Fear Itself #3

June 2, 2011

Title: The Hammer That Fell on Yancy Street

Writer: Matt Fraction
Pencils: Stuart Immonen
Inks: Wade Von Grawbadger
Colorist: Laura Martin with Larry Molinar
Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos
Editor: Tom Brevoort       
Cover Art: Steve McNiven
Publisher: Marvel Comics

Earth is being showered by Asgardian Hammers sent down by the Serpent and Sin, daughter of the Red Skull. So far the Juggernaut, Absorbing Man, Titania, the Hulk, and Attuma have each grasped a hammer, turning them into unstoppable juggernauts. This month, Captain America leads the Avengers into battle against Sin, while the Thing finds yet another Hammer, and Thor tries to return to Earth before it’s too late.

This series has been kind of scattershot. The hammer story doesn’t really seem to have anything to do with “fears,” which are ostensibly the driving force behind the storyline. The action scenes help the issue considerably, really. The scene with Red She-Hulk throwing down with the Hulk in his transformed state looks just very good, and the reimagined version of the Thing is cool as hell. (For an evil Ben Grimm, that is.) Bucky’s throwdown with Sin is pretty powerful, and while the last page is the kind of thing that you expect to see in a crossover of this nature, it’s handled well. Stuart Immonen is carrying the comic at this point. It looks fantastic, but although Matt Fraction is a good artist, I don’t necessarily feel like this comic is telling the story it set out to tell.

Rating: 7/10