Ultimate Marvel is one of the biggest comic success stories of 2024, with every book released so far – Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate X-Men, Ultimate Black Panther, and The Ultimates – earning plaudits from fans and critics and jumping to the top of the sales charts. Ultimate Universe: One Year In, by Deniz Camp, Chris Condon, Jonas Scharf, Alessandro Cappuccio, Mattia Iacono, Bryan Valenza, and Travis Lanham, celebrates the one year anniversary of Earth-6160, taking readers into the world of the Council – the superhumans who control the world for the Maker – and introduces this universe’s Nick Fury.
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Nick Fury has always played a big role in whatever Marvel Universe he appears in, usually leading S.H.I.E.L.D. as the world’s foremost spy. Nick Fury 6160 holds a similar office, but with a twist. Instead of S.H.I.E.L.D., Earth-6160 has H.A.N.D. – Heroic Anomaly Neutralization Directorate, seemingly based on the evil ninja clan that Daredevil has battled for years. This Nick Fury has worked for the villainous creator of Earth-6160, the Maker, helping the evil Reed Richards variant from Earth-1610 to keep his world free of superheroes. This Nick Fury’s life has turned out very different than other versions, causing him to make a momentous decision that leads him – and readers – to a horrific discovery.
Nick Fury-6160 Has a Dark Past and a Terrible Secret
The Nick Fury of Earth-6160 seemingly had much of the same life as the Nick Fury of Earth-616 for decades. He fought in WWII with Dum Dum Duggan and the Howling Commandos, then had his spy adventures as a member of the CIA. He thinks nostalgically of those old days, when everything was black and white and good versus evil. The Maker made himself known to Fury-6160 at some point before what would have been the formation of S.H.I.E.L.D. on Earth-616.
From there, Fury became the Maker’s chief spy and executioner. He killed heroes like 3-D Man, the original alien Vision, and the Devil Dinosaur. He took out Mantis, stopping her from becoming the Celestial Madonna and even killed his old friend Dum Dum Dugan. He facilitated the genocide of the Inhumans, with the issue showing him shooting a young Black Bolt. He ended up killing the children of the Power Pack and damaged the brains of multiple super-scientists, doing everything the Maker told him to do, sacrificing his peace of mind and his pride for the “greater good”.
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However, Nick Fury at his core believes in doing the right thing. Nick Fury in any universe is a man who has gotten his hands dirty. He’s never had a problem going to lengths that others would consider too far as long as it served the greater good of the world, or at least the greater good as he saw it. Fury-6160 knows that what he’s been doing is terrible and he knows that the Maker and the Council are monsters. Ultimate Universe: One Year In is framed as him confessing his crimes to an unknown reader, and he has a plan to make up for all the death – he’s going to self-destruct The Beast, the flagship “Cumulo-Carrier” of H.A.N.D., killing the Council.
At several points in the story, Fury-6160 seems to lose himself in his inner monologue, with members of the Council breaking his reverie and telling him to move on. At one point, Captain Britain tells him, “Enough tiresome backstory,” which at first seems like its merely boredom with the intel briefing, but when Fury finally plays his hand and sets the self-destruct, the Council don’t seem very perturbed. As the countdown reaches zero, nothing happens, surprising Fury, but the Council just reacts with laughter.
This isn’t the first time that Fury has tried to kill the Council, and they list all of the different ways he’s tried over the years as they talk amongst themselves – an exploding island, a virus-infected handshake – and mock his confession. Fury is confused, and is killed by Emmanuel Da Costa burning him to death.
As his body cools, the Council discuss why the Maker doesn’t just replace Fury. The reason is simple – any spy who wouldn’t try to betray them isn’t worth their salt as a spy and they enter a room fill of Nick Furys – Fury LMDs in glass tubes – and come to the conclusion that the Maker keeps all of this going because tormenting Fury, forcing him to constantly do terrible things as he dies and is reborn, makes the Maker smile. The whole thing is like a twisted version of Chris Nolan’s The Prestige, except Fury isn’t in control of the situation like Robert Angier is, with the Maker instead controlling the “trick” of Fury’s resurrections.
Fury-6160’s Futile Life Shows the True Darkness of the Maker’s World
The new Ultimate Universe is moving into its next phase, but before it does, Ultimate Universe: One Year In serves to remind everyone just how dark this Earth is. The Maker taking a page from The Prestige shows just how twisted his new world order is, built on a foundation of corpses, many of them put there by Nick Fury-6160 while trapped in a cycle of crimes against humanity, death, and rebirth. In this twisted world, heroes like Fury are little more than pawns for a monster.
Ultimate Universe: One Year In is on sale at Marvel.
