We can all agree now that it was crap, right?
I don’t mean in the purely aesthetic sense; it was pretty obvious even at the time that this was a 64-page special padded out to seven issues of thin, underplotted gruel with Millar’s penchant for pithy one-liners and macho posturing substituting for actual story and characterization, and with a hamfisted 9/11 analogy that seemed simultaneously trite and tasteless even at the time and now looks just unforgivably crass. I mean that since all that was a given, we had to rely on it being not so much a “good” story as an “important” one, a change to the status quo of the Marvel Universe that would resonate for decades in the same way as ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ altered the shape of the DC Universe. (Which was, after all, what Millar promised. Sure, there was some hype there; after all, that was pretty much what Stan Lee promised for every issue of every title back in the Sixties.)
Then again, Stan Lee delivered on that promise to some degree. The characters he and Kirby and Ditko and others created stood the test of time as original, ground-breaking, and genuinely unpredictable. Whereas five years later…let’s look at the “massive, enduring changes to the Marvel Universe” and see how they stood up, shall we?
Spider-Man: I’m going to give them a little bit of a pass here on the grounds that this was clearly a publicity stunt; I can very easily believe Marvel’s claim that they never really intended to unmask Spidey on a permanent basis, and that this was just one more big “shock” moment to ratchet up the drama that much more before they swept every bit of character development for the last twenty-five years under the rug in “One More Day”. But honestly, does anyone think that Peter Parker came off well out of this one? The unmasking was a transparently stupid plot point (being “publicly accountable” means “to the government”, not just “to any random person off the street”; it’s not like the SEAL Team Six guys held a press conference so that we could learn their true identities just because they were public servants) and the fallout from the story was one of the most derided Spider-Man plotlines since “The Clone Saga”. Arguably, Spidey’s current status quo isn’t terrible, but neither was the post-Clone Saga status quo, and fans flocked away from that in droves too until JMS came along to save it. I’d have to rate this one a Fail.
Captain America: Okay, I’ll admit that I have greatly differing opinions on the whole “Winter Soldier” thing than the vast majority of fandom. Me, I think it’s an inherently silly and pretentious concept (“Bucky’s kind of a doofy character. Let’s make him into a grim and gritty cyborg assassin with a gun and a tortured past.” “Isn’t that what we do to every doofy character? I mean, doesn’t it just kind of take everything interesting and original out of the idea and make him into a cookie-cutter ‘grown-up’ superhero?” “Yep. Let’s get cracking.”) that a talented writer has tried his best to make something of, while others have focused more on the undeniable talents of Ed Brubaker and less on the fact that Winter Soldier :: Bucky as Cable :: Nathan Summers.
Nonetheless, I don’t think anyone can give a reasonable explanation as to why the Winter Soldier is Cap now. While Cap was dead, it was an interesting take on the legacy storyline, a “sidekick makes good on the hero’s promise” tale that was told by someone who was, as I will reiterate, a very talented writer. But when Steve Rogers returned, having him just…wander off…didn’t make sense. Steve Rogers is Captain America, he’s got no reason to give up the role, and he’s the best at it anyway. (As I think Bucky insisted at the time.) But he’s, um…not. Oh, and the “time bullets” thing? Not to say it was necessarily a crap idea, but I think that anyone who defends it never gets to give Stan Lee shit about anything ever again ever. Not exactly a Fail, but not much of a Success either.
New Warriors: This actually might be a case where the previous reboots had handled things so ineptly that ‘Civil War’ marked a step up for the characters. Given that the last effort had jettisoned about half the team and completely reinvented the premise as “X-Statix Lite” (because that was one of Quesada’s few total reboots that was commercially and critically successful, and he kept trying to duplicate the formula with every second-tier superhero book) what we wound up with was actually a lot more focused, inventive, and sympathetic. “A team of street-level heroes fighting the good fight despite being unregistered” felt suitable for the New Warriors, and it wasn’t the then-current writer’s fault that most of the actual New Warriors were dead as a result of the previous storyline. (One notable exception being Speedball, of whom the less said, the better. All the fans of Speedball hated the new direction for the character, and anyone who might possibly have liked Penance couldn’t forget that he used to be a wise-cracking hero with bouncing powers.)
Nonetheless, actions speak louder than words, here, and the fact is that nobody really jumped on this book. Probably because the same problem that applied to Speedball/Penance applies (to a lesser degree) to the new New Warriors as a whole; fans of the classic series weren’t going to go back to a comic that didn’t have Justice, Firestar, Night Thrasher, Namorita, Speedball, Rage or Nova in it, while fans of Jubilee, Beak, Angel, and Chamber didn’t even know their favorite characters were in the book due to the whole “surprise identities” thing. (There are fans of Jubilee, right?) As a result, the whole team’s now floating around in comic book limbo…but that’s about where they were before. Let’s call this one a Draw.
Thunderbolts: Hoo boy. It takes some real chutzpah to relaunch the Thunderbolts in what has to be one of the biggest commercial and critical disasters of Quesada’s entire tenure as EIC, a complete failure that ditched every character and the entire central concept of the series in a fashion that alienated all the existing fans without making any new ones…then more or less beg the old writer to come back and reboot the series exactly as it was before the new EIC started messing with it…then freaking do the same damn thing all over again after ‘Civil War’ just as the fans were finally getting over their skittishness and becoming interested in the title again. Admittedly, this one wasn’t a total disaster, because it had Warren Ellis writing it and a) even Warren Ellis doing his usual “damaged assholes fighting complete bastards” schtick that he does when he doesn’t think the series is worth trying hard on is worth reading, and b) Warren Ellis has a fanbase who will follow him, so the loss of fans who didn’t like it that they ditched every character but Songbird and Moonstone was made up for by Ellis fans coming to the book.
That said, it really is a little bit difficult to gauge the success or failure of this based on subsequent events, because it was clearly a series designed to follow the longer-term arc plot of the Marvel Universe and get rebooted when that longer arc ended. The fact that the whole status quo that Ellis introduced isn’t around anymore can be seen not so much as a result of fan displeasure as it is the inevitable result of the team leader being the bad guy of the next big crossover. Even after five years, this one is a We’ll See.
Avengers: This could go either way, honestly. If you’re willing to accept that ‘Civil War’ was merely the first stage in a deliberately-planned longer arc that was always intended to move through ‘Secret Invasion’ and conclude with ‘Siege’ and a conscious return to the same basic status quo, and that Millar was just trying to hype the hell out of it to get people to buy a first act they might otherwise skip due to price concerns (or quality concerns, he said nastily)…then it’s just the kind of average, everyday pill that comics fans have to swallow all the time. “Sure, I inexplicably acted wildly out-of-character and the two of us had a massive falling-out of the sort that would lead real people never to speak to each other again at best. But hey, let’s just put that all behind us now and get back to being superheroes, okay?” Awkward, but no more awkward than Doctor Strange and the Hulk being best buds after Strange sent the Hulk to the dimensional crossroads.
If, on the other hand, you actually accept Millar’s words at face value, then you have to assume that the entire four-year period from ‘Civil War’ to ‘Siege’ was one long, desperate attempt to put the genie back into the bottle and return the Marvel Universe from the unworkable disaster of a status quo that they’d accidentally stuck themselves with to something that could actually be used to tell stories once again. In other words, if Millar was telling the truth, then as far as the Avengers is concerned, Civil War was an absolute, disastrous Epic Fail.
Iron Man: Exhibit A for the Prosecution as far as “Epic Fail” is concerned. The storyline for Iron Man that began with ‘Civil War’ ended with them literally rebooting the character: Tony Stark’s brain was actually reset back to his pre-‘Civil War’ persona not long before ‘Siege’. It’s hard to take that as anything but an admission that everything that Millar did with the character was a gigantic mistake that made him less sympathetic and sent comics fans flocking away from the book in droves. Certainly, I can attest from personal experience that I never bought an issue after ‘Civil War’; for some reason, I wasn’t really interested in following the adventures of Tony Stark, Iron Douchebag. (Actually, Iron Friend-Murdering Diplomat-Shooting War-Starting Control-Freak of a Douchebag, if you actually take ‘Civil War: Frontline’ to be accurate, but most people seem to be brushing the bit about Stark misusing the Thunderbolts technology to force Norman Osborn to kill people under the rug.)
No matter how you slice it, there’s no scenario where you can claim that erasing the last four years of character development is an endorsement of ‘Civil War’. Either you always intended for Stark to return to the person he was, having learned absolutely nothing from four years of adventures…or else everything you did in those four years was a terrible, terrible error in judgment that made one of your biggest Hollywood cash cows into a pariah in his own medium. Either way, it’s not a proud moment for Marvel comics.
So basically, now that the dust has settled, it’s five years later and pretty much everything that happened in ‘Civil War’ has been retconned away, swept under the rug, or just plain ignored, with the exception of the death of Giant-Man. As I said at the beginning…we can all agree now that it was crap, right?
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Yes, it was.
I didn’t know this was still up for debate, myself!
Well it did allow for MGK to create his photo shopped parodies which is what drew me to his old journal and then to here and then to reading the blog of one of his guest journals. So “Civil War” = readers for John Seavey. You should send Quesada a dollar or something in thanks…
When it comes to comic industry I have an ongoing default baffled state. Ten years ago they were dead. Blade movie resulted in Spidey/X-man movies and they got a free resurrection. And then they killed their audience with Civil War. Spidey got the double dose with OMD cause it is really hard to kill.
There are fans of Jubilee. Well, there were. Then Marvel gave her giant boobs in New Warriors (which scans_daily mocked hard), but there were still fans of Jubilee. Then Marvel turned her into a vampire. I’m still pissed about Looker becoming a vampire.
I don’t know. I agree that it was all mostly crap, but I’m not sure that I’d go along with a lot of the reasoning here. The post-Civil War books are all crap just because most of the story beats didn’t stick long term? Saying a story’s long term viability is bad isn’t really the same as saying the story itself is bad. I guess I agree with the conclusion, just not how you got there. That’s me nitpicking.
Also there’s no way New Warriors is a draw. The “unregistered street heroes” concept may be better than the “reality show heroes” concept, but that doesn’t matter when you actually compare the books themselves. New Warriors fans didn’t stay away from the last relaunch because of a lineup change, they stayed away from it because it was unreadable, pure and simple.
And that’s why Annhilation was infinitely better than Civil War.
Bucky Barnes being not dead, being a shaggy-haired cyborg assassin, and becoming Captain America had shit-all to do with Mark Millar or Civil War. Events in Civil War impacted the storyline, but the storyline itself was all Ed Brubaker. If Millar hadn’t provided a reason for Cap to get shot on the courthouse steps, Brubaker would have invented one.
The idea that Warren Ellis’s 2007 run on Thunderbolts is even remotely as ill-considered as John Arcudi’s 2003 run is ludicrous. (For one thing, Ellis actually had a team called “Thunderbolts” in his storyline, with actual Thunderbolts in it.) The problem with Thunderbolts is not that Civil War or the Ellis revamp happened. It’s that very little of consequence has happened to Thunderbolts ever since.
Also, Penance was frickin’ awesome precisely because it was a goofy comedy guy in the wrong role. That it pissed off uptight Speedball fans just made it better.
But on the plus side, the first issue was awesome.
The thing that bugs me about the spiderman bit was that it positioned Spiderman as ‘junior hero of the marvel universe’.
Which works until you realise that he’s fought every single bad guy. And 3/4’s of the villains in the marvel universe are his personal nemesi.
Which makes the situation kinda bizarre when he’s taking orders from the guys who have trouble with a man who wears a ray gun on his head and a geriatric nazi. Both of whom Spiderman has also beaten up.
Didn’t realize this was still up for debate, but I agree with 99% of what was written, the sole exception being that I would have rated the Captain America bit as a very definite fail:
a) You were probably trying to be kind, but Time Bullets are absolutely a crap idea: just say it out loud, it is like a discordant note on the soul;
b) and even given the legacy angle, Bucky as Cap is poisoned by the fact that we know Cap is coming back, and frankly even a great writer can’t make that go away.
Then Marvel turned her into a vampire.
There are still fans of Jubilee even though she’s a vampire. Given the choice between no powers Jubilee not with the X-men and vampire Jubilee with the X-men, Jubilee fans will ignore the inherent Twilight jokes about sparkly vampires and accept her as a vampire.
I don’t…ummm…I liked Civil War? I didn’t really read ongoing superhero comics beforehand, and I don’t really read them now, but while Civil War was going on? I bought random issues of Wolverine. And Spider-Man. And Iron Man. And my roommate, who doesn’t read ANY comics, borrowed my Civil War TPB and read the whole thing. Because it was cool! And that’s gotta count for something.
The cover of the “Civil War” issue of Nextwave really said it all.
I have to agree with David. The writing on New Warriors was an atrocity. I was 8 issues in by the time I realized I hadn’t actually enjoyed any of them, and I actually wised up enough to stop buying the comic. It was just really awful to read.
And I have to admit, I’m not sure if I should like vampire Jubilee, but for some reason I am digging it. It’s at least given the character a reason to be around and a direction for her to move in.
Gosh but I miss Clone Thor! He should come back and have a team up with real Thor!
Don’t forget one of the crappiest elements of the whole thing that was never mentioned again.
I was mostly unaware of Thunderbolts until the Ellis run, which I liked a great deal. The plot arch of “outside forces try to turn the Thunderbolts into a force for evil that barely resembles its original form, Songbird tries to fight from the inside to prevent total catastrophe” is not an inherently bad one, and Ellis did some good things with it.
Moreover, my enthusiasm for this run of Thunderbolts is part of a reason I picked up and have been enjoying the current run of Thunderbolts. I have friends who I know this is true for as well. As such, I’d say Ellis’ arguably not a complete failure if it has picked up new readers not just for his run, but for the title as a whole. Granted, my anecdotal evidence has little bearing for the broader demographic, but still—The Civil War Thunderbolts has generally gotten positive reaction, from what I’ve seen.
There is also, of course, the debate over what the Ellis run did for the character of Norman Osborn. Before this, Osborn was sort of failing about in the Spider-Man books. Doc Ock had been the arch nemesis in the years between the Death of Gwen Stacey and the Clone Saga. After Norman came back in the latter, he was presented as the “new” arch nemesis, a title he failed to live up to as no writer seemed to quite know what to do with him. For better or worse, Ellis breathed fresh life into the character, which launched him into prominence in Secret Invasion and Siege. That’s one change that I think may linger on; Norman Osborn is now a much bigger player in the Marvel supervillain ranks then he once was.
Civil War was the final straw for me. I’d been a Marvel Zombie since I was fifteen, but had been getting more and more frustrated. Civil War was the end. Oh, I picked up Next Wave, and Hercules and some Thor books, but I prefer my heroes to actually BE heroic.
@David: I’m not exactly saying that the story is bad because it had no long-term consequences. I’m more saying that it was a bad story that we gutted our way through at the time because we were told we’d like it once we saw the long-term consequences. As a result, I decided to examine those long-term consequences and see whether they did, indeed, merit having to spend hundreds of dollars on crappy comics.
@Jim Smith: Oh, no, I completely agree. The Ellis revamp wasn’t nearly as ill-considered as the Arcudi revamp. But it happened after seeing the consequences of the Arcudi revamp, which elevates it to that peculiar level of ill-considered that comes when you make the same mistake twice. 🙂
The Ellis revamp kept a couple of the best characters of the old version of the title (Songbird and Moonstone), and at least something that kind of looked similar to the original concept (villains acting like heroes.) But the new characters on the team weren’t sympathetic villains trying to redeem themselves, they were irredeemable assholes stuck helping the government hunt down actual superheroes. To someone who liked the former, the latter felt ugly and mean. Ellis carried it, but later writers have had to pretty much disassemble the concept and put it back together again. (As I said, they’d have had to do that anyway, because the SHRA was going away and so was Osborn, but I do think some of the changes are due to realizing just how many “Thunderbolts” readers they lost even as they gained a lot of “Ellis” readers.)
I’m sorry but I just can’t agree with you about Bucky. I find superhero comics to be a medium where anything is a possibility so long as (and this is the important part) it is done well, and I think Brubaker did an excellent job setting everything up there (though I do agree that if Steve is taking up the Cap identity again, it does render Bucky a bit redundant.)
2 good things came out of Civil War though (in the tie-ins, not in the main book):
Madrox and X-Factor got to tell Cyclops to go fuck himself (and any time someone tells Cyclops to go fuck himself these days, it is a good thing.)
Deadpool fought the Great Lakes Avengers.
I’d add that when Nova came back in the aftermath of Civil War, he got to tell Tony Stark exactly how petty the whole thing was. “Oh, there’s been some trouble here? A little bit of friction? Why, I might have been concerned if I hadn’t watched ENTIRE SOLAR SYSTEMS BURN.”
So that was nice, but not worth doing Civil War in the first place.
Part of the fun of the Ellis Thunderbolts was watching those irredeemable characters get mostly trounced by the scrubs they were sent after. It gave some really minor heroes a nice shot of dignity.
I think the Cap run has to be called a massive success, regardless of your personal misgivings. It turned a third-string title into a critically acclaimed top seller for several years. That’s pretty much all Marvel can ask for. You can tell they’re happy with it – they’re doing essentially the same thing over in Fantastic Four to similar results.
The Civil War series itself was still pretty terrible, obviously.
Civil War was terrible, but it gave us a whole new direction out of Marvel, one that brought in a whole new generation of writers.
No longer did we just have the ones who said..and I quote. “I liked comics a a kid and then I discovered girls, but I got back in with Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns in my early twenties.”
Instead we got writers who loved the big runs of the 80s (Simonson Thor, Byrne FF, Art Adams X-Books, etc), and they started to see the MU as a tool and not just a hinderance.
And now there are probably 30 books that come out a month from Marvel that I think are pretty good. Compared to maybe 3 or 4 from before Civil War.
Having raged a little about Civil War, I’ll note that to me, the concept seemed good-a fundamental and important disagreement on a serious issue, leading to conflict between heroes that wasn’t based on a random misunderstanding or mind control. That seemed like it could be a set of comics “for adults” that wasn’t about shock value and unnecessary sexual content or gore. Which is part of the reason I was so disappointed in the end result.
I don’t…ummm…I liked Civil War?
Same here. I mean, the SYMBOLISM~~!~~! in the ending was far too heavy handed, but overall it was a fun read.
Nonetheless, I don’t think anyone can give a reasonable explanation as to why the Winter Soldier is Cap now.
Sure I can. Because Steve Rogers isn’t a dick and realises how much good being Cap has done for Bucky (excluding getting locked up in a Russian gulag just now, obviously). If Rogers had just waltzed in and took back the Shield, Bucky would be the one out there leading the Tea Bagger Militia in the MU right now.
My favorite comment is this:
“Sure, I inexplicably acted wildly out-of-character and the two of us had a massive falling-out of the sort that would lead real people never to speak to each other again at best. But hey, let’s just put that all behind us now and get back to being superheroes, okay?”
Because that’s one of the major issues with comic books (and serial mediums as a whole). There’s development, a peak of that development, and then a reset to the status quo. Sometimes, people become assholes, friends become enemies, and the like. It happens. Money, power, women, men, these things change people. I, for one, would’ve had no problem turning Iron Man into a quasi-villain.
I have no problem with Steve Rogers dying for his country and his long-time sidekick/friend taking up his mantle.
Change is a good thing. It keeps people interested.
But, movies hit theaters and the book needs to more accurately reflect the character depicted in the movie.
Giant man has been replaced by his other black cousin
Mark Millar does indeed lick goats.
Seriously, the guy’s an embarrassment to the comic industry, and considering how far beyond embarrassment the comic industry is these days, that’s really saying something. He does literally the tiniest amount of work possible to come up with a story–essentially, he develops a hooky premise, and sometimes it’s not even a particularly GOOD premise, but it’s enough to get you reading–then ladles on the hype as thick as possible, even as the story he’s writing goes way off the rails. EVERY. GODDAMN. TIME. There’s a reason people like Millar’s first issues–it’s because those are the only ones he puts any real effort into. But every time I finish reading a Millar story, I find myself asking “What’s the point?” Even fucking Red Son, probably Millar’s “best” for whatever it’s worth, completely loses the thread of what it’s supposed to be and turns into a ridiculous retcon of Superman’s origins, whose only mildly interesting elements were done much better in All-Star Superman. Up until then it’s an obnoxious bit of propaganda with a wildly out-of-character Superman (if Millar had intended to examine the Nature-vs-nurture debate and given us a monstrous or blinkered Superman from the start, that would be something, but he gives us Superman-as-we-know-him but fighting for Communism, which renders his decline into tyranny nonsensical. If anyone could have “fixed” Communism, surely it’s Superman.) Don’t even get me started on Kick-Ass.
Basically, Millar is the writing equivalent of those early 90s Image comics artists.
Hey, hey, the Ellis run on Thunderbolts had one of my favorite comic book moments of the past decade – Bullseye getting absolutely f***ing destroyed by some C-lister whose name I can’t even remember right now because said C-lister had superpowers and Bullseye’s just pulpy flesh against anyone who bullets can’t hurt.
I would probably be angrier at Civil War if I’d actually paid for it at all, or for most or even many of the post-Civil War Marvel comics I’ve read (thank you public library). But I will say that it was, well maybe good is too strong, but interesting to someone who at the time read 80-90% DC, even when going to th elibrary, and managed to draw me in. Now, I’m reading FF Visionaries: Simonson Vol. 1 and learning that Reed was against the SHRA before he was for it (I can’t recall that being mentioned in CW or the FF tie-in issues, although his lame explanation for supporting it was repeated in ASM as well), and what’s worse, the arguments he makes are inordinately more intelligent (hell, even the page of “man on the street” arguments are sharper) than anything in CW.
So basically, it works if you don’t know much of anything about Marvel coming into it, an if you do, then it doesn’t work. Actually, I think this kinda explains why it sold so well.
(Oh, and I would definitely defend Brubaker’s Cap and to a lesser extent, Ellis’ T-Bolts, but again I’ve read no more than one trade each of either series prior to their runs).
I will admit that I got some joy out of seeing Jack Flag, American Eagle, Iron Spider and 4 random telepaths pretty much pwning Oborn’s T-bolts team during Ellis’ run. Also that incarnation of the T-bolts gave us the revamped Ghost, who is awesome.
I notice you didn’t mention the Fantastic Four John. While it’s true that the post-Civil War FF (with Storm and Black Panther) quickly went away, Reed seeking to redeem himself for his actions during CW was a major impetus for Hickman’s (in my opinion) stellar run, so I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on it.
I actually liked the whole 50 State Initiative idea. It did not, however, make Civil War retroactively any better.
I also liked the 50 State Initiative, but — and I say this as an Arkansan with a genuine affection for this state — Arkansas is not now and will probably never be a good fit for Tigra, the bikini-wearing magical cat woman.
I look at it as a fascinating cultural artifact. A Scottish writer interprets Post 9-11 America.
I honestly believe that Mark Millar expected Americans to see Tony Stark’s turn as a normal reaction to a massive tragedy.
Yes, it didn’t make sense with his previous character development, but it is any stranger to an outside observer than the strange turn America itself took into pre-emptive war and security theater?
Matt Fraction recently said in reaction to a fan complaining about what Stark Disassembled did that, “If that’s the way people feel, then I failed.”
I think the problem isn’t wiping Stark’s memory. It isn’t Stark saying that while he doesn’t remember what he did, he owns it and the consequences. It’s that he’s not saying he’s fucking SORRY AND HE WAS WRONG.
But the real people who should apologize are J. Michael Straczynski and Mark Millar, for turning Tony Stark into a villain, and Tom Brevoort, who edited both men and didn’t bother to keep them under control.
How about turning Reed Richards into a profiteering villain with the whole mess? He was at least as culpable as Tony in this.
Civil War was a waste of space, but I agree with the sentiment that Steve didn’t become Cap again because it was really good for Bucky to be Cap. And Bucky was good at it too!
Also, the Ellis thunderbolts was awesome, if nothing else to see American Eagle, of all people, beat the living shit out of Bullseye. And putting Jack Flagg into the Guardians of the Galaxy for a little while. (Hopefully they resurface… but that’s another rant.)
I think Civil War was a good idea at the start. I think you could make it about gun control, or higher security after 9/11, or any number of issues. The superhero vs superhero fight tied into that well, and that’s always entertaining. I think the problem is when you have Iron Man and co act like dicks, and then decide at the end that the dicks were right. The “Cap doesn’t have a myspace” crap wasn’t helping either.
Still, it’s better than most of the big company crossovers I’ve seen in the last few years. Infinite Crisis, Secret Invasion, Final Crisis, Blackest Night, House of M, etc. I think the desire to do these big events that shake the world and sell lots of comics does not always mesh with the concept of having an entertaining story that naturally follows from the narrative that’s been going on.
…. I liked civil war… I live in france and I prefer Manga to comics, but during Civil War I have bought all the tie-ins.
Even my best friend, who hate comics and manga, has liked Civil War, because it was self-contained, simple, fun and the story resonated with the time period unlike a lot of modern comics (now, i just buy Walking dead).
I have tried fear itself because a friend, fan of comics, told me that the story resonate with the real problems of our society, but frankly it’s just another super-hero comic.
ps: again, sorry for my english 😉
Boy, it’s a good thing I only read DC Comics, right? Right?
(glances about)
Okay, so I have some problems…
Eh. It was no better or worse than most of these events go. For the most part, I didn’t care then and I don’t care now.
But MGK’s parodies and Caleb’s eulogy for Goliath (at Everyday is Like Wednesday) were some of the best comics humor of the decade, so I’d say it was a huge success for me.
While MGK’s parodies were no less than genius, I remember that Civil War itself veered into strangely amusing self-parody.
(Cap recruiting Punisher to work in his team with some ex-villains, and actually being surprised about what happened.)
New Warriors was awful. I don’t know if I even got an entire issue into it.
I like vampire Jubilee. I want her to go join the Runaways or something (she thinks the X-Men think she killed someone, so she feels she has to run away from them until she clears her name or something). And now she has an excuse for never aging!
Also, John Arcudi’s Thunderbolts relaunch was pretty good if you ignore that it was supposed to be a Thunderbolts relaunch.
What I dislike the most about ‘Civil War’ is how characters refer to the events of the miniseries in-story as “the Civil War”. What, seriously, was a week of Captain America and Iron Man shit-talking about each other really that more notable than any of those other Civil Wars in the history of mankind?
If anyone ever seriously asks the rhetorical question “Why can you get millions of people to see superhero movies but only a couple hundred thousand to buy comics?” then Civil War is your answer.
After reading things like Civil War and Old Man Logan, I’m not sure Millar actually even likes superheroes.
Why can you get millions of people to see superhero movies but only a couple hundred thousand to buy comics?”
I’d go with the characters having nothing in common film with the film versions. Not a bad thing per se if we get a terrific Morrison run on Batman, but new people will likely be confused that Nolan’s ‘pseudo-realism’ is not reflected in the comics.
@RAC: I’m fairly certain that Millar doesn’t like the people who read comics, either. _Wanted_ and _Kick-Ass_ stand in testament to that.
Also, I agree with the sentiment that one of the greatest tragedies of Civil War is that it could have been an interesting look at the necessity of control (of people who can burn down entire city blocks if thought about it) versus the individual right to freedom. Instead, it was handled in such a ham-fisted manner that it has been unwound.
It’s only a matter of time before Black Goliath and Clone Thor are having a beer together, yukking it up.
Curiosity: Can you point to any title that has been altered positively at Civil War at all? It can even be an obscure one.
See, I think Miller does like comics.
He just likes writing ultra-violent, vaguely sexist comics that loosely flirt with politics. If you’ve read Nemesis, you’ll know he’s a high concept guy who doesn’t really say that much with the work beyond ‘OH MY GOD THIS IS AWESOME.’
Heck, Nemesis is essentially The Dark Knight as made by Michael Bay.
@UnSub
That’s my main beef with Civil War, too. It could have been great, if they delivered on the promise of there being no wrong sides.
Insetad of that, what we had was Iron Man as a super-villain, Hank Pym as a complete idiot and Reed Richards as a dictator who thinks his intelligence gives him the right to decide the world’s fate.
David:
The impression that I got from this article isn’t that “the post-Civil War books are all crap just because most of the story beats didn’t stick long term”.
It’s basically that
1) Civil War was overly padded and ham-fisted, and thus failed on its own merits; and
2) even as a “game-changer” story, it fails because five years after this story in which Everything Changed ™, we’re pretty much back where we started.
Based on these two points, you can only assume one of two things, as John said:
1) either they had intended this from the start, so that eventually there would be some measure of normalcy (such as it is) restored to the Marvel universe, or
2) they realized at some point that the pooch was irredeemably screwed, so a series of dei ex machina were implemented and here we are, back where we started.
Frankly, the latter theory seems more plausible, because calling audibles on plotlines gone wrong is a time-honored tradition of writing.
The worst part is that because of the ham-fisted nature of the story (we’re to believe that the guys locking people up in the Negative Zone are the good guys?), as was said before, there probably was a legitimate debate to be had here as to the nature of super-powered beings as a whole (one could argue, for example, that the idea of forcing supers to register with the government flies in the face of the notion that whatever responsibility is granted by great power is not necessarily intended to be to one particular government, but to humanity as a whole, rhetoric about “truth, justice, and the American Way”* aside)
*Which sort of brings to mind the Superfriends take on this, replacing “the American Way” with “justice and peace for all mankind”.
It was Bill Foster, aka Goliath (Black Goliath in the Seventies) who was killed. When you just say “Giant-Man” it sounds like Hank Pym died.
I’ll put another word in for Ellis’ Thunderbolts. But I think I’m one of those Ellis fans you’re talking about who popped on only for that run in trade.
Marvel Ellis is usually pretty fun (his Iron Man run non-withstanding), since it’s Ellis-with-an-editor (again, Iron Man excepted. Hey, did you know that the human brain has built-in receptors for shamanic drugs? I do, since I’ve read that little factoid in 6 different Ellis titles!).
So watching Ellis do his ‘Big Action Movie’ mode with the Thunderbolts was a lot of fun, particularly when they get their ass kicked every damn time. And seeing Osborn do some wacked-out on drugs version of the ‘Winter of Discontent’ monologue from Richard III, that ends with ‘my costume smells of blondes and victory’ was worth the price of admission.
Civil War was, I agree, totaly pointless. Iron Man acts like a murderous facist, SHIELD blowing up buildings while trying to kill a fleeing teenager, and Cap displaying a non-existant grasp of strategy and tatics, then up and quitting the middle of a fight. Who thought that was a good idea?
Caros: To be completely fair, the Hank Pym in Civil War was a Skrull, so he had a good reason for effing things up. And Reed Richards as man-who-knows-best-or-does-he? has been a key theme in Hickman’s FF run, which I’ve been enjoying.
Iron Man? Yeah, there’s no excuse for him. I think the most logical explanation for Stark’s behavior that I read was found in one of the aftermath one-shots. (I’m blanking on the title, but I think Bendis wrote it.) Of course, it would’ve been much better had said explanation been found in the story itself…
yes mr Seavy there are indeed fans of: -Jubilee ( she made me like logan & now he lost alot of his appeal without her & is still a better character than comics Kitty Pryde. Seriously, fix this shit. Some of us grew up crushing on her, and depowering, then vampiring her, is retarded. Bring back Generation X & every single member ya hear me!they & x-force members should have become the x-men & let the older members retire!)
-Eddie Brock/Venom (who deserves the thunderbolt place not Gargan jobbernom!so Fuck Millar),
– Maggot was unique, original, and absolutely awesome.his death was just a tear jerker (to think fucking beak & angel are still alive)
-Mr Sinister (I really want the Marauders back too, and the Nasty Boys would definitely fit the bill for the lack of villian teams in the comics these days.
As far as Miss Sinister is concerned . . . . . I want Sinister to to unite both the Marauders and the Nasty Boys to hunt down and destroy Miss Sinister with a passion that rivals the intensity of the Inferno. Then send the ashes to the X-Office as a warning to any writer or artist that is foolish enough to spit on such an awesome villian ever again..)
-Apocalypse (& no uncanny x-force was a disappointment.From reading this series I get the feeling that Remender really doesn’t have a grasp on who En Sabah Nur is, his motivations or his ideology. He just chose a big name villain that would cause a stir and generate fan interest.
Since when has Apocalypse been Magneto? Since when has he considered the X-men, Xavier his mortal foes and bane of his existence? Short answer he never has. He only interacts with/acknowledges them when they pose a threat to his plans or can provide him with some material value. Apocalypse is not a human hating, mutant crusader. Apocalypse only cares, in whatever capacity he’s capable of doing so, for the strong. Those with power, those who are capable of serving a purpose for him he favors. This is perfectly displayed in Age of Apocalypse when some of his top officials are HUMANS!!! Apocalypse firmly believes in the ideal of his clan, the strong live and the weak die. So Yeah! Nur like Dormammu is still one of the most mistreated villains in marvel)
-Cable (my disatisfaction with Marvel seems to run parallel with how they are treating Cable. First Joey Q fires Weinberg, then that horrible Soldier X stuff, the Nicieza comes back to restore Cable to his former glory as much as possible, and them they mess with his vision too.& no John his design is no more ridiculous than other heroes wearing undies on their trousers..)
-Gambit (thank god for miss Liu she really saved the ragin cajun)
-Bishop ( FUCK YOU MARVEL! one the nicest tough guys around & they shit on his entire background to make him a villain)
-Scarlet witch (bring Wanda back you bunch of dickcheese! fuck you bendis)
-Stryfe ( i’d srsly bring him to utopia just to rip the head of nu-Emma & use nuCyclops as a glass)
-Nate grey (x-man jobs to osborn? Cornell , you’ve really disappointed me on this one)
-Nomad (should have replaced Cap rather than Bucky..yep i said it)
after showing my major gripes with marvel( i have no hope for spidey anymore the last good thing was the clone saga miniseries which was the perfect sendoff for peter, the BND one should be smashed by carnage & his gang of psychos while they sing happy happy joy joy( that ‘d be an interesting one shot)
now to the matter at hand
SO… Civil war was indeed one of the worst pieces of pigshit they could have written it ‘s mean spirited (Goliath dies & no one thinks”Fuuck ! we killed bill oh no we were assholes!” Tony if in character would have put a gun on his mouth to think they KILLED casually one of their own!),awful,boring & insulting.Thus i flipped off marvel’s “main” continuity & made my own canon ( i advice people to do the same ignoring is far more relaxing) & i’ll take the 90’s & the potential it had over the neo silver age
agreed about annihilation!
Annihilation succeeds where Civil War failed. Annihilation in comparison is a great book that actually has some believability to it and a real sense of jeopardy for the heroes involved. Plus, it breathes some new life into some cosmic heroes/villains that have been on the back burner far too long at Marvel.
I read more of Chris’s Civil War spoof than I did the actual series.
Given the cost of the format, I don’t understand why people bother to collect comics they don’t enjoy, but if the internet is any indication, a lot of people do.
Remove “Civil War” and replace it with pretty much every Marvel crossover event since the early ’90s — at least — and you can make the same statements.
Can we also agree Infinite Crisis was a waste?
And Final Crisis?
And that we won’t get fooled again?
Saidi up there is exactly WHY nothing changes.
Saidi up there is exactly WHY nothing changes.
It’s funny because you think it’s true.
Fans who are insufficiently enthusiastic about poorly characterized mega-events are EVERYTHING WRONG WITH COMMICS
fffffffartz
Let’s not forget one of the other great casualties of Civil War: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. Wasn’t it awesome in Ultimate Alliance 1 when you got to fight Fin Fang Foom on the Helicarrier? Or tear through such classic Mighty Marvel locations as Asgard and Atlantis? Or the part on the Skrull home world with Galactus walking around trying to eat the planet? And getting to fight major villains like Dr Doom, Mephisto, and Loki?
Wasn’t it awful when you spent half of UA2 in various generic warehouses and parking garages beating up people like Shocker, Diamond Back, and one of those Slingers guys because you were stuck playing Civil War The Comic The Game and there weren’t any villains with major parts in that miniseries? And then you realized that this was about as good as the game was going to get?
Raiden from Metal Gear Solid totally made an excellent transition from doofy character to grim and gritty cybort assassin with a katana and white blood.
I don’t think Spider-man’s identity reveal was bad at all. I still say that pre-civil war, Spider-man was the single most useless secret identity in comic book history.
The secret identity was established to protect Peter Parker’s loved ones, but they were still getting attacked anyway. I mean, Aunt May nearly married Doc Ock for fuck’s sake. If anything the secret identity was more of a threat to Peter’s loved ones’ safety than keeping it away from them.
After a while the only reasons they had to keep Peter Parker’s identity a secret was to keep Aunt May and J Jonah Jameson in the dark and forever keep them as one-note characters.
Aunt May was so much more interesting after she learned who Peter Parker was and stopped being kept around just to survive her next stroke and J Jonah Jameson’s hatred for Spider-Man could only have evolved into something much more sophisticated.
The only way I could say that “One More Day” was justified was if Mephisto came up and told Spider-Man (or someone else) that removing his identity from everyone’s mind had nothing to do with Spider-Man and everything to do with making Norman Osborn a greater global threat by ridding him of his obsession with Spider-Man.
@David: OTOH, it was kind of interesting how different the plot of MUA2 is from ‘Civil War’. It’s as though the Dev Team for that game said, “I’m sorry, the ending is WHAT? Sod that for a game of soldiers, if we published that shit we’d be hung by our testicles.” And went on to completely rewrite the story from about the halfway point on.
Which reminds me, the original pitch for ‘Civil War’ is here. It’s interesting to read Tom Brevoort’s original comments, things like “My feeling when I got to this part of the outline was that there didn’t seem to be enough of a reason for Cap to suddenly go rogue otherwise” and “I don’t quite buy this. I don’t think Cap would either surrender or retire—especially if that’s going to be the payoff at the end of the series.” In other words, there was stuff that they thought was obviously wrong at the initial pitch stage that just…never got fixed.
@ supergp: okay pal you misunderstand, i like change & LOGICAL growth!hell i am even for spidey being a father in the mainstream,deadpool working with agency x (srsly everyone acted like c&d 50 never happened)or Xavier actually dying (if someone overstayed his welcome it’s him)
you should point that at marvel’s editors who constantly fuck up wonderful opportunities for schock stories. & i said i love Annihilation because it has actual evolution & soul to it & i wish silver surfer requiem was mainstream mostly because it was perfect
when a writer conviniently spits on the character’s history or is not even assed to know who he’s writing & does not use the potential some of those characters have to make them evolve well it’s disappointing.Many members of the x-force or generation x had more potential of growth than say cyclops or archangel,other members like Gambit or Wolverine proved they work best in solo & Cable is one of the most untapped potential in the marvel u, they could use his position as a president to pit him against dr doom (the hopeful leader vs the “enlightened ” despot).Apocalypse is the villain with an alltime relevant philosophy & he actually is able to evolve & adapt to any status quo(srsly if you think about the mutant culture & population boom , he ,sinister & dark beast would have been far more relevant as villains than magneto’s same old stuff about separation & yadayada)
you should never confuse change & evolution with schlock & hack writing & morrison’s x-men (mutant culture nonwithstanding, it actually had potential) ,disassembled (except for the thor part),house of m,decimation,civil war & secret invasion were crap as far as i’m concerned
@dangermouse: why thank you ,my friend , you got it.
@john seavy: yeah it’s sad when the game has a better story than the comic
RAC: “After reading things like Civil War and Old Man Logan, I’m not sure Millar actually even likes superheroes.”
Wait, there’s any doubt about Millar’s unwavering contempt for both superheroes and their fans? It always seemed pretty gaspingly obvious to me.
Saidi, you have, terrible, terrible taste.
Also, your attempt at writing is painful to read. At least try for something resembling coherent written English; as it is, your prose is almost as much of a mess as the art from the godawful era of X-Men you seem so fond of.
I’ve had people tell me he loves them, 5012. They cited something I haven’t read, but I cannot for the life of me remember what. It wasn’t any of the big, obvious things he’s done.
Ed Norris:
1 oh suuure , MY tastes are bad!Isn’t it this notion we call “difference in opinion”? while i can bash the story itself i’ve never attacked or judged any reader who liked it (seriously if people liked Civil War well it’s their choice & i’m glad that they were entertained even though I personally hate it)
2 Jeeeesh , hasn’t it ocurred to you that english may not be my primary language? If it annoyed you so much to read my post then my sincerest apologies, it was just an opinion & nothing else.
Sinon effectivement chers amis,”civil war” était bel et bien de la merde. Au plaisir wa eelallikae.
I thought the most effective thing Cap could have done was let them arrest him and watch them sweat at the idea of putting an American icon on trial (or disappearing him).
I don’t think it even makes sense Cap had to register. For one thing, he’s already a government operative. For another, he’s not superhuman–despite the super-soldier treatment he’s only peak human, not paranormal. If he has to register, shouldn’t everyone who uses steroids?
Of course, I seem to remember HEROES FOR HIRE said Shang-Chi registered and he has no powers whatsoever.
Saidi, you have, terrible, terrible taste.
lol, wrong
Ed Norris:
i still take that “god awful (90-96)” era over the “messiah saga( m-day can blow me)” the x-books have given us lately or the unappealing ,unlikable wretched beings Morrison wrote in “The new Douchebags: leather edition”.There i won’t unsay it, oh & one piece of advice, telling people that they have horrible taste comes off as smug & just downright rude while saying why you respectfully disagree is a lot classier.Get it? My incoherent prose tells you to think about it
Last Thought
@ john seavy: Iron man was indeed saved by the movies & i don’t think it’d have worked i Downey jr played Iron Fuhrer
@ dangermouse: i salute you gracefully sir
Referring to Mr. Sinister as an “awesome” villain pretty much settles it.
And I’m not even really defending “Civil War” or other recent examples* of over-hyped events; sure, there are plenty of bad comics being pumped out of Marvel that I don’t think it’s worth wasting money on, but even the worst of them have yet to hit the same depths of unrelenting shittiness that the X-Books did in the first half of the 90s. I doubt if anything ever can.
*And say what you will about that Messiah/Hope stuff (I won’t defend it as great comics), but at least they’re showing some explicit signs of recognizing that Decimation/M-day was an idiotic mistake.
Because Magneto or William Stryker or the sentinels are so better, maybe?
I defend my claim, Mr Sinister aka Nathaniel Essex is a great villain ( & nowadays i would root for him rather than the so called heroes)& his origins mini-series is just great (The Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix relates the faustian deal between dr essex & apocalypse & how ironically cyclops & jean grey have assisted the creation of mr sinister).he is not the cackling mustache twirling villain, he is the cold poker faced chess master,he is the perfect representation of science gone wrong or unhindered by morals & only searching for results & perfection regardless of human life or its values! thus i find him fascinating & when well written he is just a delight to read (especially when you hear C.Britton’s voice to the mix while reading)
I’m not trying to convince you ,I just gave my opinion & all the characters i talked about earlier have the potential to become FAR more!This is how comics, in general, should evolve!
I actually read many titles of the early 90’s you claim to hate & it BEATS THE HELL OUT of this ridiculous “m-day” status quo (decimation is still far more retarded than the twelve (which was indeed awful & begs the question how can they fuck up En Sabah Nur dammit! but it could still be repaired) & Messiah/Hope was the laziest copout (hey let’s ruin Cable & Bishop all along instead of, you know,write good stories with them & kill Sinister in a really insulting way,oh & Magneto bows down to new-Cyclops , & as long as you dont smoke kids ,killing,rape & outright rejection of those who are different (srsly the depowered ones are thrown away & rejected by their friends?Really Marvel?) & working with outright murderers are ooookaaay !)
The x-men at least were likable in the 90’s!Not the racists or outright hypocrites we have today!
Lobdell,Nicieza,David,Ellis & others wrote great stories during that era.It was flawed Yes, but not nearly as bad as people make it out to be & it doesn’t irks as the new status quo does.
Damn Saidi, you’re just straight-up butchering the English language in every post you make. And don’t give me any of that “it’s not my first language” guff, it ain’t mine either (hollering at you all the way from sunny Amsterdam in Europe) and I manage just fine.
That being said, I do want to give you a little love when it comes to your enthusiasm for ’90s X-Men comics. Although unlike you I really enjoyed Morrison’s X-Men (c’mon, how can you hate on Kid Omega, Magneto-as-Xorn and the White Queen-Cyclops-Jean Grey love triangle, to name but a few high points), most of the post-Morrison stuff has been really dumb (M-Day) and/or badly executed (Second Coming), which is why the franchise has been floundering for years now and has been thoroughly eclipsed by the Avengers as Marvel’s main moneymaker. Much like you, it makes me nostalgic for the days of Lobdell & Nicieza when the line as a whole felt a lot more cohesive, the team itself had a more manageable size and some of my favorite characters (like Bishop) still acted like themselves. Furthermore, a lot of good villains, interesting characters and dangling plotlines from that time have been largely ignored in the ’00s by most writers, with the notable exception of Mike Carey, Jason Aaron and Rick Remender. Point is, the X-Men in the ’90s weren’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but they had a lot going for ’em as wel.
Oh, and Civil War? Great idea, horrible execution (the same goes for Secret Invasion, Dark Reign & Siege). The modern crop of big name writers seem to have lost such useful skills as remembering/looking up the histories/power-sets/motivations of non-A-list heroes and villains, writing good action scenes/sequences and creative uses of powers, putting more than the same few guys in large crowd scenes, crafting compelling high-stakes storylines for more than one character, and so on. The day guys who do possess these skills, guys like Van Lente, Parker and Pak, claw their way to the top can’t come soon enough if you ask me. When that happens, who knows, we might one day actually get something as complex, rich and rewarding as Operation: Galactic Storm again!
AAAAAAAAARGh!…
alright ! One last fucking time!
Guys, i haven’t written in english for 4 years now & we don’t speak it fluently or frequently in Tunisia (if you want the general state of the country: we’re still reconstituting our government,the strikes really have to stop but hey, could be far worse) so i may have a few problems expressing my opinion conveniently.Then until i perfect it,lay off the sermons ,okay?
IF you have another objection,just blame the teacher & roll with it…(the next one that tells me that my english sucks shall be assaulted verbally ! I know it & I already apologised so let’s not make the discussion turn sour .did i make myself clear? )
Let’s agree to disagree on Morrison’s run,I gave it a chance & i’ll always see it as awful & plain mean spirited. While some concepts like weapon + or district x were indeed interesting ,the high points you’ve just pointed at here were low points for me (Fantomex was the only character worth a damn due to my love for “Diabolik la panthère noire”, the love triangle made NO SENSE. Scott trusts Emma Frost? He’d trust Gambit to keep an eye on his wallet rather than having “therapies” with the woman that helped make Jean go all Dark phoenix! Couldn’t he talk to Cable, Rachel (excalibur or Weinberg version) or Xavier about it?
BTW Morrison Emma is not as awesome as Gen X Emma. The former is just Paris hilton-lite bitchy jean rival (how…neat..) while the latter is a calculating , Subtle cold,independent & sometimes frightening ( the way she got rid of her sister or the detective was just scary…) & charismatic antiheroin)
oh & sorry but Remender doesn’t get En Sabah Nur…at all.Reread my 1st post & you’ll see why!Just like Mike Carey kinda missed the mark by killing Dr Essex or putting Mystique or Victor Fucking Creed in Rogue’s team (why not make Stryfe or Selene one of the teachers while they’re at it?)
Civil war was a bad idea right off the bat.Superheroes fight each other for that? really?Iron man obeys the government while he refused to give them the secrets of his technology in the past.
Spidey unmasks himself?remember why gwen stacy died?or the unexpected visits of Venom whenever Eddie escaped? why not give everyone his adress while he ‘s at it?
(& i’m really tired of Spidey being portrayed as the little rookie.Hell, Peter is smart & experienced!Being beaten by Jester & Jack-o-lantern while you can survive against Dr ock, Morlun or Carnage is just insulting)
But for me the death of Goliath showed how horrible the whole debacle was.One of their friend dies & no one stops to think “we fucked up big time,let’s think about it rationally so this sort of tragedy doesn’t repeat itself.Let’s burn the goddamn thor robot!)
On a side note , the last time the Avengers were great was the short run Geoff Johns wrote (while i may have many reproaches towards Johns ‘s writing , at his best, he’s just excellent! & he & busiek made Hank Pym awesome again (the wife beater title is inacurate, robot puncher is more like it)).
since Bendis took over it became the Luke Cage & Spiderwoman show (& let’s say i was less than happy when Carnage was killed in such a shitty way…)which did not really need the destruction of the Scarlet Witch or handing her to friggin Magneto( who really needs to retire…last time he was great was fatal attractions…in 1993…even the cartoons understood that & gave him a retirement home & a beard(in TAS))
& good old Dr Strange “revealing” there was no chaos magic…wow I’m speechless! what will it be next time?
spidey’s webs are not made by web fluid but were his own semen this whole time!
Thanos was actually a janitor called Eric! Colossus is not a mutant but a terminator & Tony Stark’s blood is indeed made of vodka!
Which one are they gonna pull?)
So eel al-leekae (goodbye)& thanks for the appreciation but nuts to your hollering man.You must admit that I never attacked anyone’s taste or way of typing or writing their posts, if i butchered the language again then fuck ! to hell with it ! i’ll wear the moniker “Language Butcherer” Gladly
NYAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHHAAAA!!!
Millar wrote 20 or so issues of Superman Adventures (the younger-readers-friendly, Diniverse title) that are among the best Superman stories ever. If he didn’t love Superman, he certainly faked it well. And his runs on Swamp Thing and The Flash seem pretty enthusiastic as well.
@Saidi, I grew up with those late-80’s early 90’s post-siege perilous comics, so I know where you’re coming from. Frankly, a lot of them were crap. And this is from someone who has an irrational love for the Magneto in the Savage Land/X-Men in Space arc. It’s big and dumb and stupid and terribly written and full of people giving full speeches in mid-leap on splash pages. And I’m 14 years old whenever I re-read it, so shut up.
Jubilee was a bizarre attempt to create a Robin to Woverine’s rapidly-evolving Batman status (and later X-Force as the new Teen Titians meat grinder, just with Deathstroke in charge). I suppose that every character is someone’s favorite, but it’s hard to wrap my brain around the concept that there’s a person out there that just really, really likes Mr. Sinister.
Finally, Saidi, I speak only English, and that not particularly well. But if I can make a suggestion or two? The first would be to limit one thought per sentence. The second if formatting, which you honestly might not be able to help. It’s easy to get lost in your walls-of-text and hard to keep track of what you’re saying. You’re obviously have a passion for marvel comics, but sometimes I’ll be damned if I can tell what you like and what you don’t (I know you don’t like Morrison’s run, which I love. But whatever.)
John2.0:
while i am indeed flattered by your honesty and dont necessarily disagree with you about the craziness of those stories; the so shut up is just rude unnecessary and unfriendly so here is a “BITE ME” in return; It is just an opinion!
As bizarre the Jubilee attempt is… well it is good for me and Jubes works as a cheerful and optimistic supporting character that used to give Logan some human traits (unlike fucking x force vol 3)
A lot of people do love Mr Sinister since a Joseph Mengele/Faust like figure is a more viable and interesting concept than flip flop Mags or the 50 years old sewer fetus that hates Xavier because…well because.
If you hate Essex Well it is your taste and opinion;am I insulting you or telling you to shut up for that? Or did I even attack Prowler or Jack Norris for disagreeing with me or insult anyone who liked morrison run?
If someone wants to answer now then stay polite and give your opinion as calmly as possible
womzilla:
agreed. a shame he doesnt try that kind of writing anymore but hey no one is perfect…
The ‘so shut up’ wasn’t actually directed at you, it’s my inner 14-year-old’s response to anyone who would criticize Uncanny X-Men 275, which is what my outer 35-year-old would certainly do.
Although I guess there’s more than a bit of irony to the fact I tried to give advice on how to write a clear response on an internet forum, and then choose to include a rhetorical device that was almost guaranteed to be misinterpreted. So I’ll apologize if you were offended by what I said, I wasn’t asking you to shut up.
Write how you want, Saidi!
Oh in that case my sincerest thanks for the advices, I’ll remember them.
Now I know! & knowing is half the battle!
One thing that did stem from the Civil War was the 50 State Initiative, which I think was a massive wasted opportunity on Marvel’s part.
As it was laid out, every state in the USA got their own superteam to protect it. This, in theory, would be a great chance to see some lesser-known heroes and teams protecting areas that we don’t tend to see in the largely New York-centric Marvel canon. Unfortunately, only a scant handful of states got any coverage at all, and half of the nation never received a team to begin with.
What I would have suggested is that Marvel make these stories into free webcomics on their website. They would use prospective writers and artists that Marvel may be considering giving print work to, as a bit of a trial run. If the writers and artists do well, then they get bumped up to a short run on one of the print books. Similarly, if some of the characters in these stories develop a following, then they could be drafted up into higher-profile comics.
There’s a bit of an overhead with this idea obviously, but it certainly seems like a great way to bring some much needed fresh blood and fresh ideas into the comic fold.
@JohnSeavey:
Responding to this way too late, but I agree its kind of an interesting direction to take the game’s story. I don’t know that its better (an army of guys you already beat up plus Cyborg EXTREEEEEEME Nick Fury isn’t really my idea of an improvement), but its something I guess. The thing is I don’t think the developers went with their own ending out of a distaste for Millar’s conclusion. Especially since they spent a third of the game reproducing set pieces and dialogue from the comics in question. They were clearly trying to tell this very simple three act story (the heroes have an alliance that’s becoming more and more frayed, then they start fighting each other, then a common threat brings them all back together, status quo reset, THE END). That didn’t really fit with Marvel’s post-Civil War books that had been published at that point, so they wrote their own ending for better or for worse. Thats just my own guess, and it certainly could be wrong. It wouldn’t surprise me if quality wasn’t a concern for someone on staff during the development process, but it just seems to me like more than anything else story structure was the big concern here.
I’m gonna echo some other people and say that the first couple issues of Nova were the best part of Civil War.
“I pulled him inside out and saved the universe. What have you done lately, Tony?
http://zak-site.com/Great-American-Novel/index.html
It all comes down to what this man says. When Marvel abandoned real time, it killed itself. The zombie has wandered the Earth ever since.