In addition to being a Secret Invasion tie-in, these issues establish the next phase for Nick Fury. They also have AWESOME covers that pay tribute to early issues of The Avengers–and that will continue past this short story arc and across all issues of the Mighty Avengers’ Secret Invasion tie-in. This is a very fitting reference to the fact that the skrulls have supposedly been here all along.
Nick Fury is in hiding, and looks like the white Sam Jackson Fury.
Nice. The hot chick in the blonde wig doing an Emma Frost imitation is Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.
Turns out, de Fontaine is selling him out to the enemy but…Yes, of course, she’s a skrull and Nick kills her.
He then sneaks aboard a helicarrier. (Again with the easy breaks ins to a SHIELD helicarrier?? Who does the security on these things, the Keystone Kops??). Once aboard, he warns Maria Hill of the invasion and tells her to create some LMDs of herself to stay safe.
Still in flashback mode, we see that the reason he set Spider-Woman up as a double agent with SHIELD was because she was a TRIPLE agent, working for him as well.
It’s always cool to see Bendis tie together a bunch of seemingly unrelated stories through these retconny flashbacks he was so fond of back then.
From there, we get to the present and see Nick Fury assemble his new team: The Secret Warriors.
Offering a tribute to Avengers #16, which was the first big “line-up change” issue for the team, is perfect here. Nick’s Warrior team is made up of some new characters and some who we’ve seen before but who most people probably didn’t remember.
The Mighty Avengers themselves don’t appear much here, but we do get to see Ares’ son for the first time in a while….
He learns that he is the God of Fear, Phobos, and he’s one of Fury’s recruits–brought into the team by Daisy Johnson, a mutant and another recruit.
She then recruits Yo Yo Rodriguez, the daughter of The Griffin; JT Slade, who is the grandson of the original Ghost Rider; Jerry Sledge, son of a woman raped and later killed by Absorbing Man…
…and the child of Druid…
Daisy takes a Professor X-like role, approaching kids with powers and offering to train them. (She tries-and-fails to recruit Layla Miller as well.)
Once assembled, we get a “to be continued” box and…The next story isn’t about this team.
Excellent debut. We learn enough about these characters to be interested, but, as with most things Nick Fury, there’s still a lot kept secret.
English (US) · 