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by **LOLtron** » Tue Apr 12, 2011 10:43 pm

IGW reviews Fear Itself! Nothing will ever be the same!

When I sat down to review Fear Itself, I tried to look at it from a serious angle. However, as hard as Matt Fraction and Stuart Immonen try, it's still a summer event comic, meant not to provoke deep, provoking thought but rather provide a decent distraction on a sunny day. Fear Itself is not Anna Karenina, it's the Michael Bay Transformers movie. So, if you're looking for a serious review, go somewhere else. Instead, enjoy a humorous look at the Marvel comic event of 2011!

"The only thing we have to fear is an Asgardian Fear God and his ugly ass daughter wielding a nuclear glow-mallet."~Franklin Roosevelt

Now you know how Poland felt, douche.

When FDR spoke these words almost seventy years ago, people thought he was just messing around, high from licking too many of the stamps he loved so dearly to collect. Little did America know that he was referring to a comic event that would take place almost eighty years after he spoke those fateful words. It's only fitting that a recap of this nature occurs on the anniversary of FDR's death, if only to make sure he doesn't pull a Romero and rise from the dead.

Fear Itself begins with Steve Rogers and Sharon Carter enjoying a nice romantic date in the middle of Ground Zero. Unfortunately, when the American public finds out about their dalliance on sacred ground, they quickly began to get rowdy, forcing them to resort to the famed "Back to Back" formation, popularized by X-Men Origins: Wolverine. A riot breaks out and Rogers takes a brick to his pretty boy face, reminding him why he used to wear a helmet with his costume.

"Go ahead, Sif. Give them a squeeze. She doesn't mind."

Fraction deftly moves the story to Antarctica, where Sin, the Red Skull's daughter in desperate need of a facial, shoots up a bunch of magic Nazi librarians and finds a giant hammer in the snow. The entire world seems to stop as she touches the hammer transforming her into a garishly clad performer with black hair. "Stop," says the transformed Sin. "It's Hammer time."

From there the pace picks up. The Avengers strike needless poses on top of a building! Oklahomans lose their homes! The Watcher shows up to mock Odin with his freakishly round head! Sin utters a mighty HHHYYYYYUUUUUUUUUUUUGGHH-- and unleashes an old man with a wicked mustache upon an unsuspecting world! Odin and Thor throw down in a battle of the broad shouldered! Odin gains the upperhand by robbing Thor of the power of his mystic hammer. "Stop," says Odin in an Asgardian Serif. "No more hammer time."

Wooo! Six MC Hammer References in this Column!

However, as the Asgardians prepare to make like a banana and get the hell out of Earth, the Mustachioed Serpent cracks an Outhouse joke and brings forth his own set of hammers and sends them from London to the Bay, screaming "Hammer! Go Hammer! MC Hammer! Yo, Hammer!" while the rest of Marvel's heroes go off to play. It's a chilling end to the first chapter and makes us wonder what could possibly happen next (Hint: Thing, Hulk and assorted villains start throwing the hammer down on the planet.)

Fear Itself is a tale of men and gods and hammers. It is about what happens when deliberately vague real-world events mix with a mythical tree standing in the barren wasteland known as Oklahoma. It's about getting down with superdope homeboys from Oaktown and other equally obscure references to a 90's rap song. It's about marketable properties and Hollywood movies and the opportunity to sell new t-shirts and toys. Fear Itself is all of these things and so, so much more. I, for one, look forward to the next installment of Fear Itself if only to see the Grey Gargoyle don a pair of parachute pants.

If you enjoyed this, please click here for more Idiot's Guide columns. Regular installments of Idiot's Guide Weekly are posted every weekend on the Outhouse.

Written or Contributed by: BlueStreak

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