I've realy enjoyed the story that McKeever has crafted. He took this bunch of rag tag teens and young adults and showed you their anxieties and fears while working with them to show you how they are true heroes. He has shown us their frailties and their strengths all with the backdrop of the nation and world falling into mass panic due to the Fear Itself event. The best part has been watching the growth of some of the characters like Cloud 9, Tarene (Thor-girl), Prodigy, and Gravity. Even if at times that growth seemed to be backwards in nature.
This final issue has Prodigy finally move to step in to try to pick up the pieces of some of the bad mistakes by various characters made throughout the limited series. The problem is that one of those mistakes was made by him when he didn't realize how political of a situation he was in when Steve Rogers gave him command of these (former) Initiative heroes. This comes back to bite him or maybe the more correct word would be bash him in the last page of this issue.
The few pages of scene with Cloud 9 and Tarene working to save people in a collapsing hotel are some of the best evocative scenes I have seen in a while. Cloud 9's initial fear is there as she struggles to overcome what seems to be mild claustraphobia while Tarene herself struggles to come to terms with the thought that she will not be strong enough to save Cloud 9, herself, and the civilians trapped in the collapse. It takes both of them overcoming their own fears in order to help the other one, and it's an awesome scene of what it takes to be a hero. It's not really about what you think you are capable of, but what you step up and do to save others no matter the risk to yourself.
The artwork is awesome. Every character is well drawn and the earthquake rocking Las Vegas throughout the issue is truly devastating in its appearance due to the way Norton draws the scenes for it.
I doubt many people have actually been picking this book up, and that's too bad as it's been one of the best titles of the Fear Itself event in my opinion. If you have the opportunity to pick it up in its individual issues, I recommend you do so. You don't even need the main Fear Itself title to enjoy this title and what's going on in it. It's a great read both in story and its visuals. If you can't pick it up in its individual issues, if they make a trade of it, which they are bound to do, then I recommend you grab it then and enjoy the story in its entirety from beginning to end.
Other titles I read today with brief comments were:
- Avengers: The Children's Crusade #7 - pick up this title if you haven't been or get the trade when it's released; the only problem with this is Allan Heinberg is always behind on anything they have him work on; he does an excellent job though
- Fear Itself: Fearsome Four #4 (of 4) - overall, a fun limited, not spectacular in scope, but fun given it stars Howard the Duck
- Avengers #17 - I just want Fear Itself to be over now; there's just nothing significant really happening in this book
- Invincible Iron Man #508 - a Fear Itself tie in, but worth it, since we get to see Iron Man jump into a molten vat of Uru and get his armor blessed as a weapon of war by Odin to battle in the final battle of Fear Itself
- Vampirella and the Scarlet Legion #4 - I'm liking this limited from Dynamite, but I'm a Vampi fan; if you are, you should pick this up. It is set before the current continuity in the primary Vampirella series, and I think we're going to see what happened to all of Vampi's former allies at the end of the series.
- Inferno One Shot - part of the Dream Eater Saga, this book brings the dark one into the fight with the dream eater, and it seems like he's going to be the bait. Parts of this event in Zenescope's fairy tales universe have impressed me and other parts were just filler it seems (this one could have easily been part of another larger story).
- DC Universe Presents: Deadman #1 - well written, but foundational, so I'm not really sure if I'm going to like this arc or not
- Captain America #3 - Brubaker is not impressing me with this current arc so far, and I'm a Captain America and had been loving what Brubaker had been doing with the book and the character up until now, so that's saying something.
- Fear Itself: The Home Front #6 (of 7) - one of the better limiteds in the Fear Itself event; it's a collection of short stories in each issue, some humorous and some a little more epic. The single story about Speedball's redemption in the eyes of the people of Stamford, the town that had 3,000 people die due to some of his activities previously, has been singularly fantastic even if on its own, but the other storeis have been decent as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment