Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury Has A Replacement?
Marvel Studios Vice President Nate Moore says Valentina Allegra de Fontaine is being developed as a Nick Fury-like character.
Nick Fury may be being replaced in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, the spymaster who has been gradually revealed to be assembled her own task force to unknown ends. According to Screen Rant, longtime Marvel Studios producer Nate Moore said that Valentina (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is being slowly built up in installments to reveal that she is involved in more than she seems. This is very similar to how Nick Fury (played as always by Samuel L. Jackson) was initially only shown in brief scenes and ultimately depicted as the mastermind behind the formation of the Avengers.
According to Nate Moore:
[W]ith Valentina, much like Nick Fury in Phase One, we’re slowly building the story of a woman who maybe has her finger in more pies than you think. And we’ll just see if that’s a good thing or a bad thing for the MCU.
This should hold a lot of weight, considering that Moore is one of the more influential people at Marvel Studios and part of what is referred to as the “Marvel Studios Parliament.” To be fair, the idea that Valentina Allegra de Fontaine might be being prepped to replace Nick Fury as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s resident puppetmaster is not a new one, as fans began guessing her role as soon as she was introduced in the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
Valentina Allegra de Fontaine appeared twice in the Anthony Mackie-Sebastian Stan series, both times approaching John Walker (Wyatt Russell), the soldier appointed by the U.S. Government as the new Captain America and then stripped of the title after he went a bit loopy on bad Super-Soldier serum. She then showed up in the post-credits sequence of Black Widow to give Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) some carefully misleading intel, and most recently as the new director of the C.I.A. in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Much like Nick Fury, she seems to have a knack for getting in people’s heads and having more information than anyone else.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ character is confirmed to be appearing in the upcoming Thunderbolts movie, which will reunite her with Florence Pugh and Wyatt Russell (among many other Marvel miscreants). Since the Thunderbolts are generally seen to be a kind of dark Avengers (though not the Dark Avengers), it stands to reason that she will serve in the same kind of motivating/coordinating/manipulating capacity as Nick Fury did with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
It is also entirely possible that Valentina Allegra de Fontaine will be popping back up in the MCU prior to Thunderbolts, very likely in the upcoming Secret Invasion limited series on Disney+. Secret Invasion will follow Nick Fury as he investigates a conspiracy of alien shapeshifters known as Skrulls, who have impersonated notable superheroes and important people around the world. In the original Marvel Comics Secret Invasion series, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine was one of the first people that Nick Fury discovered to be a Skrull imposter, so with any luck, we could see Elaine from Seinfield in a fight with Jules from Pulp Fiction soon.
However, Marvel Studios is known to play pretty fast and loose with the actual narrative elements of the comics it uses as source material, so maybe not. It does seem pretty certain that, at the very least, Nick Fury has competition.
