Marvel’s crossover Devil’s Reign is surprisingly similar to DC’s recent event, Fear State — but one of them was better at grounding their storyline.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Devil’s Reign #4, now on sale from Marvel Comics
As the two premiere superhero publishers in the world, Marvel and DC have a habit of sometimes approaching similar concepts. The production schedule of comics means their stories are often in development at the same time, but separate stories can sometimes run into like-minded subject matter — which has been quietly happening in regards to two major recent crossovers from the publishers.
Devil’s Reign #4 by Chip Zdarsky, Marco Checchetto, Marcio Menyz, and Clayton Cowles highlights how the Daredevil-centric event is surprisingly similar to a recent event from the distinguished competition — DC’s Batman-centric event from 2021, Fear State — but which is better?
On paper, Devil’s Reign and Fear State share some surprising similarities. Both stories are set into motion by a power player in their respective cities preying on the trepidation and fears of the public for personal gain and power. While Simon Saint was a new face to the DC Universe at the onset of Infinite Frontier, Kingpin has been one of Marvel’s most effective villains for decades. However, both men wanted to take formal control of their city, deploying soldiers under their command to deal with vigilantes. In both Devil’s Reign and Fear State, the hero communities are forced into hiding or on the run from these insidious threats. Things are only further complicated when another established evil genius villain gets involved.
Both Scarecrow in Fear State and Doctor Octopus in Devil’s Reign threw things into chaos with their presence. Although Doctor Octopus nominally remains an ally to Kingpin, he’s working towards his own clear machinations. Meanwhile, Scarecrow fully betrayed Simon Saint and sent Gotham into pure chaos as part of his plan to push the city through its fear to discover itself on the other side. Both villains even helped develop new technology to help control their respective cities and turn them into police states. Notably, both Fear State and Devil’s Reign draw attention to the fear the public has for both the heroes and the police — and how a clever villain could use that to their advantage. They aren’t exactly similar, and both seem concerned with different overall impacts on their universe.
While Devil’s Reign has so far affected most of the major Marvel heroes in at least some ways, Fear State was largely contained to Gotham City. The effects of Fear State were largely contained by the end of the event, while the ramifications of Devil’s Reign are hinted to be longer-lasting. But what really separates the two stories at their core is their focus. Fear State is a rather disjointed crossover, focusing more on the brief status quo change and forcing the members of the Bat-Family to scramble to contend with these threats. Meanwhile, Devil’s Reign has been more character-focused. Daredevil, Kingpin, and Elektra remain firmly at the center of the event, even as entire rosters of Avengers are brought into the chaos.
Fear State has its strengths, but the chaotic nature of the story and its various moving pieces often hindered it’s momentum and pacing. Whereas Devil’s Reign having a solid character base at the heart of everything has kept the potentially unwieldy story grounded — and remained firmly on the evolution of its central characters despite the chaos around them. While Devil’s Reign still isn’t finished yet and could easily take serious turns at some point in the two remaining issues, it’s so far taken the kind of plot used in Fear State and applied it more effectively to the Marvel Universe.
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