Books : Civil War (Marvel Comics)

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Rating:

- Ok, not great.
And so begins another company-wide "Event", promising "The Marvel Universe will never be the same again!" or something like that. This time, heroes are pitted against heroes to determine if they will become registered agents of the US govenment. What you have here is the main story, which is continued in just about evry Marvel book for 7-8 months. When you finish it, you are left with a feeling of "Eh", and a nagging thought that what happens here is not the end, but only a prelude to the next "Event", which will undo everything that happened in this "Event".

If you're curious. pick it up, it's cheaper than buying the issue separately.

Rating:

- The Best Marvel Comics Story in Years!!!!
This story tells about the growing fear of the normal people to people with special superpowers, that happpens when a supervillian called NITRO (whose power is to make huge explosions) destroy an area and kill one thousend people (scholl kids, familys etc.) and the goverment want to control this superhumans with a federal registration, very similar with the mutant registry, but Captain America is against the registration and will fight Iron Man, who is in favor. The drawing of Steve Mcniven is excellent, and the story telling of Mark Millar just capture your attention.

Rating:

- Pretty Good
The artwork in this is outstanding!! The storyline seemed a bit rushed..they could have fleshed it out a bit more with two more issues. All in all, it was a good read.

Rating:

- Terrible piece of storytelling.
If I could give this book 0 stars I would.

Mark Millar's writing is terrible in Civil War. Throughout his runs on The Ultimates, Ultimate X-Men and The Authority Millar proved that he could only write charaters with a single voice: the same obnoxious personality over and over again that refers to people alternatively as "you idiot" and "honey". With Civil War he takes this tendency to the extreme. He abandons all recognizable character traits in the story leads and most of the supporting players. Captain America, instead of being the noble leader he has been portrayed as for decades, becomes an obsessive militia leader who pushes ordinary men through reinforced steel doors and onto a street from a moving vehicle just because of a snarky comment. Iron Man becomes a man entirely comfortable with taunting one of his best friends as he beats him up and who delivers a frankly chilling speech at the end which the author intended to be optimistic but ends up sounding totalitarian.

Millar's problem, in the end, is a lack of subtlety. The book's main conflict could have been a lot more interesting if one side had not been so terribly villified. Millar's dialogue was also laughable at many points, Captain America's rant about not being able to meet the "make a wish" kid literally had me laughing out loud. Had a better writer been in charge the story could have been far more satisfying.

The art is nice in the first few chapters. McNiven has a nice sense of anatomy, but as the story progresses the art gets more and more posed. McNiven is at his weakest in the action sequences. The scene in the first chapter where Captain America escapes the SHIELD helicarrier is the only action sequence with good motion and a logical kinetic progression. If you compare it to the panel in the final chapter where Spider-Man is shown taking out several Pro-Reg heroes at once you can see where McNiven, trying to catch up after not being given enough lead time, loses all sense of progression in the movement of the characters. I don't blame McNiven for being rushed towards the end, I believe the blame for that rests solidly on Marvel's editorial staff who rushed to get the first issue in stores the same month as the last issue of DC's Infinite Crisis to upstage its competitor. In the end this decision ended up causing massive delays to Civil War and a sizeable chunk of Marvel's line.

In the end Civil War has simply turned the Marvel Universe into the X-Men's Days of the Future Past dystopian future. This, as a story idea, is fine. The execution leaves much to be desired. Perhaps if Marvel wasn't so in love with Millar's simplistic writing then Joe Quesada's homilies about how this is supposed to be an optimistic step for the Marvel Universe wouldn't be such a bitter pill.

Rating:

- Undeniable facts and harsh realities
There are three things in this series that are undeniable:
1. Fantastic artwork
2. Lasting Story Line
3. Political agenda

No matter what you think or feel about our current political situation in the world and no matter what stance the author has and it trying to make you cannot let that dictate your feelings on a lasting story within the MU.
Were this some non-fiction commentary on our own government I would probably have a few choice words.
However: ITS FICTION! techniquely and I refuse to let old sentimentalities tie me down and make me hate Marvel for what they have done.
Grats to them for taking everything from Disassembled and House of M to such a breaking-point. (can I be more ambiguous on where I stand on this series?)
My overall point is why fight what has already been done (hmmm now I better be careful I sound like Tony Stark.)
For Spidey fans: lets just be greatful they didn't bring Gwen Stacey back from the dead again.... that's a whole can of worms that shouldn't be touched unless their gonna kill Spidey off forever!

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