From the moment we saw him telling Tony Stark about the Avengers in Iron Man’s post-credits scene (which didn’t take long to shoot), Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury has been an integral character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and we aren’t done with him by a long shot. In addition to Jackson having confirmed last year that he’s shooting The Marvels, the one-eyed spy is also one of the leads in Disney+’s Secret Invasion. However, a behind-the-scenes picture Jackson recently posted has sparked speculation over Fury’s look in the upcoming streaming series.
Taking to his Instagram account, Samuel L Jackson posted a photo of himself deliberately calling out how his Nick Fury look here for Secret Invasion lacks the character’s eye patch and scar over the eye. See for yourself!
Thanks to this social media post, it seems as though there will come a time in Secret Invasion that we see Nick Fury without any kind of eye injury. Fury has rocked the eye patch ever since Goose the cat… sorry, flerken, scratched his eye during the events of Captain Marvel. So what’s the deal here? Well, two possibilities come to mind.
We’re Getting A Nick Fury Flashback In Secret Invasion
The most logical explanation is that Secret Invasion will flash back to an earlier time in Nick Fury’s life. Fury met Carol Danvers, a.k.a. Captain Marvel, in 1995, so if we are indeed getting a flashback in the Disney+ series, the best bet is it will take place during an even earlier period in Fury’s S.H.I.E.L.D. career, when both his eyes were still working properly. However, there is a possibility that the flashback could occur sometime between Captain Marvel and Iron Man.
In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, we learned how there was a time when Nick Fury was the deputy chief of a S.H.I.E.L.D. outpost in Bogotá under Alexander Pierce’s command. When members of the National Liberation Army took several hostages in the area, including Pierce’s daughter, Fury came up with a plan to free them, but Pierce wanted to negotiate instead. Fury went through with his plan anyway and was successful, and was subsequently promoted to director of S.H.I.E.LD.
A photograph of Alexander Pierce promoting Nick Fury was briefly shown in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and in it, Fury is shown with two eyes and rocking his bald and bearded look, just like Samuel L. Jackson in the Instagram picture. It’s since been clarified that the promotion took place after Captain Marvel, which is odd since towards the end of the movie, Fury seemed like he’d already decided to stick with an eye patch rather than go with a glass eye. However, maybe it took him longer than we thought to stick with the eye patch, and he popped in a glass eye first. This would mean that the Secret Invasion flashback could take place in the immediate years after Captain Marvel, whether it’s seeing the Bogotá operation or a different chapter of Fury’s life.
A Skrull Will Impersonate A Two-Eyed Nick Fury In Secret Invasion
The other possibility is the two-eyed Nick Fury we’ll see in Secret Invasion isn’t actually Fury, but instead Samuel L. Jackson playing a Skrull. Like their comic book counterparts, the Skrulls are shapeshifters, and similar to what unfolded in the same-named Marvel Comics storyline, Secret Invasion will see Fury and his Skrull ally Talos (reprised by Ben Mendelsohn) having to deal with a sect of Skrulls that have infiltrated everyday life on Earth.
The problem with the ‘Skrull looking like Fury’ theory is that this series is set in the present day. Anyone who’s remotely familiar with Nick Fury would know that something was amiss by not seeing him with the eye patch or the scar over his left eye, like in the image at the top of this article. Even if they aren’t aware of the Skrulls’ existence, red flags would be raised. There’s also the fact that Samuel L. Jackson included “Old School Fury Day” in his caption, lending more credence to the flashback idea. That’s not to say we should discount the possibility that a Skrull will impersonate Fury during Secret Invasion’s run, but for whatever Jackson was getting ready to shoot or had already shot on the day he posted that picture, I wouldn’t put money on it.
We’ll learn what's happening on when Secret Invasion drops on Disney+, the home of many other Marvel movies and Marvel TV shows. The show doesn’t have a specific premise date yet, but is expected to arrive towards the end of 2022. The main cast also includes Kingsley Ben-Adir, Olivia Colman, Emilia Clarke, Killian Scott, Christopher McDonald and Carmen Ejogo, and Thomas Bezucha and Ali Selim directed the six-episode saga.
