S.H.I.E.L.D

S.H.I.E.L.D. (Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law-enforcement Division) is an extra-government intelligence and security organization dedicated to protecting the nations and peoples of Earth from all threats, terrestrial or extraterrestrial. S.H.I.E.L.D. was organized in a little over a decade ago to meet the threat of the highly technological subversive organization called Hydra. The identities of the organization’s founders, its Executive Board, have never been revealed. S.H.I.E.L.D.’s first known Executive Director was Rick Stoner, who was replaced after his apparent demise by Nick Fury, an ex-World War II commando and C.I.A. operative. S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Supreme Headquarters is the huge mobile Helicarrier, but there are also regional offices in all the major cities of the free world and several secret bases in Communist countries. Although most of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s operations are covert, the organization’s existence is known to general public. S.H.I.E.L.D. even maintains public offices in several cities.

Only a few of the several thousand S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives active throughout the world are known. In the wake of Colonel Nicholas Fury's "Secret War" the position of director was passed to Maria Hill and later she has passed the role to Tony Stark (Iron Man) after the "Civil War". Recently, after the Skrull Invasion, Norman Osborn became director of S.H.I.E.L.D. only to close down S.H.I.E.L.D. and replace it with his own organization known as H.A.M.M.E.R..