's art from the Marvel Comics series "The Ultimates" come to life. When Jackson was thumbing through an issue of the series and saw that Hitch and writer Mark Millar had used his face without permission, it got the ball rolling on his casting in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Since then, fatigue has taken hold of Fury, just as it has with audiences and superhero movies during Phase Four and Five of the MCU. The fatigue in Fury's bones, though, comes from a different place. Being dusted at the end of "Avengers: Infinity War," then returning to life with half the universe, might have something to do with it.
Some of the earliest heroes Fury recruited, like Iron Man and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), have died the kind of death from which they won't be returning. Fury took an extended vacation aboard the S.A.B.E.R. Space Station, but dealing with death has tired the character out — Jackson told Vanity Fair — and left him in a weakened state where he's "shaken" and just coming back from being mentally "checked out."
It's something Olivia Colman's chipper MI6 agent, Sonya Falsworth, notices as well. In "Secret Invasion" episode 1, when Fury grills Falsworth about the heisted contents of a storage vault at a facility in Kazakhstan, she dresses him down with the words, "The fact that you don't know [the vault's contents] tells me all I need to know about this new, rather old Nick Fury."
Jackson walks the earth (from Pulp Fiction to the MCU)
Nick Fury has always projected a certain world-weariness, but in "Secret Invasion," he's literally weary of planet Earth. It leaves him operating at half-power as he gets caught up in another "paranoid thriller" like "Captain America: The Winter Soldier." There's a scene in episode 1 that plays like a low-key "Pulp Fiction" homage, as in "The Winter Soldier," when Fury visits his own tombstone and we see that the faux biblical quote, Ezekiel 25:17 ("The path of the righteous man..."), is the same one Samuel L. Jackson quoted in his Oscar-nominated role as Jules Winnfield.
Fury and Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) stride down a hallway, with Fury carrying a gun and Talos trailing behind him like John Travolta's fellow hitman in "Pulp Fiction." They walk in on a shapeshifting Skrull art dealer, whereupon Fury begins questioning him, much like Jules did with Frank Whaley's Big Kahuna-eating apartment dweller, Brett. Whereas "Pulp Fiction" framed Jules in a low-angle shot, making him look larger than life as he towered over the seated Brett, "Secret Invasion" has Fury plop right down in a priceless Louis XV chair and deliver all his Jules-esque lines from there.
A big exhale escapes Fury's lips as he takes a load off his feet. The man is tired, and he's willing to let Talos do the physical interrogation work. Fury's not even wearing his signature eyepatch, since it's a symbol of "the strong Nick Fury," and that ain't him anymore. Now that he's come back from space, here's hoping Nick Fury regains his strength and, like Jules Winnfield, has a chance to walk the earth a good while longer, at least before he's back in space again for "The Marvels."
"Secret Invasion" episode 1 is now streaming on Disney+.