Fear Itself Prologue: Book of the Skull

[paultmd]

So the first chapter of Fear Itself is out, and it starts with Sin, the new Red Skull, and Baron Zemo(Allegiance Currently Unknown) tracking down one of the original Red Skull's hidden bases.



Zemo is only helping Sin to honor a debt. They get through the base's defense and find what Sin was after.



Flash back to 1942, with the Skull and his Thule Society having just performed a ritual to summon an unspoken(though we can assume from what we've been told about Fear Itself, Norse) power. A bolt of lightning streaks across the sky and the Skull is upset it hasn't landed at their feet. Whatever they summoned will have to be found.

The next day Captain America, Bucky, and Namor show up and Namor is none too happy to find what's been done to his people. They try to track down the Skull, who has found where the lightning struck.




A large crater made by an object sent to Earth through lightning that cannot be budged? Sound familiar?




The three members of the Invaders give chase to Skull but are stopped by an Ice Troll(I believe - not up on my Thor characters, but I think that's what it is) that appears to have come to Earth with the item the Skull summoned.

I won't spoil what actually came to Earth or what happens in the present after Sin finishes relaying this tale(though what came to Earth definitely seems to be a bigger story point, even though solicitations for the miniseries seems to make it obvious).





Forgive me if I did this wrong, as it's my first post.

Comments

[bradhanon]

...okay, this looks pretty cool. Very strong echoes of Hellboy of course, I know I'm not the only one seeing that. But cool.

[turtlefu]

This is not just strong echo of Hellboy.
This is Fraction watching the Hellboy and reading some trades, then yanking pretty much the entire thing and putting it in the Marvel Universe.

[thanekos]

Appropriate vengeance against Bucky, vengeance against Hawkeye, and now helping the Skull's daughter- Zemo must get a lot of use out of a day planner.

[k_red]

I got all excited to see the ol'Buckster but he's not here! Is it tagging just because he, Cap and Namor are mentioned?

[dr_archeville]

Wikipedia says one of he tie-ins for "Fear Itself" is Throne of Blood: Birth of a Vampire.

In the MU, Atlantean sorcerers -- not the blue-skinned Homo mermanus, but the humanoids who lived on the island before it sank, who were besieged by King Kull -- created the first vampires, 15,000 years ago, using rituals from the Darkhold.

(Atlantis sank 10,000 years ago, then was claimed 2,000 years later by the blue-skinned Homo mermanus. To my knowledge Marvel's never said where they came from -- they just showed up and claimed the ruined city of Atlantis for their own, 8,000 years ago.)

Could it be some sort of Vampire-God Red Skull and the Thule-ians (Thuleans? Thulians?) tried to summon? (Isn't he draugr a type of Norse vampire?)

[crinos]

love Sin's troll face on the last page.