A deleted version of Nick Fury's big Iron Man speech namechecked mutants and "radioactive bug bites"
Aux Features Film
Nick Fury’s big theater kid moment at the end of the original Iron Man—we like to imagine him testing out all the various shadows in Tony Stark’s apartment to lurk in, the better to make stepping out of one as dramatic as humanly possible—is one of the defining scenes of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, literally introducing Iron Man into “a wider world” of extremely lucrative superhero nonsense. But it could have been a whole lot wider, apparently, according to footage that MCU air traffic controller Kevin Feige showed off at the Saturn Awards last night.
In the alternate version of the clip—presumably filmed in a spirit of “Hey, pigs can fly sometimes, right?” optimism re: character movie rights—Fury doesn’t restrain himself to simply mentioning “superheroes.” Instead, he gets into specifics, listing mutants and “radioactive bug bites” among his various irritations at present. Fury even gets gifted with a significantly dumber sign-off, responding to Stark’s question about what the Avenger Initiative might be avenging with a growled, slightly sinister “Whatever the hell we want!”
(Here’s the original, less catch-phrase-y version, for comparison.)
Meanwhile, we can only assume Feige showed off the footage to rub salt in the MCU fandom’s collective soul, since, while Disney did finally lock down those sweet, sweet X-Men rights, said acquisition roughly coincided with its loss of access to its favorite radioactive-arachnid-bitten teen. In any case, the clip will be included on the “Infinity Saga” box set that Disney’s putting out later this year.
Note: A previous version of this story included a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that spiders were not bugs, which several people in the comments rightly took exception to. The A.V. Club would like to extend an apology to the entire bug community for this error.
38 Comments
And then, before he’s even done, a shark jumps out of the water and eats him whole!
Whatever the hail we wwwWAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!
“What are we avenging?”“Motherfuckers! We are avenging motherfuckers!”
Motherfucking Hydra on a motherfucking plane.
Said clip does not feature a moment where Tony Stark fires back pointing out that spiders aren’t bugs, but hey, we’re already pretty far into missed opportunity territory here anyway.Oh come on, spiders most certainly are bugs in the colloquial sense of bug meaning any small crawling arthropod. You think he was supposed to object that spiders aren’t part of the Hemiptera order?
“(Said clip does not feature a moment where Tony Stark fires back pointing out that spiders aren’t bugs, but hey, we’re already pretty far into missed opportunity territory here anyway.)“
Errr, Spiders are definitely bugs. That’s totally acceptable word usage. >_<
Yeah. They’re not insects, but I’m pretty sure almost everyone accepts the notion that spiders qualify as “bugs.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemiptera
Came here to say the same thing. *Insects* have a narrow definition. *Bugs* do not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemiptera
“true bug” !== “bug”, numbnuts.
Yep, nothing better than “well, actually…” snark that gets its facts wrong.
It’s bad enough the AVClub apparently can’t afford an editor but for goodness’ sakes, dictionaries are free online!
That there’s your problem. Marvel doesn’t (didn’t) have the rights to use the word “Mutant.®”
They didn’t have the rights to Spider-Man, either.
Yeah, but he didn’t say “Spider-Man”. He said “mutants.”
How many other ways are there to interpret ‘radioactive bug bites’ in this context?
Mm… entomologists at Chernobyl?
Yes, clearly Nick was referencing the Russian knock-off of Spider-Man here.‘In Soviet Russia, great responsibility comes with YOU!’
It’s the actual word that’s trademarked. Not the idea.
I know that, but the inclusion of the word ‘mutant’ is not the only reason they didn’t use this clip in the movie. All I’m saying. There’s no point in alluding that Spider-Man is out there somewhere if you don’t have the rights to use him in your movie.
Are you sure that’s a real thing? Mutants actually exist in real life. Seems like that would be really hard to enforce.
One of the funniest things about Samuel Jackson being Nick Fury in the MCU movies is that Marvel Comics decided that the Nick Fury in the comic books had to look like Samuel Jackson. Just one little problem. The Nick Fury in the comics is white. They then bent over backwards to change their white Nick Fury into a black Nick Fury in the most convoluted way possible.
Nick Fury looked like Samuel L Jackson in the Ultimates which came out in 2002, long before the MCU. He starts the series as a black man.
Yes and no. That’s the back half of the story. Jackson played Fury in the movies because Marvel’s Ultimate line of comics had already used him as a template for their version of Nick Fury. So the Ultimate comics inspired the movies, which, in turn, was reflected back into the main Marvel 616 continuity.
I mean, old Nick Fury hung around a long time after that. He hadn’t been head of shield for a while.
And I thought Nick Fury Jr. was an agent for a long time before he became Director of SHIELD, with periods of Maria Hill, Daisy Johnson, and possibly Steve Rogers (although I may be mis-remembering the timing on the last one).
Fury Jr. technically isn’t the head of SHIELD and never has been (it’s gone Maria Hill, Daisy Johnson (might be mixing those two up in order), then Evil Steve Rogers, and now is currently defunct), but now since the MCU has so dominated the market, he definitely shows up a hell of a lot more than Hill or any other SHIELD agent, and I’d be willing to bet that in the near future whenever SHIELD comes back in comics, Fury Jr will finally get in that trenchcoat and take his cross-media synergistic spot as the Director.
Hmm, apparently you don’t know anything about Marvel’s Ultimate universe. That comic line introduced a black Fury years before he appeared in the movies. The inspiration to cast Jackson as Fury actually came from the Ultimates.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Fury_(Ultimate_Marvel_character)
Well, yes and no. Black Nick Fury first appeared in the ultimate Avengers comic called, uh, the Ultimates published in 2002, well before the movies. That version of Nick was indeed modelled after Sam Jackson, who then was cast into the role. And then yes, the main Marvel universe ditched white Nick Fury.
Yeah, it was silly. They should’ve found a way to bring over the Ultimate Universe Nick Fury (the one who was modeled on Sam Jackson in the first place) to the regular (616) Marvel Universe and just have him take over SHIELD from the old Nick. Or even just kept Nick the same as always and not worry about it.
Getting shrapnel in the eye is hereditary.
The value of changing things for the movies.
We can have bug bites and mutants but apparently not at the same time, so… Nope.
“As if gamma accidents, radioactive bug bites, only one eye patch shop in Los Angeles, Coulson trying to unionize, Maria Hill not shutting up about how HIMYM is going to stick the landing, Justin Hammer’s cost overruns, the radioactive bugs coming out of Pym’s old lab, helicarrier fuel costs, and assorted mutants weren’t enough…”
“…I just spent three hours hanging around in a shadowy part of your living room waiting for you to get home so that I could make a dramatic entrance! Damn, motherfucker, do you ever stay at home for more than a few minutes?”
Neat scene and all, but the original is still the best for its brevity, directness, and impact.I have no idea if it’s even feasible to try and “rank” all of the mid-, post-, etc. scenes anymore, but that first one is at or near the top.EDIT: I guess Avengers’ “…is to court death” is also a pretty significant one. And the shwarma scene is still my favorite.
I remember watching this in theaters, and most of the few people remaining, who had read something online about a post-credit scene, just being completely astonished. My father collected Marvel comics so I knew all about the Avengers, but I’m guessing for most people this really was a shocking introduction to a larger world.
I’m guessing the Infinity Saga box set will be every movie from 2008-2019? Because I really don’t want to buy Phases One and Two all over again.