Fear Itself

Well?!?  

 Are you here to see a god die?

After Brian Michael Bendis dragged the Marvel heroes through the mud for nearly seven years, the company rebooted its thematic overlay after 2010's Siege and moved its readers into a new era dubbed 'The Heroic Age.' The transition saw a shift in focus for the Avengers and co., removing the internal turmoil that had been crippling heroes for the past decade alongside the political roadblocks and letting them just be superheroes again. The goal was to capture the old feel of comics, where the heroes were icons of moral just readers could get behind and the villains were dastardly mustache-twirlers who would attempt to outmuscle the heroes before ultimately being defeated and retreating. Artists with a more old-school style of drawing, like John Romita Jr., were brought to the forefront, and several classic villains like Kang the Conquerer returned as most major Avengers titles, both for the teams and individual characters, rebooted from issue one. It was a lighter time after the end of 'Dark Reign,' and Fear Itself served as not only the epitome of the Heroic Age but also its tragic conclusion.

Matt Fraction has written some of Marvel's most complex and well-received runs ever and had a reputation for his brilliant character development and carefully constructed story development. Fear Itself demanded no such craft from him. Its layout was simple: eight hammers of Asgardian nature fell to Earth and were picked up by individuals deemed "the Worthy," infusing them with spirits of lost gods. The Worthy then heeded to the call of their master: Cul, or the Serpent, the long lost brother of Odin, ruler of Asgard.

The Serpent's objective involves marching to and through Asgard and eventually reaching the source of the world tree, and with it the nine realms. For those less savvy with the lore and construction of the Marvel Comics universe, this essentially means killing everything and everyone. Genocide for the sake of genocide. Asgard is currently only accessible via a doorway located on Earth, specifically in Broxton, Oklahoma. As the Serpent and his Worthy make their way to Asgard, they raze everything in their path, instilling a sense of fear over Earth's population to bestow more power upon him.

The Serpent is a Marvel terrorist, causing chaos and destruction solely for the sake of fear. Wishing to kill just to kill. As such, Fear Itself is a war story with the vestiges of the Heroic Age. The threat is imminent and the villains are more powerful than the heroes. As has been expected in a Marvel yearly crossover event, massive battles span the length of most issues.

Standing in his way are the big three, which Fear Itself may even be seen as an excuse for reuniting, highlighted by one of the crucial character deaths to pave way for the return of Steve Rogers as the true Captain America for the first time since 2007. This coincided well with the growing prominence of Rogers in the now-exploding-in-popularity Marvel movies and gave the influx of new readers jumping aboard the comics train a familiar face at the forefront. There they were; Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor. Not refusing to work together, not crippled by legal obligation, not arguing methods, just standing together and fighting.

The two main characters of the story are Captain America and Thor. Cap's arc involves reclaiming his identity, both in name and in spirit. He puts the costume back on, but it takes him a few more issues to realize the type of beacon he can be for the common person. If he stands back up, those around him will follow. Thor is the prodigal son of the epic, forever at conflict with Odin and torn between his obligations between Asgard and Earth. At one point Odin even checks him into the ground, demanding he choose whether he is a man or god. "Man," Thor spits through gritted teeth. An act of not just an assertion of his own identity but defiance to his father. Eventually, he is forced to reconsider, and recognize he is the only one who can truly stand against the Serpent, and he must do it as a god.

Odin is an interesting piece of the story, a tale of the stern father who appears to be too harsh on his son, but only out of fear for his son's safety. He retreats from Earth and takes Asgard in tow, all because he is scared. Not of the Serpent's raw power but of facing his brother, or, worse, making his own son do it for him. Odin ultimately puts aside his fear and his distrust of man to assist Iron Man, whose role is to acquire the Macguffin devices the heroes need to win the day. This is a taxing ordeal that requires great personal risk, but it tragically largely occurs away from the pages of the core miniseries. It was some of the most crucial missing pieces from a major event in years.

Indeed, Fear Itself almost feels like a modern satire of the annual crossover epic, because it nails nearly every trope that's come to have been associated with these events right on the head, as if its completely aware of what it is doing and just shrugging it off anyway. It has its shocking deaths, but both characters are back alive by the time the epilogue is wrapping. It has its out-of-left-field villain, a long lost, conveniently never mentioned brother, It has its tie-ins, an obscene amount of them actually. The conflict spans the entire planet, and nearly every currently ongoing series Marvel had at the time played some kind of role. Though the global war led to drastically present stakes, it also left a lot of the essential story occurring off the panels of the core miniseries.

This impacts nobody greater than the seven Worthy. Heavily teased in the first two issues, they offered an appetizing threat for Earth's heroes to tackle, as taking one head-on was the equivalent of trying to go toe-to-toe with Thor. Thor himself is ever-present in the story, a paradox to the vileness the Worthy represent. It's a religious allegory, a classic struggle of balance between good and evil, represented by literal gods on paper. The Worthy themselves were interesting characters, as each one's original spirit responded differently to the new godlike soul residing in them via the hammer. Some actively fought the actions they were committing every step of the way, while others chose to embrace it. It was a promising analysis of internal conflict and external mayhem, ruined only by the lack of appearances they get in the core miniseries itself. Most of the Worthy only appear in cameos or the tie-ins, save for their first appearances or the final issue.

Fraction does really appear to struggle with how to write himself out of the conflict he created himself. The enemies were more powerful than the heroes, so what is the solution? This time, the classic roles of comics were flipped. The heroes attempt to outmuscle the villains, several times, unsuccessfully, so they go get weapons of their own to become stronger. That's it, that's how they win. If it weren't so fitting for the breakdown of crossover event tropes, it would almost come across as lazy.

The art is a source of redemption. Stuart Immonem adds a gorgeous touch to the character designs, keeping the art simple yet packed with information within each panel. The action is bright and colorful, and the color lends itself well to understanding the balance of power. As the series goes on, the surroundings become darker and darker, a representation of the rising fear and hopelessness as the heroes struggle to slow the Serpent's advance. Fraction adds to this symbolism by adding news snippets, almost always unrelated to what is occurring on-panel. They refer to events of less significance than a world-ending threat, illness and the likes. It is their tone that conveys the real message. How much is wrong with the world, how much fear already exists.

Really, this was exactly what the Heroic Age moved away from, the inclusion of too many real-world factors. In Fear Itself, the heroes are fighting not because of a disagreement of policy, not because a tyrant seized America's highest office (and no, that is not a political attack on modern times, more on this in the coming weeks), and not because they were being guilted by a weary public. They were fighting because a villain presented a clear, unabridged threat to their safety. Conflicts like this are rare nowadays, as it usually comes across as weak writing. Where is the motive? In this case, that was the point. Take a break and watch superpowered individuals slug it out. Marvel showed off the best the Heroic Age had to offer and then waved goodbye. It was almost a response to how dark and complex the comics-verse had been since 2004's Avengers Disassembled. They gave readers a year of lighter times to make a statement and say there were only so many directions stories could go in.

Fear Itself brought about the era of 'Shattered Heroes.' The tyrant returned. The politics reigned in again. Times regressed back towards the previous six years as a new cataclysm loomed, one that would ultimately end the Marvel Universe as readers knew it. The Bendis era came to an end and Marvel was about to move in an entirely new direction.  Age of Ultron, discussed earlier in the blog, was the epilogue to his work. Siege was the climax. This makes Fear Itself, stuck in between the two, even without Bendis's direct involvement, the more mundane falling action.

The series did not have a tall task ahead of it. It was not the culmination of years of buildup, requiring the careful scrutiny of several overarching series to even begin to understand how things got to where they were (a la Secret Invasion or Secret Wars). It is simply a war story, an action-packed jumping on point for new readers brought over from movies. In this manner, it succeeds, and with the tie-ins, it really does tell an interesting story too. It asks readers to remember the little man no matter how intense the fight is. If there was an omnibus, it would be heavily recommended, but there isn't one (at least one written in English) and by itself, the miniseries does have a lot of holes.