Written by Matt Fraction, Chris Yost (story only) and Cullen Bunn (script and story)
Illustrated by Mark Bagley and Paul PelletierWhen Fear Itself is over, the hunt is on! Mystical hammers lay strewn across the entire Marvel Universe and it is Valkyrie’s mission to find them, no matter what the cost, and no matter who stands in her way…even if it’s Captain America & the Avengers!
Now that Fear Itself is over, it is officially hammer time! Marvel has tapped the Sixth Gun writer, fresh off a few Fear Itself tie-ins, to write the first big post-Fear Itself epilogue/”event” thing, and they’re giving him some great artists to do it with.
Then again, people were kind of sour on Fear Itself and its finale, weren’t they? Huh. Well, I enjoyed it, so just like Blackest Night had its Brightest Day, lets see what happens when eight hammers scattered across the globe are assembled by a heroine to find out what happens when hammers stop being polite and start getting real.
Check after the cut for some thoughts and musings.
Fear Itself wrapped up its main story pretty well: the Serpent was defeated, smashing was had by all and now its up to the world to rebuild until the next great catastrophic event. These things are fairly par for the course, honestly; with every event, there’s always a certain element of after effects that individual titles explore. However, the interesting caveat to that is that most fans don’t want to read those after effects — people buying Captain America want to read further adventures of Captain America, not “how Captain America dealt with post-Serpent fallout until someone else tries to blow up the world.” We buy comics in a shared universe to see a universe explored, but we buy these individual character titles to read the stories about the characters; leave the events to the events!
So with that in mind, Marvel is taking a page out of DC’s book and targeting all of their post-Fear Itself that deal specifically with the fallout of Fear Itself in these nice little individual titles, where those who aren’t interested any longer can go on to do other things and those of us still curious can follow along. That is the first thing The Fearless says to me when I opened the issue: “Hey! Welcome! Glad to see you here! You like hammers? Well, have I got news for you!”
This is where we open with Fearless: a quick reminder of Brubaker’s prelude from the 1940’s before quickly hopping towards the destroyed Earth of Fear Itself where our heroes have just recently defeated the Serpent and are trying to pick up. Valkyrie, no longer really a valyrie in her own right, is attempting to act as a liason between the humans and the Asgardians, and its here where the effects of Fear Itself are actually seen. Most people have sort of brushed Fear Itself off for being a smash-up of epic proportions (thanks, in part, to the masterful design of Stuart “The Illustrating Beast” Immonen), but have sort of missed Fraction’s underlying points of fear and xenophobic-induced paranoia leading to a torn planet that should be united against a singular enemy. This is what Bunn now brings up quickly with Val and Captain America, two polar opposites of the spectrum, and it’s a noteworthy conversation.
Of course, the book isn’t particularly a talky or anything like that — it’s also a globe-trotting action adventure story! That is the more overt point, after all; we have hammers all over the place, so let’s assemble a few bad ass characters and have them run around, trying to collect everything. Valkyrie is inherently a great central character for the story, as despite her inclusion in the Secret Avengers, she is a sorely underused character that still holds true to the Asgardian Marvel U-mythos without just being Thor (or any of those other guys we always see, really). Valkyrie is a character I’ve had a fondness for for a while now, so to see her take central stage against Sin is quite engaging for me as a reader, and having Bunn mix it up with both mythology and standard superheroics is intriguing to watch. To also take note of the fact that each issue will deal with a different corner of the Marvel U that Fear Itself touched upon is an idea that definitely seems worth following.
Continued belowBut again, that’s the main thing — if you didn’t really care before (and, if the collective cries of the internet can be taken as a universal opinion, then we’ll assume that “most people” don’t), then there is nothing that Fearless does to draw you in. I can’t tell if that is inherently the point, though; on the one hand, it is very clear that Fearless is designed for those of us who are curious, who want to see more, without taking away from any other titles. If I’m going to see people deal with finding hammers, I don’t want any of the other adventures I currently enjoy reading to be put on hold for this — but as a curious fan, I love the fact that everything seems to be boiled down for just this one title. It’s a very smart move, and one that I can appreciate from an outside perspective and consumer. Then again, you’d also assume that there would be some kind of hook for those who weren’t hot on Fear Itself, and outside of the two main things I see (a) this book is written by Cullen Bunn and b) this book stars Valkyrie), it’s a title that is pigeon-holed to its audience and no one else.
That’s not neccesarily a bad thing, I suppose. I like Cullen Bunn and I like Valkyrie. I immediately like how Bunn handles the character, and I definitely want to see Bunn play around with the Marvel U for 12 issues. But that’s just me — all of this reads as I, I, I, I, I. That’s the unfortunate disconnect here between objective reviewer and fan: my inner fanboy cries out with joy at all of the assembled toys here, but the reviewer in me shrugs and says, “Yeah, take it or leave it.”
For my personal standpoint, I’m going to take it, but I guess it boils down to this: if you didn’t care about Fear Itself, you’re not going to care about this. This is very specifically geared towards people who are curious about a specific element of the aftermath of Fear Itself, and beyond that I can’t see it appealing to anyone besides perhaps the worlds biggest Valkyrie fans. However, if you did like Fear Itself (like I did), and if you are curious about this element of new Asgardian mythos (like I am) and how certain characters are going to be dealing with their post-Serpent transformations (again, like I am), then Fearless is an interesting addendum to the event. You could do much worse than to have an extra book written by Cullen Bunn in your pull.
It’s also fortunate that the book has a competent art team with Bagley and Pelletier. The duo is not anyone I would think to assemble on my own, but their mutual styles work quite well together, playing off each other in different sequences in the same way that dueling guitar soloists do. Bagley is an artist who can be very hit or miss at times — sometimes (Ultimate Spider-Man) his work looks great, and sometimes (Brilliant) not so much, but here it is incredibly solid with Andy Lanning offering up incredibly steady inks to Bagley’s work that helps mesh it with Pelletier and inker Danny Miki. Unless you’re ostensibly familiar with either artist, it does at certain times look as if one artist was illustrating the entire title, and that’s ultimately what you want in a book with two different alternating artists; as long as there are no jarring scene changes, you can consider it a win — and putting Matthew Wilson on as solo colorist for the entire title certainly helps with that.
Marvel has done the right thing in gearing most of the remaining Fear Itself things towards singular and insular titles. If fans can’t appreciate that in the slightest, I don’t know what to tell them. However, if you’re still up for some hammers and a bit of globe trotting, Fearless is a good start to a nice epilogue. Will Fearless hold any footing in the “grand scheme of things”? No, probably not, but points can still be given for just telling a good story. I’m willing to give Bunn the chance to prove me right.
Final Verdict: 7.5 – Buy
