Marvel has announced that SHIELD, led by Nick Fury Jr., will return in Captain America #6, seemingly replacing the team of international superheroes that was set to debut in that issue.
The post-One World Under Doom story would have introduced a group of super soldiers sent to assist Captain America on a mission to Latveria, including Captain Kingdom, Captain France, The Star and a new Red Widow. But this week Marvel announced that issue will now feature a new iteration of SHIELD that will include Nick Fury Jr., Red Widow and several new SHIELD agents — all in the lead-up to Armageddon.
They even kept the same cover design by artist Valerio Schiti, replacing the “Captains” with SHIELD:
“When we first announced plans for the second arc of this Cap run, I had a different idea in mind for the team supporting Steve. But when the possibility of a new S.H.I.E.L.D. came along, we just hit the ground running,” Zdarsky said. “S.H.I.E.L.D. is Marvel. It’s human ingenuity and fortitude, keeping the world safe. Bringing them back with a new mandate and scope has been incredibly fun. They’re starting small, but they, and Fury, have big plans.”
It’s not clear what has become of Captain Kingdom and his crew, but maybe we’ll see them debut somewhere down the line. Editor in Chief C.B. Cebulski said they’ve been looking for a way to re-introduce SHIELD ever since it disbanded in the wake of the Secret Empire storyline.
“Ever since S.H.I.E.L.D. disbanded almost 10 years ago, the idea of bringing it back has come up at every creative retreat we’ve had. We’ve been working on the return of S.H.I.E.L.D. for a long time, and especially so over the past few months since our most recent creative retreat,” Cebulski said. “After digging more into this Captain America story with Chip, Valerio, and our teams, it became clear that this was the right story and right time to do so. And with this year being the 60th anniversary since S.H.I.E.L.D.’s debut, we thought it was even more fitting to make this happen.”
Here’s a look at Schiti’s character designs for this new version of SHIELD:
Here’s how Marvel describes them:
Smaller, leaner, and more underground than its predecessor, the re-formed S.H.I.E.L.D. includes an eclectic group of agents: Joe Ramos, an altruistic soldier from Brooklyn; Charles Castlemore, a retired Marine with strong opinions about the Latverian resistance; Trevor Tambling, a soldier of fortune with unclear motives; and Red Widow, a former Russian agent abandoned by her home country for her questionable loyalty. Nick Fury must keep these soldiers in line as they carry out their secret task to retrieve Doom’s weapons—even if it means clashing with Cap!
And if, like me, you saw this news and thought, “Didn’t they already bring back SHIELD?” Well, kind of … Maria Hill, who now works for the CIA, has popped up in Fantastic Four looking to form a special task force called the “Super Human Intelligence: Extra-Legal Division.” It doesn’t look like she’s part of this new SHIELD … at least not yet.
Captain America #6 arrives in stores Jan. 21. It’ll be followed in February by issue #7:
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