The Centre Cannot Hold

Wieldy

Loki — Sat, 19 May 2012 00:00:16 +0000

Wieldy
-adjective

strong; graceful; proportionate
well run, balanced or organised

Crossover Reading Order: Fear Itself

Loki — Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:04 +0000

For those wishing a more detailed reading order than is provided by the relevant page of the Marvel Universe Timeline, The Centre Cannot Hold is proud to present this page, offering the first of many such guides. Happy reading!

Allowing for the anachronic nature of much of the storytelling, this reading order attempts to create an issue-by-issue ordering of the crossover, rather than just listing the collections reprinting it (as on the main timeline).

Reading Notes:

Where collections reprint issues not directly connected with Fear Itself, those issues have been omitted from the reading order.

Issues with an asterisk next to them occur during or overlap with the issue of Fear Itself they follow; issues without occur between that issue and the next.

Some issues have footnotes to explain the rationale (or other salient aspects) of their placement.

Prologues
The Mighty Thor #7 [1]	The Mighty Thor, vol.2
Fear Itself: Sin’s Past #1 [2]	uncollected
Fear Itself: The Worthy #1	Fear Itself: Spider-Man
Fear Itself: Book of the Skull #1	Fear Itself
Book One: The Serpent
Fear Itself #1	Fear Itself
Avengers #13*	Avengers: Fear Itself
Journey Into Mystery #622*	Journey Into Mystery: Fear Itself
Journey Into Mystery #626.1 [3]	Journey Into Mystery: Fear Itself Fallout
Fear Itself: The Home Front #1	Fear Itself: The Home Front
Book Two: The Worthy
Fear Itself #2	Fear Itself
Journey Into Mystery #623*	Journey Into Mystery: Fear Itself
Thunderbolts #158*	Fear Itself: Thunderbolts
Thunderbolts #159	Fear Itself: Thunderbolts
Invincible Iron Man #504	Invincible Iron Man: Fear Itself
Fear Itself: The Home Front #2	Fear Itself: The Home Front
Fear Itself: Youth in Revolt #1	Fear Itself: Youth In Revolt
Herc #3	Herc: Fear Itself
Fear Itself: Fearsome Four #1 [4]	Fear Itself: Deadpool/Fearsome Four
Fear Itself: Fearsome Four #2	Fear Itself: Deadpool/Fearsome Four
Fear Itself: Fearsome Four #3	Fear Itself: Deadpool/Fearsome Four
Fear Itself: Fearsome Four #4	Fear Itself: Deadpool/Fearsome Four
Secret Avengers #13	Secret Avengers: Fear Itself
Secret Avengers #14	Secret Avengers: Fear Itself
Iron Man 2.0 #5	Iron Man 2.0, vol.1: Palmer Addley Is Dead
Iron Man 2.0 #6	Iron Man 2.0, vol.1: Palmer Addley Is Dead
Iron Man 2.0 #7	Iron Man 2.0, vol.1: Palmer Addley Is Dead
Fear Itself: The Deep #1	Fear Itself: Uncanny X-Force/The Deep
Fear Itself: The Deep #2	Fear Itself: Uncanny X-Force/The Deep
Fear Itself: The Deep #3	Fear Itself: Uncanny X-Force/The Deep
Book Three: The Hammer that fell on Yancy Street
Fear Itself #3	Fear Itself
Journey Into Mystery #624*	Journey Into Mystery: Fear Itself
Avengers #15*	Avengers: Fear Itself
Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #521*	Black Panther: The Man Without Fear: Fear Itself
Herc #4*	Herc: Fear Itself
Avengers Academy #15*	Avengers Academy: Fear Itself
Invincible Iron Man #505	Invincible Iron Man: Fear Itself
Fear Itself: The Home Front #3	Fear Itself: The Home Front
Fear Itself: FF #1	Fear Itself: Spider-Man
Fear Itself: Uncanny X-Force #1 [5]	Fear Itself: Uncanny X-Force/The Deep
Fear Itself: Uncanny X-Force #2	Fear Itself: Uncanny X-Force/The Deep
Fear Itself: Uncanny X-Force #3	Fear Itself: Uncanny X-Force/The Deep
Heroes for Hire #9	Heroes for Hire: Fear Itself
Heroes for Hire #10	Heroes for Hire: Fear Itself
Heroes for Hire #11	Heroes for Hire: Fear Itself
Fear Itself: Spider-Man #1	Fear Itself: Spider-Man
Fear Itself: Spider-Man #2	Fear Itself: Spider-Man
Fear Itself: Spider-Man #3	Fear Itself: Spider-Man
Fear Itself: Wolverine #1	Fear Itself: Wolverine/New Mutants
Fear Itself: Wolverine #2	Fear Itself: Wolverine/New Mutants
Fear Itself: Wolverine #3	Fear Itself: Wolverine/New Mutants
Avengers #14	Avengers: Fear Itself
Hulk #37	Hulk: Fear Itself
Hulk #38	Hulk: Fear Itself
Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #522	Black Panther: The Man Without Fear: Fear Itself
Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #523	Black Panther: The Man Without Fear: Fear Itself
Thunderbolts #160	Fear Itself: Thunderbolts
Thunderbolts #161	Fear Itself: Thunderbolts
Thunderbolts #162	Fear Itself: Thunderbolts
Ghost Rider #1	Ghost Rider: Fear Itself
Ghost Rider #2	Ghost Rider: Fear Itself
Fear Itself: Deadpool #1	Fear Itself: Deadpool/Fearsome Four
Fear Itself: Youth in Revolt #2	Fear Itself: Youth In Revolt
Fear Itself: Youth in Revolt #3	Fear Itself: Youth In Revolt
Fear Itself: Youth in Revolt #4	Fear Itself: Youth In Revolt
Book Four: Worlds on Fire
Fear Itself #4	Fear Itself
Invincible Iron Man #506	Invincible Iron Man: Fear Itself
Uncanny X-Men #540*	Uncanny X-Men: Fear Itself
New Mutants #29*	Fear Itself: Wolverine/New Mutants
New Mutants #30*	Fear Itself: Wolverine/New Mutants
New Avengers #15*	Avengers: Fear Itself
Avengers #17*	Avengers: Fear Itself
Journey Into Mystery #625	Journey Into Mystery: Fear Itself
Journey Into Mystery #626	Journey Into Mystery: Fear Itself
Avengers Academy #16	Avengers Academy: Fear Itself
Alpha Flight #1 [6]	Alpha Flight, vol.1
Fear Itself: The Home Front #4	Fear Itself: The Home Front
Fear Itself: The Deep #4	Fear Itself: Uncanny X-Force/The Deep
Secret Avengers #15	Secret Avengers: Fear Itself
New Avengers #14*	Avengers: Fear Itself
Ghost Rider #3*	Ghost Rider: Fear Itself
New Avengers #16*	Avengers: Fear Itself
Avengers #16*	Avengers: Fear Itself
Herc #5	Herc: Fear Itself
Fear Itself: Black Widow #1	Secret Avengers: Fear Itself
Fear Itself: Youth in Revolt #5	Fear Itself: Youth In Revolt
Uncanny X-Men #541	Uncanny X-Men: Fear Itself
New Mutants #31	Fear Itself: Wolverine/New Mutants
New Mutants #32	Fear Itself: Wolverine/New Mutants
Alpha Flight #2	Alpha Flight, vol.1
Alpha Flight #3	Alpha Flight, vol.1
Alpha Flight #4	Alpha Flight, vol.1
Book Five: Brawl
Fear Itself #5	Fear Itself
Invincible Iron Man #507*	Invincible Iron Man: Fear Itself
Herc #6*	Herc: Fear Itself
Fear Itself: The Home Front #5	Fear Itself: The Home Front
Avengers Academy #17	Avengers Academy: Fear Itself
Avengers Academy #18	Avengers Academy: Fear Itself
Avengers Academy #19	Avengers Academy: Fear Itself
Fear Itself: Deadpool #2	Fear Itself: Deadpool/Fearsome Four
Fear Itself: Deadpool #3	Fear Itself: Deadpool/Fearsome Four
Uncanny X-Men #542	Uncanny X-Men: Fear Itself
Uncanny X-Men #543	Uncanny X-Men: Fear Itself
Journey Into Mystery #627	Journey Into Mystery: Fear Itself Fallout
Book Six: Blood-Tied & Doomed
Fear Itself #6	Fear Itself
Journey Into Mystery #628*	Journey Into Mystery: Fear Itself Fallout
Invincible Iron Man #508	Invincible Iron Man: Fear Itself
Invincible Iron Man #509	Invincible Iron Man: Fear Itself
Fear Itself: The Home Front #6	Fear Itself: The Home Front
Fear Itself: Hulk vs Dracula #1	Fear Itself: Dracula
Fear Itself: Hulk vs Dracula #2	Fear Itself: Dracula
Book Seven: Thor’s Day
Fear Itself #7	Fear Itself
Journey Into Mystery #629*	Journey Into Mystery: Fear Itself Fallout
Fear Itself: Hulk vs Dracula #3*	Fear Itself: Dracula
Fear Itself: The Home Front #7*	Fear Itself: The Home Front
Fear Itself: Youth in Revolt #6	Fear Itself: Youth In Revolt
Ghost Rider #4	Ghost Rider: Fear Itself
Epilogues
Journey Into Mystery #630	Journey Into Mystery: Fear Itself Fallout
Avengers Academy #20	Avengers Academy: Fear Itself
Fear Itself: Captain America #7.1	Fear Itself: Shattered Heroes
Fear Itself: Thor #7.2	Fear Itself: Shattered Heroes The Mighty Thor, vol.2
Fear Itself: Iron Man #7.3	Invincible Iron Man: Fear Itself Fear Itself: Shattered Heroes
Journey Into Mystery #631	Journey Into Mystery: Fear Itself Fallout
Fear Itself: Monkey King #1	uncollected

Placement Notes:

This issue of The Mighty Thor contains a prequel story that contains spoilers regarding the identity of the Serpent and the Worthy. Although chronologically it occurs here, readers may prefer to read as an epilogue rather than a prologue.

The Sin’s Past special reprints earlier issues of Captain America that feature Sin, with a new framing story. They have no direct connection to the events of Fear Itself.

Journey Into Mystery #626.1 takes place between panels 4 and 5 of page 22 of Journey Into Mystery #622. It does not directly cross over with Fear Itself.

The appearance of Man-Thing in Fear Itself: Fearsome Four makes little sense compared to the character’s appearances in the crossover issues of Thunderbolts. For the purposes of this reading order, I have assumed that he escaped during the mass breakout shown in Thunderbolts #158-159, and was recaptured off-panel before Thunderbolts #160.

Even by the low standards of crossover tie-ins, Fear Itself: Uncanny X-Force is a stunningly pointless waste of time. It’s not half-bad as an X-Force story, but its inclusion in Fear Itself does no favours for either the event or this mini-series.

This issue of Alpha Flight is the only one with direct relevance to Fear Itself – the other issues of this title, while bannered as crossovers, do not connect to the main storyline.

1981 – The band later named the Butthole Surfers play their first ever gig

Loki — Wed, 16 May 2012 22:01:14 +0000

Appearing as “The Dick Clark Five”, the first gig by the band that would become the Butthole Surfers took place at the Shown-Davenport Art Gallery, in San Antonio, Texas. The occasion was the opening of an art exhibit by band-member Scott Mathews, and fellow artist Cheryl Dawn Dyer.

The original lineup of the band featured Mathews, Gibby Haynes, Scott Stevens and Paul Leary. Over the years, members would come and go, but Leary and Haynes, the co-founders of the band, would remain its constants, with both men singing and playing guitar. (Haynes also played saxophone, and is generally considered the lead singer of the band.)

Referenced in:

The Fez — The Dead Milkmen

Avondale Heights

Loki — Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00:34 +0000

Avondale Heights is all that remains of the much larger area once known as Avondale, named in tribute to the Bard of Avon, William Shakespeare. It was originally settled by the Batman party in 1836, a few months after their initial arrival in Melbourne. The area called Avondale extended a considerable distance to the south and west of the current Avondale Heights.

A thoughtful observer might notice that modern day Avondale Heights consists primarily of a stretch of the eastern bank of the Maribyrnong River, a notably low-lying area. Based on that, they might well wonder how the area came to be called a Heights. But if the name is no longer accurate, this is not to say that it never was. In truth, the area that still holds the name of Avondale was the highest part of old Avondale when the area was first cleared and settled in the late 1830s.

But the settlers had reckoned without the curse laid upon Shakespearian geography. Like the seacoast of Bohemia centuries before it, in 1851 Avondale was buried under many millions of tonnes of lava and soil, and lost forever to mortals. The families that had settled the region lived mostly on the western side of the Maribyrnong, and perished in the calamity. The eastern banks were orphaned, and the name of Avondale Heights today makes little sense, but it remains in any case, stubbornly defying the dramaturgical maledictions dogging the works of the world’s best known playwright.

Suburbs near Avondale Heights:

Keilor East	Keilor East	Essendon West
Sunshine North	Avondale Heights	Maribyrnong
Sunshine North	Braybrook	Maidstone

1843 — The first wagon train takes the Oregon Trail

Loki — Tue, 15 May 2012 22:00:24 +0000

The first major group – large enough to be called a wagon train – of settlers to tackle the Oregon Trail departed Elm Grove, Missouri, on May 16, 1843. Numbering between 700 and 1000 souls (accounts vary), they would not be the last. It would take another year or so for the trail to really become popular, but for more than twenty years, the trail, and its various offshoots, would be one of the most popular routes to the Californian coast. More than 400,000 people would travel it – most of them after the discovery of gold in California in 1848.

That first group took six months to traverse the approximately 2000 miles to the Oregon Territory, but they left behind them a rough yet passable trail that others were quick to follow, and over the next fifty years, enough Americans would go west that the government would eventually declare the frontier closed, so settled had it become.

Referenced in:

Oregon Trail — C.W. Call
Oregon Trail — Woody Guthrie

GKD

Loki — Tue, 15 May 2012 00:00:36 +0000

The Bagadong tribe of New Guinea make a drug called gai kau dong (‘The Way Home’) from the fermented leaves of the kwina plant. After encountering the tribe and learning of the drug during World War Two, Dr Bunny Winton brought samples back to America. Later, it was used as the basis of an antidepressent by Winton and her colleague, Dr Will Friedrich, in their researches at Yale University in 1951.

After fermentation, the drug exists dissolved in the alchohol also produced by the fermentation process. After distilling, the GKD takes the form of chartreuse coloured crystals, which were then diluted in a solution of distilled water to produce the end drug.

Although the drug was effective in combatting depression, it had two major problems: the positive emotions it unlocked verged on megalomania and tended to erode the morality of the user; and withdrawal from the drug tends to leave users in a deeper and more paranoid state of depression than they were before taking it. As a result of these problems, it never progressed beyond the test stage in the United States, although presumably it is still used in the traditional manner by the Bagadong.

Tags:

1628 BCE – Zeus seduces Niobe

Loki — Sat, 12 May 2012 22:00:55 +0000

There are two Niobes in Greek Myth: one was the daughter of Tantalus, and a prideful mother whose children were slain by Apollo and Artemis. The other, less well-known, was the daughter of Phorenus, and the mother, by Zeus of Argus – for whom the city of Argos was named.

It should be noted also, that thus Argus was not any of the other figures in Greek Myth named either Argos or Argus – he was not the shipwright who built the Argo, nor the son of Jason and Medea named for that shipwright. Neither was he a legendarily faithful dog whose master was Odysseus, nor the hundred-eyed giant known as Argus Panoptes. He was just this guy, who happened to be the third king of Argos, and the first child Zeus had by a mortal woman. He would have lots of half-siblings, mostly posthumously.

Referenced in:

When You Sleep — Cake

An apology and an explanation

Loki — Sat, 12 May 2012 15:40:09 +0000

Folks, it’s approaching 2 in the morning as I write this, and the extra special post I was hoping to have ready for you tomorrow is still several hours away from complete. And fool that I am, I haven’t yet written the other two posts for today either.

So I’m going to bed now, because my head hurts from the tiredness, but I promise you, I will be doing the posts I promised for this Sunday. Just a little late, is all. And I’ll try to be more careful that this doesn’t happen again in future.

Because there’s going to be more posts like the one I’ve been working on for about 12 hours now in the future, but I’m going to learn from this and pace myself better working on them. And I can promise you right now, if you’re a fan of my Marvel Universe Timeline – and let’s face it, who isn’t? – you’re going to love this post (and the others of its ilk that follow it). And if you’re not a fan of the timelines, well, you’re going to have a better idea of what I do with my time.

Peace out.

Vigil for a Dragon, pt. 22

Loki — Sat, 12 May 2012 00:00:21 +0000

Bridget looks both ways before she steals out from between the two buildings. When you’re running away from home, the last thing you want is to get caught before you even get across the street. And even ten streets away from the house, Bridget’s still taking care not to be seen. She’s been planning this for weeks now, and she wasn’t going to let all that effort go to waste.

Her best friend, Briony, has slowly accumulated a store of Bridget’s clothes, and packed them in a case Bridget bought for that very purpose. Bridget has made discreet enquiries as to her potential for employment on one of the riverboats that throng the docks of Cape Spray, and found answers that she likes. She’s even managed to squirrel away a tiny amount of money, thanks to a boy down at the market who’s sweet on her, and sells her a dozen eggs for the price of ten.

Her parents, she’s pretty sure, don’t suspect a thing. At least, if they do, they’ve given no hint of it, and they are not subtle people. There’s nothing subtle about beatings and screaming matches. So long as she has good luck, and doesn’t run into her father on the way to the docks, she’s figures she’s home free. Or better, left home, and free.

Of course, the Wry Gods listen for such utterances, and Bridget sees her father at the very next corner. She has enough time to dodge back out of sight, and she’s fairly sure he didn’t see her. She takes a deep breath and tries to get her heart to slow down. But then she hears his whistle. Her father apparently loves to whistle, although he derives no visible pleasure from it and has no perceptible skill at it. Today he’s whistling in that loud, disjointed way that signals that he’s angry about something, and if she were at home when he got there, Bridget knows he’d be hitting her before long. Although if he finds her out here on the street, she’ll cop a beating so epic it will make her regular ones seem almost pleasant by comparison.

Panicked, Bridget starts trying doors in the alley, and runs inside the first one that opens.

Re: That was lovely

Loki — Fri, 11 May 2012 23:00:42 +0000

From:	Cornelius Andersen
To:	Hailey Vincent
Date:	18, 0:16
Subject:	Re: That was lovely

Next time, I promise.