Another week, another installment of pants-wetting Asgardian terror with another installment of Fear Itself Friday. This week, we get Thor in a cell in the new Asgard, Thor Girl heading for a cell in Midgard, magic goats, bad dogs, and Nazi war machines. Among the pickings for this week were Journey Into Mystery #623 and Fear Itself: Youth In Revolt #1 (of 6), with the former certainly living up to its title as a trip inside and behind the mysterious circumstances plaguing Marvel’s Norse gods, and the latter using some dodgy chronology to deal with the boots on the ground against the panic gripping the United States.

That’s the sound of Fear Itself humming along like the big summer event it is.

That’s the Cliff’s Notes version—for more detail, join us after the jump.

*****Don’t get fooled again—this means spoilers are ahead!****

Journey Into Mystery #623

Loki: If you knew something bad was happening, what would you do?

Thor: I would prevent it.

Loki: But if something bad was happening. And it had to happen. And if it didn’t happen, something even worse would happen… what would you do?

Thor: …I would make sure it happened.

Loki: Even if it cost you everything?

So for all you Thor-ologists out there—and not the “Heimdall must be the one true race” ones, but the good ones—has there ever been an extended bit in the character’s history where Loki was just a straight-up good guy? Like, without obvious ulterior motives, just totally bent on being loyal to Thor and the gang good? Because if not, it’s crazy that’s it’s taken 50-odd years for a writer to go that direction with the character, and it’s even better given that we’ve got Kieron Gillen writing this take which has a whole nesting doll structure of:

• Young Loki = Good
• Old Loki = Evil, probably manipulating Loki from beyond the grave
• Young Loki trying to outsmart old Loki, while also trying to figure out why Odin’s gone crazy

Gillen gets that Fear Itself needs to be its own thing, wisely making Journey Into Mystery character and not plot-driven. That conversation up top sums the book up nicely: Loki may be “good” now but how far is he willing to go to prove his goodness? I can easily see the story wrapping with Loki being cast as a misunderstood hero after wrecking his rep to save Asgard. And it’s a testament to Gillen’s writing that if it turned out exactly how I thought it would, I’d still be surprised.

Because he earns his moments. We get to see his lead working through not only the enigma that’s caused Odin to throw Thor in chains, but also try to piece together the moral way of reacting to it—trying to avoid the same old traps of deceit and mischief, unless it’s somehow getting one over on a bully or a threat. Using his evil powers for good.

All the while nearly every character—save Thor and maybe Volstagg a little bit—hate this kid enough to want to kill him the first chance they get. He was/might be a snake and they’re not waiting for him to bite again. So even if Loki knows how to fix what’s wrong, how to save everyone, no one would believe him. Tying the story into knots like that requires that Gillen write his character as smarter than the plot and so far, thankfully, he hasn’t succumb to the writer’s trick of just having his lead “genius” his way out of a problem; he makes Loki respond to the elements and assets around him and use them accordingly. It’s weird to point out such a simple thing, but the writing pays attention to simple cause and effect to make the lead character looks smarter.

Anyway, it’s the best book Marvel put out this week and you should pick it up.

Fear Itself: Youth In Revolt #1

Of six. Which is too much. I’m not saying Youth in Revolt is bad—it trots out The Order for a whole panel, so I’m not gonna complain a lot. Still, that’s one panel in what will be a 6-issue companion to a 7-issue miniseries and… it’s excessive.

Also: it’s (at least based on this issue) going to be “Redemption of Prodigy and The Initiative” story, with Steve Rogers calling on all the veterans of that Civil War-sprung and Dark Reign-abused program to lend a hand as Americans start freaking out with hammers falling from the sky. So it’s the new(ish) kids and the second stringers coming together to be heroes and at its core that’s not a particularly bad idea.

Where the book lacks, really, is a clear threat and an understandable sense of urgency, which comes back to the issue of the timeline. This series seems to take place in between moments of Fear Itself #2, with the hammers falling to Earth, Rogers taking the time out to make a video recruiting Prodigy to bring back the Initiative, a digression for a big speech in an open field, and then the assault on D.C. by Sin’s war machines.

The main action of the book consists of heroes engaging in crowd control because—for still ill-defined reasons—the general public is simply freaking out and rioting all over the place. Which is a clear obstacle, but not an especially interesting one.

The end of the issue promises a big left turn so the story can put Thor Girl on trial for assaulting a cop (via accidental bullet deflection), which is, again, an interesting idea, but in the context of the main book it seems like this plot just kind of kills the momentum of the main series in a very real way.

Fear Itself: The Worthy #3

This one features Titania and like the first two it’s a trip through the history of one of the Worthy using their narration. In this case, it’s Titania doling out her backstory to a prison psychiatrist but structurally it’s a little weird, given that maybe half of it occurs in the middle of a fight. The script’s by Jen Van Meter who kind of goes big with the dialog—a lot of talk about destiny and all that. My experience with the character has always been with her portrayed as an also-ran who wanted to be a player, usually getting beat down by She-Hulk or whoever simply because she didn’t stack up.

Here, the arc seems to be that she’s got delusions of grandeur and that the hammer will fit her well.

It’s available through the Marvel App. It’s free, so you can check it out.

Related Posts:
'Fear Itself' Fridays: Hammer Time
The 10 Best Comics of April 2011

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