Fear Itself Primer

Fear Itself  is Marvel's current event and as I've been out of action recently and was catching up on all the recent happenings, which led to lots of reading on the current event to figure out just what it's about, I thought I'd share my findings here in a quick primer on the event.  We cover the basics of what you need to know, what books you need to buy, character profiles and more.  Hit the jump and find out everything we know about Fear Itself.

Index

• What is Fear Itself?
• What is Fear Itself about?
• How many books are involved in the event?
• Is there a checklist?
• How much will it cost?
• Summary of Events
• Siege
• Captain America
• Thor
• Avengers
• Fear Itself Prologue - Book of the Skull
• Character Profiles
• Red Skull
• Captain America
• Steve Rogers
• Baron Zemo
• The Serpent
• Thor
• Odin
• The Worthy
• Any questions?

What is Fear Itself?

Marvel's next big event from writer, Matt Fraction, and artist, Stuart Immonen.  It is a seven issue event that will focus primarily on Steve Rogers and Thor, but has a scope that will affect the entire Marvel Universe.  The prologue to the event, Fear Itself Prologue - Book of the Skull #1, was released March 16, 2011, while the event proper is slated to begin on April 6. 

What is Fear Itself About?

The premise of the event spins out of the shocking revelation that Odin, the All Father and highest authority in Marvel's Norse mythology and creator of Thor's mythical magic hammer, Mjolnir, may not, in fact, be the all powerful All Father he claims to be. It also turns out Odin has a big secret in the form of The Serpent, a powerful God of Fear he imprisoned millennia ago.

When the new Red Skull (Sin, the recently deceased Red Skull's daughter) discovers this ancient secret in one of her father's books, she sets out to find a buried treasure from World War II - a mystic hammer with power equivilent to Thor's that no one in the Red Skull's employ could lift upon discovering.  She manages to lift this hammer, frees the imprisoned God of Fear and is empowered as his general.

As The Serpent feeds on fear and was likened to an Old Testament type deity, he needs a way to sow fear across the globe.  As such, he sends out eight enchanted hammers similar to Mjolnir, but attuned to those that have the ability to spread destruction and chaos to create his fear spreading army known as The Worthy, who will serve under Sin's command. 

While the event will deal with the fallout of two gods, Odin and The Serpent, duking it out, at it's core the event is described as challenging the very foundations of what our favourite super-heroes think of themselves and how they deal with and overcome fear.

How many books are involved in the event?

As of right now, it looks like Fear Itself will be a slightly scaled back version of Secret Invasion in terms of number of titles affected.  Fraction has stated he would like to keep the event as self-contained as possible, so you may be able to get by with the Fear Itself title alone based on what has been said in interviews.  In total, there appear to be 83 related comics and tie-ins currently announced for the seven issue event.

Is there a checklist?

I have been unable to find an official checklist from Marvel, but put together a quick list of all books involved and confirmed tie-ins for your convenience.

I've also included a text version below for added convenience if you wish to copy and paste for tracking in a text file or spreadsheet.

Prologue

Fear Itself: Book of the Skull #1

Event

Fear Itself #1-7

Event Tie-Ins

Fear Itself: Spider-Man #1-3
Fear Itself: Black Widow #1
Fear Itself: Deadpool #1-3
Fear Itself: The Deep #1-4
Fear Itself: Fearsome Four #1-4
Fear Itself: The Home Front #1-7
Fear Itself: Sin's Past #1
Fear Itself: Spotlight #1
Fear Itself: Youth in Revolt #1-6
Fear Itself: The Worthy #1-8 (digital)

Ongoing Tie-ins

Alpha Flight #1-8
Avengers Academy #15-19
Avengers #13-14
Ghost Rider #1
Herc #3-4
Iron Man 2.0 #5-6
The Invincible Iron Man #503-505
Journey into Mystery #622-624
Secret Avengers #12.1
Secret Avengers #13-14
Throne of Blood: Birth of a Vampire #1
Thunderbolts #158-163

Of course, these are only the currently announced titles.  With a seven issue long event, I would expect the list to grow, particularly if any delays crop up in the main event title.  In particular, with a strong focus on Captain America and Thor, I'd expect their ongoing titles to tie into or at least reflect the going ons of the event in some way, though they are not yet confirmed to do so.

That's a lot of books.  How much will Fear Itself cost?

The event book will list at $3.99 US per issue.  The first issue was stated to be oversized at 44 pages by Tom Brevoort and he also said that the last issue would be oversized, but no page count was given.  Many of the tie-in titles are listing at $2.99 US cover prices currently, such as Fear Itself: Spider-Man, though the Home Front companion series will be $3.99 US.  Fear Itself: The Worthy will be a free, weekly digital comic series.  Finally, most of Marvel's current ongoing titles are priced at $2.99 US, but there are still several at the $3.99 US pricepoint, such as Avengers, Secret Avengers and Invincible Iron Man.

If just picking up Fear Itself #1-7, you are looking at a modest $27.93 US for the event.  To collect everything currently announced, the total bloats up to approximately $250 US over the seven months of the event and not factoring in any unannounced tie-ins.

What do I need to know going in?  Can we get a summary of events leading up to this current status quo altering event?

This event is fairly self-contained and should be safe for anyone to pick up with no prior knowledge of what is currently or has recently taken place in the Marvel Universe, but I've included a quick recap of the events from key players involved in the event for those interested as well as discuss everything from the prologue issue to the most recent lead in to the event, Fear Itself Prologue - Book of the Skull. 

Siege

Marvel's last event was one year ago in the form of Siege, a four part event that saw our heroes band together to overthrow the power mad Norman Osborn, who had been appointed the leader of HAMMER, an organization that took the place of the disbanded world peace agency, SHIELD.  

Osborn had been leading his team of Dark Avengers, basically an Avengers team made up of villains, and all of HAMMER in an illegal siege of Thor's home, Asgard.  While our heroes were successful in stopping them, most of Asgard was destroyed in the process.

In the aftermath of the event, Osborn was imprisoned for his crimes and Steve Rogers took Osborn's place as top of cop in the Marvel Universe.  His first act of duty was spearheading the movement to rescind the Super Hero Registration Act and proceeded to reform SHIELD, which he now runs.  Our heroes, who had been on the run due to Osborn being in power and their unwillingness to reveal their identities under the laws of Registration Act were now no longer labelled as outlaws and welcomed back as acting Avengers.  

While there were still hostile feelings left over between former friends and allies stemming from Civil War, everyone has been able to forgive and move on in what was deemed a new Heroic Age for Marvel.

Captain America

Bucky has been through the ringer in his own title since taking over as Captain America and has, most recently, dealt with the return of Baron Zemo, the son of the man that nearly killed him back during WWII, which led to his becoming the Winter Soldier when the Russians found his body.

As a parting gift after their encounter, Zemo leaked the classified top secret information regarding Bucky's identity as Captain America and, more damaging, his time as the Winter Soldier, who through brainwashing was responsible for countless political assassinations, to various news stations.

Bucky was put to trial for these transgressions and is still reeling from the guilt he feels for his acts as the Winter Soldier.

Thor

Since returning to the land of the living, Thor has systematically restored all of his fellow Asgardians, with the only exception being his father, Odin, restored Asgard, this time located in Broxton, Oklahoma, and then watched as everything fell to pieces due to Loki's machinations.  

First, Loki engineered Thor's exile from Asgard by forcing him to fight and kill his grandfather, Bor.  The act of killing the rightful ruler of Asgard and his own blood resulting in his exile.  Loki's plans led him to allying and manipulating Norman Osborn, who he put on the path to waging war with Asgard, as seen in the events of Siege.  Even now, Thor has no idea how involved Loki had been during Siege or how responsible he really was for the fall of Asgard.

With Asgards destruction and Loki's death during Siege, Thor has been, literally, to Hell and back and has been in a rather depressed mood as of late.  Whether due to his current mood or by some other force, Thor has made two rather odd moves leading into Fear Itself - the revival of his recently dead brother, Loki, this time in the child and mental state of a young boy, and another revival, this time of his long dead father, Odin, the latter of which is quite displeased with his son's decision to revive him. 

Avengers

The Avengers make up several different teams these days.  There is the adjectiveless Avengers, which consist of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Hawkeye and Noh-Varr.  They work out of Avengers Tower and are government sanctioned, though not beholdened to them either.  Since reforming, they've been busy fixing the time stream and are currently trying to stop The Hood from gaining all of the Infinity Gems.

The New Avengers are more of a freeform team striking out on their own and refusing to be associated with the government which was responsible for the Super Hero Registration Act and putting Norman Osborn in charge.  They are not fighting with the Avengers or government.  They simply want to help people of their own volition and under their own rules.  They operate out of Avengers Mansion and are made up of Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Thing, Ms. Marvel, Dr Strange, Mockingbird and Hawkeye.  Their first outing dealt with stopping our universe from being wiped out by magical forces, which led to Dr Strange joining. 

There is also an Avengers Academy team made up of young super-heroes being taught by seasoned Avengers, such as Hank Pym and Tigra.  They are all new characters and it was revealed they are actually chosen due to their troubled origins and warning flags showing many of the students have the powers and mentality that could lead them to becoming super villains in the future.  The instructors do not know that the students have found out they are 'problem childs' and are still trying to lead them down the road to becoming heroes.  They've been busy introducing the new characters, training and, most recently, stopping villains, such as the Absorbing Man, who will likely be showing up again for some payback once he becomes a member of The Worthy in Fear Itself.

Finally, there is a covert ops Avengers team put together by Steve Rogers known as the Secret Avengers.  They are designed to deal with off the grid black ops type problems and answer directly to Rogers.  The team appears to be more fluid than others, swapping in people with each mission as needed, but constants seem to be Black Widow, Moon Knight, Beast, War Machine, Valkyrie, Ant-Man and Sharon Carter.  Nova, John Aman and Shang-Chi have also aided the team.  The Secret Avengers started their adventures with a conspiracy that led them to Mars of all places where they found a Serpent Crown linked to the snake god Set, which may tie into The Serpent in some unforeseen way once Fear Itself begins and we learn more of the mystery villain.  After that, they've been busy tracing followups to the conspiracy that brought them to Mars in the first place and have been dealing with some kung-fu mysticism back on Earth. 

Fear Itself Prologue - Book of the Skull

Unlike the prelude books that preface the cosmic events at Marvel, the Fear Itself Prologue was just that - a prologue.  There was no Earth shattering event or internet shattering reveal to kick off the event like we've come to expect from those cosmic lead ins.  

However, that does not mean it was a completely pointless story either.  At its core, it told an WWII style Invaders vs the Red Skull story where the Invaders tracked down some missing Atlanteans, of which the Red Skull had captured and murdered in a bizarre occult ritual that resulted in a magical hammer no one could lift, not unlike Thor's, falling from the sky and a strange book being crafted from the very skin of those deceased Atlanteans.  

This was framed with a present day discovery of that same book by Sin, the Red Skull's daughter, and Baron Zemo, who was returning a favour and aiding her on this quest.  The book contained the location of the fallen hammer and, with that knowledge in hand, Sin left Zemo stranded behind as she left on her own to claim the hammer herself, which should be where the event picks up from.

Character Profiles

Red Skull

Synthia "Sin" Schmidt, the daughter of the currently deceased (this is comics, he'll get better eventually!) Red Skull.  She kicks off the chain of events that lead to the return of The Serpent and all the mayhem that comes with his return.  

While her recent appearances have had her as a homocidal sociopath in desperate need of daddy's attentions, at the end of Captain America Reborn, Sin was injured when her father's mechanical body exploded.  This resulted in her face being scarred and left her looking much like her father. Fitting, as with her father's death, this likeness results in her becoming the new Red Skull.

At the onset of Fear Itself, she will free The Serpent. Concept art shows her wielding an enchanted hammer and we are told she will become a general for The Serpent's army, eventually leading The Worthy, so she is set to obtain a huge power-up, likely putting her on Thor's level, in the near future as a reward for freeing The Serpent. 

Captain America

Bucky Barnes, former sidekick to Captain America from WWII, is the current Captain America, having taken over for his friend and mentor, Steve Rogers.

This event has been described as Bucky's first major event in interviews and they have said they wish to explore how he deals with the experience.

Steve Rogers 

Former Captain America and current Commander of SHIELD (the title seems random, as it is a Navy rank while Rogers was Army and former SHIELD heads were known as Directors), he recently returned from the dead in Captain America Reborn, where it was revealed he was merely trapped in a sort of limbo/purgatory thanks to the machinations of the Red Skull.

As Bucky was coming into his own and still recovering from his "death", Rogers declined becoming Captain America again.  However, when the President request he take over for the now deposed Norman Osborn, Rogers could not refuse.  He now heads up SHIELD and runs the Secret Avengers covert ops team.

Baron Zemo

Baron Helmut Zemo is the son of Baron Heinrich Zemo, the WWII villain responsible for killing Captain America's sidekick, Bucky, who we now know survived and became the Winter Soldier.  The same event resulted in Captain America being trapped in ice where he was later found thawed out by the Avengers. 

The current Baron Zemo has long tried to live up to his father's lofty expectations of what a true baron should be and this has led to a life long pursuit of his father's nemesis, Captain America.  

However, Zemo eventually came to turns with his legacy and moved beyond petty rivalries with costumed patriots, going on to lead the Thunderbolts, nearly taking over the world, becoming an anti-hero of sorts for a time and, most recently, has found himself falling into old patterns, particularly in regards to his father's greatest triumph, the "death" of Bucky.  Upon learning of Bucky's survival, Baron Zemo has had a seemingly fixed focus on Bucky, the current Captain America, and is responsible for many of his current problems, including his recent arrest and very public trial regarding his time as the Winter Soldier.

As for his connections to Fear Itself, Zemo was seen aiding Sin, the current Red Skull, in finding information regarding The Serpent in the Fear Itself Prologue.  At the end of the issue, Sin betrayed Zemo, leaving him stranded in the desert.  Zemo's last thoughts are that he hopes Sin is successful in her quest as she has just made a new enemy in the form of Zemo, implying we may see more of him, possibly aiding Captain America or operating on his own, during the event.  

The Serpent

Unconfirmed Sketch of The Serpent

Little is known of this ancient evil from Asgard's past, but he is apparently the God of Fear and Matt Fraction has likened him to an Old Testament type of persona demanding and instilling fear in his subjects and then feeding on that fear.  It is also known that Odin imprisoned The Serpent millennia ago and that he is an all powerful god capable of creating enchanted hammers rivaling those of Thor's own mystic hammer.

As for snakes in Norse mythology, the Midgard Serpent is the most obvious, though it has appeared before and it is hard to believe it is related to this God of Fear.  Another prominent serpent in Norse mythology are the snakes used in Loki's punishment when he was bound at the center of the Earth.  Again, likely unrelated.

Focusing on recent events in Marvel comics, Ed Brubaker, who has collaborated with Fraction and writes Captain America and Secret Avengers, both titles featuring major characters involved in the event, and whom also penned the prologue issue to Fear Itself, has been writing a story related to Set, an all powerful demon-god that featured heavily in Secret Avengers since it launched.  The snake/serpent connection is hard to ignore, especially considering the unresolved nature of the story and Set's relatively unexplored background to date.  Likely coincidence, but mentioned for discussion purposes.

Thor

Thor has been busy since Siege.  His exile from Asgard was lifted by Balder and he was allowed to rejoin his battered Aesir breathern.  When not busy aiding in the rebuilding of Asgard, he's been pulling double duty on the reformed Avengers.  

On the homefront, he's become distressingly meloncholy and upset by the loss of Loki, who died during Siege.  Many have been confused by this behaviour and were even more shocked to see that Thor proceeded to revive his fallen brother, who returned in a childlike state of mind and body.  Finally, Thor, in desperate need for advice, revived his father, Odin.  

Whether Thor's strange behaviour will be explored during this event or was merely hastily executed to bring these players onto the stage for the impending event remains to be seen.

Odin

The All Father and powerful ruler of Marvel's Asgardian gods died fighting Surtur.  His Odinforce passed to Thor at that time and Odin has enjoyed his afterlife of endless glory and battle up until recent issues of Thor where in Thor revived his father.  Odin returned and appeared quite angry of being forced back to life and denied the afterlife he so much enjoyed.  

It is still not clear how powerful Odin is now that he has returned to the land of the living, but it is clear he will play a major part in Fear Itself considering his secret past with The Serpent being revealed to everyone and that particular deity coming back for revenge.  

The Worthy

Absorbing Man, Juggernaut & Grey Gargoyle

The Worthy is the title given to The Serpent's advanced guard and the roster of which is slated to be revealed by issue two of the event.  Currently, it appears that The Serpent will send out eight enchanted hammers, similar to Thor's own mystic hammer, that will empower avatars of fear - beings able to wreak chaos and destruction on a massive scale.  This vanguard will serve under Sin and three members have been confirmed so far - Grey Gargoyle, Juggernaut and Absorbing Man.  

It is unknown if they willingly serve The Serpent or are slaves to the hammers, but we know the hammers grant them strength and powers comparable to Thor.  Promo ads posing the question of who is worthy have shown several people reaching for these hammers, including the three already confirmed.  They include Storm, Dracula, Hank Pym, Ms Marvel, Thing, Hulk, Iron Man, Sin, Captain America, and Colossus. 

Any questions?

I believe that covers everything you need to know about this event, but if you have any other questions or wish for some clarification or feel the primer missed something others may be interested in knowing, feel free to leave a comment below and we'll do our best to answer you or even add it to the primer if need be.

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