R.I.P. Thor Odinson. Now that Fear Itself is over (I know, we’re still in epilogues but if I wait for those to be over, I’ll never get to write this) I get to give my final overall response to this EPIC sized crossover. There’s honestly so much to cover that I barely even know where to start with this monster, but I’m just going to dive right in.
Let me get my biggest complaint out of the way now. TOO MANY TIE-INS! To collect this entire cross over was a financial and timely nightmare. I went from picking up 5-9 books a week to collecting 9-15 books a week for the last 8 months. And it would have been one thing if they were all amazing and relevant, but we had entire limited series that had almost no point or purpose to the story like Deadpool, Wolverine, and Uncanny X-Force. At least Black Widow and FF had the decency to only be a one-shot, these other 3 were just complete crap. Not to mention the fact that there were so many extra issues that by the end when I was reading Hulk vs. Dracula I had all but forgotten about the Spider-man limited series from the beginning. I am all for tie-ins so we can see what’s going on all over the place but this time they just went completely overboard.
The Serpent. FANTASTIC! What a classic evil villain. No ambiguities, or second guessing the plan at the end. No sir! He woke up wanting to ruin the world and take down Odin, and by god he was doing it come hell or high water! Conjured up his faithful Worthy and his floating Dark Asgard and went to it without ever looking back. I liked his entire back story and I was glad they waited until the story was over before giving up all the details about his history because IT DIDN’T MATTER. Whether he was Odin’s brother that was a mad king or he was a mindless evil demon bent on destruction, the desired endgame was still the same. He never once took his eye off the prize so for that we must give him credit. Unfortunately the prize was the destruction (or enslavement, I’m not completely clear on that) of humankind and his brother and death, and that simply could not be allowed.
Thor actually died. I mean, they hinted that he might and he wasn’t in any of the Shattered Heroes promotional images but I really thought it was going to end up a cheap marketing ploy. Alas, no…they really killed him. And not one of the Ragnarok or godly deaths where he travels through a field in the afterlife and comes back. He’s dead dead. Now assuming he doesn’t come back in the next 3 to 6 months in some ridiculous manner, I think that this was one of the best comic deaths that I’ve ever read. I loved that they took an old story, Thor fighting a serpent and dying afterwards, and gave it a new twist. It was always assumed that this prophecy was referring to the Midgard Serpent but clearly this is an error. He will be missed until he ultimately returns.
If I wanted to nitpick I have one other complaint: Where did Red She-Hulk come from at the end?? She was with Hulk when he got his Worthy hammer but then she disappeared for the rest of the storyline until the very end. Suddenly she not only shows up out of nowhere in Fear Itself #7 but she also has a Mighty weapon made by Tony Stark in Asgard! Where was she before the opening of Fear Itself #7 and how did Iron Man know to make her a weapon? Wouldn’t it have made more sense for him to make one for her father, the Red Hulk? Or I don’t know Luke Cage or Protector? Someone that would have been expected to be there as opposed to Betty just randomly showing up.
Overall I have to say that this was one of the best storylines I have read in a good long time. The characters were amazing, the plot fantastic, and it showed us another side of some of our favorite heroes. I am sure no one ever expected Spider-man to ask in the midst of battle “Can I leave to go home and check on my Aunt?” But this was the time to do it. We watched these idols get beaten and battered both emotionally and physically but when push came to shove (even if we thought they were going to quit) they stood right back up and kept on fighting.
