Fear Itself: The Fearless #2

Next up is Marvel's attempt to continue to milk every red cent out of the Fear Itself event, in this case the Fearless mini-series. Yes I know this mini is a money grab, and yet I picked it up anyway, thus proving that Marvel made the smart move in releasing it!

Fear Itself: The Fearless #2(of 12):

Summary: The story here is twofold(well, actually threefold, but the WWII flashback stuff served no real purpose, so I'm ignoring it), with one part dealing with Crossbones, the other with Valkyrie. Both of them are hunting down the hammers that used to power the Worthy. First up is Crossbones, who is sneaking around the still silent Paris. Crossbones is aided by a magical doohickey which leads him to a group of people living in Paris's sewers worshiping the Serpent's hammer. Needless to say, a few seconds and many bullets later and Crossbones has acquired the hammer. As for Valkyrie, she comes across Raizo Kodo and his band of Forgiven vampires(!), who had managed to steal away the pieces of the Hulk's Serpent hammer from Dracula, as they promised they would at the end of the Fear Itself: Hulk vs Dracula mini-series... Props to Marvel for remembering that little piece of continuity there. Raizo battles Valkyrie one-on-one in a sword fight, and as they battle Raizo realizes that Valkyrie had every right to the hammer-pieces as an Asgardian, so he hands them over to her. Valkyrie heads outside where she is confronted by the Secret Avengers, who intended to take her in for stealing one of the hammers last issue. Before the Secret Avengers can make a move against Valkyrie though, they are all attacked by a horde of wild vampires.

Thoughts: No complaints here. The duel stories were well told, and the cliffhanger leading towards next issue was fine by me. With 10 more issues to go, we still have a long way to go with this series, but so far so good.

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.Marvel sure is on a vampire kick lately...