The man planning Nick Fury’s moves...

By Kevin Mahadeo

This fall, Norman Osborn's making a list, but he'll only need to check it once.

As Osborn's rule over the Marvel Universe tightens, the Green Goblin-turned-Iron Patriot targets his biggest threats and prepares to deal with them accordingly. Comprised of eight interconnected one-shots, DARK REIGN: THE LIST refers to a literal list of people, places and things that hold particular importance to the Marvel Universe's current man in charge. A different creative team tackles each issue, which each address one item on the previously mentioned list.

For the next week, Marvel.com will be speaking with the talented writers responsible for Making the List.

Dark Reign: The List

Jonathan Hickman just can't seem to keep a secret, a point evidenced with his upcoming special DARK REIGN: THE LIST—SECRET WARRIORS, in which the writer blows the lid off of Nick Fury's underground group of rebels and brings Fury eye patch-to-eye with the man in the floating fortress, Norman Osborn.

"The last time Norman and Fury were together was the end of Secret Invasion, and Norman made his big power move to take over and essentially scuttled S.H.I.E.L.D., which was Nick Fury's baby," says Hickman. "What we're going to get in THE LIST—SECRET WARRIORS is obviously a lot of comparative stuff on why was S.H.I.E.L.D unsuccessful, why is H.A.M.M.E.R successful, why is what Norman doing effective and how did Nick Fury fail. There's an argument between the two of the reality of the situation, which leads to obviously exploding stuff and lots of fists-to-cuffs and drama."

Artist Ed McGuinness joins Hickman for THE LIST special, whose repercussions ring loudly into the ongoing SECRET WARRIORS title. The South Carolina-based writer took some time to reveal some more secrets about the upcoming issue, tease a team-up no one saw coming and to place his bet on a showdown between the Iron Patriot and the former Howling Commando.Marvel.com: The Secret Warriors have been a relatively low-key team. How does Norman find out about Fury and the Warriors?

Nick Fury & Norman Osborn

Jonathan Hickman: Well, SECRET WARRIORS is a spy book and the tone of it is always going to be subtle. This [one-shot] is a lot like that. Fury is very good at the things that he does, regardless of what Norman thinks. It turns out Fury is so good at it that Norman doesn't have any way to find him and cannot find him. It's actually the opposite of what you said. Fury is looking for Norman. You're running this huge security organization and it's Monday morning and you're coming into the office and your secretary runs in and says, "You've got a fire to put out and that fire is Nick Fury." It ruins the week.

Marvel.com: Does Norman even have a plan of attack against someone like Fury, whose resources just seems to be endless?

Jonathan Hickman: Let me answer that this way: I'm not even saying that Norman and Nick Fury are at odds for the entirety of this issue. Something may come up that is so big that it involves the two of them working together and then things spiral out of it. We're supposed to do these books so that not only is it relevant to the Marvel Universe, but so people can get an idea of how the related book works. This is a spy story where there are crosses and double crosses and lies and cheaters and just generally dishonest people either for good cause or evil, and the book reads as such.

Marvel.com: SECRET WARRIORS features the character of Phobos, the son of Ares, a character on Norman's team of Avengers. Are we going to see Ares finding out about this?

Jonathan Hickman: All that comes to a head. There's a little bit of that in this issue, but all of the Ares and Phobos stuff gets answered in the [new] arc of SECRET WARRIORS, which is called "God of Fear, God of War." All of that comes out in issue #10, but my issue [of] THE LIST leads directly into issue #10. So, yes, there's the seed of that in the one-shot as well.

Phobos

Marvel.com: You mentioned earlier about Norman taking away everything Fury once had. In that regard, what is Fury's mindset going into this issue and having to team with Norman?

Jonathan Hickman: Well, he obviously doesn't like it and he's not a fan of Norman Osborn. But Nick's got bigger fish to fry and in this case, so does Norman. They hate each other, but sometimes the enemy of my enemy and all that.

Marvel.com: Can you hint or tease what exactly this enemy is that forces these two to team up with each despite their strong hate?

Jonathan Hickman: Absolutely not. [Laughs]

Marvel.com: Fair enough. Well, artist Ed McGuinness is providing art for this one-shot. What does he bring to this book?

Jonathan Hickman: I'm sure it's going to be absolutely awesome. I'm really excited to work with him. I'm a fan of his work and I can't wait to see pages. Ed's going to have a lot of freedom to do a little bit of interpretive dancing when he's doing the book because I definitely told him up front that I wanted it to feel like something he can knock out of the park. I'm sure it's going to be great.

Marvel.com: Okay, Norman is a manipulative jerk, but a genius in that aspect. But Fury certainly isn't a pushover. Face-to-face, who do you think would win in a fight?

Nick Fury

Jonathan Hickman: I really don't think either one of them would fight face-to-face to be honest. [Laughs] They're both shoot-you-in-the-back kind of guys. I don't mean that in a negative respect, but I doubt very seriously that would agree to a fight in those circumstances. But beyond that, you know if Norman's not in his armor, Fury is going to kick his ass.Check back in tomorrow when we speak with Brian Michael Bendis about Making the List!

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