There's A "Who's Your All-Daddy" Joke Somewhere In This Event
Fear Itself gets off to a good launch with a first issue that manages to actually to smooth out some of the concerns leading up to Marvel's latest mega-event.
At first glance, it is a little hard to see an event starring Thor and Steve Rogers as anything other than an artificial cash-in to this year's Marvel movies, but this issue sells it as more than that. The combination of old Nazi sorcery and an ancient Norse evil does feel like a natural union that would star our two heroes. Reading this issue, it is easy to forget that both have movies coming out soon.
Despite being a Thor and Steve Rogers story, Odin steals the show in this issue. Matt Fraction really nails the cranky old All-Father, and Odin is really the only character in this first issue to convey any real sense of fear. Of all the characters present, he is the one that Fraction seems to have the strongest grasp on writing. Though, Volstagg must come in a close second. His grasp of Thor is solid but nothing spectacular.
One problem with Fear Itself is that it obviously wants to be Civil War, combining a real world issue with superhero action like Civil War did with the freedom versus security debate and superhuman registration. This does not work for Fear Itself, though. Fraction tries to do the same thing with the vague sense of fear over various issues that have been in the media for the past few years. It is too intangible of a concept to work, and when Fraction tries to make it tangible, it is an eye-rolling experience. He is trying to combine a dark god returning with... bank foreclosures? Gods abandoning Earth with unemployment? Does it seriously bring up the mosque near Ground Zero topic? It is clear what Fraction is going for but all these uses of real world matters are forced and out of place.
Besides that, there are a few minor problems with the issue. There is a moment where our heroes, particularly Steve Rogers, are so ridiculously naive that they have trouble believing a riot could just happen without some nefarious scheme behind it. Odin takes issue with the idea of humans rebuilding Asgard, saying the gods could do it with a snap of their fingers. Yet it has been months in the Marvel Universe since Siege and Asgard is still just a pile of rubble. Maybe gods don't know how to snap?
The biggest little thing is that for the first issue of a series Fear Itself seems to expect you to have read some things before it. "Expect" is maybe a strong word, but it is hard to see how well Sin's scene of finding the Antartica Nazi facility would play for people who have not read the story behind it in Book of the Red Skull. People who have not been reading Fraction's Thor run may also be confused about how and why Odin is suddenly back. Though to be fair, I think many Thor readers are also confused about how and why Odin is back.
Stuart Immonen's art is definitely a treat. His facial expressions can sometimes have a slight cartoon-y quality to them, but overall his work is very strong in this issue. The whole art team does an excellent job, particularly with the depictions of the World Tree.
Overall, Fear Itself is off to a good start. There is still the question of how well Fraction's retcons to the Asgardians' history will play out, and that could very well make or break this event. The other deciding factor is how much more Fraction is going to try to push real world political issues into the story, because if this first issue is any indication, that needs to stop here.
