Captain Britain has battled many foes in his distinguished career but only one has survived unparalleled destruction, killed one of his faithful companions and slaughtered more super heroes than a comic book companies annual cross over event. Who am I talking about, why the Fury of course.
But what is the Fury, why is it so deadly and how come when it appears heroes die ? I’m going to take a look at this monster to see what makes it such a perfect killing machine and I think deserving of the title Captain Britain’s arch-enemy.
The Fury first appeared in Marvel Super Heroes issue 387 from 1982 in a Captain Britain story written by Alan Moore and drawn by Alan Davis, here trapped in an alternate dimension where all the super heroes are dead the good Cap’s attempts to escape cause the UK government to feel threatened by his presence. Because of this danger it is decided to stop Cap by unleashing the super hero killing machine known only as the Fury, who we are told is a ” Cybiote, ” an unstoppable amalgam of flesh and metal.
I must quickly interject here and say when you lay eyes on the Fury it really does look like an inhuman monster, mainly firstly I feel due to its faceless aspect which lends itself nicely towards the machine’s ” Cybiote, ” description and secondly because one of its arms is just a big fuck-off gun.
Anyway the Fury wastes no time in locating Captain Britain and first to fall victim to its powers is his trusty companion the poor elf Jackdaw felled by a blast from the Fury that atomizes his legs, needless to say the good Cap reacts badly to this.
It’s during this fight that we learn of the Fury’s two main powers, firstly it has a lethal energy blast and secondly it can adapt and even regenerate its body to counter any threat it meets.
Rescued by the MP Jim Jaspers, Captain Britain learns it was he who created the Fury to carry out his policy of super hero genocide and when visiting the fallen hero’s graves the good Cap is overcome with grief allowing him to be ambushed and slain by the Fury.
Luckily Captain Britain is resurrected by Meryln and his daughter Roma and sent back to his home dimension , the Fury is forgotten about until Captain Britain attends a universal trial where he learns that its actions are affecting the stability of the multiverse. There is only one drastic solution that is felt will restore order to the cosmos and so the Fury’s universe is destroyed and everyone hopes that the Fury has died along with it.
But floating in the space between worlds the Fury begins to rebuild itself and sets a course for Captain Britain’s home dimension kept alive by sheer willpower and its determination to kill all super heroes. It’s now we get an idea of just how tough and relentless the Fury is as not even the destruction of an entire universe can hold it back from carrying out its prime directive of super hero extermination.
The Fury arrives in a weakened state but you can’t keep a good Cybiote down and using its powers of regeneration it quickly starts to rebuild itself, once back in full working order the Fury then proceeds to destroy any heroes it can find. As the death toll mounts Jim Jaspers decides to face down his creation and end its reign of terror sadly he isn’t up to the job and the Fury kills him as well, luckily it returns to the fray in a weakened state and Linda McQuillan the Captain Britain who saw the Fury destroy everyone she loved in an alternate dimension tears it to pieces.
This wasn’t the end of the Fury though like all good baddies it would come back to fight Captain Britain again and trouble the X-Men as well but it would always be defeated. However despite always ending up on the losing side I like the Fury, as I said earlier it just looks downright vicious and evil every bit an inhuman killing machine and is almost terminator like in it ruthless programming and desire. The Fury is a force to be reckoned with by any hero simply because it can adapt to any fight and counter their powers, I often wonder if because of this comic readers haven’t really seen much of it because any writer who uses it needs to come up with a creative way to kill it ?
To me Captain Britain has faced down many foes in his career but none as deadly as the Fury who with all it’s done surely deserves at the very least a place in Cap’s top ten rogue’s gallery or maybe even the coveted number one slot ?
If you want to read the story that introduces the Fury then it’s collected in Captain Britain volume 4 entitled the Siege of Camelot and volume 5 entitled End Game, it’s also collected as part of the Captain Britain omnibus or the Alan Moore Captain Britain trade paperback.
The Captain Britain fans' page and blog. 