Marvel’s summer event “Fear Itself” was promoted well but has never lived up to expectations. The first issue started strong and laid an interesting foundation but by the second issue the story was stumbling all over itself and lost it’s feel of importance. With that being said, issue #6 may be the best of the series so far.

This is a buildup issue as Matt Fraction puts all of his characters in place for the big showdown in next month’s finale. This issue has what most of the other’s lacked – a genuine sense of urgency. Even though we’re talking about the same characters, this issue actually builds up the threat and I finally bought into the “time is running out” idea. This was also one of the better constructed issues with everything moving at a crisp pace and most of the scenes perfectly transitioning to the next. The only time I was taken out of the story was during the strangely out of place Spider-Man scene. Basically he left the team to find Aunt May, finds her, she says go back, he says “Yes ma’am”, and leaves. It was a pointless scene and those two pages could have been used for something more story driven.

Stuart Immonen’s art has been the one saving grace of the series although even it has hit a few stumbling blocks along the way. He delivers a solid issue here and really helps Fraction build the tension in the story. As usual, I’m most impressed with Immonen’s cool page layouts and overlapping panels. It gives his books such a unique look. He puts a lot of his pages but yet they never come across as cluttered. I particularly love the way he draws the Asgardians with their rough facial features and ornate armor. Sometimes Immonen loses me with his character’s faces especially when they are at a distance, but I fully recognize this is more of his style. It just isn’t something I’m crazy about. Otherwise this is a clean, polished, and visually satisfying issue.

This was one of the last books I read out of my huge stack of comics this week and that’s a shame. A major event book should garner excitement and anticipation. This series has garnered neither but this issue actually has me excited about the finale. There’s finally a slight feeling of importance and if Fraction can deliver a solid ending to this “event” he may be able to salvage what has otherwise been a disappointment.