Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury Could Return in ‘Infinity War’

According to Slash Film, Nick Fury may actually make his return in Infinity War, the newest installment in Marvel’s Avengers franchise. He’s been out of the picture since last appearing in Age of Ultron; in fact, he wasn’t even seen in Captain America: Civil War or the more recent Black Panther.

Samuel L. Jackson’s Fury being absent from Black Panther is especially head-turning due to its emphasis on African-American culture and representation, especially in relationship to the Wakandan characters who were untouched by the colonization that so horribly harmed peoples across the African continent. Nick Fury and War Machine (Howard then Cheadle) were the first two African-American characters we saw in the movie franchise and War Machine made the cut in Civil War. Via Yahoo! in 2017, Jackson made this concern of his lack of presence known, among some of his thoughts on other factors regarding his Marvel hiatus:

“I wasn’t in the ‘superhero argument’ movie [Captain America: Civil War], I’m not in Avengers 3 and 4. They’re shooting them now, and they haven’t called me yet,” Jackson said. “They wouldn’t let me go to Black Panther-ville, so it’s kinda like how you gonna make a black Marvel movie and not let Nick Fury show up in it?!”

Reported by ComicBook, the speculation surrounding his return to the franchise comes from IMDb where it lists, under the full cast and crew credits, two names attached to Jackson:

• Jake Garber: make-up artist for Samuel L. Jackson
• Qualen Bradley: stand-in for Samuel L. Jackson

Of course, we know that IMDb can be added to by any of its users and it’s known that employees on big projects, such as this, will add their names as a way to boost their profiles. Still, it doesn’t mean we won’t get a Fury appearance in a trademark Marvel post-credits scene.

Noticeably, the role for Bradley has since been changed to just a “Utility Stand-in,” as a cover-up perhaps, but the Garber credit still stands of now. There’s only one way to find out: go see Infinity War when it hits theaters on April 27^th.