Written by Matt Fraction
Illustrated by Stuart ImmonenDO YOU FEAR…TOMORROW? In this time of global anxiety, of economic turmoil and mass hysteria, Sin, the new Red Skull, has made an awesome discovery…a shameful secret that will rock the foundations of the Marvel Universe! A revelation that will divide father and son, turn friend against friend, and herald the rise of Fear personified. HE IS RETURNING…and the world has nothing to fear but FEAR ITSELF. Matt Fraction and Stuart Immonen bring fans the biggest Marvel the biggest Marvel event since CIVIL WAR!
Marvel’s big line changing, universe altering, and noun verbing event is here as April begins. Written by both a fan favorite writer and artist, the story is supposed to be indicative of the times we live in but also the result of years upon years of character development in the Marvel universe. Or, really – the same things that events always say they are.
At least, those are the lines that the pessimists will use. Me? I bring on the big punches and hammer swings! Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I loved the book. And now as Fraction and Immonen both take up the role of event-masters, is Fear Itself #1 as good as you might assume from the two creators?
Check behind the cut for some thoughts on the matter.
Fear Itself, before it even began, promised many, many things. It pretty much didn’t have a choice. We live in a world where the phrase “event-fatigue” is a commonly used notion; where everyone is somewhat sick of heroes just throwing down for the sake of throwing down, rather than having some kind of rhyme or reason to it. People don’t want to buy a million tie-ins to try and understand the events of one book, either. Comic fans have stated what they desire, and while the companies might not necessarily respond in turn they will certainly put out some amalgamation of the idea.
It’s with that in mind that Marvel delivers to us Fear Itself – a story that you can supposedly read in just it’s main book without buying a million tie-ins, and one that will have some kind of resonance. Matt Fraction has certainly boasted on numerous occasions that the very same fears we have in the real world – of identity, poverty, and a place in the world – will somewhat feed into what makes Fear Itself such a visceral piece, in the same way that Civil War addressed issues of state and freedom. Of course, to do that Marvel would certainly have to move away from the typical event format, wouldn’t it? There should be something more there, shouldn’t there? Something very real in a world of Gods and heroes.
To that extent, Fear Itself opens in Lower Manhattan at the site of one of the greatest tragedies of our history, as a torn crowd screams and yells about what should or should not be placed in that area. Steve Rogers and Sharon Carter stand in the center of the crowds attempting to figure out how to diffuse the situation, but madness bubbles over and leads to a riot made all that much worse by the former Captain America getting hit in the head with a brick. Almost immediately is our world recognizable in the pages of Fear Itself, which is one of the reported goals of the title. Fraction has never been one to shy away from commentary within his comics, no matter how overtly it has been (see: the Order, for example), and so far he’s staying true to his guns with Fear Itself. While no one has thrown a brick at a super soldier in the real world, we certainly have seen reports on the news of riots and the police reaction to them, both in and out of the United States. We see more real world scenarios as Tony Stark helps push a project to rebuild Asgard and have the citizens of Broxton, OK, participate in order to help fix the economy there. We get both sides of the spectrum as one resident is forced to leave, claiming that Stark should have worried about his home before the home of the Gods in a rather sad little scene. It’s interesting to see an event comic book spend less time just having characters battle, rant, and argue towards whatever inevitable fracas takes place, but instead focus on real people having realistic discussions, even in an Oklahoma where Gods live next door and you can take a tour about it. Now – whether this sort of social poking is necessary or not is yet to be seen as the event aspect of the story begins closer to the end of the comic, but you certainly get as much as Fraction promised you would.
Continued belowAs far as the actual event is concerned, the issue is very much a slow boil to the point that it bubbles over rather deftly at the end. This issue is extra-packed in it’s page count, leaving just enough time to slowly introduce all the elements that it theoretically needs before the story becomes about smashing people with hammers. Sin gets her hammer, unleashes the God of Fear – who is apparently the real All-Father – and Odin has a tantrum about it, yelling at Uatu and beating his son rather mercilessly for talking back. For those wanting in action, you’re certainly given quite a bit of a wallop in the beginning. Thor and Odin throwing down? Quite a sight to behold, especially when rendered by the wonderful Stuart Immonen (who we’ll discuss more thoroughly later). Heck, even the Avengers all standing in a nice line-up on top of Avengers Tower or in front of a crowd looks rather good, and for all that is packed into this first issue we’re given quite a good set-up for a rather extended event (because remember, the last major Marvel event was only 4 issues long). What’s nice to see here is that to a certain extent Marvel left build-up of this nature to “prelude” issues, but Fraction uses the extra pages to avoid that element, leaving the prelude story for Brubaker to introduce the Book of the Skull instead (which is ultimately a very minor element of the story). And with Sin’s raid that leads to Skadi’s arrival, as well as the summoning of the hammers and Odin’s big final moment, we already have two issues worth of content and story with just our first issue. That’s certainly a nice bang for your buck.
The other nice thing about Fear Itself is that it also manages to be fairly insular, which is one of it’s other main promises. While having read Siege, Thor, and the prelude to Fear Itself by Brubaker (let alone Brubaker’s Cap/Secret Avengers run in general) are all recommended reads, Fear Itself begins as smoothly as one might hope. This isn’t a book spinning out of New Avengers after all, and Fraction does his best to essentially work with the few elements he needs from previous storylines and keeps the title as contained to the machinations of Fear Itself as possible. It certainly works; right from the get-go we’re given a shot of Earth and we slowly zoom in, we are reminded that this is an event taking place in the Marvel Universe and not so much as an event happening because of something in the Marvel Universe. Seeing as this new God of Fear has never been seen before now, nor has their been thousands of issues about a hidden prophecy (unless I missed something outside of a few obtuse mentions in Secret Avengers), saying that you can start right at the beginning is not an understatement – and it’s rather welcome in a world where events require the knowledge of N issues from titles X, Y, and Z (and that’s coming from someone who is reading every other book on the market anyway).
So let’s take a moment to look at the construction of the event at a more basic level. This is Fraction’s first major outing at the head of the event ship, and considering his rather public BFF-ness with fellow writer Brian Bendis it’s fairly assumed that he might have taken a few notes here and there. While Fraction has certainly worked on events before (Secret Invasion and Civil War tie-ins, as well as a good chunk of the Second Coming story), never before has he gone the full monty solo. With his first effort into the Fear Itself story, the only major complaint with the issue would be it’s pacing. Fear Itself is an event after all, and there are certainly some expectations that come with that. If you think about the last two major events from both Marvel and DC (Siege and Blackest Night, respectively), both got to their “point” rather quickly, launching us straight into the middle of the events to come within the first issue. Fear Itself is (as noted earlier) apparently more of a slow burn, with the villain obviously revealed early on (even before the issue came out, really), and this issue seeks to just give an example of how bad things will get. Odin hates Thor and all of mankind? Odin yells at the Watcher? Riots and a lack of faith in our heroes? Not much good can come from this, and when you add seven mystical hammers into the equation that were dropped by an evil deity, you can’t imagine things will honestly get that much better. However, it’s how long it takes Fraction to get to these elements that is really of any issue. This is a whopping 56 pages, so obviously Fraction has time to put a slow burner on and allow things to move along at their own pace, but it’s notable that the future solicited issues are only 32 pages. Fraction won’t have that much time to develop the story this slowly in later issues, unless perhaps he rushes a bit at the end because a lot is introduced here. We have several mysteries that assumedly will have a pay-off later in the story, and while it’s all very well and good to be putting as much as possible in here now, one hopes that it won’t effect the story a lot later. Then again, the issue is double-sized and seems to function both as a prelude and the first issue, so it’s not the worst thing in the world to have an event that doesn’t try and open with a hammer to the face (pun somewhat intended).
Continued belowThat said, this book is still very much Matt Fraction writing what Matt Fraction writes best. Having recently taken over Thor, Fraction’s first story was a tad bit huge for a story that was “over” so quickly (which again leads to issues of pacing), but his character handling was what really shined in the title. Fraction gave the Gods a visceral edge, hardening their hearts from the softness of JMS’ run and instead making them behave like Gods who worked with man, not as man. Fraction has also proven time and time again that he can get high concepts to work in execution with Invincible Iron Man (which featured one of the longest story arcs I’ve ever seen with it’s Dark Reign tie-in), so one would hope that Fraction’s abilities would work well in an event. Granted, this isn’t as character focused as any of his series have been, but as wide of a cast as this book has, it takes the time to really focus on characters in scenes, escalating the relationship between Thor and Odin specifically while the rest of the Avengers sit on the sidelines. It’s good for an opener, but you kind of have to hope that Fraction uses a tad bit more of the toys he has in this specific toy box at the moment as the story moves more forward.
However, what should ultimately sell the issue to anyone is the essentially flawless artwork by Stuart Immonen. Marvel has done a good job so far of getting great artists on their various events of recent, with Steve McNiven, Francis Lenil Yu, and Olivier Coipel all delivering rather gorgeous looking books. Stuart Immonen, on the other hand, is an artist who has been ridiculously fantastic for a very long time in the world of comics, yet never really getting as much of a chance to visually shine to the masses. All of the pre-release buzz you heard about Immonen’s art is all true – this book is fantastic artistically. Immonen fills the page up in beautifully rendered sequences, with so much artistic detail given to the background images that the comic is really brought to life. It’s incredibly impressive to look at the artistic career of Stuart Immonen and how it has led to Fear Itself, from the previous event comic Final Night (from DC) to this. The artistic detail has improved tenfold, with wonderful character renderings that really bring most of these muscled heroes down to Earth. The underwater sequence featuring Sin/Skadi is particularly of note, with Sin/Skadi swimming over the panels and out towards the reader as she crosses into the deep in search of the Serpent, coming into clash with various beasts along the path. t’s a fantastic sequence of events, truly showing off Sin’s new power-levels and allowing Immonen some very clever visual moments as we’re led into a brand new place within the Marvel Universe. The visuals are made that much better with Laura Martin’s colors on the book, with this being her second Marvel event and her second time coloring the Godly-sect of Marvel (having previously colored Thor with Coipel), and her colors seek to make the book look that much better. Immonen is a rather strong artist on his own, but with a colorist like Martin you truly get the proper flavor required for digesting the meal that is Fear Itself. This book is just absolutely gorgeous visually.
So with that we have Fear Itself #1. It seeks to be many things (including your new favorite comic series), but what it ultimately is is a damn great first issue. While Fraction did make various promises and paid through on pretty much everything, it’s yet to see how the pay-offs will come as the series moves forward and the page count drops by half. As far as first issues goes, though, it’s definitely an intriguing start to what will hopefully be a rather satisfactory event. Most events often read better in collection, but the emotional hits are carried by the issue-by-issue approach. Fear Itself has laid a lot of promises at our feet with it’s first issue – let’s sit back and prepare to enjoy the ride.
Final Verdict: 9.5 – Buy
