This article contains spoilers for Fantastic Four #25, featuring a bonus story by Paco Medina and Marcio Menyz.
Marvel Comics has brought back the original Nick Fury. To most moviegoers, Fury is Samuel L. Jackson, the coolest mother****** in the MCU. Surprisingly, this portrayal of Fury is only 20 years old; in the comics, he was traditionally a white male who fought alongside Steve Rogers in the Second World War and was injected with an Infinity Formula to grant him long life. When Marvel launched the Ultimate universe in 2001, a modernized version of their own comics, Mark Millar decided to reinvent Fury in the likeness of Samuel L. Jackson, who he considered the coolest man alive. Several years later, Jackson signed up with the new Marvel Studios and made his debut in Iron Man.
The growing popularity of the MCU's Nick Fury has led to changes in the mainstream Marvel Universe. The original Fury essentially disappeared after 2014's "Original Sin" event, consigned to forever watch events on Earth unfold from his new home on the Moon as punishment for killing Uatu, Earth's assigned Watcher. He was replaced by his son, Nick Fury Jr., who just happens to look rather more like Samuel L. Jackson. But the Watcher has recently returned from the dead - these are comic books after all - and now it looks as though the original Nick Fury is coming back as well.
This week's Fantastic Four #25 features a bonus story by Paco Medina and Marcio Menyz, "Sight Unseen." The Watcher believes the recent Cotati invasion was just a forerunner, a taste of a greater threat to come. "Watcher technology is being abused," Uatu observes. "My brothers and sisters are interfering more and more. A reckoning is coming... and I require an operative. A man who can 'get the job done.' My unseen hand. My hidden eye. My herald." Uatu restores the original Nick Fury, commissioning him to be the first soldier in a war the rest of the Marvel Universe doesn't even realize is coming.
Nick Fury is certainly well-suited to this role; having substituted for Uatu for years now, he has seen everything happening on Earth, and knows every secret there is to know. But Earth's heroes may not be pleased to see Nick return; this is the man who killed the Watcher, persuaded Thor he was unworthy to wield Mjolnir and angered Wolverine so much the Canucklehead attempted to kill him. Fury is most certainly not going to keep a low profile.
And that makes him perfect for the Watcher. Everyone will assume Nick Fury is working an angle; nobody will expect him to actually be working for someone else. Even Uatu's fellow Watchers - who he clearly believes is going rogue - will consider Fury nothing more than an errant human being. And so the Watcher's resurrection will remain a secret, and nobody will know he is breaking his sworn oath. It's a smart move on the Watcher's part, and it sets up a fascinating new status quo for Nick Fury.