The Marvel Cinematic Universe was able to take the characters of Marvel Comics and bring them to levels they never reached before. Characters like Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man were all great characters that fans loved (there’s an idea among MCU fans that they were D-listers until the MCU came along, but this wasn’t the case at all), and the MCU was able to take what made them amazing from the comics and put it on screen. Some things had to be changed, but for the most part, we got the characters we read about in the comics at the multiplex and it was fantastic. Marvel Studios was able to take the best parts of the comics and bring them to life.
Numerous MCU films have been based on comics. Sometimes, this has been obvious like Captain America: Civil War. Other times, the films incorporate ideas from numerous stories, and sometimes it completely changes the narrative, taking only the core ideas, like with Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. With the X-Men and Fantastic Four becoming the next big things for the MCU, there’s a whole new slew of stories and ideas that can be adapted. However, there’s one that they could’ve used at any time since its debut in 12 years ago, in the rather maligned event series Original Sin. It involved Nick Fury and his history, showing him in all-new light and changing the history of the Marvel Universe.
The 2010s were the decade of the Avengers, with 2012 seeing them hit the big screen with Avengers. Meanwhile, in the comics, Marvel had begun pushing the team as hard as possible in anticipation since about 2010. 2012 saw Avengers vs. X-Men wow readers, followed by another reboot of the team that would last until Secret Wars. During this period of the team’s history we got five different event comics, with Original Sin coming out in 2014. This story kicked off with the death of the Watcher, his eyes stolen from him. Their greatest secrets are revealed to the world through the eyes, leading the heroes to search for the killer and get them back.
The story from Jason Aaron and Mike Deodato saw a group of heroes assembled by Nick Fury – Winter Soldier, Black Widow, Doctor Strange, Punisher, Black Panther, Moon Knight, and Gamora – trying to find clues to who killed Uatu and finding an even greater mystery. For years, someone had been destroying threats to the Earth, everything from aliens to interdimensional incursions to ancient gods. It was revealed that this was the Man on the Wall, a person whose entire job was to protect the Earth from outside threats. There wasn’t a secret organization or anything, just one person at a time, recruited by their predecessor, using their skills and resources to secretly save the planet. Nick Fury, the greatest Director of SHIELD ever, was the modern Man on the Wall and he ended up killing the Watcher because he thought the knowledge he had made him a threat to the planet.
Fury brought together the group he did because each of them were people he wanted to hand the mantle to, heroes he trusted to do the work. Winter Soldier was chosen to take his place and Bucky Barnes: Winter Soldier was supposed to be about his adventures as Man on the Wall. However, Original Sin wasn’t at all popular. The problem with the story was that it teased revealing big secrets about the heroes, but all of them were honestly pretty pedestrian. This hurt word of mouth for the series, torpedoing any chance of success. While it would lay the groundwork for Aaron making Jane Foster Thor, ending with Fury making Thor think himself into unworthiness, nothing the book did made fans happy, not even the awesome idea of the Man on the Wall.
Nick Fury has played a massive role in the history of the MCU, stretching back to the ’90s, as revealed in Captain Marvel. He was instrumental in making SHIELD what it is today and he had no problem keeping secrets and doing whatever needed to be done. Fury secretly using SHIELD resources to kill invaders from beyond is something that would fit the character to a tee. Fury has needed something cool to do since the failure of Secret Invasion and making him the Man on the Wall of the MCU could be that. It could also be used to take a character and make them a big deal. The MCU could have Bucky take the mantle, like in the comics, or another character Marvel Studios wants to push. Maybe Fury isn’t involved at all and the Man on the Wall has gone mad, leading to the heroes fighting against him. The sky’s the limit with this idea and it could help give the MCU something new at a time when it has become largely stagnant.
I’m pretty sure that I’m the only Original Sin fan writing about comics on the Internet. It’s not an amazing story – most of the five Avengers events from this period aren’t great for a variety of reasons – but it has some interesting ideas and moments, especially that of the Man on the Wall. The fact that it never really took off has always mystified me because it fits the Marvel Universe to a tee – a secret known by few that has had a huge effect on the world – and using characters like Nick Fury and Bucky Barnes in the mantle was something of an inspired idea. I think that if it was attached to a better story, it would have been better received, instead of a 12-year old afterthought.
With the X-Men coming to the MCU, there’s a chance that Marvel Studios will go all in on mutant stuff and leave ideas from the Avengers behind. There’s something to that; Marvel Studios has spent seven years trying to introduce new ideas from that corner of the House of Ideas into their universe and failing miserably. The X-Men could change all of that failure, but that doesn’t mean that we should completely abandon ideas that don’t come from the mutant side of things. The Man on the Wall is a perfect MCU idea, one that could pay dividends in the future.
