Civil War (Marvel Comics) - Dark Publications

Location: Home » vampire: masquerade » General AAS » Civil War (Marvel Comics)

Similar Items:

•	The Road to Civil War (Spider-Man, Fantastic Four)
•	Civil War: Amazing Spider-Man
•	Civil War: Front Line, Book 1
•	Civil War: Front Line, Book 2
•	Civil War: Wolverine

Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
The landscape of the Marvel Universe is changing, and it's time to choose: Whose side are you on? A conflict has been brewing from more than a year, threatening to pit friend against friend, brother against brother - and all it will take is a single misstep to cost thousands their lives and ignite the fuse! As the war claims its first victims, no one is safe as teams, friendships and families begin to fall apart. The crossover that rewrites the rules, Civil War stars Spider-Man, the New Avengers, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men and the entirety of the Marvel pantheon! Collects Civil War #1-7, plus extras.

Customer Reviews: Read 66 more reviews...

3 out of 5 stars

Intriguing, but ultimately unsatisfying April 26, 2007
74 out of 86 found this review helpful

So what does it take to break up two of the greatest superteams of all time, make Iron Man and Captain America mortal enemies, and many other old friends pound each other into the ground in the Marvel Universe? How about reality television? After a young 3rd-tier superteam causes supervillain Nitro to explode (his power) and wipe out a school full of children while filming their "Cops"-style show, public opinion forces the passage of a bill in Congress. The bill is one that would force all superpowered beings to register with and work for the government. Naturally, this is a terribly unconstitutional move that eliminates the most American of all values, freedom, from every superbeings' life. Thus the Marvel Universe is split in two with Captain America siding against his own namesake and forming the Underground Avengers (featuring Dardevil, Luke Cage, and Spiderwoman among others) and Iron Man leading the pro-registration forces along with Mr. Fantastic in rounding up all of the heroes who resist, imprisoning them indefinitely. It's a great concept that brings to light many fascinating debates and ideas on the limitations of government among other things. The problems with the story are in the execution. Many of the great heroes with 40+ years of history and character development behind them do things that are way out of character and others, bizarrely, do nothing at all. As much effort as Marvel has expended in various side-issues trying to justify the actions of Tony Stark and Reed Richards, the fact remains that they behave more like megalomaniacal supervillains than the epitome of heroism that they've embodied for so long. That's not to say that there aren't consequences for both, what with the FF and Avengers essentially dissolved because of feuding members. The ever-sensible Ben Grimm even leaves the country. While Wolverine acts perfectly rationally (for him) in going after the real villain, Nitro, in his side-story (available in another TPB), the rest of the X-Men decide to remain neutral. This is particularly disturbing considering they have fought so vigorouisly against the Mutant Registration Act, which was essentially the same bill but much smaller in scope and with less teeth. I guess the writers knew that with so many heavy-hitters, a united mutant front would have tipped the scales too far in the favor of the rebels. Another big shocker involves a revamped version of the Thunderbolts, featuring many familiar but not-so-friendly faces, and let's just say that along the way sides are changed, long-standing relationships strained to the breaking point, and in the end, not everything will be as it was before. This is a cataclysmic comic event that certainly makes you want to tune back into the Marvel Universe if you've been tuned out for awhile like I have. This particular Trade Paper Back collects the essential events of the Civil War, but not necessarily the best. I'd highly recommend picking up the Civil War TPB's for Spiderman and the Fantastic Four because: a) they're highly entertaining and b) they offer a lot more perspectives on the events depicted in the main story. Also highly recommended are the Captain America and Iron Man TPB's since they are the two figureheads of their respective points of view. The ending, I think, is one that is unsatisfying in every possible way and really brings the story down. I know life ain't fair, but it just seemed like BS to me. Still, it's a journey worth taking if you're a comic fan who wants to see some of Marvel's finest go at it or if you're just intensely curious about how this huge event unfolds. There are plenty of great moments, it's just too bad that the story seems to dictate the characters' actions at times instead of the other way around.

1 out of 5 stars

Terrible story filled with unlikeable characters April 12, 2007
53 out of 71 found this review helpful

This is one of the worst excuses for storytelling I've ever had the misfortune to slog through. In the wake of a super-villain-related disaster, the US Government passes an incomprehensible "Superhero Registration Act" that is alternately portrayed as (a) no more intrusive or unreasonable than licensing doctors or training police officers and (b) so significant that "failing to register" (even if you're retired) is now the worst possible crime imagineable, justifying immediate incarceration courtesy of dozens of heavily-armed government agents.

Needless to say, nobody in the story comments on this bizarre dichotomy, and instead, characters who have fought side-by-side for decades as friends and teammates immediately begin assaulting each other using all the deadly force at their disposal. There's no attempt to explain why these superheroes are suddenly acting (and speaking) like sovereign nations at war -- the fact that the word "War" appears in the book's title is, presumably, justification enough (how metatextual!) -- and at the drop of a hat, the heroes are pounding on (and killing) each other as surely as if half of them had been hypnotized by a Magic Space Wizard out of some '60s JLA/JSA crossover.

Worst of all, though, virtually every character in this book is uniformly dislikeable. Characterization was once considered Marvel Comics' strong suit, but everyone in this book acts like a jerk from the first panel to the last. Throw in some truly ham-fisted attempts to relate the story to current events ("The Stamford disaster is like 9/11! The Negative Zone prison is like Guantanamo!") and wince-inducingly bad dialogue straight from the Big Book of Action Movie Cliches ("This is the nightmare scenario!" "What are you waiting for? Finish it!", etc.) and you have one of the most mind-bogglingly awful works of "graphic fiction" ever inflicted upon an unsuspecting public.

1 out of 5 stars

Terrible piece of storytelling. May 19, 2007
38 out of 54 found this review helpful

If I could give this book 0 stars I would.

Mark Millar's writing is terrible in Civil War. Throughout his runs on The Ultimates, Ultimate X-Men and The Authority Millar proved that he could only write charaters with a single voice: the same obnoxious personality over and over again that refers to people alternatively as "you idiot" and "honey". With Civil War he takes this tendency to the extreme. He abandons all recognizable character traits in the story leads and most of the supporting players. Captain America, instead of being the noble leader he has been portrayed as for decades, becomes an obsessive militia leader who pushes ordinary men through reinforced steel doors and onto a street from a moving vehicle just because of a snarky comment. Iron Man becomes a man entirely comfortable with taunting one of his best friends as he beats him up and who delivers a frankly chilling speech at the end which the author intended to be optimistic but ends up sounding totalitarian.

Millar's problem, in the end, is a lack of subtlety. The book's main conflict could have been a lot more interesting if one side had not been so terribly villified. Millar's dialogue was also laughable at many points, Captain America's rant about not being able to meet the "make a wish" kid literally had me laughing out loud. Had a better writer been in charge the story could have been far more satisfying.

The art is nice in the first few chapters. McNiven has a nice sense of anatomy, but as the story progresses the art gets more and more posed. McNiven is at his weakest in the action sequences. The scene in the first chapter where Captain America escapes the SHIELD helicarrier is the only action sequence with good motion and a logical kinetic progression. If you compare it to the panel in the final chapter where Spider-Man is shown taking out several Pro-Reg heroes at once you can see where McNiven, trying to catch up after not being given enough lead time, loses all sense of progression in the movement of the characters. I don't blame McNiven for being rushed towards the end, I believe the blame for that rests solidly on Marvel's editorial staff who rushed to get the first issue in stores the same month as the last issue of DC's Infinite Crisis to upstage its competitor. In the end this decision ended up causing massive delays to Civil War and a sizeable chunk of Marvel's line.

In the end Civil War has simply turned the Marvel Universe into the X-Men's Days of the Future Past dystopian future. This, as a story idea, is fine. The execution leaves much to be desired. Perhaps if Marvel wasn't so in love with Millar's simplistic writing then Joe Quesada's homilies about how this is supposed to be an optimistic step for the Marvel Universe wouldn't be such a bitter pill.

1 out of 5 stars

This piece of bad writing deserves no stars April 3, 2007
32 out of 53 found this review helpful

Marvel's latest "event" Civil War is one of the WORST story ideas I've ever seen and it confirms my belief that DC and Marvel comics writers are an elitist bunch who are writing the characters out of character and the editors are allowing that to happen because it makes money in the short run. However, they are pandering to the younger readers who probably haven't read the older stories, while slapping the collective face of the older fans who actually read those stories.
In Civil War, due to an incident involving the New Warriors, a lot of kids are killed and the government passes the Superhuman Registration Act, which means that all superhumans have to register with the government. However, some of the heroes, led by Captain America, refuse to register and face off against the pro-registration heroes, led by Iron Man.
Now Civil War fails for several reasons, but the two most important ones are the behaviors of Spider-Man and Iron Man. In Spidey's case, he has kept his identity secret for most of his career because he has seen what happened to his friends at the hands of his enemies who knew his secret ID, particuarly Gwen Stacy, so why would he reveal his double identity to the world when it could have remained just a government secret. Meanwhile, Iron Man had trouble in his series in Tales Of Suspense when the government was giving him trouble because they wanted the secrets of the armor and he was willing to go up against the government's armored agents during Armor Wars, so why would he become a government yes-man in this matter.
In any case, Civil War is a failure and has cemented my abandonment of Marvel because it represents a dumbing down of Marvel. And the damage isn't over yet with the asassination of the original Captain America and the threat that Mary Jane Watson might be killed so that Joe Quesada can get his wish to get rid of her because he doesn't want Spider-Man married.

1 out of 5 stars

Civil War: AKA Comrade Iron Man's glorious victory over the outdated symbol of Capitalist swine Captain America. April 18, 2007
32 out of 49 found this review helpful

I hardly know where ro begin with the piece of flotsam known as "Civil War", except to say my review contains a ton of spoilers.

I should say I only gave it one star because I had to. I should go on to say that this, along with DC's "Infinite Crisis" destroyed my love of comics (as I said in my review of that title). The problem with that book was DC turned their backs on decades of history; the problem with Marvel's Civil War is they turned their backs on their own characters and the fans for no reason other than to make a political statement.
First off, there are a number of misconceptions about this series. First and most importantly, the subtitle, "Whose side are you on?" This is irrelevant, because early on, it is clear Iron Man's side is going to win. Mark Millar himself said in an interview "It's basically an Iron Man story." And another thing, if I didn't know Millar was the main force behind this piece of trash, I would swear the head writer was Vince McMahon. One of the main things you learn in creating dramatic tension in a story of this type is that both sides must seem to have a legitimate chance of winning the conflict. I never felt Captain America's side had a chance. Just look at who his forces were:

Wolverine
Spider Man (who changed sides)
And every second stringer in the Marvel Universe.

Now let's look at Iron Man's pro-registration forces:

A Thor clone
The Sentry
Ms. Marvel
The original Captain Marvel (the one they swore NEVER to resurrect)
Most of Marvel's heavy-hitters.

As a result, not only does Iron Man's forces win, THEY DOMINATE THE WHOLE FIGHT!!!! I swear, I would not have been surprised if Millar resurrected the Beyonder and had HIM join Iron Man.

But the damage doesn't stop there. Along the way, we have a number of Marvel mainstays acting FAR in opposition to their usual natures and personalities (including Tony Stark and Spider Man) for reasons I did not buy for a second. There is NO WAY IN HELL Peter Parker would risk his family for at best some questionable ideology. Hello? The death of his uncle was what created Spider-Man the crime-fighter in the first place!

In short, this series was predictable (yeah, we all knew Aunt May or Mary Jane would end up hurt or dead -- yawn), tedious and bad on so many levels.

Just like the DC Universe is now a convoluted mess, the Marvel heroes are now government stooges. Reagan was right. "We're with the govenment, we're here to help you" is the scariest phrase in the English language.

Oh, and what of Captain America? Guess what? After his dishonor at the hands of Stark and co. HE DIES IN HIS OWN BOOK! I'm not sure if Marvel hated Captain America or just America. After all, they did to an American symbol of truth and justice what no World War II enemy could.

This book made me feel betrayed by childhood friends. So, since they've turned their backs on me, I plan to return the favor by boycotting Marvel comics in particular and comics in general.

That is how much I hated this book.

Powered by Associate-O-Matic

T-shirts, Posters

Pentagram T-shirts, bags, etc...

Gothic Posters