Civil War (Marvel Comics) REVIEW

Ah, remember that big comic book event back in 2006? I found it in my not so local library and decided it was necessary to read it.  Overall it’s a pretty solid plot, and it’s a step above most of the other Marvel books I’ve read (Aside from Planet Hulk, of course)

The overall plot is when some n00b superheroes attempt to take on a high tier super villain for the sake of promoting their reality TV show. This results in the super villain creating a gigantic explosion, taking out the superheroes, the film crew, and an entire school full of children. This gathers a large amount of media attention, causing the public to demand super hero reform.

Things are going well, some people create a bill to be sent to Congress in order to force all superpowered people to register with the government. This goes well until S.H.I.E.L.D is asking Captain America what he thinks about the plan, and how many people would oppose it. The big problem with S.H.I.E.L.D’s plan is that they assumed Captain America would be on their side. This is proven wrong when Captain America bails out on them and starts a team in order to resist the bill.

This then goes on about a civil war between superheroes, featuring Iron Man leading the heroes who demand that the superpowered people register, and Captain America leading the Rebels. While it is hard to argue with Captain America, I find that the registration side just makes more sense.

Commentary provided by Iron man in this comic I found a while ago: (click to enlarge)

Overall, I think if they were trying to portray a political message, they did a really crappy job. That’s not what’s really important though to me, because I strongly believe sending a political message is not more important than good writing. Fortunately, the writing here is pretty solid, although the overall plot feels skeletal. I assume the fleshing out occurs in Marvel’s side books about the Civil War, detailing the effects and consequences it has on individual characters. This is the mainline book however, which does not focus on the characters, but the overall conflict of the registration act, which is an interesting read. The plot twists and turns quite nicely, people die (nobody I cared about though) and people change sides throughout the book. Unfortunately, a lot of higher powered superheroes, such as the Hulk (who is busy in his own series, Planet Hulk, much better than this book) who have gone off to do other things, preventing their opinion from invalidating the opinion of the people fighting. I suppose this keeps things fair, but it looks kind of silly when you look at it from a universal scale.

Art in this book was very nice. Faces were expressive, and you could easily tell what was going on in the scenes. Colors were vibrant, and they kept the production values in line with the amount of hype the book received.

The ending is sort of okay. It could lead to an interesting aftermath story, but it really didn’t fulfill anything as presented in the book. Ending left more questions than answers really.

Should you read it? If you like Marvel, you probably should. It did kind of change everything in the universe for a while. Plus, a lot of high profile Marvel characters are in it, like Spider Man. I wouldn’t consider it worth going out of your way to get if you aren’t into Marvel though, because past familiarity with characters is incredibly important in this book.

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