10 Comic Characters Who Totally Changed After Appearing On Screen
4. Nick Fury
There are a few steps to this transformation. Nick Fury is one of Marvel's longest running characters, debuting alongside his Howling Commandos in 1963. In all that time, he had a pretty consistent look: a square-jawed army man who usually wore an eyepatch.
When Marvel introduced its Ultimate Universe, a series of comics about alternate versions of fan-favourite characters, the alternate Fury was designed to look exactly like Samuel L. Jackson. When Jackson became aware of this, he said that he was absolutely fine with his image being stolen, as long as he could play the character if they ever made a movie about him. Eleven movies later, and Jackson's performance has become the most iconic version of Fury yet, and many casual fans' first introduction to the character.
Riding the wave of Sam Jackson buzz, Marvel Comics decided to introduce Marcus Johnson into their main universe. Johnson also happened to look a whole lot like Sam Jackson, and was revealed to actually be the original Nick Fury's long-lost son. After he had his eye cut out by a Soviet-based terrorist organisation, Johnson got an eyepatch of his own, changed his name to Nick Fury Jr, and essentially replaced his father in the comics.