The X-Axis – 10 July 2011
And in the week when News International cancelled the News of the World, we ask – what’s the betting that they relaunch it in September with a new creative team? (Dark News of the World #1, perhaps.)
There’s a veritable torrent of X-books and other new releases this week, so I’ll come back later to X-23 #12 (the conclusion of the Jubilee arc) and some of the other issue #1s. That leaves…
Fear Itself #4 – For the first time, I think I actually preferred this issue to Flashpoint, though it’s close. At long last the series gives a clear and coherent explanation of the plot, so now we know what’s supposed to be at stake and why. The Serpent is Odin’s long-lost brother, erased from history, who wants to dethrone Odin. He’s empowered by fear. The point of all the random stuff going on in other books is to spread fear on Earth so that he’ll get stronger and he can take on Odin. And Odin plans to cut off the Serpent’s power by destroying Earth himself.
I’m tempted to ask why none of this was properly explained before now. But then, without the slow reveal of exposition, the earlier issues would have little in the way of plot progression at all. The bigger problem is really the way the series has built to this reveal. Ideally you’d want the heroes to actually do something to solve the mystery – for example, find some evidence which Thor can make sense of when he gets back to Earth. What actually happens is that Thor shows up and just explains the plot, which is a bit weak.
Still, we’ve defined our terms now, and it’s a decent premise. There are some nice scenes in here too; a scene of dead Atlanteans floating to the surface in British Columbia is wonderfully handled by Stuart Immonen, and Fraction pulls off the “getting the band back together” stuff quite well too. I’m not completely sold on Iron Man’s “sacrifice” to get an audience with Odin; it’s a good idea, but it’s not very well set up, since it comes more or less out of the blue without any real sense that this has been a tough decision for him. Perhaps it’s been set up more effectively in Iron Man’s own title, but in this book it feels like an underdeveloped concept.
At any rate, now that the random fight scenes are starting to coalesce into a clearer story, the book is beginning to work.
Fear Itself: Uncanny X-Force #1 – This week also sees the launch of two Fear Itself tie-in minis, standing in for X-books that have better things to do than join the crossover themselves. To judge from the first issue, the X-Force mini by Rob Williams and Simone Bianchi is not exactly central to the wider story. There’s some passing mention of the general chaos on page 5, but the story is actually about X-Force investigating an anti-mutant religious cult who are threatening to execute a previously unknown superhero on the internet. The cultists themselves have nothing to do with the Serpent; the link to the crossover is that the events of the wider story play into their doomsday prophecies. Of course, pretty much any major storyline could have served that purpose.
Not that I’m complaining, since at least there’s a thematic link to Fear Itself, and personally, I’d rather the tie-ins were kept relatively self-contained. Taken on its own terms, this is a perfectly solid issue of X-Force with some fairly interesting new villains. Rob Williams obviously has no sympathy for these characters but at least allows them to be sincere in their beliefs. Admittedly, there’s some ropey plotting – on two separate occasions, the team resort to force in order to get information from someone, instead of just having Psylocke read their minds. Yes, it’s more dramatic, but it doesn’t really make sense. Still, Williams has the tone of the book down well. And Bianchi, whose work has sometimes suffered from putting prettiness before clarity, gets the balance right here. A perfectly fine issue.
Fear Itself: Wolverine #1 – If the X-Force tie-in is mainly thematic, Wolverine’s is downright tenuous. A bunch of renegade mercenaries from STRIKE (an old Captain Britain concept from the 1980s, as I recall) hijack one of Norman Osborn’s unused Helicarriers and all the crazy weapons aboard. Wolverine is sent to stop them. What does any of this have to do with Fear Itself? Well, they’re happening at the same time, and STRIKE are taking advantage of the confusion. And, uh, that’s about it, really.
So it’s not so much a crossover as a story that acknowledges that other things are also happening in the Marvel Universe at the same time, but again, I’ve got no problem with that. God knows one of the mistakes with Secret Invasion was to try and build all the tie-in stories around the Skrulls, which got very repetitive very quickly. You can argue that there’s a bait-and-switch, Red Skies element to some of these tie-ins, but by the same token, they’re probably better comics for being given the space to tell a story of their own.
Writer Seth Peck had some stories published by Image a couple of years back, but this is his first work on a major superhero title, and he’s pretty good. The hijackers’ personalities are quickly established; the Fear Itself elements are used well by working them into the introduction scenes; there’s good use of Melita Garner, who’s given something worthwhile to do; and the action scenes are nicely laid out. Roland Boschi, whose art more usually crops up on the likes of Punisher and Ghost Rider, turns out to be very much at home with more regular superhero stories too. As with the X-Force story, while I might feel a bit annoyed if I’d bought this solely for the Fear Itself tie-in, judged as a Wolverine issue, it’s really quite good.
Flashpoint #3 – As I said earlier, this is the first month where I preferred Fear Itself to Flashpoint, perhaps because the strings are getting a bit obvious here. Issue #2 ended on an excellent cliffhanger, but the resolution – he’s not dead after all, and they try it a second time and get it right – is a thundering anticlimax. From there, the book lurches into what appears to be the gathering of the new Justice League roster, which strikes me as a loss of focus, given that the story is basically about the Flash. The reinvention of Superman is a clever idea, though, so there’s always that.
Red Skull Incarnate #1 – Greg Pak is certainly setting himself a challenge with this miniseries about the origin of the Red Skull. As the Afterword makes clear, this is a companion piece to Testament, the Magneto origin miniseries which was first and foremost about the Holocaust. When I reviewed that story, I commented that writers tended to adopt the victims’ perspective, but that relatively few looked at the equally important other side of the equation – how a country not so dissimilar from our own lost its way so spectacularly. This is Pak’s attempt to deal with that question.
Aside from the inherent challenges of having such an unsympathetic lead, there are other difficulties with making this work. Testament was dealing with a young Magneto and could sidestep the trappings of superhero comics almost entirely if it wanted. But the Red Skull was created back in the 1940s as a World War II supervillain; he was a cartoon Nazi during the war, and it’s not quite so obvious how you work around that. Since this story begins with Johann Schmidt as a child in 1923, the answer may be that Pak is going to do the build-up to Schmidt putting on the mask, and stop there. There’s certainly a precedent for treating the character as some sort of everyman-gone-wrong (which is why he was ascribed the real name John Smith in the first place).
Still, what we get in this first issue seems to be one part social forces in Germany, one part youth of a serial killer. As with Testament, it’s a sober exercise, and more of a character piece than a plot-driven one. Pak does start off with a nine-year-old Johann who doesn’t seem devoid of good qualities, so perhaps the idea is to use him as a microcosm of his nation and show how the forces of the Weimar Republic shape his life. If that’s the idea, though, I’m not quite sure where the animal-beating comes in. No doubt Pak’s angle will become clearer over the course of the series.
It’s too early to tell whether this is going to work. It has the potential to slip into horrific bad taste if the Marvel Universe elements are handled wrongly, but Pak avoided that trap with Testament. It’s certainly ambitious and it strikes the right tone; the question may actually be whether Pak can build a sufficiently compelling story around the material.
Uncanny X-Men #540 – I approached this issue with a certain amount of trepidation – a Fear Itself tie-in and the return of Greg Land on art? Actually, it’s better than I’d expected on both counts. So far as the crossover is concerned, yes, the Juggernaut shows up to smash things with his enormous hammer, but that’s also something of a villain-of-the-week around which the X-Men’s ongoing storylines can revolve. Those storylines, unexpectedly, turn out to include the imprisonment of Magik, a New Mutants plot which crops up here rather out of the blue. (Peter and Kitty have some dialogue that nudges in the direction of explaining it, but personally, I’d have thrown in a footnote to direct readers to the storyline in question. Who knows, maybe it’d sell a few trade paperbacks.) As for the Juggernaut himself, I guess it’s been a few years since we’ve had a “nobody can stop the Juggernaut” story, so what the heck – Fear Itself does at least sweep aside the character’s devaluation over the last few years so that it can be done properly. The question is whether Kieron Gillen has an original slant on it, and time will tell on that one.
As for the art, while I’ve still got quite a few reservations about Greg Land’s art, this issue is something of a step up. He’s largely ditched the irritating manic grin that used to dominate his work; for the first time in ages, his characters are displaying a full range of emotion here (and often quite well). Yes, his Cyclops looks like he’s wandered out of Miami Vice; yes, his Illyana is inexplicably wearing make-up in her cell – which is both illogical and thematically wrong for the scene. But still, it’s a big step in the right direction, and the most annoying features of his work seem to have been toned down.
Wolverine & The Black Cat: Claws II #1 – Well, this is a very odd commission. Marvel is generally dialling back on the miniseires in favour of doing extra issues of the regular titles. But here we have a three-issue sequel to Claws, a miniseries that came out in 2006. Stranger yet, it picks up immediately after the previous story, and despite a caption saying “Today”, it’s obviously not set in present continuity (unless Wolverine’s got a very open relationship with Melita). Since that opening caption is in the lower case font from the Jemas days that Marvel stopped using a while ago, I can’t help wondering whether this is another book like 15 Love that Marvel found at the back of a drawer when they moved office.
I wasn’t much of a fan of the original mini, but if you can live with some less-than-subtle innuendo, this is actually alright. Wolverine and the Black Cat go out to celebrate their win in the previous series, Arcade and the White Rabbit escape from the Savage Land to cause trouble, hijinks ensue, and a wildly unlikely guest star shows up at the end. It’s lightweight but it’s fun.
X-Men #14 – Part 4 of “First to Last”, and the structure of telling parallel stories in the past and present is starting to show the strain. The trouble is that there’s not really enough progress in the present day sections to justify the space they get, and most of the real plot is in the past. Somewhere along the line, this story also seems to be trying to iron out some kinks in Emma Frost’s continuity by explaining away some stray references to her being institutionalised. The story also suffers from the fact that it seems to be teasing the possibility of Magneto turning on the X-Men – but since we know he’s still hanging around in Prelude to Schism, it’s hard to suspend disbelief and take that threat seriously. The past sections are solid, and the art’s pretty good – but it’s not quite clicking.
Wasn’t Psylocke an agent of STRIKE back in her early days?
The first Claws miniseries was horrifying, and I’m astounded that they thought a sequel was in order. Then again, they did a sequel to the Onslaught story, so anything’s possible.
Sort of, her STRIKE career takes place entirely off panel and is only introduced after its over. When Brian gets back to Earth from the Twisted World she contacts him and tells him she’s been working for STRIKE but is in hiding since most of her division has been killed by the Slaymaster. Before that it wasn’t even clear that she had super powers.
I have to disagree with what you said about Fear Itself. Most of it was quite clear from the start. The only reveal is that the Serpent is Odin’s brother.
Quesada hates those little footnotes, so I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for them to come back.
“And in the week when News International cancelled the News of the World, we ask – what’s the betting that they relaunch it in September with a new creative team? (Dark News of the World #1, perhaps.)”
Oh Paul. Silly, silly Paul. You know there will be half a dozen one-shots and spin-offs released before the relaunch.
And I think it would have made more sense to have STRIKE featured in X-force, given Psylocke’s history with them…tenuous as it is, it’s more than what Wolverine has with them…
I was under the impression that she didn’t have the superpowers – precognition and telepathy – until after Alan Moore retconned those in at the same time as her STRIKE career.
Then again, it’s not exactly easy to get old Captain Britain reprints in the U.S., so I’m probably not the best source here.
There’s also a literal torrent of books out this week. 🙂
“I have to disagree with what you said about Fear Itself. Most of it was quite clear from the start. The only reveal is that the Serpent is Odin’s brother.”
Eh – if you just kinda take an educated guess at what the story’s about. The script doesn’t tell you. Though to be fair, it’s not like Morrison doesn’t get away with it…
Concerning RED SKULL’s message: I couldn’t decide what Pak was doing with the whole killing puppies bit at the end. The puppies obviously show/foreshadow his treatment of people, and of course we all know serial killers tend to start off with animals.
But if Pak is saying Johann is a f’ed-up-in-the-head-serial-killer-to-be, then he is not an everyman at all, and instead of being a mature examination of how normal people can become Fascists this series just becomes a juvenile explanation of them as broken minds.
That doesn’t seem to me to be what Pak is saying, though, because Johann refuses to kill the puppy. He only kills, ironically, all the other dogs in the pen when they attack the puppy. Which suggests that Mankind causes exponentially more death and suffering when – what, though? When it’s really pissed off? Or when it ironically feels it’s defending the innocent? A combination of the two? We’re not getting another damn “America’s response to 9/11” commentary in disguise here, are we?
I’m just not sure what the statement is in the issue, so I can’t quite judge how it’s treating the subject matter.
Of course, I suppose my confusion might be part of the point, but that’s a fair amount of credit to give. Still, Pak’s a pretty fair writer, so maybe it should be given.
Well, those are my thoughts. I will also say this: it was a very quick read too, even for $2.99, and that matters to me.
I know Paul may be happy for the Juggernaut showing up in Uncanny, but for anyone else reading the Fear Itself tie-in issues he’s also being unstoppable in Avengers Academy, Thunderbolts, Youth in Revolt, Deadpool and Homefront. It’s a bit of an overkill, I mean has anyone even fought the worthyfied Titania yet? And while I like Immonen usually, my main failing with Fear Itself is that none of The Worthy look at all fearful. Someone like Bill Sienkiewicz or Chris Bachalo would have been much better suited to given us some actual creepy looking makeovers for the worthy. Instead we get The Thing amalgamated with Shuma Gorath and a couple of glowing tattoos on people.
@kelvingreen call me any foul name you want but i actually enjoyed the original Onslaught saga. The sequel, as much as i managed to read, not so much. Haven’t read Claws, but wolverine and black cat do sound like a good idea for a few issues. Maybe the execution was the problem?
I was thinking “New News Of The World”…
Greg Land’s art. Can’t stap it. Can’t stand the wooden poses, or rictus grins.
What especially annoys me is how he conspires to position characters to avoid drawing their faces. Contorted backs to the audiences, faces in shadow… once you notice it, you’ll realise how often he does it.
Let me run something by you all regarding x-men 14.In ’91, claremont tried to explain magneto’s silver age wackiness by saying that his powers affected his brain waves. So, if he is 15 in 1945 and around 70 or so when he attacks cape citadel (stupid sliding timeline) that means he had about 50 years of power usage to drive him nuts. When mutant alpha de-aged him and erik the red re-aged him to his late 20s, the damage to his brain was presumably healed. Thus, the happy magneto of the 80s. So, let’s say that it has been 10 years since uncanny 103ish. That would mean magneto is a little less crazy, as he has been using his powers for a significantly less period of time. I know I have overthought this, but I’m trying to somehow explain how magneto would be a party to genocide. Thoughts?
I have to agree with Paul’s comment about having a footnote about the Illyana plotline. I don’t read NEW MUTANTS, so I haven’t a clue what she did. Would someone care to fill me in? Even if Marvel is “anti-footnote”, they DO have recap pages in the front of every book. Isn’t the whole point of these things to recap the story so far for the benefit of new readers? (or, in this case, for the benefit of those of us who don’t read the other title)
And, as a side note/rant, are Marvel deliberately trying to piss me off? I have gotten used to the idea of the whole “22 pages for $3.99/20 pages for $2.99” thing that Marvel have been doing lately. Did anyone else count the pages in this week’s X-Men books? UNCANNY X-MEN has 21 pages of story, X-MEN has 20. Both are priced at $3.99. If they’re going to insist on selling me less than 22 pages of content, I’m going to insist they drop the price. This crap will get old very quickly. (rant over)
Taibak, Marvel UK recently wrapped up a pretty excellent run of TPBs reprinting the entirety of Captain Britain’s UK run. You can get them at reasonable prices from Book Depository or other online sources. Marvel have just started reprinting them (less some of the bonus materials, from what I hear) as domestic hardcovers, IIRC.
Paul, it seems like you’re letting those tenuous Fear Itself tie-in miniseries off too easily, especially since you assert later on that Marvel are cutting back on the number of minis they publish. If they’re publishing X-Force and Wolverine miniseries ostensibly to tie in with Fear Itself (given the banner on the covers) and there’s nothing more than a “red skies” tie-in if that, then what they’ve done is published a couple more random, pointless miniseries, and worse yet, under mostly false pretenses.
cerebro: when magik was resurrected in ‘new x-men’, she was soulless. to get her soul back, she manipulated the x-men and risked the universe being destroyed. her plan worked out, though, so now she has her soul back, the universe still exists, and she even got rid of some nasty gods in the process. the x-men are still a bit pissed about her being manipulative and reckless, though, so they put her in the brig. or something like that.
actually, you should read ‘new mutants’. its really really good!
Apologies for the lengthy post below.
I’ll echo ArnuadXIII: except for The Serpent being Odin’s brother, the rest Paul mentions has been indicated in the series, mostly in the Asgardian sections.
Issue #1: The Serpent says “The True All-Father shall indeed come a’calling on the usurper. First we shall make him and everything else on this wretched toilet of a world fear us as we ready.” The news that The Serpent is Odin’s brother clarifies the “true All-Father” mention, but this statement established the attacks on earth as generating fear in preparation for whatever comes next.
Issue #2, Odin declares “The Inferno unleashed upon Earth shall soon come burning for us as well.” And he goes on a few pages later: “Know this Asgardians: The engine of evil that has been unleashed on Earth is coming for us next. And Earth will be its fuel.” And, on the same page, “We shall purge Midgard of his presence. We shall raze the earth once and for all.” This establishes again that The Serpent comes for Asgard next, the Earth is somehow feuling that attack, and Odin is willing to destroy Earth to stop it.
In Issue #3, Loki explains to Thor the situation in pretty clear terms: “Odin rebuilt the entire world as a war engine and he’s pointing it at Midgard. To fight the serpent Earth must be razed. The serpent’s followers make him strong–so we are to cull mankind before the serpent gets any stronger.” This pretty much summarizes what the earlier statements communicated. Loki essentially hits on each of the points Paul listed, minus the relationship between Odin and the Serpent.
So it’s all there: the Serpent being empowered by fear, the purpose of the attacks being to generate fear and thus the Serpent’s powers, his ultimate goal of usurping the throne of Asgard, and Odin’s plan to destroy earth to stop the Serpent.
I’ve been waiting for a “Betsy Braddock: Agent of S.T.R.I.K.E.” Comic for like 20 years now. It always felt like a huge tangent of Alan Moore craziness lost on a notepad, and never examined but we saw much of the pay offs from the never existing series in Captain Britain.
I think the smart money is on the relaunched NotW calling itself The Sun on Sunday. Not sure if it’ll have a variant cover.
“Secret News of the World” seems like a good idea. Anyone want to pitch the idea to Marvel/Image?
If they name it “Ultimate News of the World” they’ll have to relaunch it in a couple years, even though one section of the paper always gets good reviews.
Patrick H,
It sounds like you’re enjoying the series and more power to you if that’s the case.
I do disagree on how clear all this is. Even your quotes don’t lay out that the Serpent is fueled by Fear and therefore he is causing chaos to amp up his energy source. It’s there in between the lines, I guess, but not in a way I found a stisfying reading experience.
I’ll also add in that we’ve seen almost nothing of the Worthy or an explanation of why they were chosen or if they are hosts or controlled or some combination. (Sin seems to be a combination, but the others haven’t had enough screen time to tell.)
Add in that I’m finding elements of the other story telling off such as:
Thor got taken off the board and put back on with little reason
The Steve Rogers/superheroes response has seemed random
and it’s out of snnch with other books. For example Bucky (who couldn’t be Cap anymore, but now is for his death), the Hulk (who isn’t with Betty and is growing more isolated but now is on vacation in Brazil) and Thor (who I thought destroyed Asgard in the first place to end the Ragnarok cycles is now finding new interpretations). These are events that don’t just contradict continuity but undercut the themes of the other books.
All in all, I want to like this (I often really enjoy Matt Fraction’s stories) but it’s not working for me.
As I say, not trying to ruin your enjoyment, just trying to explain why it might not be working for some.
Concerning RED SKULL, I find Johann’s refrigerator from the future to be tremendously intriguing. It even comes with lighting! Is it a time machine, perhaps, sent back in time by Kang the Conqueror to corrupt little Johann’s fragile mind with Dr. Pepper, strawberry Slurpees and genetically modified tomatos from Holland?
Also, I’m hoping for NEWS OF THE WORLD: EARTH 2, personally. Kinda frees you up.
on uncanny: yeah, lands art is better than usual. the opening scene with the juggernaut and the yokel is actually… GOOD. the rest of the issue still has its share of weird poses and faces, though.
magiks story looks like it belongs in ‘new mutants’ and im a little worried that uncanny is losing focus again. but at least i can see where this is going. the juggernauts source of power is mystical, and now his powers are enhanced by even more magic. so i can see why they would want to bring in magik. then again, wouldnt pixie have been a better choice, given that she has kinda sorta been a regular on uncanny for a while now? then again then again, magik has a connection to regulars kitty & colossus.
On Earth 2, Rupert Murdoch fights for good.
Not for nothing, but I wouldn’t be surprised in one bit if the actual Schism event never actually dovetails with the events of the Prelude. I wouldn’t be surprised one bit if it turned into another Countdown to Final Crisis.
Rich
Thanks for your response. You make a fair point: that fear is fueling the Serpent is somewhat between the lines or needing some dots connected (i.e., he’s causing fear on earth, what’s happening on earth gives him power, hence fear gives him power). It does make me wonder: since Odin seems so clearly scared of the Serpent’s rise, doesn’t this give the latter an edge in any confrontation they might have?
Your other criticisms, I think, are valid, particularly about the continuity problems.
One could argue that the disorganized response is a product of how Earth and its heroes are caught in the middle of a battle between two cosmic entities they aren’t fully aware of (at least until recently). And there’s perhaps another criticism of the series: that the bulk of its characters–and thus its action–are simply caught in the middle of a much larger conflict, which may not be the most compelling of plots. At times I find myself wondering if having the heroes deal, essentially, with a side effect of Odin vs. Serpent for 7 issues is going to be that good a story.
As you might tell from that statement, I’m mixed about the series/event right now, kind of in a similar way to you: not fully convinced it’s working, but hoping it pulls itself together in the second half. My initial post was more a response to Paul’s particular criticism about the vagaries of the plot–which I’ve seen on other blogs/sites and seemed puzzling given how, to me, the plot has been laid out in the first three issues.
Thanks again for your response.
You make a fair case that there are lines of dialogue in the earlier issues that at least gesture in the direction of the plot that’s clearly explained in the most recent issue. But I think that still leaves you with two possibilities.
One is that Fraction was trying to lay the groundwork for a big reveal in issue #4. But if so, it doesn’t work dramatically, because the reveal isn’t brought about by the efforts of any characters. Thor just shows up and explains the plot, without any real explanation of how he knows it.
The other is that it WAS meant to be clear in the early issues. But if so, a lot of people didn’t get it, which suggests a major failure of storytelling. (I think this is unlikely, by the way, since if the point was supposed to have been made clear in FEAR ITSELF, you’d have thought that the tie-ins would have been explaining it too.)
I agree 100% with Cerebro. If the editors didn’t want to use a footnote to explain why the X-Men were pissed off with Magik and put her in a cell, they should have used the recap page for that. I hate it when editors and writers assume that just because we read a certain X-Men book, we must be following every other X-book, too.
Stephen Wacker’s books (especially Amazing Spider-Man) use footnotes whenever a character mentions a past story, so I don’t think there’s a higher editorial mandate that forbids them.
I haven’t picked up issue #4 yet so I can’t comment on what sounds like an info dump regarding the plot. It doesn’t sound terribly effective, especially since, for me, Thor’s exposition is redundant and, for other, awkward at best.
The comment you made, Paul, about this info not coming through the efforts of the characters sums up nicely my concerns about the plot. It doesn’t seem to me like anything in the series is going to come about through action of the heroes on Earth. They’ll just be fighting The Worthy–perhaps now with some getting power from Odin (i.e. The Mighty)–but their actions seem inconsequential to the larger conflict. In other words, I don’t yet see how what’s going on on Earth matters.
All the News of the World comments are hilarious.
I’m hoping for ‘Frank Miller’s All Star News of the World’.
Patrick,
Sounds like we agree more than disagree about this after all!
I think your observation about most of the characters only being acted on by the events and not being able to influence them is a really good one. I think it is a big part of why this has all seemed slightly off.
I guess the two possibilities are that this will all be an overly expanded Thor story where the other heroes should have stayed in the background. Or it will all snap together as we near the end. Hopefully, it’s just a “written for the trade” pacing problem that will work better when all the parts are in front of us.
Best,
Rich
Rich–
I think the problems with the vast majority of the characters in Fear Itself can be traced back to how this was originally conceived as a Cap/Thor story that got expanded into a line-wide crossover. A by-product of that seems to have been the bulk of the characters’ actions (at least so far) appearing ancillary to the plot.
I’m still hoping for the latter of your two possibilities and fearing for the former, but at least I have beautiful Immonen art to look at in the meantime!
Best,
Patrick H
You guys see it as a bug, but I’m sure Marvel sees it as a feature! A crossover with lots of random chaos that doesn’t affect the main story is ideal for the main series/spinoff structure the events since House of M have adopted.
I have no problem with a character at a certain point in the plot plainly laying out what had been obvious between the lines earlier, just to get people who haven’t been paying enough attention up to speed. I think that’s what we have here.
On another topic, originally I thought that calling the baddie “The Serpent” would lead to confusion with the Midgard Serpent… But now it’s clear that this connection is supposed to be made. Yes but wha? The MS is Loki’s child, not Odin’s brother, and Thor has fought it at least twice that I can think of. I have to assume this will be addressed, maybe with Odin having altered the relationships when he rebooted the universe? (And what ever happened to Gruenwald’s “gods rose out of man’s belief” concept, which puts Odin far below anyone capable of universal reboot?) Wow that was a geeky paragraph…
Patrick,
Agreed on the art! This all does look good. I forgot this was originally supposed to be a Cap/Thor story. Sin does kick it all off, but we’re four issues in and Steve Rogers hasn’t really done anything except be angstful about what he can do. We’ll see where it goes I suppose.
Thomas, I think you might be right, but if you can’t tell the story properly in the main title and the tie-ins don’t matter that seems a shaky long term sales premise.
Karl, I feel your geekdom. Odin writing off the human race should be suicide for him and all the other pantheons. And while I wouldn’t mind a new twist on a prophecy (they are always tricky things and having them not be what you expect is how they should work dramatically)I thought the whole point of the destruction of the Norse Gods was to end the Ragnarok cycle. Do I have that wrong?
@dasklein83 you forget he was depowrred by Scarlet Witch after House of M and repowered by the High Evolutionary. This might have reset the clock again or even fixed the problem.
I’m actually kind of enjoying “Fear Itself” even while I’m a bit underwhelmed. The main problem for me is that all the big ideas are never fully capitalized on. The big moments never seem earned.
Are The Worthy supposed to be super scary? You wouldn’t know from anything in the main “Fear Itself” book. But for $12 you can read about how super-ultra-unstoppable the Juggernaut is now in “Thunderbolts”, “Avengers Academy”, and “Uncanny X-Men”! Really?
Why, exactly, are the stoned Parisians affecting Tony Stark so much that he decides going off the wagon is his only alternative? Hasn’t Grey Gargoyle been turning people to stone for forever? There may be some incredibly tragic new twist involved, but I’ll only find out about it if I plunk down another $3 or $4 and read that story in Iron Man.
Was the death of Bucky supposed to be some huge thing? It was so poorly executed, a lot of us didn’t even know he was dead until Fraction and Brevoort started doing interviews the following week. Not to mention the fact that there was no character-driven reason for his death. It didn’t resonate becaue he just kind of randomly died. The only sadness involved was for Ed Brubaker whose year’s of building up Bucky as a character were cut off at the knees by Event-Fever!
Are we supposed to take seriously the prophecy about Thor dying so soon after his last resurrection? Meh.
Thank you Stuart Immonen for helping me, with your stellar artwork, periodically forget how clunky some of this is…
“Concerning RED SKULL, I find Johann’s refrigerator from the future to be tremendously intriguing. It even comes with lighting!”
Lol, I thought exactly the same thing. How needlessly stupid.
But for a comic which story depends on historical facts it was also disappointingly lazy done in its backgrounds. The streets of Munich could just as easy have been the streets of Pittsbourgh. There was no sense of place. Would it have been so hard to actually draw some of the historic buildings in the riot-scene? There are enough photos of this event floating around on the net, they didn´t even have to visit a library for reference-material.