Trade Issues: Fear Itself

Trade Issues: Where Chris bitches about series he waited far too long to read!

 Fear Itself. Iron Breaks. Soldiers Fall. Gods Die.

In the summer of 2011, there were two big comic company wide crossovers. From DC came the absolutely amazing Flashpoint and the eventual DC Reboot. I absolutely adored Flashpoint for it's initiative and ability to try something new. I LOVED Thomas Wayne as Batman. With all this, I barely gave Fear Itself the time of day. The only bit of it I experienced at the time was when the Uncanny X-men series was affected as a transformed Juggernaut marched towards Utopia. Otherwise, I had no interest.

A friend of mine (@Drdogbert) told me the comic was amazing and quite the read. So I bit the bullet and grabbed the hardback off of Amazon. And overall? I wasn't really satisfied.

This comic was slow at first. The gist of it is that Red Skull's daughter raises the avatar of fear (Odin's brother, the rightful owner of Asgard.), the Serpent. The Serpent drops 7 hammers to Earth, turning various people into avatars of the Serpent. Notable avatars are The Thing, The Incredible Hulk, and Titania. The avatars begin wreaking havoc across the world. Of even greater concern is Odin's plan to sanitize the Earth of life. Why? An ancient prophecy says that "The son of Odin will kill the serpent. He will then fall dead after he has taken 9 steps." 

Odin, willing to do anything to save his son, is ready to destroy the Earth. This is given a lot of talk. A LOT of talk. Odin and nameless Asgardians talking about what needs to be done. I think that may be my big problem with this comic. I have never been a fan of Thor. I am ambivalent towards him. I don't dislike him; but I never go out of my way to read his series. That might be the reason I wasn't overly thrilled with a majority of this comic.

The middle act, aside from Odin and Thor arguing in Asgard are just quick battle. Everything just jumps around too quickly for me to care. Bucky/Captain America is killed by Sin but I didn't really care since it was the first time he had appeared in the crossover. It just continued popping about after that.

The third act was where this story found it's feet. And by that, I mean the final issue. The final fight between the Avengers and avatars of fear in Oklahoma is just excellent. I won't go into many details but it makes up for a lot. Not all. But a lot. Also, this image is just a sight to behold. My eyes were wide for a good few minutes, just staring.

Just....wow. Is that not the most heroic thing you've ever seen?

While not great, the comic is good and has some good moments.