I’m fully aware that there was a Sgt. Fury war comic, but I haven’t covered it here because it’s only tangentially relevant to the Marvel Universe.  It’s really here, in Strange Tales #135, that Nick Fury becomes a player in the MU.  And in the very first shot, he’s chewing on a cigar, having a mold made out of him for a life model decoy. 

Nick Fury created the robots to serve as a body double to trick HYDRA during an attack.

And in the same debut issue, we see the famous flying cars that are still a big deal today…

…And, of course, the Helicarrier.

As for the story, it’s really just a bigger budget James Bond kind of thing.  Tony Stark is involved as a weapons maker for SHIELD, there are two-way communication quarters, explosive ties, and we learn that the Marvel version of SPECTRE is Hydra
We also learn that SHIELD stands for Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law-enforcement Division.  That changes later.

Also, Hydra has a culture: They don’t call each others’ masks ugly…

The stories all run together, but this is a fine place to stop for now.