Fear Itself #6

We're nearing the end of this year's EPIC Marvel event. So far I have to say, Fear Itself has been good. Not great, and definitely not bad, but good. These next two issues should really help me decide just how fondly I'll be looking back at this mini in the years to come...

Fear Itself #6(of 7):

Summary: We get this party started with the Avengers bringing Thor back to Asgard so Odin could heal his battered and beaten son. Odin is a bit pissed that a bunch of humans have come to Asgard while he was finalizing his war plans against the Serpent, so Captain America(Steve Rogers... Now and forever, for better or worse)bitches Odin out, because, as I've mentioned countless times on this blog, Captain America is awesome. Odin is momentarily shocked by Cap's audacity, but eventually recovers enough to teleport Cap and the Avengers back to Earth while he took Thor away to be magically healed. Back on Earth, the Serpent gathers his Worthy and decides to head to the World Tree so he could head to Asgard and kill Odin, I guess. Whatever the Serpent's exact plan is, I'm sure it's going to be horribly evil. From there, Spider-Man takes the time to swing around Manhattan to find Aunt May(Um, who cares?) to make sure she was okay... Peter Parker is a weird man... Maybe he should just marry frigging Aunt May and get it over with... Plus wasn't May supposed to be heading to Boston or something? Thor wakes up in Asgard, mainly healed and Odin asks Thor not to head off to face the Serpent, since Thor and the Serpent were destined to kill each other in battle. Thor tells Odin that he couldn't abandon the Earth to the Serpent, and that if he had to die to halt the Serpent's madness, he would. Odin tries to reason with Thor(as any good father would), but Thor is steadfast in his decision, so Odin equips Thor with mystical armor(the same armor Odin used to defeat the Serpent the first time), as well as the Odinsword, which is nicknamed Ragnarök, so you should get some idea of how powerful that weapon is. Odin and Thor next head to Tony Stark and his band of dwarfs and as promised, Odin prepares to power-up the weapons Tony and the dwarfs had created to combat the Serpent's Worthy. Back on Earth, Cap(who is obviously not taking Bucky's death and the Serpent destroying the Earth very well), tells the Avengers to fan out and do what they could to delay the Serpent and his Worthy from reaching the World Tree. Hawkeye, the surprising voice of reason here, tells Cap that without Thor or Iron Man the Avengers would be slaughtered, but Cap could care less and storms off to man the front lines personally. With that, Cap walks up to some men who were pondering whether they should stand their ground and try to halt the Serpent and his Worthy on his floating city of death, grabs a rifle, and pretty much tells the Serpent to bring it... Bitch.

Thoughts: Have I mentioned how horrifically awesome Captain America is? I did? Okay then, moving on... There was actually a lot to like in this issue. It started off kind of slow, but the issue built towards the climatic next issue brilliantly, leaving me eagerly anticipating issue #7 in a few weeks. One major thing I enjoyed about this issue was that Odin was FINALLY portrayed as a good, caring father. Seriously, for a guy who's called the All-Father, Odin can be quite the lousy dad at times. If he's not yelling at Thor, he's banishing him. If he's not banishing him he's tossing him in jail. So it was a great change of pace for Odin to basically tell Thor that he loved him and didn't want to see him die at the hands of the Serpent, even if the Earth had to be destroyed. So I really did enjoy that. Now there were a few scenes in here that I didn't care for, Super Luke Cage deciding he'd stay on Earth to do what he could against the Serpent and company, and the Spider-Man scene really bugged me. I mean really, in a city with like 8-9 million people, Spidey was able to pick Aunt May out of the crowd? That scene just served no purpose and seemed uber-tacky. But hey, I liked WAY more here than I disliked, so I'd chalk that up as a win.

Score: 9 out of 10.See, Cap IS awesome!