Marvel’s Fear Itself Coming This Spring (With Video)
Marvel Looks to Scare Its Heroes Straight
Happy Holidays everyone! Last week, Marvel Comics gave all the loyal Zombies out there a Christmas treat. They announced the next event from the House of Ideas. Instead of looking to Brian Michael Bendis to write the new story, Marvel tapped Invincible Iron Man and Thor scribe Matt Fraction. Joining Fraction on art duties is current New Avengers artist Stuart Immonen. The first issue is set to arrive in stores in April and will run for a total of seven parts, plus what I’m sure will be several tie-in books and/or bannered books in regular series.
Unless you’ve lived under a rock for the past week or so, the above information is nothing new. Thanks to some friends I have on the net, I knew a few weeks ago that Immonen was leaving New Avengers to work on a secret project. That only meant one thing: he was likely to be the artist on whatever the next event was. The only question until last week was who would be in charge of writing it.
I had doubts that we’d see yet another Bendis event and I was pretty certain that unless Mark Millar was phoning in Ultimate Avengers 3 in order to do the next event, he wouldn’t be doing it either (remember Bendis and Millar have been the architects of each of the last four events from the big M). I was not terribly surprised to see it’s Fraction’s turn. I’m pretty glad about it too. He’s got a real good knack at writing an intricate story with serious implications. Now, he’s got an even bigger toy box to play with.
So, what do we know about the story? Well, here’s Fraction’s cryptic video he made when the announcement was made:
- First of all, I kinda like Fraction’s nervous speech and the appearance he’s holed up in a secret hideout getting a message out to the world.
- We know the main villain of the event will be “the God of Fear”.
- This Fear God will use our own uncertainties and fears as his “weapons”.
- It looks as though nearly every corner of the Marvel Universe will be touched by this event as seen in the promotional material.
- Bad stuff happens.
So, what happens from now until then? Twitter has been particularly interesting. Christos Gage has tweeted that he’s been writing Avengers Academy with this event in mind the whole time. Does Janet Van Dyne, who’s not currently with us, play a part in the event? Could that also mean that every title has been preparing for this? Does the current miniseries Chaos War have any direct influence on Fear Itself? If it does, were we blind and stupid to not be following that as closely?
Right now, all we have are questions. Even though we don’t have all the questions, you better believe ACB will be covering the action this spring, so make sure you check back! Until then, I leave you with Matt Fraction’s tweet from December 22nd.
What do you think of the announcement and what are your predictions? Let us know in the comments section!
