Marvel's Civil War

[SuperJerk 0]

Fantastic Four #542 makes the best attempt yet at explaining why Richards and Stark are doing what they are. It makes sense when you read the story, but I really can't summarize it without it sounding even more ridicules that the other explanations. Basically, Reed has determined through a mathematical model of human history that the only way to prevent the world from disaster is to curtail superhuman activities. Stark figured out the same thing using his intuition about business trends.

[UseTheSledgehammerUh 0]

"Basically, Reed has determined through a mathematical model of human history that the only way to prevent the world from disaster is to curtail superhuman activities."

 

That's hilarious.

 

I can't wait for this whole mess to be ended and the new re-written ending to be exposed as what it is: forced crap that will be undone in 2 years.

 

They'll fight.

Someone big will "die", be "de-aged", or end up in a "life ending explosion".

They'll grieve.

A couple new books will debut.

A couple books will be cancelled.

 

Repeat.

[Special K 0]

I'm sort of thinking Thing will die. Just as a hunch.

 

He's been nuetral, is the 'voice of reason' he dies, everyone mourns. He's a well-like character. Is ressurected in a couple years. Again, just a hunch.

[UseTheSledgehammerUh 0]

Thing's got a movie coming out, so doubtful.

 

Kill Iron Man. As he sucks.

[Special K 0]

Also has a movie coming out. And has a well animated one out now which I should check out.

 

Nah, It'll probably something like Iron Fist dies.

 

DC has killed/teased killing some really well-loved b-list guys. I can't think of many well-liked marvel b-listers, outside of the mutants. Well Hawkeye, but there goes that.

[Steviekick 0]

I'd put $5 on Thing surviving Civil War. In the last couple of years he has already been killed and resurrected (during Waid's run).

[algrim 0]

By reading the latest Marvel Previews, everybody is thinking that Cap might be the one dying in battle with Tony. Quesada mentioned in his weekly Newsarama column that this won't be the case. A likely guess would be that Stark dies and somebody else (maybe Jim Rhodes) ends up wearing the armor.

[SuperJerk 0]

There's an old saying at Marvel...

 

"Only Bucky stays dead."

 

...which I'm sure no one says anymore.

[Steviekick 0]

Yeah...

 

You can cross Mar-Vell off that list too.

[SuperJerk 0]

Speaking o that...

 

By the time I got to the comics store this week, they'd sold out of "Civil War: the Return." Anybody want to fill me in on what happened?

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I'm sort of thinking Thing will die. Just as a hunch.

 

He's been nuetral, is the 'voice of reason' he dies, everyone mourns. He's a well-like character. Is ressurected in a couple years. Again, just a hunch.

How would Thing die? He's still in Paris...though I guess he could come back, Johnny did leave Thing a hovercraft for him to get back.

[Ted the Poster 0]

Speaking o that...

 

By the time I got to the comics store this week, they'd sold out of "Civil War: the Return." Anybody want to fill me in on what happened?

Mar-vell is back via a spice-time rip from before he died(deus ex machinas FTW), and knows exactly how much time he as left before the cancer gets him.

[Steviekick 0]

Well that doesn't sound as bad.

 

As long as he's dead by year's end I'll be happy.

[SuperJerk 0]

He's supposed to get a monthly, though.

 

DC did that same trick with Hal Jordan once, before finally bringing him back in "GL: Rebirth".

[JasonX 0]

Thing is going to live, as it has been revealed that he and Torch will anchor the FF after Civil War ends, with Storm and Black Panther taking Reed and Sue's spot.

 

FF #542 was pure and simple bootstrapping by the new writer McDuffie to explain away Reed (not Tony) going along with Tony's scheme and even then they had Mad Thinker and the FF utterly call bullshit on Reed's motives.

 

Captain Mar-Vel isn't really back from the dead; they're playing the time-travel card with Mar-Vel, having him be randomly sent forward in time and basically being made to run the Camp Holocaust Negative Zone prison.

 

The most likely odds are currently on Cap indeed dying in Civil War and Bucky becoming the new Captain America, with the added twist being rumored that Cap's "death" will be immeadiately reversed and Cap ending up behind the Ronin mask in "New Avengers".

[Special K 0]

Jesus they brought Captain Marvel back?

 

"The Death of Captain Marvel" is one of the best things to come out of Marvel. I shouldn't be surprised after they undid the really powerful and poignant ASM 400.

 

So now, Bucky, Jason Todd and Marvel are back.

[starvenger 0]

The most likely odds are currently on Cap indeed dying in Civil War and Bucky becoming the new Captain America, with the added twist being rumored that Cap's "death" will be immeadiately reversed and Cap ending up behind the Ronin mask in "New Avengers".

That's pretty much what I figured. Cap pretty much is the Avengers, and if you've brought back Bucky you might as well do something interesting with him now that the Winter Soldier thing has played itself out.

 

As for Captain Marvel... well they managed to not do much of a retcon (yet), but personally I think that using the time travel angle is worse - it shows very little imagination. Of course, it's Millar, and like Morrison he's very hit or miss, so I shouldn't be THAT surprised...

[SuperJerk 0]

Thing is going to live, as it has been revealed that he and Torch will anchor the FF after Civil War ends, with Storm and Black Panther taking Reed and Sue's spot.

 

Boooo.

 

FF #542 was pure and simple bootstrapping by the new writer McDuffie to explain away Reed (not Tony) going along with Tony's scheme and even then they had Mad Thinker and the FF utterly call bullshit on Reed's motives.

Yeah, that part was great. I guess I didn't realize FF had a new writer, even though the characterization was waaaay better this month.

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Had JMS recently been writing FF or just for Civil War? I've only really followed it since then. If Black Panther joins I might have to start picking it up though.

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Had JMS recently been writing FF or just for Civil War? I've only really followed it since then. If Black Panther joins I might have to start picking it up though.

JMS started on FF with issue #527, published back in the summer of 2005.

 

Ironically, his first storyline featured Reed taking on the U.S. government over its attempts to use his technology create its own super-heroes. I shit you not.

[ZGangsta 0]

So who's going to end up being the giant villian who's behind it all and brainwashing Tony? Cause when this first started it had the whole 'morally ambiguous', 'what is the right path', 'whose side are you on?' stuff going on, but now (especially with the Thunderbolts stuff) the 'Pro-Reg' side is being written as so dispiciably evil and moronicly short sighted that there's no way the writers could possibly expect anyone to take them as heroes anymore.

I think somethings up with that mother of one of the dead kids, since she keeps showing up and being manipulative.

 

I'll bet she's actually Onslaught (or Apocalypse), cause clearly this crossover doesn't tie in to the X-Men enough for Marvel yet.

[SuperJerk 0]

So who's going to end up being the giant villian who's behind it all and brainwashing Tony? Cause when this first started it had the whole 'morally ambiguous', 'what is the right path', 'whose side are you on?' stuff going on, but now (especially with the Thunderbolts stuff) the 'Pro-Reg' side is being written as so dispiciably evil and moronicly short sighted that there's no way the writers could possibly expect anyone to take them as heroes anymore.

I think somethings up with that mother of one of the dead kids, since she keeps showing up and being manipulative.

 

I'll bet she's actually Onslaught (or Apocalypse), cause clearly this crossover doesn't tie in to the X-Men enough for Marvel yet.

But but but...REED'S MATH PROBLEM TOLD THEM TO DO IT!!!

[Justice 0]

How could Clone Thor possibly be wrong?!

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"that mother of one of the dead kids"

 

Who? I don't read "Frontline".

[Justice 0]

Her name is Miram Sharpe. She's the mother in Civil War #1 that spits on Tony and gives him whatfor. She's also seen in Civil War #2,#4, #6, and I believe she's made a few appearances in side comics. She's the person that really gets Tony behind registration. Or, at least, if you don't read half the side comics and secret meetings between Cap and Tony, she is.

 

Here's a link.

Edited February 6, 2007 by Justice

[UseTheSledgehammerUh 0]

First thing I noticed is that she has a SON named DAMIAN.

[Ted the Poster 0]

She'll probably turn out to be Loki or some shit, as awful as this 'event' has been.

[Special K 0]

If they do that right away (Have Tony being controlled) it'll be the biggest gyp. At the same time, it's sort of the only thing that makes sense. I mean, as Cap said in frontline 9, some of Tony's arguments made sense, it was just it was so rushed and gung-ho.

 

Iron Man supporting pro-registration makes total sense, and so do some of his arguments.

 

If he had calmly explained his point of view, and formulated the plan of having each state with a super-team, and organizing the heroes, things would have been a lot calmer.

 

Instead SHIELD asks Cap about it, and the minute he shows any resistance they want to throw him in jail. Tony doesn't complain, uses his knowledge of his friends to screw with them, and when he starts losing, ludicrously recruits villains to fight for him. I still can't get over Bullseye?!?. Yeah, you can control that guy. Even if he has a shock collar, he's probably going to kill 3 people before you can even trigger it.

 

All in all, it's really not such a bad storyline, and it's had some killer scenes (I love the Cap Punisher confrontation), it just could have been so much better. And on time.

[starvenger 0]

If they do that right away (Have Tony being controlled) it'll be the biggest gyp. At the same time, it's sort of the only thing that makes sense. I mean, as Cap said in frontline 9, some of Tony's arguments made sense, it was just it was so rushed and gung-ho.

 

Iron Man supporting pro-registration makes total sense, and so do some of his arguments.

 

If he had calmly explained his point of view, and formulated the plan of having each state with a super-team, and organizing the heroes, things would have been a lot calmer.

 

Instead SHIELD asks Cap about it, and the minute he shows any resistance they want to throw him in jail. Tony doesn't complain, uses his knowledge of his friends to screw with them, and when he starts losing, ludicrously recruits villains to fight for him. I still can't get over Bullseye?!?. Yeah, you can control that guy. Even if he has a shock collar, he's probably going to kill 3 people before you can even trigger it.

 

All in all, it's really not such a bad storyline, and it's had some killer scenes (I love the Cap Punisher confrontation), it just could have been so much better. And on time.

Don't forget about Clor. I'm still having trouble getting my mind around Reed and Tony thinking that cloning a God (albeit a mortal one) was a good idea...

[Special K 0]

Yeah, especially when they had the almighty Sentinel (EDIT: Sentry, sorry) on their team. I still don't get how he exists without Void. don't really get that. Oh, wait I do. They wanted a cool splash page.

 

Marvel's doing better than the shit days of the 90's. I still enjoy the Ultimates line. (Did Ultimates2 ever conclude btw? fucking Millar) But Millar is just Ok, and as I said, is just doing Ellis's 'Authority' (which he took over, not very well, IMO) ad nauseum.

 

If it leads to something substantial, that'll be cool. But I thought Avengers Dissassmbled and House of M were pretty blah, and didn't lead to anything.

 

Contrast that to DC. I hadn't bought a non-Vertigo or Elseworlds DC book in ages. I heard some hype, so I bought Identity Crisis. It was pretty good. Led straight to Countdown. The one-shot was great (though I hated it TED NO!) and I'd say 3 out of the four minis were good (Much like all the Kree Skull stuff, I found Rann -Thanagar a major bore). Infinite crisis was stellar. And now 52 is really good. They all are integrated, they come out on time, DC is so, so much better now.

 

This coming from a total Marvel (and Vertigo) fanboy.