Samuel L. Jackson Reads Comic Books With A Shocking Exception
Samuel L. Jackson is a life-long reader of comic books, but he has a pretty shocking blind spot for one thing. Read for more.
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If there is any single person with the claim to being the living epitome of comic book movies, it is most likely Samuel L. Jackson. After all, he is the behind-the-scenes hero of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, appearing in the very first post-credits scene in Iron Man that made the world go wild. He is Mr. Glass, the comic-book obsessed supervillain that broke down the entire concept of superheroes for us in Unbreakable and Glass, and he is Frozone, the coolest hero in The Incredibles and The Incredibles 2. Most of all, he is basically a real-life superhero who can pressure George Lucas into giving him a special lightsaber, which is always awesome to talk about. And it turns out, he really is a lifelong comic book who grew up immersed in the world of superheroes. With one big exception: the man does not read Marvel Comic books.
The world is an ironic place, and so it turns out that Nicholas J. Fury does not much care for the world of Spider-Man and the Mighty Thor. According to a recent appearance on the Happy But Sad Confused podcast, Samuel L. Jackson grew up with DC Comics as his go-to, particularly citing Superman, Batman, and Aquaman as his big three. From the sounds of it, he did not really ever pay much attention to Marvel Comics until he found himself actually appearing in them, presumably as the Ultimate Marvel version of Nick Fury. Prior to the MCU, Marvel Comics had licensed Jackson’s image for the revamped version of Fury (thankfully not opting for the David Hasselhoff variant), which led directly to his own casting in the franchise in a kind of neverending ouroboros of Samuel L. Jackson. Funny ol’ world.
In the same interview, Samuel L. Jackson also revealed that while he is theoretically open to appearing in the DCEU in some capacity, he does not really get the whole vibe of the MCU’s competing franchise (which he is not alone in). That said, the star of Eve’s Bayou was refreshingly candid, stating “Actors are mercenaries. It’s kind of what we do,” which can be taken by Warner Bros executives as a hint that if they drive a truck full of money to his house, he will appear as John Henry Steel or whoever. Ball’s in your court on that one, Warner Bros.
That all rests on the assumption that Samuel L. Jackson will ever have a free moment in his schedule to be recruited into the DCEU. The 73-year-old actor is currently filming three different MCU projects simultaneously (namely, Secret Invasion, Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, and The Marvels) and has recently been prodding at Disney’s Star Wars wing to bring Mace Windu back into active duty. He also had one of his most treasured records recently broken by a usurper, so he will probably film another half a dozen features just to get that particular achievement back. As Jackson puts it, he is the worker-bee of Hollywood, and he certainly seems to be eager to keep working forever.
