Is Nick Fury gay in ‘Secret Invasion?’

WARNING: The following article contains minor spoilers for Episode 1 of Secret Invasion.

Hot on the heels of Secret Invasion landing on Disney Plus, the talk of the town is Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury, who — during Pride Month, no less — is rumored to be gay. In the debut episode, “Resurrection,” former S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nicky Fury is out of the game, essentially looking to retire from babysitting the Earth and its extraterrestrial visitors. However, Fury begrudgingly accepts that so long as otherworldly threats exist, he must be on hand with a squadron of trained agents to stop them.

Even in the wake of his wife’s death, Fury’s long-time associate and ally, the Skrull Talos, continues to stand by his human associate. The Skrull are reeling from the broken promise made by Nick and Carol Danvers to bring the Skrulls to a new planet, but even as tensions rise between humans and non-humans, Nicky and Talos remain indebted to one another. Talos’ daughter has joined a Skrull rebellion planning to use subterfuge to kickstart eventual Skrull dominion over Earth, but one of the largest mysteries here isn’t concerning how Fury will stop the Skrull armada, but more concerning his sexuality.

When Nicky Fury reunites with Talos in the first episode, there’s a heartfelt moment as the two embrace, exchange some touching sentiments, then express their ‘love’ (whether it be romantic or platonic) with a lingering forehead touch. Now, we’ll not jump the gun and get ahead of ourselves here, but from what we’ve seen of Nicky Fury thus far in the MCU, he can be quite a cold, calculated and largely emotionally unavailable individual, so this is a huge change of pace.

We aren’t used to seeing Fury so affectionate with… well, anyone. And that’s the starting point for the rumors, as more and more viewers rush to Google and type in “Is Nicky Fury gay?” or something similar. As much as we’d love to see an influential actor like Samuel L. Jackson play gay on-screen, there has sadly been no confirmation on Fury’s sexuality. He has never openly discussed it, nor do we expect him to int he future.

Fury’s whole personality is extremely ambiguous, so we wouldn’t be surprised if his sexuality stays the same way. You never truly know how he’s feeling, so even if there’s some interspecies romance blossoming here, Fury will be keeping his cards close to his chest, no doubt about it.

New episodes of Secret Invasion premiere on Disney Plus on Wednesdays.