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By Colin Andersen
September 15, 2011 - 11:16
More than any other event comic, I believe that Fear Itself is being hit hardest by the “event fatigue” that has been making the rounds in recent years. These big, epic crossover stories that are being told are feeling less and less interesting with each year and I haven’t personally felt this in any of Marvel’s events more than in Fear Itself.
Part of the problem of these event is that the inherent idea of crossover of different heroes in the same universe is just not particularly interesting anymore as these characters frequently cross into each others’ respective series on a monthly basis now. Oddly enough, Fear Itself has largely avoided this problem by featuring next to no Marvel characters other than the Avengers and whenever it has, it has been in separate comics outside of the main book that ultimately have had very little effect on the main story. This could have easily been a larger Avengers story told in 4-5 issues, but has instead dragged out through seven issues and any number of tie-ins. At this point, the series has begun to feel almost intolerably long, even more so than any of Marvel’s previous events, and has
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Normally, I would summarize the plot of an issue here, but there is just so little of it in Fear Itself #6. The heroes are demoralized, but Thor and Iron Man are about to return and help them get ready for the final assault. That’s really about it. This series really could have been about 5 issues and it would have felt well-paced, but so much time was spent on the attacks of Washington and New York without actually going anywhere that it feels like the important plotlines have been dragging their feet. It doesn’t help that the heroes are treating this like the most hopeless battle they have ever had when the events don’t strike me anywhere near as such with plenty of example of battles that had much higher stakes and lower odds of winning. Perhaps the biggest problem however, is Matt Fraction’s characterization. It’s bad enough to me that this has been reduced to just an Avengers event and that the FF and X-Men and all the other teams barely seem to figure in, but Fraction has also made me completely uninterested in the characters he has been focusing on. He chooses to rehash the same tired character beats that I highly doubt anyone likes (I know I don’t) that make the heroes seem more unappealing than anything.
The two biggest offenders here are Captain America and Spider-Man without a doubt. Fraction chooses to show us a shell-shocked Cap who alternately seems like he is on the verge of giving up and like he is too anxious to fight. People have explored the avenue of a demoralized Captain America before and it’s worked, but it doesn’t here. It’s a good idea on paper to show the heroes’ symbol of hope finally breaking in the light of events that seem too big for him, but that just isn’t who Steve Rogers is; he is the hero that, no matter how bad the stakes are, can remained cool-headed and composed and command his team to maximum effect. When a writer takes that away from him, it takes away from Cap as a character. Perhaps this was what Fraction was going for, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. Meanwhile, Fraction also feels the need to shoehorn in a “Spider-Man checks on Aunt May” scene. Not only is this a completely tired and done-to-death sequence that was in no way necessary and only serves to slow and already slow book down, but it also made Spider-Man out to be a terrible hero. He ditched his team in the midst of their worst battle of the series yet to go check on his aunt. Would any hero want to check on their loved ones? Of course, but there is a time and place and this wasn’t it. The worst part is is that this served no purpose whatsoever other than to waste two pages.
Thankfully, Fear Itself has had one saving grace in its artist, Stuart Immonen who has been turning in some truly wonderful artwork. From devastated cities to the mystical halls of Asgard to the subtle emotions on different characters, Immonen’s work has been a wonder to behold. I just wish that he had had better material to work with because I know his battle scenes and his quiet character scenes can help compliment good writing, but here he is forced to do the best he can with what he has and he really does.
As it stands, I am, more than anything, glad that Fear Itself is coming to a close next month. In my opinion, it has overstayed its welcome and spread to far too many books when it really has been nothing more than a glorified Avengers mini-series. I tried very hard to like Fear Itself and even convinced myself for about four issues that I did, but Fraction has just spun his wheels in place for too long and constantly focused on the wrong parts of the story for me to be able to call this a “good” event. As boring as it also was, at least Flashpoint had the decency to only be five issues long. Like many others, I wish Marvel would allow its characters to breathe some and take a few years off from these alleged crossovers.
Rating: 4 /10
