Original Sin #5 Veers Off The Excellence Path

I have been a big fan of Marvel Comics’ title Original Sin since it launched. The writing is solid, the artwork by Mike Deodato is absolutely top notch and the concept is very intriguing. But with one big reveal that happened in the latest issue, #5, I think writer Jason Aaron has gone too far in trying to explain away the great premise set up with the very first issue.

To explain why I have a problem with issue #5, however, I have to explain what the reveal is, and that means SPOILERS!

Seriously, if you haven’t read issue #5, or haven’t read any of the Original Sin books because you are waiting for the trade paperback, stop reading this blog right now. Because I will spoil it for you. You have been warned.

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OK, so the big reveal in issue #4 was that Nick Fury is really an old geezer, living on a satellite, while every “ageless” Nick Fury we have seen since probably the 1970s hasn’t been Nick with Super Soldier serum in his blood, but a Life Model Decoy of a normally aging Fury.

In this latest issue we find out that Fury, long before he was Director of SHIELD, was recruited by Howard Stark to be the lone defender of Earth against alien invasions that have been happening with alarming regularity, using alien technology Stark confiscated from would-be invaders and modified. While he was SHIELD Director, Fury supposedly led a double life, working SHIELD during the week, and actively seeking out potential alien invaders and executing them before they could invade during the weekend.

That is my first problem. The idea that the man responsible for running the police force for the entire Earth was also able to find the time to track down and stop would-be alien invaders from all corners of the galaxy is ludicrous. There isn’t enough time in any day, week or decade to try to run an operation the size of SHIELD alone, to say nothing of also being Earth’s very own alien-killing Terminator.

And if he was doing this, how did he fail so badly during the Secret Invasion of the Skrulls? According to Original Sin #5, Fury was capable of blowing up entire planets to stop an alien civilization from attacking Earth. How could he have missed the Skrulls’ plans? In fact, after they invaded the very first time, why didn’t Fury just obliterate the Skrull home world?

Then there is the fact that this has somehow remained a secret for all this time. I understand that Stark started the whole protector thing using alien tech, but is there any chance that every time Fury’s space-enabled convertible took off from Earth that SWORD wouldn’t see it? Come on, that is what SWORD does — detects alien technology being used near Earth.

Perhaps Aaron will explain this away with a cool reveal, like he explained away Bucky chopping off Fury’s head as Bucky realizing it was a super-advanced LMD (which ultimately led to the Avengers and the rest of the heroes investigating The Watcher’s murder to find the old geezer Fury). But right now it seems like some major oversights on the part of a writer who otherwise has been knocking it out of the park.