Fear Itself #2
Written by Matt Fraction
Art by Stuart Immonen, Wade Von Grawbadger, and Laura Martin
Wow. This was….this was kinda crappy, yeah, I think I’ll open with that. This book wasn’t fun, and I think Matt Fraction chose the wrong one of his current titles to shape an event out of. This book suffers from severe jumpiness as well as a bad habit of setting up tie in issues and minis instead of actually furthering the plot. It’s a big ‘lots of shit happens’ issue, but the only thing that doesn’t happen is the story move forward.
A list of shit that happens in this issue, without big spoilers, is that the Asgardians return to Asgard as Odin decides to ramble off some sort of story or plan. I’m serious there, it starts as a story and randomly turns into a plan as he talks; he puts together an army without ever bothering to tell them who they’re fighting against. Well, he says “The Serpent”, but he also specifies that this was back when he was around and nobody else was. Don’t you love it when that happens? We also see a fair amount of hammers get passed out, though only one situation features multiple characters trying to lift them; for the most part the hammer lands and someone picks it up and they are ‘worthy’. There’s no real struggle, or rhyme, or reason, people just have hammers come down by them and get super powered and, I guess, evil.
I got a few Secret Invasion vibes while reading this issue, which is not a good thing. For those who never read my thoughts on the Bendis Skrull event from a few years ago, my biggest issue was that the story seemed to be told in the tie ins and auxiliary issues, as opposed to the event itself. New and Mighty Avengers got the bulk of the actual story setup, while the forever that was spent in the Savage Land was better handled in a crappy one shot than in the actual series. This issue makes me remember that, as I see a lot of setup for events I imagine are about to happen in the various tie-in minis…and not just imagine, the last page of the issue tells you which books to read to follow up on these various plots. I don’t like that, I mean, I can deal with a few little editors boxes saying “hey, go check out this book”, but I don’t like “here’s where to find everything we covered in this issue”.
I’ll give credit to the little bits of characterization to be found in the issue, well, outside of Asgard. I gave up on Fraction’s Thor a few months ago and if this is any indicator….yeah, I don’t think I’m missing much. Reed Richards brief appearance initially struck me as odd that he is being so formal towards Steve, but then I just figured that Reed was in business mode…alright, that’s a weak excuse. There’s some emphasis put on the growing fear around the world, but it’s kept to what I’m assuming is radio or television broadcasts from around the world; they jump around a bit, and don’t really give you a a great idea of any one incident. It does a nice job of getting across that shit is crazy everywhere, but it would have been nice to see it and not just kinda read about it.
Immonen is the star of this issue, his art far and away being the best thing about this issue. I like his design work on the ‘worthy’, and the spreads are nice. On top of that, for as much I didn’t like the Asgard stuff, I’ll be damned if it didn’t look freaking awesome. I’m happy to see him handling something of such magnitude as an event like this, I just wish that there was more to say. The last few pages, when they actually get back to Sin and The Serpent, lead to a pretty cool looking attack that I won’t spoil.
I understand that the full plot of an event isn’t going to be laid out by the second issue, but I expected more than this. The clear dependence on tie ins is prevalent already, and it’s making me wonder just how accessible this event is going to be for the reader who just wants to read the core mini, like, say, me. I didn’t enjoy the first issue of Homefront, very few of the minis that have been announced actually appeal to me, and I’m settling in on a severe lack of enjoyment coming out of this. Hopefully I’m wrong, hopefully next issue will do a good job of pacing the story out and showing that Fraction can contain his story inside the pages of the core event. Because, honestly, I’m too big of a fan of Fraction’s to want to accept that I might have to give Fear Itself the Secret Invasion treatment. As it stands…this event needs work. Lots of it.
Overall?
4/10
