Hey there, Enthusiacs!

If you haven’t noticed (and if you haven’t, you should move out from under that rock soon), superheroes have been getting a lot more of the spotlight in the mainstream media lately. With that spotlight typically comes a lot of questions about who these characters are, where they come from, and (for people like me) whether or not they were portrayed correctly.

 So, since I constantly have this stuff on my mind, I figured I’d take all the hassle of researching this stuff off of your plates and put it all in this handy spot for you.  I might do a piece on a character, an object, or a storyline or even just some thoughts I have about something I feel like I need to get out there.

 I’ll mostly cover stuff involved with movies, TV shows, or games since that’s about all I have time for anyway.  Sometimes I’ll delve into actual comics, but those will only be stories I have time to read myself.  I’m a Marvel fan, but I do follow what’s going on with DC and I’ll do my best to cover both as information comes out.

 So, without further ado, sit back, relax, and enjoy the inaugural installment of

COMIC SENSE

Captain America: Civil War Primer

It was recently announced that the subtitle to Captain America 3 will be “Civil War”.  This suggests that it will be based on a 2006/2007 story of the same name published by Marvel Comics.  Written by Mark Millar and drawn by Steve McNiven, it was sold as seven issues and featured a war between two factions of United States-based heroes.  The war was over whether or not super heroes should have to register with the government in order to be allowed to keep saving lives.

The idea of super heroes running around without supervision becomes controversial because of a group called the New Warriors who have recently turned themselves into a superhero reality show.  In one fateful episode, they choose to take down a group of villains that include one by the name of Nitro.  His power is the ability to blow himself up like a nuclear bomb.  And he uses it.  The blast destroys a large portion of Stamford, Connecticut, killing hundreds including an entire school of children.

An altercation with the mother of one of the deceased children prompts Tony Stark (Iron Man) to suggest legislation requiring superheroes to register, train, and operate under government supervision and direction.  He even convinces Spider-Man, one of the most cautious heroes in regards to his identity, to unmask himself on live TV.

Captain America (Steve Rogers) has different feelings on the issue and promptly resigns from SHIELD (in spectacular fashion) when they try to detain him.  He then goes underground, bringing a number of other heroes with him and calling them the Secret Avengers.  Their plan is to avoid the authorities as much as possible and continue fighting crime on their own.

Things take a pretty ugly turn when Cap’s Avengers respond to what they think is a crime in progress that turns out to be a trap set by Iron Man and company.  Iron Man asks for Cap’s surrender, Cap refuses, and a massive fight breaks out.  What no one sees coming is Thor coming down from the sky (mainly because Thor is believed dead at this point).  It isn’t actually Thor, but a cyborg clone, and one with a few screws loose (pun very much intended).  This version of Thor kills Goliath (Bill Foster), promptly ending the fight.

Seeing one of their own killed, especially by what appeared to be Thor, causes many heroes on both sides to question what they are fighting for.  Two heroes leave Cap’s team, while Spider-Man leaves the Avengers.

At this point, everyone’s tempers are flaring and heroes all feel betrayed.  Both sides turn their attention towards the prison that the pro-registration heroes have been working on.  Since most superheroes (and villains, obviously) could break out of prisons like Ryker’s Island, Reed Richards designs a super prison for the Negative Zone.  The idea is that if the prisoners escaped, they’d have nowhere to go without help from SHIELD.

The anti-registration group manages to besiege the prison, freeing the heroes already imprisoned there.  The pro-registration heroes had set it up as another trap, but the Secret Avengers came prepared; Cloak (Tyrone Johnson) teleports them all out before SHIELD can lock down the prison and dumps the fighters in the middle of Manhattan.  After a large amount of collateral damage is done to the city, Captain America looks around and realizes that they’ve lost sight of why they were resisting in the first place.  He surrenders and the Initiative moves forward.  Many of the anti-registration heroes are given amnesty, some go into hiding, and Tony Stark becomes the director of SHIELD.

Personal Thoughts

Just to get it out of the way, I’m anti-registration.  Superheroes can do things that soldiers and police simply can’t do since they represent a particular government.  Making them official government employees takes that anonymity away from them and the government now has to answer for any damage or deaths they may cause.

That being said, I think the supervillain community proves that there will always be a few bad apples.  The New Warriors turned themselves into a reality TV show because they just weren’t getting enough attention running around in colorful outfits and showing off their powers.  Most of them were killed and a super villain blew himself up like a suitcase nuke.  But rather than it becoming a cautionary tale for heroes, they were demonized for making a mistake while trying to do the right thing and everyone else completely forgot about the guy that actually made the decision to set off the bomb.

Stark starts pursuing this registration agenda because he is called a monster by the mother of one of the children killed by Nitro. Haunted by his own past mistakes, he focuses his campaign on making the people feel safe. Unfortunately, the public seems to easily forget that these heroes, that they are so afraid of, have been keeping them safe for decades. I got the feeling while reading that he never really believed any of it.  He wanted to, but it always sounded more like he was trying to convince himself.  His faith started to waiver a few times but there was always someone nearby to make sure he stayed the course.

After the fight that got Goliath killed, it seemed like Captain America had become more motivated by Iron Man’s betrayal than the ideals he was trying to protect.  He was still hiding behind those ideals, but he was more willing to let his current teammates go if they changed their minds.  He never compromised his principles, though.  He let the Punisher (Frank Castle) work with them for a bit, despite everyone’s objections, but Cap kicked him out when he killed two villains who were offering to help.

Meanwhile, Mister Fantastic (Reed Richards) and Yellowjacket (Hank Pym) were a little… well… ”mad-scientisty” with implementing their big plan.  I mentioned the prison earlier, but that’s honestly not what disturbed me the most.  There was a big “50-state initiative” planned out to get a super hero team in every state.  Unfortunately, they didn’t have enough heroes on their side to accomplish this.  So, they started “growing” new heroes.  There are scenes where you see vats containing what look like people.  That’s right: Mister Fantastic and Hank Pym were creating brand new heroes that would be compliant with this new law.  If that doesn’t scare you, I don’t know what will.

And then there were the Thunderbolts; “reformed” villains under the command and control of SHIELD.  In and of itself not a terrible idea, but when you sic Jester and Jack O’Lantern on Spider-Man, you’ve gone too far.

Unfortunately, both sides eventually lose sight of what they had originally set out to do.  Their agendas seem to serve the heroes themselves rather than the people they were trying to protect.  Iron Man was trying to save their images and keep them loved while Captain America was trying to protect the heroes and their families.  In the end, Cap was the only one to realize they had lost their way.  Iron Man’s intentions were certainly admirable, but ultimately misguided.  The best course of action, in my opinion, would have been for all heroes to keep out of sight of the public for a while until a major crisis came up for them to avert.  Then the people would remember why they were needed in the first place.

It’s curious that Marvel has decided to make this a Captain America movie rather than Avengers.  In the comics, the story affects almost all of the heroes in the Marvel universe, but the MCU version seems to be Cap-centric. The only other heroes they’ve confirmed will be in the movie are Iron Man and Black Panther.  Potentially, Age of Ultron will position more heroes that may take part in the movie, but it’s too early to say. Stay tuned to this column in the upcoming months as we learn more!

If you’ve decided you want to read this series and the follow-ups, check out Secret Invasion, the Dark Avengers, and Siege, and stop reading now because I’m about to spoil them.

Until next time,

Bandit out!

* * *

The effects of the Civil War were felt for a very long time.  The Initiative was a success for a while, but it all eventually came crashing down.  A secret Skrull Invasion compromised the entire program.  With Norman Osborn firing the shot that ended the invasion, he was promoted to director of SHIELD, thus kicking off the Dark Reign and the Dark Avengers, which ended with him destroying Asgard.  SHIELD was handed over to Steve Rogers and everything went back to normal (like it always does).  Like the old saying goes, the only people who stay dead in comics are Uncle Ben, Bucky–oh…