What Marvel should have done with "Old Nick Fury" instead.

Did you read Marvel's "Original Sin?" If not, you didn't miss as much as you might think, because this story, while written by Jason Aaron had Brian Bendis's mitts (thoughts) all over it. A story that was riddled in the past, Original Sin was all about "forgotten" (or just now being planted into history,) stories to try and make everyone a "sinner," starting with Nick Fury.

Some of these stories included Tony Stark tampering with the Gamma Bomb that made the Hulk (they also changed it to where the bomb was going to be much more devastating, and Tony secured the blast radius, thus, still being good, while not telling Banner, leading him to believe he created the Hulk), Spider-man not being the only one bit by the spider (and subsequently, 50 years of him being the only one with the burden was gone, but "Silk" was tucked away in a bomb shelter for oh so many years) and whatever Thor's was making him not worthy to wield Mjolnir, and thus, a woman becoming Thor.

This is about Nick Fury, though. What we found out here is that Nick Fury was a universe double agent, Earth's "Man on the Wall," as well as director of Shield, or was he? The big reveal, and thus, how to thrust the really awkward "Black Nick Fury" (Jr.) into the role that Sam Jackson plays in the movies, was that the serum that "White" Fury had used to keep himself young, had run out "years ago," and now he was old, had killed the Watcher, and was prepping another to take over the "Man on the Wall" position from him, as he prepared to enter the after life himself.

Did you get all that? White Nick Fury is REALLY old, Black Nick Fury is really his son, which doesn't make sense if the Nick Fury we've all seen over and over again is a decoy, and he's been a sniper for the planet Earth, taking down threats before they made it to the planet.

This was bad in so many ways. First, the same Watcher he killed only showed up upon Global Threats, like Galactus, The Beyonder, etc, so everyone knew when cosmic threats happened. Second, the Skrulls were on Earth years ago in Bendis' terrible "Secret Invasion" crossover where everyone was Skrulls, or they weren't, oh yes they were. Not to mention the Kree/Skrull war, or any of the space stories including X-Men, Avengers, StarJammers or anyone else. It just didn't make sense.

So here's what they should have done.

Nick Fury's Infinity Serum STARTS running out, and he is out of ideas about how to hold up the double life as he starts to age. Yes, we have to tinker with continuity a bit, but have him open a box and say something witty like, "I've exhausted all the other options, so how bad could this really be?" And there's an Infinity Stone in there, the REALITY stone, to be exact. We all want immortality, and this is his way. He uses the stone to transport his consciousness and memories into the most realistic Life Model Decoy ever assembled.

Everything would be fine for a while, until like anything with that much power, he begins to realize he can bend reality around his whim, and when the Watcher shows up, Fury starts to ask what the imminent danger is, and the Watcher just stares at Fury. This is when the LMD Fury would snap, killing the Watcher and toying with history. It would then take the power of the entire Marvel Universe to take him down, realizing that their greatest threat was from within, not from the outside, and finally, if they want the world the shake, the universes to start over, etc, the Reality gem would blink everything to a new world, Fury realizing he made this terrible mistake would sacrifice himself and restart everything, weaving a new world (a la Crisis) and planting the knowledge of what happened before with his son, as he would be the only Nick Fury in the new world.

Man, that could even have led to this new SECRET WAR that Marvel is planning, but what do I know? I'm only a lifelong fan that isn't big on decompression in books, who wants real things to occur, and not just meaningless deaths and additions to the past because we don't know how to write in the future.

Pass this along to anyone you think may get a kick out of it, as yes, I do have a past in writing comics and movie treatments, and this would have been better than Original Sin.

- Rob