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
repeatedly lost my interest only for
me to keep coming back out of sheer Marvel devotion. Your readers should want to come back and not just do so in
the vain hopes that it will get better.
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.