Lit A/V The Force Awakens and the EU [TAGGED spoilers.]

This definitely makes it more likely the EU will be contradicted. I would be shocked if Han and Leia's child/children aren't in some way significant to the plot.

 

He's been cast as Jacen Solo, who will emerge from the Unknown Regions after a fifty-year sojourn and one hell of a bad dream.

 

But did anyone ever think Han, Luke, and Leia wouldn't be in the ST? I figured there was a 99% chance at least one of them would be in it, and a 85% chance that Ford/Fisher/Hamill would return to reprise their roles. That was just my perception before today, anyways.

 

That's a relatively minor thing, however ridiculous it is - but you know what? They did the same thing after the first X-Men movie - both Mystique and Toad were arbitrarily changed to match the movie and within a year or so the 'changes' were conveniently forgotten.

 

I thought Samuel L Fury was Ultimate universe.

 

I think it would be a different matter if they were brought in for cameos--if the movie were about a teen Sky Child and her wacky friends, they could set it in 20 ABY and de-agify the Big Three just enough to pop on and say something ominous. But if Ford's being locked down this soon, and his role is "substantial", it suggests, to my mind, more of a 30/40 ABY setting.

EXACTLY.

 

Nick Fury was black in the Ultimate Universe prior to the movies.

 

And after the movies, they introduced Nick Fury's black son, Nick Fury Jr., into the mainstream universe so they could have a black Nick Fury.

 

Technically he and Fury SR appear in tandem

 

Soooo not the point.

Oh, and hilariously, they're kinda doing this thing in Ultimates right now where their Nick Fury is white.

I repeat:

 

Ah, so they actually changed the mainstream Nick Fury to more closely resemble the Ultimate version (haven't read any recent Marvel titles)... eh, can't say I have an opinion on that either way. He's already close to 100 years old, who knows what side effects that serum may have had

 

The mainstream Nick Fury wasn't changed, there is just two of them now hehe. Nick Fury Jr is the son of Nick Fury and the one closely resembling the Ultimate/SLJ version.

 

This interviewee maybe says at the 7.50ish mark that the tale of Han and Leia's kids may be one of the stand-alone films.

 

A standalone film would be a waste of those characters. The ST is the perfect place to continue the Skywalker legacy in Jaina, Ben and Allana.

 

Just for your info - there is a third Nicholas Fury, in the MAX books - of which, due to board restrictions to ensure an all-ages tone, I can say little. Let's just say he's a cold, violent, hardcase with a penchant for whores, cigs and booze - but hey, he's on our side, so it's all OK!

Inserting a black Nick Fury into Marvel, over a decade after when it was stunningly cool in the Ultimate books is a great example of missing the boat by years!

As to all the film talk, can't help but get a vibe of Disney looking at the success of Avengers and Marvel's Phase 1 masterplan and going: Let's do that with SW!

 

Well they didn't do it to be racially edgy, they did it to better capitalize off of movie audiences. As for Fury MAX, my understanding is that he's ostensibly the regular Nick Fury, just with more cussin'. Way/Dillon's Punisher MAX, OTOH, was distinctly an AU story.

 

Samuel L. Jackson was perfect casting for Nick Fury, on the same level as Patrick Stewart for Professor X and J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson.

But the way they brought Sam Jackson Fury into the mainstream Marvel universe is one of the few cases where you have a legitimate case for calling it "shoehorned". Marvel managed to take the perennial lame-ass publisher excuse for not including more diversity in comics and make it a reality. That's impressive.

 

Well, since y'all talking about it... and in the interests of keeping everyone else properly up to speed....

BEHOLD, THE (abridged) STORY OF NICK FURY JR:

Spoiler

 

I'd see a difference between the two Coop, Fury MAX is way harsher and more cynical than Fury is in Marvel - a bit like the difference between Punisher MAX and Punisher, technically Marvel may claim they're the same but I don't think that's supported by the actual books.

As for capitalising on film audiences, there's 2 responses to that:

First, there's little in the way of evidence for people seeing a movie to follow up by buying comics of it - it's happened for Walking Dead and Kick-Ass but not for the Big 2. Part of it may be a lack of easy to pick-up material, but the other aspect may just be that having seen Avengers, what people want is to see Avengers 2 and not buy a comic that features a different version of the characters seen in the film, if they're even present at all.

Second, Marvel could have pointed people towards the Ultimate books, but those books' golden age is e a few years gone now - but since that's where you get black Nick Fury with full cool factor, I'm not sure people would have cared!

 

My understanding of the MAX lines is that they are each their own separate, independent continuity.

I have limited exposure to Nick Fury Jr. (being mostly an X-Men fan), but the times SHIELD shows up, it's the Maria Hill Show - I assume, for instance, that Junior is one of the guys in the Uncanny X-Men 1 that just came out, but gets no lines; only Hill has a conversation out of all the SHIELD personnel.

The coolest head of SHIELD will always be Leonardo Da Vinci, though.

 

Is that... really a thing? Leonardo being head of SHIELD in Marvel continuity, I mean. I can't decide if that's hilarious or awesome.

 

Johnathon Hickman, one of the best comic writers around right now, has an ongoing limited series called SHIELD (sadly unfinished as of now) that had the original SHIELD being an ancient organization that was protecting Earth before the Age of Heroes - and includes Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Nikolai Tesla, Galileo, Michelangelo all as characters. It's awesome. And yes, it's in continuity - Leonardo also showed up in the AvX storyline and in Secret Avengers.

He also writes the (non-Marvel) Manhattan Projects, which recently had Einstein and Richard Feynman shooting up killer robots on a space station.