Books : Civil War (Marvel Comics)

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Rating:

- Cop Out
Why would a man who is so intent on fighting for what he believes in just cash it in cause a few civilians got hurt??? after all he is captain America he knows that when you fight for a cause collateral damage is expected.

Oh and not to mention the absolutely infantile knee jerk reaction displayed by the punisher when the criminals are about to join the good guys?? anyone with even the slightest idea of how to write would know that the punisher character is far deeper than that.

But im sure that was more of a quesada decision than it was millars.

overall 2/5 is a score i feel is worth of this propaganda in disguise

Rating:

- I LOVE THIS BOOK
IVE READ STUFF BY FRANK MILLER,READ WATCHMEN,KINGDOM COME AND A FEW OTHER WELL KNOWN EPICS,BUT THIS WAS MY FAVOURITE.I BEGAN READING GRAPHIC NOVELS LATE LAST YEAR AFTER NEVER REALLY FOLLOWING COMICS AND THIS TOOK ME BACK TO WHEN I WAS 5 YEARS OLD WATCHING CARTOONS ON BETA.CHARACTERS IVE KNOWN ALL MY LIFE CAME TOGETHER HERE AND PART OF ME DIDNT CSRE ABOUT THE STORY,THIS WAS MEMORY LANE AT ITS BEST.I HAVENT DISLIKED ANY COMICS/GRAPHIC NOVELS IVE READ (ONLY ABOUT 20)BUT THIS WAS DAMN COOL.MARK MILLAR BRINGS ACTION THAT KEEPS ME HAPPY COZ THATS WHAT COMICS ARE...ACTION&FUN.THIS BOOK MADE THE OTHER 10 CIVIL WAR TPB'S I BOUGHT SEEM LIKE HOMEWORK!(THEY ARENT THAT BAD BUT THIS IS THE ONE)I GOT UP TO GO TO THE TOILET AT ONE STAGE AND WAS SHOCKED TO RETURN TO A SILENT ROOM.NO EXPLOSIONS,YELLING OR THAT BA-DOOOM NOISE.I GEUSS I WAS REALLY INTO IT.DONT THINK THAT OFTEN....IF YOUR NOT SURE ABOUT THIS ONE DONT BE,IF YOU DIDNT LIKE IT THEN I HOPE YOU FIND HAPPINESS SOMEWHERE ELSE COZ THIS DID IT FOR ME!!!!

Rating:

- This has been done before
This exact same storyline has been done before, more elegantly with more poignant moments of heroism and humanity by Alex Ross in DC's "Kingdom Come" featuring the superheroes of the DC Universe.

In Civil War, a surprise old time superhero emerges: Thor, god of thunder, summoner of lightning. In Kingdom Come, it's Captain Marvel who wields lightning.

The similarities are too many to list and too frequent to simply dismiss as coincidental. One is a copy of the other and since Kingdom Come came first, I must accuse Civil War of being the knock off.

I found Civil War to be a shallow and low-energy. The fight scenes are drawn with no dynamism. There is no movement in the poses. Whoever wrote the story failed to understand what it is superheroes do: They move and the story unfurls through action, not through the countless static conversations and languid debates of talking heads.

Marvel has failed big time in this endeavor.

Rating:

- I'm really not understanding all the vitriol about this series.
CIVIL WAR is a fantastic concept that was executed brilliantly by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven. The idea that an entire community could be torn in two by a single event is not new and has quite the historical precedent. I don't believe, as many do, that the series' intent was to form some kind of political commentary on current events. I believe that The Stamford Incident and the SHRA and the prison in the Negative Zone are not meant to be paralleled to anything that has arisen out of the recent political agendas. That some people are drawing the parallels are, I suppose in a way, was inevitable. I mean when you have hyperbole like CRISIS, you don't automatically think of the Cuban Missile Crisis, do you?
There are two schools of thought here as far as the critics of this book: Those who believe it to be political commentary (and they hate it) and those who believe it to be a very high-intensity tale of friends who become foes as well as the belief sometimes that "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" (and they like it).
Tony Stark and the big brains like Reed Richards and Hank Pym are futurists and believe the Superhuman Registration Act (requiring all superhumans to register their identities, powers and obligations to the U.S. Government) to be the natural evolution of the superhuman community. Stark also believes personally that if unchecked, the superhuman community would be headed toward a more potentially catastrophic confrontation between superhumans and the government. Peter Parker looks to Tony Stark as a mentor and essentially offers himself as their poster boy/sacrificial lamb by publicly unmasking himself in support of the SHRA.
Steve Rogers is an idealist, while also being a realist. He believes first and foremost that a masked HERO who retains his anonymity out of the sake of their family or friends that may be subject to objectionable reprisals should be allowed to keep that. These are men and women who have risked their lives for years in many cases not for money or glory, but for justice (this was obviously NOT the case with the more current members of The New Warriors) and they do it out of having a sense of what justice should be as opposed to carrying it out for a local, state or federal agency. But also Rogers is a realist. He has seen what previous government administrations have done with super-powered individuals and how even he himself has been used in a negative way for political gain. So he fights registration, as most of the more "street-bound" crimefighters do, like Daredevil, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and many many others.
At times, the characters do things that are out of character... the most glaring (and rage-inducing) example of this being Spider-Man in issue 3 happily kicking Captain America in the face, and then later, after he's switched to the anti-reg side, he happily kicks Mr. Fantastic in the face. That really upset me how Millar seemed to treat the character of Spider-Man during such a confrontation, basically saying that Spidey is blase' whether he's fighting villains or his former friends. However, Spider-Man is the average joe of the Marvel Universe, and he is otherwise represented very well as he essentially feels what we feel. We see the sense in registration. It has merit. But we also see the longer-term effects, and how, after an event like Stamford, this kind of large-scale confrontation would be inescapable. And also, to what lengths would we go to make our point?
But CIVIL WAR, if nothing else, definitely keeps the reader in tightrope-walking suspense and many moments in the story have a major "Holy S--t!" factor (e.g. the severe beating of Johnny Storm, the appearance of Thor, the newest incarnation of the Thunderbolts, the savior of Spider-Man, and the ultimate outcome) and it, unlike most other multi-character crossovers, really DOES affect the future of the Marvel Universe. I applaud Marvel, Millar, McNiven and all the contributing peripheral authors like Brian Michael Bendis, Paul Jenkins, and Ed Brubaker that ultimately made this seven-issue series much more than it is. One day, hopefully, there will be an ABSOLUTE-style edition of CIVIL WAR that would, ideally, contain all of the other one-shots and mini-series that sprung from CIVIL WAR.

Rating:

- DISAPPOINTING
This was supposed to be a great epic story. This collection features what was originally published as Civil War 1-7. This is the main book in this whole Civil War thing. The roles Millar has these heroes playing is completely ridiculous at times. I was thoroughly disappointed with this book. The action between the various characters is cool, you get a glimpse of bunches af heroes getting it on that you don't normally see in action together. But the writing is just horrible. The story jumps & starts, Millar just doesn't tell a good story. A well told story about how a dung beetle does what he does with dung might've been better. Best part of this book is quickly followed by the worst part. Bad Job!!!

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