In Defense of Civil War

Off-topic time, which means comics!

The wonderful thing about the comics blog-o-sphere is that you find one great blog and then you stumble across even better ones. There a lots of little guys trying to break into the serious comics blogging community (myself included), but we can't compare to the great ones. Check out my links page for some of my favorites, even though, the links have been kind of difficult lately. They appear to be broken, but after checking the code everything seems fine. Bah!

The entire comic blog-o-sphere seems to hate the latest Marvel crossover, Civil War. Really quick, the government decides that superheroes need to register and make their identities public if the heroes wish to continue stopping evil. If you decided to side with tradition, "the masks," or personal freedom then you are a criminal. This divides the superhero community in two and shenanigans break loose.

I like Civil War. There I said it. I think I might be one of the few blogs out there that is supportive of Civil War. Again with the Comics is another. Can you think of any other ones? It feels weird to defend Civil War as the comic book fans I know up here in CNY like it. Of course, that is only five guys versus the entire blog-verse!

I will admit that Civil War isn't the best. The political allegory is quite stilted (Trust me, I know a thing or two about stilted stories!) and while the writer, Mark Millar, promised that "no side was right," we all know that the anti-registration side is "right." It has friggin' Captain America on it! He always does the right thing! Meanwhile the pro-registration people have all been portrayed as cruel lapdogs, particularly Iron Man and Reed Richards.

Some say all politics is local. Maybe all Civil War reactions is local too. By local I mean close to your heart. I don't like Iron Man or Reed Richards very much. None of the pro-registration people really gets me going. However, my delightful Daredevil (along with Luke Cage and Iron Fist) are anti-registration. If Daredevil were out there chasing down fellow heroes with S.H.I.E.L.D. goombas then I too would be raving.

I also must admit that the entire event does fly in the face of 40, 50, even 60 years of Marvel continuity. Who knew Tony Stark would be such a jerk? How could they clone a god? Why would superheroes team up with super villians without some truly earth-shattering event happening? You know like Galactus showing up. I am still betting that one of the Watchers will swing down from space and intervene. He will do some crazy Watcher voodoo and set everything back.

Finally, I defend Civil War because I think it is a great idea in theory. Here is something that really could happen. We might not have mutant superheroes, but what if we did have a bunch of caped vigilantes? You know, mortals trained to the utmost perfection? We could have guys like Batman and Captain America, in theory. And the government could regulate them. I do believe that if superpowers were real then the government would have something to say about those with them. Hence, its a lovely idea that could have worked in a separate universe (by this I mean publisher) or even as an Elseworlds/What If? kind of title.

I am not afraid to say that I liked Civil War and eagerly await its conclusion out of pure excitement. It is not perfect, far from it, but I think it is neat.

Peace