"Civil War II"

            The following is a review of the Marvel Comics event “Civil War II” as presented on Marvel Unlimited. It is not about any real war. It is not about the 2006-2007 Marvel Comics event “Civil War.” It is not about the feature film “Captain America: Civil War.”

            Hey, all, welcome to From the Mind of One Tim Cubbin! I am your host, Tim Cubbin! I usually give a whole big introduction when I write a review, but as this is a long event and will probably take me about three hours, and I have a busy day, so we’ll just stick to the review. I will use a format similar to my other reviews which prior readers of at least two of my reviews will know, but with a few differences. First, I will take each individual story on the reading lists in order as they appear. I’ll give a brief description of each. Then, I will take into account the entire event, share my thoughts, and give it a numeric score. Then I’ll say if I recommend this to readers. I’ll finish off by saying who I think the best audience would be based on what accessibility is required for optimal enjoyment. Then I’ll give a brief signoff and then we will be finished. So we are going to get right to it.

            Prequel Reading: Tony Stark/Iron Man hires Mary Jane Watson to be his personal assistant and life coach. Laura Kinney/Wolverine, her clone Gabby and Old Man Logan/Wolverine from an alternate future find out how different their lives are. Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel, Miles Morales/Spider-Man, and Sam Alexander/Nova, all from different schools take on a science competition. The Ultimates prepare for an attack from Thanos. Ulysses Cain, a college student, is exposed to the Terrigen Mists and discovers he is an Inhuman.

            Main Event: Ulysses discovers his Inhuman power is to predict the future and is able to alert the heroes of earth about an alien assault that would have been very catastrophic. Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel decides to use Ulysses’ powers to use predictive justice to prevent devastating events before they happen and stop them from ever occurring. Tony Stark/Iron Man feels that this is profiling, and that Ulysses can only predict A future but on necessarily THE future. The heroes must now decide: Change the future? Or protect the future.

            Amazing Spider-Man: Peter Parker/Spider-Man has his company Parker Industries. Peter tries to take Ulysses under his wing. Ulysses predicts that one of his employees Clayton Cole, the “reformed” super villain Clash will return to his villainous ways.

            Choosing Sides: This series focused on several “B-List” super heroes deciding where the fall in the ensuing Civil War between the super heroes. Nick Fury, Jr. embarks on a mission after Ulysses predicts a Hydra cell that will bring about the end of S.H.I.E.L.D.

            Gods of War: Hercules feels that he was once earth’s greatest hero, but now with new super heroes emerging, he is feeling useless. A group of evil Gods called The Uprising Storm arrives on earth, planning to discredit the Gods, so Hercules assembles a team of forgotten Gods from several pantheons to defeat the Uprising Storm and reclaim their legends as true heroes of earth.

            Kingpin: Wilson Fisk/Kingpin negotiates with Tony Stark/Iron Man to provide information on super villains to ensure his early release from prison.

            X-Men: Ororo Munroe/Storm and Eric Lensherr/Magneto find themselves on opposite sides over the Civil War of super heroes and have their own mutant Civil War.

            A-Force: Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk is gravely injured during a super hero conflict and lies in a coma. Ulysses predicts that Runaway Nico Minuro will commit a murder, and A-Force makes a play so that this murder does not occur.

            Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Phil Coulson goes against S.H.I.E.L.D. protocol and Maria Hill, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. relieves Coulson of duty and hires Elektra Natchios to replace his as leader of Coulson’s team.

            All-New Wolverine: Ulysses predicts that Laura Kinney/Wolverine’s clone Gabby will be murdered by Old Man Logan.

            Ant-Man: Scott Lang/Ant-Man, reformed criminal, is accused of a crime and sent back to jail.

            Avengers: Vision, Nadia Van Dyne/Wasp and Jane Foster/Thor must decide where they fall in this Civil War.

            Captain America: Sam Wilson: Sam Wilson/Captain America and several black super heroes gather together to mourn the death of James Rhodes/War Machine.

            Captain America: Steve Rogers: Steve Rogers/Captain America tries to keep peace between Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel and Tony Stark/Iron Man, while secretly reprogrammed by a sentient Cosmic Cube named Kobic as a prominent agent in the evil organization Hydra.

            Captain Marvel: Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel and the Alpha Flight Space Program find their program in jeopardy of disbandment after Carol is accused on an account of insubordination.

            Deadpool: Wade Wilson/Deadpool’s team the Mercs for Hire turn against him.

            Guardians of the Galaxy: The Guardians of the Galaxy are called by Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel to aid her in the super human Civil War.

            Iron Man: Tony Stark/Iron Man fakes his death and upon return finds himself in danger of being removed from his own company, while Riri Williams is able to obtain part of the Iron Man armor and reverse-engineers it.

            Mockingbird: Bobbi Moorse/Mockingbird goes on a cruise that goes horribly wrong.

            Ms. Marvel: Kamala Kahn/Ms. Marvel finds herself disagreeing with the stance her idol Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel has taken in the Civil War.

            New Avengers: Roberto Da Costa/Sunspot and Avengers Ideas Mechanics find themselves under assault from S.H.I.E.L.D.

            Nova: Sam Alexander/Nova returns to space after finding out his father may be alive and in captivity.

            Patsy Walker, Hellcat (pardon my language): Patsy Walker/Hellcat finds that her best friend Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk is fighting for her life after being knocked into a coma after a battle against Thanos.

            Power Man & Iron Fist: Luke Cage/Power Man plans a jail break after his best friend Danny Rand/Iron Fist is arrested for assaulting a police officer.

            Rocket Raccoon & Groot: Rocket Raccoon and Groot attempt to make a score as bounty hunters but find Gwen Poole/Gwenpool is after the same score.

            Scarlet Witch: Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch and her brother Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver find themselves on opposite sides of the Civil War.

            Spider-Man 2099: Miguel O’Hara/Spider-Man travels through time and finds himself in two different Civil Wars.

            Spider-Man, Miles Morales: Ulysses predicts that Miles Morales/Spider-Man will murder Steve Rogers/Captain America on the steps of Capitol Hill.

            Spider-Woman: Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman finds herself against her best friend Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel after not agreeing with Carol’s predictive justice.

            Squadron Supreme: A member of the Squadron Supreme is replaced by a villainous version of herself from an alternate reality and attempts to resurrect their foe Namor/Sub-Mariner.

            Totally Awesome Hulk: Amadeus Cho/Hulk attempts to reconcile himself with the murder of Bruce Banner/Hulk by Clint Barton/Hawkeye.

            Thunderbolts: After Ulysses’ prediction of Miles Morales/Spider-Man murdering Steve Rogers/Captain America, James “Bucky” Barnes/Winter Soldier targets Miles to prevent the murder.

            Ultimates: The Ultimates attempt to contain Thanos in a prison cell in their base the Triskelion but fail.

            Uncanny Avengers: The Avengers Unity Squad is disbanded after the mutants attempt to find a cure for the M-Pox, a mutant disease caused by the release of the Inhumans’ Terrigen Mists.

            Uncanny Inhumans: After Ulysses is abducted by Tony Stark/Iron Man, Queen Medusa and the Inhumans of New Attilan destabilize Tony’s holdings but are accused of destroying Stark facilities by rogue Inhumans, claiming to be doing it in the name of Queen Medusa.

            Venom: Space Knight: Eugene “Flash” Thompson/Venom returns to earth and must convince Spider-Man that they are not the same villainous Eddie Brock/Venom that he has battled in the past.

            Conclusion: Following the Civil War, a new Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. is chosen.

            All-in-all, I have to say I mostly enjoyed the event. However, there were points that I feel could have been done without, namely Ant-Man. And there were also several side stories that I felt had absolutely nothing to do with the event, such as Gods of War, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., All-New Wolverine, Deadpool, Mockingbird, Nova, and Venom: Space Knight. Despite that, most of those stories were relatively enjoyable to be. I happened to dislike Patsy Walker, Hellcat, Power Man & Iron Fist, Squadron Supreme, Thunderbolts, and Ultimates, but I did love the Amazing Spider-Man, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and Spider-Man, Miles Morales stories. Could it have been better? Yes. But it could have been a lot worse if you look at some of my other negative reviews.

            So, now I’ll give it a numeric score. I go on a one to ten scale, one being the worst, ten being the best. By taking everything into account, I score this at a six.

            The big question is if I recommend it. I wouldn’t not recommend it, but it is highly inaccessible if you plan to read the whole thing as I did. Pretty much every Marvel super hero at the time had a tie-in to it, so if you are not fully acclimated with Marvel, these new characters are unknown, such as Squadron Supreme (an obvious and blatant garbage rip-off of D.C.’s Justice League) and the Thunderbolts. There were many well-known characters from the Marvel movies and series, so if you know these characters, I’d suggest you read only those, because there were a lot of B- and C-List characters that most casual Marvel fans would not know. So if you live and breathe Marvel like I do, you might want to give it a look, but for those fans who only know the movies and series, I totally say do not read it. I’m also a very harsh judge, so you might want to table this review, read this, and see if you agree with me, I leave every review I ever write up to you. We have different tastes, I respect that, so everything in this review is my opinion and my opinion only, I let you feel if you agree or disagree with me, I can’t force you to like or dislike what I like and dislike.

            So I do believe that this is it for now (after writing for two-and-a-half hours), but I will leave you with four things. First, I write lots of reviews, mostly Marvel, but I do write short stories, poetry, essays and editorials. Second, I post very frequently, so finding new content on this blog is sure to happen. Third, if you liked this review, I’m about to write a comparison piece to “Civil War” and “Civil War II,” it’ll be up in a few hours. And four, Tim Cubbin… out!