"Civil War"

            The following is a review of the Marvel Comics Civil War the Complete Event. This is NOT based off of any actual REAL Civil Wars, or the feature film “Captain America: Civil War.”

            Howdy, one and all, and welcome to From the Mind of One Tim Cubbin! I’m your host, Tim Cubbin!

            Okay, if you’ve been to one of my reviews before, you know I review pretty much everything I read, and here we have no exception. The first review I ever did for this blog was the “Civil War” prose novel by Stuart Moore which was adapted from this comic event’s main series. However, this comic event impacted pretty much every character and series in the Marvel Universe at the time, and much of these stories were not included in the prose novel. So usually I give a brief introduction to the primary characters from the books I review, but, like I said, pretty much every character in the Marvel Universe, that’s just not possible. What I will do, however, is tell the main premise of the event and then break each story down into a brief description of the role in the grand design. After that, I will share with you my personal thoughts about the event AS A WHOLE as ninety-seven comics is way too much to nitpick on. Then I will give you a numeric score, again AS A WHOLE. After that, I’ll tell you if I recommend this event and who I think the best audience should be. Then I’ll wrap this review up and tell you something so that you’ll need to read the whole review to get to a final piece of information. Following this, I will share with you more about the content of my blog so that you may want to read more of my work and what to look for. Then I’ll leave you free to do whatever you like to do on the internet.

            Okay, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty, what this “Civil War” is. The start of this mess is the New Warriors, a team of C-List superheroes and reality television stars. In the quest for ratings, they get involved with villains who are way out of their league, including the explosive Nitro. As Nitro is cornered, he activates his power: explosions. But this explosion results in the deaths of over six-hundred citizens in the now devastated Stamford, Connecticut, including a school full of children. As a result, the United States government passed the Superhuman Registration Act. Now, to operate as a superhero, one must register their names, identities, and powers with the government and submit to proper training and taking part in sanctioned superhuman activity. Failure to do so will make one a criminal and be arrested if one uses their powers without being registered. Tony Stark/Iron Man feels that this is a natural evolution of the role in superhuman activity in society and a reasonable request and gathers the heroes in support of the act. Steve Rogers/Captain America disagrees with the act and gathers an underground faction in opposition of the act. This causes a split in superhumanity and a war between the two groups ensues.

            Well, let’s begin discussing the individual series and their parts in the superhuman Civil War.

            Amazing Spider-Man: Peter Parker/Spider-Man comes out in support of the act and becomes Tony’s protégé, and unmasks on live television. Now the whole world knows Peter Parker is Spider-Man and his whole life is now changed.

            Fantastic Four: Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic comes out in support of the act and registers his wife Susan Richards/Invisible Woman, her brother Johnny Storm/Human Torch, and his best friend Ben Grimm/Thing without asking first. This creates friction between Reed and Sue after Johnny is beaten into a coma, and Sue and Johnny leave the Fantastic Four and join Captain America’s underground, while Ben, a patriot, won’t take either side and leaves the country to France to avoid taking part in the war.

            New Avengers: Illuminati: A history is revealed that Mister Fantastic, Iron Man, Doctor Stephen Strange, Black Bolt, Namor/Sub-Mariner, and Charles Xavier/Professor X had, for years, secretly been meeting to discuss superhuman activity without their families or teammates knowing.

            She-Hulk: Lawyer Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk takes the case of defending the former New Warriors after a website reveals the Warrior’s true identity on the internet.

            Wolverine: Mutant James Howlett/Logan/Wolverine picks up Nitro’s trail and chases after him to bring Nitro to justice, but he’s not the only party involved in the search for Nitro.

            Front Line: Reporters Ben Urich and Sally Floyd try to get to the truth about the Civil War, surviving New Warrior Speedball denies his guilt in the Stamford disaster and must survive in jail, and an Atlantean sleeper cell is awakened.

            Thunderbolts: Former villains are called upon to hunt down other villains and recruit them to Iron Man’s cause.

            X-Factor: A mutant detective agency takes a stand against the Superhuman Registration Act and take in former mutant Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver.

            New Avengers: The Avengers find themselves divided over the Superhuman Registration Act as each member must decide whose side they’re on.

            X-Men: Scott Summers/Cyclops, Warren Worthington III/Angel, Bobby Drake/Iceman, and Hank McCoy/Beast try to track down the 198 and prevent the world from losing half of its mutant population.

            Cable & Deadpool: Wade Wilson/Deadpool is deputized by the government and finds himself pitted against his best friend Nathan Summers/Cable.

            Young Avengers & Runaways: The next generation of Avengers travel to California to protect the Runaways, children of the super villain team the Pride.

            Ms. Marvel: Carol Danvers/Ms. Marvel is tasked with bringing Julia Carpenter/Arachne while training fledgling super hero Anya Corazon/Arana.

            Heroes for Hire: Misty Knight leads a team of heroes who work for a price to uphold the Superhuman Registration Act.

            Captain America: Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier, Sam Wilson/Falcon, Sharon Carter/Agent-13, and Nick Fury work behind to scenes to aid Captain America.

            Choosing Sides: Mac Gargan/Venom, Danny Rand/Iron Fist, John Walker/U.S.Agent and Howard the Duck decide which side they are on during the Civil War.

            The Invincible Iron Man: Tony Stark/Iron Man learns about his new powers, goes public about his identity, and is considered to be Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. the world peacekeeping task force.

            Punisher War Journal: Frank Castle/Punisher joins Captain America’s anti-registration underground.

            Black Panther: Newlyweds T’Challa/Black Panther and Ororo/Storm travel to the United States and are drawn into the conflict after a hero is slain during combat.

            War Crimes: Wilson Fisk/Kingpin plans his move against the heroes from behind bars.

            The Return: The supposedly deceased Mar-Vell/Captain Marvel polices #42, a prison in the Negative Zone for superheroes who refuse to register.

            The Initiative: Fifty superhero teams are put together to protect each state in the United States.

            The Mighty Avengers: Following the Civil War, a new front-running Avengers team is formed.

            The Confession: After the war is over, Captain America and Iron Man reflect on their intentions for the Civil War and must decide where to go from here.

            Fallen Son: The Marvel Universe is sent reeling after the death of a major superhero.

            Well, that’s the Civil War in a nutshell. Now, as promised, here is my opinion. Honestly, if I were a superhero myself, I’d side with Iron Man. A superhero is trained as an individual and as a team, gets support from the government, gets paid, benefits and vacation time to do what they were going to do for free anyway. Does being on call by S.H.I.E.L.D. to just drop what I’m doing and come assist seem like a pain? Sure. But it sure beats rotting away in a prison in another dimension. Do I see Captain America’s point of view, though? Absolutely. Anonymity as a superhero is important to many heroes, and public knowledge of their identities and abilities is undesirable, and changing the paradigm of being a superhero in society is something difficult to accept. But the law is the law, and I don’t want to break the law. But I totally get each point of view, where Iron Man and Captain America are coming from, the motivations behind each hero. As far as the story itself, I found most of the stories to be highly interesting. Front Line held the greatest interest to me, having multiple stories and firsthand accounts of documents from actual wars. I also enjoyed Amazing Spider-Man, the decisions Peter made and the consequences of his actions totally kept me going. However, the X-Men story had nothing to do with the Civil War, and the events of Young Avengers & Runaways were inconsistent to the rest of the story. Still, overall, as far as everything goes, when all is said and done, all cards on the table, I felt extremely satisfied.

            Now the point I figure you’ve been anticipating the most is here: my numeric score. I score based on a scale of one to ten. One means drop it in the toilet bowl and flush it as fast as you can. Ten means this should be considered a masterpiece and I want to frame every page. Well, if you’ve read several of my reviews before, you know how I am VERY hard to please, especially if the story drags on for so long or if it’s cut short way too soon. The ninety-seven issues on the list containing as many stories as it did never felt stale to me. Yes there were things I didn’t like and some things I wanted to read more of that weren’t there, so, I have to score the event, soup to nuts, at an eight.

            Next is one of the most important aspects of this review: do I recommend this event? Surprisingly enough, I don’t recommend it unless you are a diehard Marvel fan. Some of the characters aren’t well known, and a lot of intimate knowledge of the prior storylines is required, so if you’re not a Marvel-breathing guy like me, steer clear. This is not meant for new readers and is not a good jump-on event.

            Well, if you’re still here at this point, you are THE BEST! So, I promised you a nice surprise, so here it is: some of my regular readers know I will compare and contrast stories with multiple adaptations, and in this case, I am going to do that with this story as well. So, within a few hours of this post being uploaded, you can expect to see a comparison piece up on this page as well. So, if you haven’t read my review of the prose novel, I highly recommend you check it out in the meantime and then read the piece comparing both to see my major appreciation and complaints between both adaptations, so don’t miss it!

            In the meantime, this blog may contain dozens of reviews, but I write short fiction and nonfiction, I write poetry, I write essays and editorials, there’s just so much to see on this blog, and I post relatively frequently, so you can always expect to see more posts relatively soon. Well, I leave you free to do whatever you feel like doing on the internet for now, but you be back, I’ll be back, and until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!