Fear Itself #7.1

The first comic I'll be reviewing this week? That's an easy one, it was this week's Pick of the Litter, and a comic I was so excited about after reading it I had to immediately post my thoughts about it. So now, without further ado, the Captain America aftermath issue of Fear Itself.

Fear Itself: Captain America #7.1:

Summary: We get things started with Nick Fury entering the apartment of Steve Rogers(Captain America), who was preparing the eulogy for Bucky Barnes. Nick tells Cap that he had something important to tell him, but he wasn't exactly sure how to go about it... With that, we have a flashback to right after Bucky was killed by Sin in Fear Itself #4. As Bucky is being flown away from the battlefield on an army aircraft, the army medics manage to get a slight pulse in Bucky, and tell Black Widow that if she had any last words to say to him, now would be the best time for them. Fury, who was also aboard the plane, says nuts to that and tells the pilot to fly to a secret SHIELD location. Once there, Fury shows Black Widow a Bucky LMD(that would be a Life Model Decoy, which is something that looks exactly like a person), and tells her that he was willing to give Bucky the rest of his Infinity Formula, which could possibly bring Bucky back to life... Fury tells the Widow that if they were to go through with this, nobody could know, since what the world needed during the Fear Itself events was Steve Rogers as Captain America, rallying the troops and taking the fight to the Serpent, and Bucky's “death” would be a sure way to get that to happen. Widow agrees to not tell another soul and Fury orders his doctors to administer the Formula to Bucky. Two days pass and Bucky wakes up, much to the Black Widow's relief(and mine as well!!). And that brings us back to the present. After hearing this story from Fury, Cap attacks him and begins to beat the hell out of him for lying to him about the fate of his best friend. Cap finally pulls away from Fury when Bucky and Widow enter the room which quickly calms things down. From there, the quartet decide to keep Bucky's return to life a secret, since that would take care of the whole “Bucky as a fugitive” troubles that Bucky was going through before Fear Itself began. Fury tells Cap that Bucky would be working in the shadows again, which angers Cap, but is what Bucky needs right now. With that, Cap heads off to Bucky's memorial service, and Bucky heads off to take care of some business that was left over from his Winter Soldier days.

Thoughts: Wooooooooooo!!!!!!! Yes, Bucky is BACK! What other thoughts could I possibly have about this comic book? Bucky never should have “died” during Fear Itself in the first place, but now that he's back, and Steve is back as Cap, I guess all is right in the world again. I'll be honest with you, I did NOT expect Bucky to come back here... I was always hoping that he'd come back, but I figured Marvel would string things out for a while first. So imagine my surprise, and yes, elation when I read this comic and Bucky came to in Fury's secret hospital. What more can I add? One of my top five favorite comic book characters came back from the dead, in a story that made sense and is getting an ongoing series in a few month's time... This comic, for me, was perfect.

Score: 10 out of 10.Yes.

Some of my favorite comic characters!

Here's a post that needs no introduction, some random comic scans of some of my favorite comic book characters! Ten of my favorite characters to be exact, five from DC and five from Marvel. And no, this isn't the definitive list of favorite characters for me, these are just 10 characters who came to mind for me the fastest. There are a few big omissions, but what do you want from me, I only spent like 20 minutes on this post! So without further ado, here they are in no particular order.

Arsenal.Now that DC has despicably eliminated Lian from even existing, I'll have to rely on back issues to see what an awesome father Roy was.


Captain America.Cap's not above bitch-smacking a teammate who isn't listening.


Batman(Dick Grayson).You tell him, Dick!


Ultron.Not many villains would take the time to ignore THOR to insult somebody. That's what makes Ultron extra special!


Jason Todd.Yep, Jason rules.


Hawkeye.That's right, Hawkeye once defeated a cosmic being and saved the universe by cheating at a game of chance!


Impulse.That is the most badass Impulse picture ever!


Bucky Barnes.Bucky took down IRON MAN! Think about THAT!


Robin(Tim Drake).And people think Jason was the high-strung Robin!


Nate Grey.X-Man: 1, Professor Xavier: 0.


You had to know I was going to close out this post with an X-Man scan! So yeah, there were a lot of omissions(Wally West, Kyle Rayner, Stephanie Brown, Daken, Hardball, Marvel Boy, and the list goes on and on), but like I said, this was just a quickie post. Given more time to think, I'm sure I'd have come up with a few different choices. But hey, that means I can do another post like this down the road! Anyway, that'll do it for me tonight, until next time, X out.

New Comic Day! July 13th edition.

Another Wednesday, another New Comic Day. Last week was a very Marvel heavy week, with the Fear Itself books taking a large amount of my time, money and attention. Looking at the books I picked up this week, that trend seems to be continuing. But first, before I take a look at what's new this week, it's always fun to look back at last week and see how good/bad the comics I read were. First up will be my top pick from last week, the Pick of the Litter. That honor went to Fear Itself #4, and if I'm being completely honest with myself, that comic was disappointing. Granted, it received an above average score of an 8, but for THE major comic book event of the summer, anything under a 9 has to be considered a subpar. On the other side of the coin, last week's Runt of the Litter was Uncanny X-Men #540, and it was just about the worst comic I read last week, clocking in with a 5 1/2. Overall, the average score for the 13 books I reviewed last week was a 6.65. As I said last week, anything under a 7 overall signals a bad week, so yeah, even though we weren't THAT far below a 7, we were still under that mark, meaning last week's books didn't impress... Hopefully that's not the case for this week's comics...

Speaking of this week's comics, let's take a look and see what I picked up from the comic shop earlier today! Batgirl #23, Batman: The Dark Knight #3, Birds of Prey #14, Detective Comics #879, Red Robin #25, Superman #713, Teen Titans #97, Amazing Spider-Man #665, Black Panther #521, Captain America #1, Daken: Dark Wolverine #11, Deadpool #40, FF #6, Ghost Rider #1, Journey Into Mystery #625, New Avengers #14, New Mutants #27, Wolverine #12, Ultimate Comics Fallout #1 & X-Men: Schism #1... 20 books?!?! That's a ridiculous number, even for me! Damn, I'm going to have my work cut out for me this week when it comes to getting reviews for all of those books done by next Wednesday! So out of ALL those books, and some of them are amongst my monthly favorites, which one am I looking the most forward to reading? Believe it or not, that's actually a pretty easy decision... This week's Pick of the Litter has to be New Mutants #27. A word to the wise... If Nate Grey appears in the comic, there's about an 85% chance that comic will be my Pick of the Litter. As for this week's Runt, there are a couple of valid choices there, but I'm going to go with Ghost Rider #1. The ONLY reason I'm even picking that series up is due to the fact that it's a Fear Itself tie-in issue... If not for that, I would have just skipped it. Boy, I should probably end this post and start reading some of these comics or I'll never get through them all! As always, I'll end this post with a Random Comic Scan, and the customary cry of X out!

The Random Scan of the Week!Hit him again for me!

Beware, Fear Itself #3 spoilers ahead!!!

Okay, if you're still reading this post, that means you've read Fear Itself #3 and/or don't care about reading spoilers... Or you're just confused... Anyway, this is your last chance if you don't want the big, “shocking” event from Fear Itself spoiled for you......... Alright, you've been suitably warned... Fear Itself #3(you can check out my full thoughts on that comic here) ends with Captain America(Bucky Barnes) having his metal arm torn off by the Red Skull's daughter, Sin, followed by Bucky being impaled through the chest by Sin's war hammer. Bucky's allies, Black Widow and the Falcon, arrive at Bucky's body, where Bucky tries to warn them that Sin was working for the Serpent before Bucky and the comic fades to white. So upon first glance, Marvel just killed Bucky off, which in a perverse way makes sense, since we all knew Steve Rogers would be taking back the Captain America mantle to coincide with the upcoming Captain America movie. Hell, anywhere you go, people are treating this issue as if Bucky was dead... It says so on Wikipedia, and if it's on Wikipedia, it HAS to be true, right?!? To that I say not so fast, my friend!

You see, Bucky has morphed into one of my favorite comic book characters, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that thinking. I mean the Captain America series is one of Marvel's better selling titles and Bucky's been the star of that book for a few years now, so it's safe to say he's been enjoying a good, popular second chance at life. Was he ever going to replace Steve Rogers in the hearts and minds of comic fans everywhere and become Captain America? Of course not! Hell, whenever I type up a review with Steve Rogers in it, I have to fight the urge to type “Cap” instead of Steve every time! So Bucky was always going to be a temporary Captain America and Steve was bound to take up the shield again, that's something we all knew. But does that mean Bucky had to die for Steve to decide to become Cap again? While it does make some sense that Steve would become Cap now that Bucky was dead as a way to honor his dead friend, I don't believe that's the case... I say with Bucky near dead from his injuries, Steve can take up the Cap mantle come Fear Itself #4 and take the battle to Sin and the Serpent. Buoyed by the return of the “real” Captain America, Earth's heroes make a comeback and by Fear Itself #7, the Serpent is defeated. From there, Bucky tells Cap that he needs to remain Captain America because the heroes are inspired by Steve as Cap. Bucky goes back to the Winter Soldier costume and calls himself Bucky or Nomad(my personal favorite) and boom, done.

Will Marvel go that route though? It would be WAY easier to just say, “Oh no, Bucky died... We need a Captain America! Oh good, there's Steve Rogers, he'll do it!” While that seems to be the popular thought online from what I read, I'm going to present 3 reasons why I don't think Bucky is dead... These are the three things I'm hanging ALL of my hope on... 1) In Captain America Reborn #6, when Steve Rogers was traveling through time, he sees a glimpse of a dystopian future where he was Cap and Bucky was dressed in his Winter Soldier clothes, meaning Bucky has to survive Fear Itself to set up whatever future Marvel event Steve saw(I'm guessing the Ultron Wars/whatever the Ultron related event Bendis is setting up is called). With Bucky having been outed as the Winter Soldier by Baron Zemo, he could easily go back to the Winter Soldier outfit to try to wash the blood off of it. All he'd need to do is take a different name...(Nomad!) 2) A new Captain America series is starting in July(to coincide with the movie), while the current Cap series is getting renamed Captain America and Bucky... A strange thing to call it if Bucky's dead... After reading the solicitation for the first Cap/Bucky comic, it looks like a flashback to WWII as seen through Bucky's eyes. Of course they could permanently make it a “flashback to WWII series”, but that seems to have a pretty limited shelf life. 3) The solicitation for Fear Itself #3 specifically states, "A major Marvel hero will FALL..." Not die, "FALL"... It seems that if Bucky WAS really dead, Marvel would go out of their way to scream from the rooftops, "Buy this issue, a MAJOR CHARACTER DIES!!!!!" The word "fall" seems kind of like a red herring, you know? If Captain America died in this one, why would Marvel play coy little word games about it? They've never been shy about screaming the word “DIES!!!” out before to try to grab some mainstream press.

There's also one more reason I refuse to believe this comic heralded the end of Bucky... It wasn't written by Ed Brubaker... Brubaker was the man who brought Bucky back from the dead, to the shock of... Well, pretty much EVERY comic fan, he's the man who made Bucky into the Winter Soldier, and he's the man who turned Bucky into Captain America. After putting THAT much work into the character, I just can't imagine a different writer killing Bucky off... Granted, Brubaker and Matt Fraction must have a good working relationship, I know they co-wrote a few comics together(Immortal Iron Fist immediately springs to mind), but still, I just can't see Bucky dying in a comic book without Brubaker's name on the cover... So there you have it, my reasons for Bucky living beyond Fear Itself #3. Will I be proven right in a month's time? I sure hope so, because if this really was the end for Bucky, a rather meaningless death in the grand scheme of super-hero deaths, I'm going to be one angry comic fan this summer! Until next time, X out.