Four Itself: Round Fear

True Story: I was at the comic shop last week when this kid, maybe ten years old, says to his dad, "What the heck is this?" He's holding up a copy of Fear Itself #3

"That," Dad says, "is Fear Itself, I think."

"Whaizzat? Whaizzat about?" the kid asks.

"I don't know, son," Dad replies. "I think they're just giving hammers to a bunch of jerks." The kid looked at the comic for another moment before tossing it back on the shelf. It landed sideways.

I've been trying, but I can't think of a better way to sum up this crossover event.

• Fear Itself #3: A few more hammers are given away, and Captain America is ready to Kick some Ass. As the core series, Fear Itself is getting harder to read as a stand alone book, since outside events in outside series are becoming more and more integral to what's going on. There was a surprise Hammer awarding in this issue, but the biggest difference between characters before and after receiving the wrath-of-the-serpent is that they are required to use exclamation points after everything they say. Big 'ol shocker ending that left me unmoved, unshocked. Bleh.
  
• Journey Into Mystery #624: I'm going to go ahead and make this official: the best reason to read Fear Itself and its many children is so that you can read Journey Into Mystery in the proper context. This book is so dope. Kieron Gillen has definitely made my list of Writers To Watch. There's been so much crap happening with Asgard, Thor, Loki, and the Marvel/Norse-iverse in the last year; but somehow Gillen makes the reader feel totally at ease with all of it (having read barely any of the pertinent material) while providing a HEL of an entertaining comic. Loki is awesome. Volstagg is awesome. The hel-wolf is SUPER awesome. Read this, please.
• Fear Itself: The Deep: This was fucking terrible. I'm serious. In a sea of mediocre, work-for-hire bullshit, The Deep stands alone. Deeply shitty. Deep up a butt hole. The script for this book should be sank Deep, Deep below the waves, erased from the minds and memories of men. It's about Namor and the ocean, or something. I don't know. I want to forget. And it's by the guy that did Sixth Gun, a very cool book from Oni Press. I don't know what happened. This is what the Serpent God is doing to us, apparently.

Fourth Session Report: Is there more? How much more? Did I even read all of the books that came out last week? There was MORE?!? Truly, this is the essence of...apprehension. Itself.