Today during the Fear Itself panel, the new status quo for the Marvel Universe was revealed in earnest. Rather than a single event spinning out of this one, Fear Itself results in a handful of maxi-series. Think Dark Reign or the short-lived Heroic Age.
First up: The Fearless
The Fearless is a 12-issue, bi-weekly series in which hammers are a metaphor for something else. It's written by Matt Fraction, Chris Yost and newly-minted Marvel exclusive Cullen Bunn. The cover here is by Arthur Adams and the interiors come courtesy of Mark Bagley and Paul Pelletier.
Battle Scars is another bit of branding for the post Fear Itself world. It focuses on the search for a new mystery character. Drawn by Scott Eaton, the book will feature the same writing team as The Fearless.
Marvel also announced a series of one-shots branded Shattered Heroes. One of these will focus on Captain America and the question of Bucky's death in FI. Evidently, Thor and his cosmic grief is the subject of another.
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Oh no. Not more ‘Fear’ crap.
They couldn’t just end it?
Fear Itself is def one of the worst events in recent memory.
I say worst b/c it had so much hype to not be “that’ kind of event
and it couldn’t have been more guilty of wasting everyone’s time.
Yes some of the side books had some interesting moments.
But I thought they learned from the success of siege- guess not.
And personally, I a sick of Fraction.
How about a limit on how many books you can write- presrve quality maximize uinique voices
and get an editor who knows how to write to make sure they all mesh.
And now for an opposing opinion. I’ve been more or less enjoying Fear Itself (pointless death of awesome character like Bucky aside) and the latest issue was the best yet in my opinion. Yet I find myself even more excited by where things seem to be going following the event. These books, along with Defenders and the new Incredible Hulk, all seem look interesting. Some really great looking stuff with very strong creative teams. So, I for one say, bring it on Marvel. Bring. It. On.
Again, could give a shit about any of these things. Plus when you have Fraction and Yost in the same comic that’s just an explosion right there.
There’s that ray of sunshine i’ve been waiting for. Thanks, champ.
@PaulMontgomery No problem.
In all seriousness I’m not sure why anyone would be excited for this considering the majority of fans (especially on this very site) have been downright negative on the event.
the whole fear itself thing bleeding into a whole lot of books has caused me to drop everything except FF and Anihilators from Marvel. I really want to like some of what marvel puts out but these events just annoy me.
The majority of fans? Really. Really? Thats one hell of an overstatement buddy. Heck sales figures alone don’t agree with your statement, and money is always going to have more weight, with me at least, than the mouth. I grant you on this site a lot of people have been negative, but I know plenty of people, both on and off line, who are enjoying Fear Itself a great deal. It would be like me saying because I’m not looking forward, for themost part, to the NuDCU and I find a website where a bunch of other people feel the same, and I have, that must mean nobody thinks its going to be great. Obviously thats no the case, now is it. Don’t like Fear Itself? Fair enough and I respect your opinion. Now do the same in turn please. Besides, you can not like the event itself and still look forward to the aftermath.
@StorytellerSJK Yes because we all know that sales is a perfect bench mark on what’s good. That’s why Phantom Menace was an amazing film…..Oh wait. Plus I Never said I was looking forward to the aftermath at all.
@TheNextChampion Uh-huh. Gee. I don’t remember saying you did. Could you, oh I don’t know, actually pay attention. Also sales figures were not really the heart of my argument, but instead one example that I listed as part of a larger rebuttal. So, why did you not address anything else…? Oh right, you are clearly not interested in having an actual discussion but only in making snide comments. And hey, I love me some snide comments, but I also like to back those up with some thoughtful statements as well. My main point was addressing your gross overstatement and to answer your question of why anyone, not just you but ANYONE, might be interested in the topic of this article. Hence my “Besides, you can not like the event itself and still look forward to the aftermath.” line. Do you understand now? Hopefully you do. If you have something intelligent to say, then by all means, respond to this. Otherwise, I’m just going to ignore you going forward. Honestly I probably should done that from the beginning. *shrugs* Oh well. C’est la vie. I bid you good day sir.
New mystery character = Norman Osborn. First thing that popped in my head.
The mystery character looks like Doc Savage.
I’m just interested in why Taskmaster is with Fury, Cap and Hawkeye.
Sin- No one takes seriously.
The Serpent? Noone has ever heard of and it takes half the life of the series just to establish who and what kind of threat he is. And is anyone really scared of him- is anyone reading this series and actually- Afraid?
Make this the original Red Skull- tie in something besides the beat to death role Asgard has had for 5 years now and maybe we are scared
The Fearful Age can be anytime now.
Final comment.
Art Adams Juggernaut looks awesome, Art Adams Red Skull Sin looks terrible. I’ve been down on FI so I won’t be checking any of these out as they don’t seem to be offering anything interesting to me. That Battle Scars banner appears to be from the same genus as the Heroic Age banner.
I will say that Hulk having a Tom Selleck like beard is the best thing ever.
PraxJarvin- Good call on the banner design.
Here is a ray of sunshine-
Paul- Nice job on holding down the fort- the trains ran on time and they were stocked with things to read on the trip.
@PraxJarvin God, you’re right!
Other than the death of Bucky I have enjoyed Fear Itself. Not my favorite event in marvel history but you can’t win them all. I’m pretty excited about alot of the post Fear Itself books though.
I’m mostly ambivilent about these. The one shots might be fun, just because I like the occasional one shot, but Fearless and Battle Scars don’t do much for me. However, seeing Aaron will be on Inc. Hulk, and the new line-up for a new Defenders book? Now that I’m excited for.
@storyteller I agree with your statements so you have one guy who agrees a book that is out selling flashpoint even with all the new dcu hype cant be as bad as people make it sound.
@nastysnow @StorytellerSJK @TheNextChampion I haven’t actually read Fear itself, but I think the concept sounds fun and I will most likely read it in trade. it sounds like something I would have a good time with. And even though i am not reading it now, i AM interested in the aftermath, as one of the things that comes out of it is a new Defenders series.
hmm not looking forward to any of this at all lol, once Fear Itself is done consider me done with any ongoing spinoff titles. At this point having bought issue 4 i might as well finish off the Fear itself run which is how i now feel about Ultimate Fallout as well and in these type of cases fans like me are the reason that sales stay up despite a shitty turn of events in a stroyline.
I’ll look forward to comments given and reading reviews online about these ones just to know what happened in them and the outcomes but otherwise i dont care.
I have given up on Fear Itself. I just want the whole thing to be over with. I’m starting to have the same fatigue with all these hammers as I did with all the rings after Blackest Night.
Mystery Character looks to me to have a ponytail of sorts. Might be Reed Richards’ dad from FF?
Does anyone know who the guys behind and next to spider man in the battle scars pic are?
Mystery character looks like John Steele to me.
I believe the mystery character is supposed to be an all new character.
At first glance it looked like Sin had a big grey… um… “package”? That’s about as delicately as I can phrase it.
Gawd just end this crap. It dead stopped a bunch if my fav marvel titles like Avengers Academy ( and was I the only one really enjoying Iron Man 2.0 until Fear Itself messed it up ??).
Can’t we do like the Ultimatum flood and pretend this mess happened, is done, and the world has cleaned up so we can move on ???
IRON MAN 2.0 was turning into an interesting book and now i’ve dropped it thanks to the sales boosting tie-in issues being so terrible.
Things at Marvel are turning into a Cult Of Personality with Architects this & Events that. It’s more about the writers & artists than the characters now. Get your priorities straight Axel & just tell good stories.
I dropped Fear Itself a few issues ago. I have no interest in any of these titles. I’m just looking forward to Marvel moving on.
Another event . . . I’ve had event burnout from Marvel for years now. I haven’t bought many marvel titles since the Skrull war (Its been so long I forgot what that event was called). I know it works well for them and it makes them sales, but its not for me. I can’t bring myself to care about the Marvel universe when its constantly in an event going a million miles a minute. I wish they would just slow down for a year and have character development in the characters own book that has to do with that character, and not with everyone else.
The marvel universe must be a horribly scary place to live. We had 9/11 almost 10 years ago and that was pretty bad, but this universe has something way worse happen every few months. Why would anyone live in a major city??? They should make a book that deals more with the mindset of normal people living in that fucked up place.
Bucky’s dead? Oh well, guess they’ll just have to drop his name from Captain America And Bucky.
wake me when it’s over- guess I’m only reading Daredevil
Even more reason I have no regrets about dropping most of the Marvel titles I used to get. Instead of just telling good stories with talented writers, everything has to be a great big event which covers all of their titles.
@Rchapoteau Marvel did that– they slowed down for a year and didn’t have any company-wide events and sales dropped.
We have no one to blame but ourselves.
Ugh… I’m so tired of those damn hammers. Also, defending FI because it sells well is such a dumb point. That’s like saying the “Transfomers” movies should win an oscar good because they make a ton of money. If you like FI great, but sales is no mark of quality.
Sorry for the extra “good” after oscars in there… Damn iPhone keypad and chubby fingers.
God… PLEASE let fear itself end… It’s suckitude is melting my face! I didn’t like the first few issues, and when Bucky died it just kinda killed it for me. I might pick up the cap: shattered heroes one shot, but will likely skip the rest of this.