Nick Fury is not the easiest guy to get along with, but when one is the Director of SHIELD, that comes with the territory. However, in the Ultimate Universe – a separate Marvel dimension intended to tell modern stories free from decades of continuity – Nick was even worse, willing to do anything and work with anyone in the name of preserving the peace and gaining leverage in the dangerous world of politics, power and superhumans. Among the many questionable deeds in his past, how this Nick Fury ended his marriage to Monica Chang, the second Black Widow, is definitely one of the cruelest things he’s ever done.
Monica Chang was introduced in Ultimate Comics: Avengers as the latest operative to take the name Black Widow in Nick Fury’s special black ops team. Monica disregarded her predecessor’s status as a traitor to the Ultimates and any objection her teammates, particularly Hawkeye, had to her assuming the title. To make things even more complicated, Monica was also Nick Fury’s ex-wife, put on the team specifically for SHIELD director Carol Danvers to keep an eye on Fury. Created by Mark Millar and Carlos Pacheco, Monica helped the Avengers on their first mission against the Red Skull and AIM, wearing a special suit made by Tony Stark’s amoral yet genius brother Gregory. She was unarguably an asset to the team, but her interactions with Fury suggested there was plenty of hostility and aggression that had not healed with time.
Facing a mysterious enemy, Monica turned to “Spider,” an imprisoned villain made available to the team for information gathering. In exchange for information on the new threat, the Spider requested some quid pro quo, and Monica obliged by revealing why her and Nick Fury split up. After Nick saved her from a mission gone wrong in Bosnia, Monica fell in love and they eventually married, with Monica’s family and friends showing their overwhelming love and support for her new husband. Although everything seemed well, Monica’s spy training began to notice little details, specifically marks made in her address book whenever she was away on a mission.
In the time they were together, Monica discovered that Fury had cheated on her by sleeping with all of her female friends and relatives, including her mother more than once. The reality of this betrayal is staggering, and Monica admitted to not having many friends and being close with her family, so to discover that those she loved were also involved must have been soul-crushing, especially since these occurrences would happen when she was away on mission. They divorced, and Monica tried to put this behind her, although she admitted that she still loves Fury despite all of his indiscretions.
The story served to illustrate how pathologically undermining Fury was – a trait which he showed throughout his career, often to deadly effect. In the Ultimate Marvel Universe, being the greatest spy in a world full of wonders and horrors doesn’t go hand in hand with being a good person. It’s a realization that took Marvel’s mainstream universe several more years to recognize in Original Sin; Nick Fury makes most sense when he’s acting like a borderline villain. Whether to his friends, enemies, or lovers, Fury is someone who is always looking for every possible vulnerability to exploit, and in the case of the second Black Widow, Nick Fury tore her world down around her simply because it was a challenge to do so.
