Fear Itself #7! Spoilers, thoughts and more!

Well, before I do a single thing today, play Arkham City, continue the job search, eat, there's one thing that MUST get done... And that would be reading Fear Itself #7. In my opinion, Fear Itself has been one of Marvel's stronger events in recent memory, so yeah, I'm pretty excited to see how it ends... Sort of... Since Marvel has already announced three extra Fear Itself issues(7.1-7.3) as well as The Fearless, a twelve issue maxi-series that spins out of Fear Itself, it looks like the Fear Itself festivities will be continuing going forward. So while the Serpent will almost definitely be taken down in this issue, there's A LOT of fallout that should be felt through the Marvel U from Fear Itself going forward. Here's hoping that fallout makes for some great stories. And now, without further ado......

Fear Itself #7(of 7):

Summary: Okay, lots to go through as this was actually a $5 comic that was well worth the price. We begin with Captain America(the original and sadly the only) standing his ground near Broxton, Oklahoma, while the Serpent and most of his Worthy(Hulk was freed in Fear Itself: Hulk vs Dracula #3) slowly approach the location of fallen Asgard and the World Tree. However, Iron Man emerges at the World Tree site and hands out the 8 enchanted weapons(well, 10 if you count Iron Man's armor and Thor's additional armament) Odin gave him to attempt to stop the Serpent before Odin and the hordes of Asgard had to step in and destroy the Earth to stop the Serpent's march. The enchanted Avengers, The Mighty, charge to Cap's aid and engage the Worthy, while Thor himself makes a beeline for the Serpent, even though Thor knew that he was prophesied to fall with the Serpent if they were to battle each other. Thor throws his hammer at the Serpent, but it is deflected away, so he attacks the Serpent's with the Odinsword instead. As for the hammer, it falls near Cap, who picks it up(!!!!!) and rallies the Avengers. As these events are going on, around the globe the citizens of the planet are slowly breaking free of the fear effect the Serpent had been plaguing the planet with and are helping their fellow man, thus weakening the Serpent's powers even more. The battle rages with the heroes slowly gaining a tentative advantage, but Odin can't wait any longer and rallies his own troops and begins to march to the Earth to raze the planet and kill his evil brother. As Odin enters the Earth from Asgard, he watches as Thor thrusts the Odinsword deep into the Serpent's head, killing him. With the Serpent dead, all of the Serpent's mystical hammers abandon the Serpent's Worthy, turning them back to regular flash and blood villains. Villains who were no match for the still god-powered heroes. As for Thor, as prophesied, he falls at the feet of his father, seemingly dead(!!). And that's that. A few days later Thor is laid to rest in the remains of fallen Asgard in Broxton, where Earth's heroes are preparing a funeral pyre for him. Before the pyre is lit, Odin takes the corpse of his brother to Asgard to stand guard over it forevermore, and apparently leaves the rest of the Asgardians on Earth at the site of fallen Asgard. From there the days roll along and Bucky is buried(.....), Tony Stark heads back to his dwarf friends and the dwarfs recreate Captain America's shield, this time mixing it with some Uru, making it stronger than ever, although there is a slight scar in the shield. Stark gives the shield to Cap, who is pleased with the new shield, and feels that the scar gives the shield a bit of character. With that, Cap promises the Avengers that they would rebuild, and the planet slowly begins to get back to normal... And that ends the main part of this event. However, there are several epilogues here, and I'll hit on each of them in rapid fashion. First, Sin is freed from captivity by some weird looking freaks, and Sin realizes that although she lost her god-like powers, she still remembered all she had learned as Skadi(the World Tree, the hammers of power, etc)... The Hulk, tired of being used, and doubly tired of Bruce Banner's constant whining, separates from Banner, leaving them as two separate beings, a feat that leaves Banner shocked and angered... Something about Marcus Johnson being the most wanted man in the world(don't ask me what that means!)... And finally the Hulk realizing that when he broke his Serpent hammer, he released Nul, the Breaker of Worlds and gave him physical form. Not being able to let Nul roam free, Hulk heads to Dr. Strange to tell him that the Defenders were needed once again...

Thoughts: Well, that's that. There really wasn't much NOT to like here. The final battle was powerfully drawn, and well written. Cap picking up and using Thor's hammer was awesome in so many ways. Cap getting the new shield and wanting to leave the scar on it makes sense since Cap himself is scarred from the events of this mini-series. Thor's death? I'm not sold on it since Thor is a major part of the upcoming Avengers movie coming out next Spring, as well as the fact that he still, you know, has a solo series... So I'm not expecting Thor's “death” to really stand for long. I liked Odin heading to Asgard space and locking the portal behind him to watch over his brother to make sure no more evil would come from him. The Asgardians on Earth? Been there, done that. So I'm not too keen on that. I will say I am a bit pissed that Sin survived this, because nothing would have felt better than to read Sin dying at Cap's hands to end this one. But I guess Marvel thinks she's worth more alive than dead, but after what happened to Bucky, I almost needed to see her die here... But hey, there's always later on down the road, right? That's probably the best thing about this event. There IS more to come. The multiple epilogues, for the most part, they look really interesting going forward. Hell, I actually want buy a HULK comic for the first time in my life! How crazy is that! So overall, this event did some things wrong(Bucky's death), but did many more things right. And for that, and this very strong final issue, I'm going to give this comic, deserving or not, a score of.....

Score: 10 out of 10.Oh hell yeah!!!