One page from Fear Itself #4

[paultmd]

sherkahn posted the cliffhanger, but I found this page infinitely more interesting.



As he stated "Steve Rogers leads the street level Avengers against Skadi, Iron Man attends the court of Odin, and Thor faces off against the Serpent."

Here's Tony making his sacrifice to Odin.

Comments

[aaron_bourque]

Yay!

Oh wait.

[biod]

Wow, they used Chekov's bottle in a genuinely smart way.
I am impressed.

[sherkahn]

Care to elaborate?

[abriel]

Definitely one to file in the "reasons Odin is a toole" category. If a recovering alcoholic falling off the wagon is what it takes to get his attention....

[espanolbot]

"Bah, this proves nothing! A man can't call himself a man unless he's utterly off his ass! *Burp* Have the wenches bring me more mead! I have to throw axes at some chick's plaits!"

[perletwo]

Not having read the issue, I gotta ask: DOES it get Odin's attention? Because if Tony is just raging and drinking to an empty sky, then the whole scene reads in a completely different way.

Sacrifice of the soul.

[capt_satellite]

Wow. I did not see this coming. For those not familiar with 12 Step program, this is a supreme sacrifice.....more so than even death itself. Addiction is slavery and a living hell. To Tony, sobriety= sanity =his soul. This is very poignant.

Odin

[capt_satellite]

Is there a tag for Odin-dickery yet?

Re: Odin

[espanolbot]

God-dickery could work. Then we could include the numerous times Diana's pantheon have dicked her about as well.

Like the time where Zeus decided to rape Wonder Woman as he felt that having sex with him would be both a fitting reward for saving the world, and that it would be a religious experience that, as technically one of his worshippers, she should be grateful for.

When she said no, he got threw a hissy fit and made her perform some dangerous tasks, a la the 12 Labours of Hercules, as punishment.

Or the time he responded to Diana going to another pantheon for help when the Greek Pantheon were unavaliable by tearing her new mentor's heart out.

Re: Odin

[halloweenjack]

I'm actually not unopposed to Odin being a dick. It might make for more of an interesting character than Santa-with-an-eyepatch.

[stolisomancer]

You can't tell from this scan, but if you look at the actual page, it's "Demon Dens une Boutelle" brand Merlot with a little Iron Man helmet on the label.

Cute little Easter egg from Immonen.

[paultmd]

Very. That's awesome.

[big_daddy_d]

[starwolf_oakley]

I'm hardly an expert, but fancy wine or champagne wouldn't get Tony as drunk as any of the "harder stuff" I'm sure he has experience with.

A few swallows of wine or champagne (yes, they aren't the same, as champagne is fizzy) might get Tony a bit buzzed, but not as ripped as he has been in the past. Unless we're supposed to think he drained the bottle before Odin appeared.

[paultmd]

I'm pretty sure it's not about how much he's drinking or how drunk he gets rather than that he's drinking alcohol in the first place.

[darkknightjrk]

That's really not the point, though--the fact that he consumed ANY alcohol means he's fallen off the wagon. It could have been one of those fruity wine coolers and it still would have counted.

[endis_ni]

Aren't cava and prosecco sparkling as well, though?

[blackruzsa]

This is actually pretty amazing. When we thought Tony was just gonna mess up again, he actually messes up with a purpose. MATT FRACTION, HOW DID YOU DO IT?

[proteus_lives]

Yes Tony, challenge him to a drinking contest!

[bruinsfan]

Odin's a god with several millenia of chugging mead under his belt.

Are there any Irish superheroes that Tony could tag in for the contest?

[lonewolf23k]

Kudos to Fraction to understand what the concept of a Sacrifice is. The strongest of sacrifices are the ones where you give up something -truely- precious.

[endis_ni]

Yes, exactly! I hope Odin's suitably appreciative, because this sacrifice is huge.

[silicondream]

I'd give anything for Spider-Man to swing in, kick the bottle out of his hands, and lecture Tony on how he should offer Odin his friendship with Pepper instead.

[crabby_lioness]

The above scene just shows which one Tony values more.

Hasn't Pepper always come in second to something else?

[jcbaggee]

Fear Itself has been mostly boring, but this is the most interesting I've found 616-Iron Man in a long, long time. Really eager to see what happens with Tony next, and glad that the inevitable for decades relapse of Tony's alcoholism is being used as something huge.

Sneaky stealth edit!

[eyz]

Drink it up Tony!
Yeah! Iron Man should always carry a bottle in his armour, for, you know, "occasions".

[jlroberson]

I think that was the bottle the Hammer Family sent him over in IRON MAN, so it's actually something Fraction's been setting up.

[jlroberson]

That moment actually impressed me, and it wasn't out of nowhere; it seems perfectly plausible at this stage of Tony's character development. And it has WEIGHT. It's shocking but not...well, DC FLASHPOINT kind of shocking. More "Oh, Tony, no."

I have to say I'm liking FEAR ITSELF, overall in direct inverse proportion to how much I hate FLASHPOINT.