Fear Itself: Uncanny X-Force #1 & Fear Itself: Wolverine #1

We've got some more Fear Itself comics to get through before I call it a day, this time two brand new 3-part mini-series, both starring Wolverine. I'll be interested to see how closely tied into the main Fear Itself comic these minis are. Without even reading them my guess would be they're BARELY connected to the main Fear story, and are just a way to get Wolvie's name out there. But who knows, maybe I'm wrong! Only one way to find out...

Fear Itself: Uncanny X-Force #1(of 3):

Summary: Okay, this issue gets started with two separate threats for X-Force to deal with. The first one is a crazy suicide bomber who screamed out the word “Purify!” before killing a bunch of people, the second is a quick Internet video showing what appeared to be a tied up, super-powered kid in what would seem to be a pretty dire situation. X-Force feels the two events are both connected to those crazy Purifiers, and decide to get some answers. To that end they sneak into the penthouse of a secret Purifier financier and kidnap him. With the rich bigot tied up, Wolvie threatens to let Psylocke loose in his mind unless he talks. Not wanting a dirty mutant mucking around in his brains, the bigot tells X-Force the name of the Purifier's leader, Jonathan Standish, as well as the most likely location of the kidnapped kid, an abandoned military base in Baltimore. X-Force rushes to the scene and tears through the Purifiers stationed there, but are unable to find the kid. Wolvie grabs one of the Purifiers and threatens to do him grievous bodily harm(what, he did!) unless the Purifier gave up the whereabouts of the kid. Unfortunately for Wolvie and company, this Purifier explains that his group didn't have the kid, and that Standish was leading a splinter group of the Purifiers... And what of Standish? After seeing the actions of the Serpent's Worthy on television, he has come to the conclusion that the Purifiers were wrong to only target mutants, since all superhumans were obviously wicked abominations. With that, he enters the room with the captured kid, turns on the camera, puts the gun to the kid's head and warns everybody to save themselves from the hell superhumans had made the Earth by taking their lives. With that, he pulls the trigger and ends this issue.

Thoughts: Okay, so there really wasn't a STRONG Fear Itself connection in this issue, but Rob Williams did use the Fear events to advance this story, which is a good thing. Sure, we didn't get X-Force vs any of the Serpent's Worthy, but at least the events in this issue occurred BECAUSE of the events of Fear Itself. As for this issue, it was good. I have to admit, I enjoyed it. You had crazy bigots, X-Force killing said bigots, and the head bigot acting like a loony religious fanatic! All in all, good stuff!

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.Crazy religious fanatics... The bane of every mutant's existence.


Fear Itself: Wolverine #1(of 3):

Summary: After Wolverine deals with the Scarecrow in New York, Wolvie's girlfriend, Melita, heads over to shoot the breeze with him. While the two are talking, Steve Rogers calls Melita and asks to speak to Wolvie... Considering Wolvie has an Avengers card and presumably a phone of his own, that makes absolutely NO sense... Anyway, it seems some British terrorists from STRIKE stole a HAMMER helicarrier and were flying it to NYC. Needless to say, Steve wants Wolvie to deal with it. Wolvie gives Melita his Avengers access card and tells her to see what she could dig up on STRIKE and the stolen helicarrier at Avengers Tower, while he deals with the STRIKE goons. When the helicarrier arrives in New York, Wolvie hops off a building and cuts his way inside, while Melita heads to Avengers Tower to see what kind of information she could dig up on STRIKE. Melita discovers that the stolen helicarrier has chemical, biological and nuclear weapons on board, and Wolvie gets jumped and taken down by two of the STRIKE goons.

Thoughts: See, now THIS issue had nearly nothing to do with the main Fear Itself event, which annoys me... A lot. Terrorists steal a helicarrier and it's up to Wolvie to stop them. There's nothing about that premise that needs the Fear Itself stuff attached to it. That easily could have been used for any Wolvie mini-series at any time. So yeah, right off the bat this comic kind of irked me. Add a bunch of British terrorists from a defunct evil spy organization and one of Norman Osborn's helicarriers and you have the recipe for a comic I could care less about... Oh well. They all can't be winners.

Score: 5 1/2 out of 10.Eh, I only posted this picture because I liked the bad guy calling Wolvie, "THE Wolverine".