NICK FURY

The most famous eyepatch in comics was not issued with the uniform; it was purchased with a decision. Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #27 (1966) finally told the tale its cover promised, flashing back to a mission inside Nazi Germany where a cornered German soldier hurled a grenade into the middle of the Howling Commandos. Fury grabbed it and threw it clear of his men — a half-second too slowly to escape the blast himself.

Shrapnel tore into his left eye, and the field dressing his men fitted before covering his escape was only the start of the bargain. Back at base, doctors offered Fury an operation that could save the eye outright. The price was a full year out of the war. Fury refused the surgery, accepted a stopgap repair that returned him to his unit, and knowingly traded his long-term sight for the chance to keep fighting beside the Commandos.

The bill came due exactly as warned. The patched eye held through the war, then deteriorated over the following years until its vision was effectively gone. When Fury reappeared in the modern era as a S.H.I.E.L.D. spymaster, the black eyepatch over that ruined left eye was simply the visible receipt for a choice he had made as a sergeant: his men first, his eye second, the paperwork never.