Fear Itself, the latest Marvel crossover event, is four books in and has already degenerated into a formula. As with most of these events, a menacing threat or conflict is dropped like a monkey wrench into the machinery of the Marvel Universe, a world-changing struggle that will change everything, lines are drawn among the heroes, battles are fought across splash pages, a hero of minor importance dies (or a notable one under dubious and most likely reversible circumstances), before the conflict is ultimately resolved and a new status quo is established ...at least until the next big crossover event. Marvel is usually really good at setting up these events, such as with Civil War and Secrete Invasion, but they always end the same: splash page battles followed by a hero in front of a podium giving a speech.
However, Fear Itself hits the ground running with the tropes and clichés. It fails to establish a fresh and original story right from the start. It feels like a retread, an exercise in déjà vu. The dark hammers are disturbingly reminiscent of the dark rings in Darkest Night and the whole gathering of villains steals a page from the script of Oceans 12 or the Dirty Dozen. And of course a major character is killed off; this time the recently resurrected Bucky Barnes (among the living since 2005), but even this receives shoddy handling.
The death of Bucky was anti-climatic, contrived, and commercially motivated. With a Captain America movie slated for release on July 22nd, Marvel is obviously anxious to put Steve Rogers back into the role and suite of Captain America, but to do so by resorting to the death-of-a-hero cliché—without even including him in the story except for the death scene, effectively bringing him in just to die—lowers Fear Itself to the standard of a billboard sign.
The one saving grace of Fear Itself is the artwork. Stuart Immonen does a fine job fleshing out this lifeless story. Everyone looks super cool and the action scenes are electric with flashy neon coloring. The art team skillfully achieves the sense of immense scope and gravity needed in a major event story. From the smack down brawl between Odin and Thor to the devastated battleground sprawl of NYC with the Nazi Blitzkrieg machines, Fear Itself abounds with brightly colored eye candy. But this is sadly not enough to save Fear Itself from its lackluster story.
Matt Fraction seems to be going through the motions, spitting out an event story for the sake of an event story. No one wants to get excited about a crossover event more than me. I am frankly tired of the whole "event-fatigue" bandwagon. But Fear Itself has nothing to offer except the usual tropes and clichés. The series is scheduled to trudge on until the fall. Then maybe we can get back to the status quo of good, self-contained three-to-four book story arcs of our favorite titles.
