Aasiyah Al-Zoubi is an alternate universe counterpart to Earth-616 Nick Fury.
Early History[]
Born in Tehran in the late 1980's, Aasiyah's Muslim family emigrated to the United States to escape the oppressive rule of Ayatollah Khomeini. Upon arriving in the states, her father found a job working utilities and her mother became a local elementary school teacher. Growing up, she faced prejudice which only intensified during the first Gulf War. However through these trials and harassments, she would strive for her education and train in self defense courses, toughening herself up for a long uphill battle.
When she reached adulthood she joined the military, training even harder; and would soon be picked to join the SHIELD organization as a field agent. When the second War on Terror broke out, she jumped at the call to fight back against oppressive Wahabbists and the naysayers who looked upon her with suspicion. Early in her career as a field operative she joined in successful missions of sabotage, information gathering and covert assassinations against the Saudi's funding the terrorist groups like the Taliban and the Ten Rings.
On one such sabotage raid, her team was ambushed, most of them killed or having fled to the extraction while she was left behind and captured. For weeks on end she was abused and tortured by her captors for information, but mostly for their sadistic pleasure and accusing her of being a traitor to their race. During these weeks she remained tight lipped and defiant, never cracking under their attempts to break her. She even went so far as to laugh and insult her torturers as less than men, lower than dogs even for their displays of "dominance." One of them, enraged at her venomous tongue, slashed her left eye, leaving her permanently blind in that eye. She would manage to escape her shackles and single-handedly take out the camp she was interrogated at, capturing the head terrorist and marching with him out into the desert for miles before being picked up by friendly forces.
While she was being tended to in a medical tent, she received an unexpected visit from Victoria Domashev, the leader of Latveria. She had heard of her story and came to witness another kindred spirit, a female warrior who struggled through hardships and the fire of war. The two would become lifelong friends and allies. Aasiyah's superiors, seeing her determination and will to get done what needed to be done, decided to promote her to acting director of SHIELD at the age of 30. At the ceremony she was bestowed the title of Nick Fury, a name passed on from director to director in honor of SHIELD's original founder, Roman general Nicolaus Furie.