Secret Warriors

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
With Nick Fury, there's no such thing as too much gun.

Secret Warriors is a 2009-2011 comic book series starring Nick Fury, Agent of Nothing. The premise: Take the world's longest-operating clandestine agent with a legendary career in the world's police agency. Turn his world completely upside down. Add superpowered teenagers and shake well.

Although it was started by Brian Bendis, Jonathan Hickman now[when?] writes Secret Warriors. Its starting premise (that HYDRA had control of SHIELD) has yet to be reconciled with Hickman's other book SHIELD (although references to "the Spear" in both suggest that a reconciliation is coming.)[please verify]

Not to be confused with the 2017 Marvel Comics series of the same name.


Tropes used in Secret Warriors include:
  • Artificial Limbs: Yo-yo after the Gorgon cuts off her hands.
  • Airborne Aircraft Carrier: the first mission of Howling Commandos PMC under Fury is to steal these back.
  • All There in the Manual: the first issue has parts of the Fury Files, which includes: a map of bases that only Nick knows about, a list of potential recruits, a partial power structure of HYDRA, and diary entries from Yo-yo
  • Artifact of Doom: the box that is first extorted from the Silver Samurai, then handed over to Leviathan. It's nature and role in Leviathan's plans have not been explained.
  • Badass Abnormal: Fury, given that he took the Longevity Vaccine
  • Bald of Evil and Bald of Awesome: Baron Wolfgang von Strucker and Jerry respectively
  • Becoming the Mask: A villainous example is found in the Kraken. The dying pal of Strucker you see in flashbacks? Killed in his hospital bed.Turns out Madame Hydra isn't the only Legacy Character among the villains
  • Berserk Button: Yo-yo for Jerry. Hurt her and he will absolutely ruin your day.
  • Black and Gray Morality: Fury's attitude prior to the Howling Commandos mission to the Dock, which would put former comrades in the line of fire.
  • Non Sequitur Episode: In the Secret Warriors Siege crossover Alex/Phobos blames the President for his father's (Ares) murder by The Sentry and proceeds to Washignton to kill him. Although the President is unharmed Phobos, a child for whom Nick Fury is responsible, kills numerous Secret Service agents. No one ever mentions this again and there don't seem to be any consequences.
  • Body Double and Robot Me: When JT and Alex discover Nick's Life Model Decoys, leading to some...implications
  • Call to Adventure: Function performed by either Daisy or Fury.
  • Came Back Wrong: Viper likely Cursed with Awesome despite being dead for only a few hours.
  • The Chessmaster: Baron von Strucker and Nick Fury.
  • The Chosen Many: Daisy's sqaud isn't the only one working for Fury. Since this is NickFury we're talking about, we only meet the leaders of the other two squads.
  • Cloak and Dagger: Nick sneaks into Obama's office IN THE FIRST ISSUE!
  • Cloudcuckoolander: A mild case in Druid. For example; after Yo-Yo has her arms cut off, Druid is more worried about Yo-Yo's body image then her emotional trauma, he didn't understand why Daisy was angry with him after crashing their plane, etc, etc. A small quirk.
  • Crazy Prepared: The Fury Files
  • Dead Person Impersonation: The Kraken is apparently this, explaining how he could be dying six years prior and be around at the present. The flashback that explains this also shows that the helmet extrudes an armor.
  • Dishing Out Dirt: Daisy Johnson, field commander of the team, can cause earthquakes.
  • Double Agent: Contessa Fontaine has been Fury's old flame, Madame Hydra, and a leader of Leviathan AND HOW!
    • Likewise J.T. although he seems to regret it and wants Strucker to spare Daisy
  • Doppelganger Attack: Nick's LM Ds do this to Norman Osborn's group when they infiltrate a base.
  • Elaborate Underground Base: Leviathan has been holed up in a mountain.
  • Eyepatch of Power: Fury, though somewhat subverted with his LMD's.
  • Evil Versus Evil: Leviathan abducts Viper from a HYDRA shipyard
  • Extra Ore Dinary: Jerry, if he's in physical contact with it.
  • Faceless Goons: Guess, I dare you
  • Femme Fatale: Valentina de la Fontaine.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: Alex's power, being the God of Fear.
  • Handicapped Badass: Gorgon. Although this is probably a Power Limiter
  • The Lancer: Daisy "Quake" Johnson.
  • Legacy Character: All the caterpillars are the children of villains or former villains. Daisy is the daughter Complete Monster Dr Hyde, Yo-Yo is the daughter of the Griffen, Stonewall is the son of Absorbing Man, Phobos is the son of Ares, Druid is the son of Dr Druid. The ones that aren't related directly are connected to other characters, J.T to Ghost Rider, Eden Fesi to the mutant Gateway.
  • Locked Out of the Loop: Nick towards Daisy and presumably everyone else.
  • Living Lie Detector: the Howling Commandos and HYDRA employ psychics
  • Lovecraftian Superpower: Hive and apparently Leviathan. The former is similar to Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean
  • Magnetic Hero: Fury, as of issue 6. To be fair, the many of the men that were joining his side worked for him in the past.
  • Military Maverick: Fury, almost to trope-namer levels.
  • The Mole: JT, arguably The Untwist. As the Kraken says 'All men have their price'
  • Nebulous Evil Organisation
  • Non-Action Guy: Eden Fesi, Alex and Druid usually have to be protected by their more combat oriented team mates in battle.
  • Our Wormholes Are Different: Eden Fesi's power.
  • Physical God: The adolescent son of Ares, Phobos.
  • Plucky Comic Relief: Eden Fesi, J.T and Druid each fill this role.
  • Playing with Fire: JT Slade aka Hellfire.
  • Private Military Contractors: Dugan's 3000 strong Howling Commandos outfit, before Nick brought them back into the fold.
  • Put on a Bus: Sebastian is kicked off the team by Nick for incompetence.
  • Redshirt Army: HYDRA
    • Dugan's Howling Commandos are eventually completely wiped out
  • Reincarnation: Alex and Ares, because a mortal lifetime is not long enough to raise a god.
  • Repetitive Name: J.T.'s full name is James Taylor James.
  • Sealed Army in a Can: The reason why (all) 100,000 members of Leviathan disappeared overnight
  • Sealed Orders: Daisy's team disperses this way in issue 13.
  • Self-Destruct Mechanism: used when Dark Avengers get inside a Fury base.
  • Slap Slap Kiss: JT and Daisy, but they are now a couple.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: The Secret Warriors (especially Jerry) want to be True Companions who band together to save the day. Nick Fury points out every chance he gets that this is not that kind of story.
  • Spy From Weights and Measures: The first issue shows HYDRA's command structure. It kind of ruined Nick's day...
  • The Spymaster: Obviously
  • Spy-Versus-Spy: HYDRA, HAMMER, Fury's group, and now Leviathan
  • State Sec: Leviathan seems to have been this for Russia at one point.
  • Super Speed: Yo-yo Rodriguez and the Gorgon. But the Gorgon is just a cut above her
  • Super Mode: Jerry while fighting (and winning against) Gorgon.
  • Teen Superspy
  • Teleporters and Transporters: Eden is the former, HYDRA uses the latter.
  • Took a Level In Badass: The entire HYRDA organization.
  • Villainous Breakdown: Viper has this as a near death experience/flashback before she's resurrected
  • The War Room: Multiple, as Fury has numerous private bases around the world.
  • Was It All a Lie?: issue 15, Nick has this with Valentina in the restaurant, reflecting that in the past he would have tried to kill her
  • Worf Effect: JT gets knocked out in nearly every fight, it's just about a running gag.
  • Xanatos Gambit: Since SHIELD is revealed to have been an intelligence arm of HYDRA, Nick's entire career becomes this.
    • Now revealed that Fury knew this all along and in fact had been manipulating HYDRA and Strucker. And so the Gambit Pileup begins.
  • Zerg Rush and We Have Reserves: Pretty much standard procedure for HYDRA. May have changed after Strucker destroyed a base with 15,000 agents in it. The guy really doesn't like Skrulls...