Reviews

Secret Avengers: Fear Itself by Peter Nguyen, Nick Spencer, Cullen Bunn, Scot Eaton

billykaplan's review

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.75

loop's review

2.0

This was pretty disappointing overall. Each issue here follows one character with no connecting themes. I don't have much exposure to Nick Spencer, but I wasn't a fan of his writing. He often uses humor in places where it doesn't belong and tries a little too hard to be deep, but it generally comes across pretty forced. The only issue of his I enjoyed was the last one (#15), where he explored what it means for a superhero to die. I thought that, while the debate itself was a bit forced, a lot of the points brought up by both sides were fairly interesting, and I enjoyed seeing the concept of heroes' uncertain death in the Marvel Universe explored. As for Scot Eaton's art, I thought it was pretty bad, and the coloring certainly didn't help. It's utterly uninspired. As for "Fear Itself: Black Widow", the issue written by Cullen Bunn and illustrated by Peter Nguyen, I actually really enjoyed it. Bunn wrote a pretty by the books spy story, and it worked fairly well. The art was actually pretty good, and the colors by Veronica Gandini suited the atmosphere well.

Overall, it was okay, but I was bored shitless until the last two issues. This gets 2.5 stars, rounded down to 2 because this is just very meh and served very little purpose. And I doubt reading the main event Fear Itself would help much, as this didn't seem to have much to do with that. Completely skippable if you're reading Secret Avengers from Brubaker to Ellis to Remender.