Fear Itself is one of the worst comic books I’ve read in years. YEARS. This is trash of the lowest, smelliest order.
For those unaware, Fear Itself is Marvel Comics’s latest summer “event” book. Event books involve most if not all of the major characters of a comic book universe, and, at least in theory, change something about the status quo. Since 2004, Marvel has put us through this nearly every summer. The results have been… inconsistent. To sum it up briefly, the good: Avengers Disassembled, House of M, Siege; the bad: Civil War, Secret Invasion, and now, most of all, Fear Itself.
Fear Itself is about Red Skull’s daughter seizing seven Asgardian hammers and making some heroes crazy or some such shit. It’s incomprehensible. Every issue so far has gotten worse and harder to follow than the one before it. Marvel would have you believe it’s about modern U.S. politics (recession, tea party, etc.), but listen to Flavor Flav.
Issue five plumbs new depths of utterly cringe inducing dialogue. I need not explain why the panel below is perhaps the worst in the history of comic books.
There’s also choice lines such as Tony Stark’s “Know what I do before a big battle, you bellowing one-eyed beard, you?” OR the moment when Spider-Man was the first to give up and decide fighting the forces to evil to the very end was pointless OR when Cap’s shield was shattered by some meaningless nothing of a villain OR when Cap decided to join Spidey and give up, too.
Matt Fraction is a better writer than this. While he was never one of my favorite writers, he’s had some great runs on Immortal Iron Fist and Invincible Iron Man. This is a level of awful writing I’ve not seen since Chuck Austen’s Uncanny X-Men.
Stuart Immonen’s art is the only remotely good thing about Fear Itself, but even that is beginning to look rushed by this fifth issue. He deserves a better book.
Fuck this shit. It sucks, and if you like it and support it with your money (I didn’t), you’re supporting the death of artistry in a struggling industry. Fuck you.
