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“THE AVENGERS INITIATIVE was a program created by S.H.I.E.L.D. Director NICK FURY to bring together a group of remarkable people to face extraordinary threats. Fury’s original list of prospective recruits included Anthony Stark, Thor Odinson, Natasha Romanoff, Clint Barton, Bruce Banner, and Captain Steve Rogers. The team first assembled for the BATTLE OF NEW YORK.”
“We can’t keep depending on these superheroes to swoop in and save our asses. None of them have lived the life I have. None of them can defend the world the way I can.”
Director Nicholas Joseph “Nick” Fury[2] is an American spy, the former Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the founder of the Avengers. Fury began his career of serving his nation within the United States Army, rising to the rank of Colonel before becoming a CIA operative during the Cold War. Fury then joined S.H.I.E.L.D., where he recruited and trained Phil Coulson and John Garrett. In 1995, Fury met Vers and the Skrull General Talos and helped Vers uncover her human heritage as Carol Danvers. The trio fought the Starforce, led by Yon-Rogg, who were targeting Skrull refugees. Fury took a liking to Goose, although she scratched and permanently blinded Fury’s left eye. While Danvers then left Earth in order to find a new home for the Skrulls, Fury would summon a team of Skrulls to Earth to secretly aid him with his spy career in exchange for helping them find a home.
Promoted to Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. by Alexander Pierce, Fury focused his efforts over the next fifteen years to organize the Avengers Initiative, intending to bring together powerful individuals to protect Earth from extraterrestrial threats. Despite reluctance from World Security Council, Fury recruited Iron Man and Captain America. With the Avengers ready, Fury called on them when Earth was invaded by Loki, who brainwashed an army and stolen the Tesseract. Fury led the Avengers’ hunt for Loki, as they attempted to learn what Loki’s plan was and who he had been working for. This came to a head following Phil Coulson’s death, as Loki was tracked to New York City. There, the Avengers engaged Loki and his Chitauri army, with Fury keeping the World Security Council from nuking the city before Loki was defeated and the Avengers were disassembled.
Following the Avengers’ victory, Fury recruited Captain America as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, while Fury worked on Project Insight, as a means of eliminating people an algorithm determined to be future threats. However, when Fury began to suspect that something was wrong with Project Insight, he then found himself targeted by Winter Soldier, forcing Fury to fake his own death and go into hiding. With limited people he could trust, Fury turned to Captain America along with Black Widow, Falcon and Maria Hill to lead the fight, as he soon discovered that HYDRA had secretly managed to infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D. and Alexander Pierce was their leader, as Captain America had also learned that Winter Soldier was actually his friend Bucky Barnes who had been brainwashed by HYDRA for decades, following Barnes’ apparent death in 1945.
The Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, better known by its acronym S.H.I.E.L.D., is an American extra-governmental counter-terrorism and intelligence agency tasked with maintaining both national and global security.
Founded in the wake of the Allied victory over the Axis powers and HYDRA in World War II, S.H.I.E.L.D. was organized to protect the United States from all possible threats. With its advanced weapons and extraordinary agents, S.H.I.E.L.D. was maybe the greatest military power on Earth. Following his encounter with Captain Marvel, S.H.I.E.L.D. was run by Nick Fury and the World Security Council in the modern age; S.H.I.E.L.D. had to deal with the significant rise in enhanced individuals, dangerous advanced technology, and alien contact. But all the problems S.H.I.E.L.D. had to solve eventually led to the formation of the Avengers, a response team that was recruited to save the world during the alien invasion of Earth in 2012. The agency became publicly known after the Battle of New York, partially because of the Rising Tide website.
In 2014, through the actions of Black Widow and Nick Fury, the world became aware of the fact that S.H.I.E.L.D. was infiltrated and largely controlled by HYDRA. After the battle in which S.H.I.E.L.D.’s primary headquarters, the Triskelion, was heavily damaged, all of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s classified files were dumped on the Internet, and the agency was disavowed by the United States government and labeled a terrorist organization. Many S.H.I.E.L.D. officials were taken into custody and subjected to rigorous questioning. However, despite the massive manhunt on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s agents, a few operatives scattered across the world in most secret bases remained loyal to their oath, saving the most necessary technology for future use. But the team most responsible for the survival of S.H.I.E.L.D. was the team of Agent Phil Coulson, who valiantly led his teammates against the forces of HYDRA led by the traitors John Garrett and Grant Ward, winning the battle in which Garrett’s plan ultimately failed. After that battle, Fury appointed Phil Coulson the new director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and tasked him with rebuilding the agency from scratch, becoming a shadow parapolicial agency.