Another week come, another week gone, with my hump THROUGHLY busted through my labors in my job, wondering when I will FINALLY hear back about an opportunity that will be less physically intensive, and more lucrative for my wallet. Oh well... I can't stop trying, can I? Anyways, I hope you all had yourselves a very Happy Thanksgiving! Mine was certainly an... interesting one at least, BUT I still ate like a king, and pretty much exhausted all of my food supplies the following day at work. On the VERY plus side, my girlfriend had some Kohl's cash online to spend before the holiday, so the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, she took me out to the store, knowing about a 2 for $20 sale on Men's design t-shirts, and this ACTUALLY ties in to comics, because both choices I made were somewhat related to the medium! One being a "Heroic" cast design for "Masters of the Universe". (I STILL think Kohl's is blatantly anti-Skeletor, but what can you do?) Another was a general Marvel character t-shirt, but ANY shirt that features jolly blue-eyed Ben Grimm and the Silver Surfer earns my apparel attention!
The MAIN impetus of this weekend's blog theme has yet to arrive, when hopefully I finish reading my "homework" for the intended post. (And the person that suggested it will receive full credit for the idea, tomorrow. ... Or maybe he'll shoulder ALL the blame for it! Heh!) But upon accepting the challenge of reading a generally regarded "turkey" of a comic event, which WILL be a DC event, it made me wonder what offering I could make for my Marvel half of a "Turkey Day" weekend. Then it came to me; the event that started to MAJORLY turn the tide against modern Marvel Comics storytelling. The event that began what now seems to be a bi-MONTHLY event schedule for the company. The event that is so repugnant to my sensibilities, I didn't EVEN want to re-read it for review purposes, because I already KNOW there's no changing my mind for how much I dislike it...
Civil War. Ugh... I remember the year VERY well of the release of this event. This was the beginning of my SECOND major comics phase of my life. You see, my first major phase began around the time I was entering my teenage years, with a mixture of new titles from both Marvel and DC, then later transitioning into older titles from the companies. I believe when I started becoming more entrenched into High School... and thereupon trying to feel more "comfortable in my skin", comics became less interesting for a few years. (Trust me, there were NOT replaced by interest in girls: the ladies would have NOTHING to do with me back during those awkward years of my existence!) My second buying phase came on the wings of interest in a widely advertised DC event known as "Infinite Crisis", and not long afterwards, Marvel began to launch "Civil War". And when you think about it, both projects serve as inverses towards their ultimate storytelling end games! But first... and bear in mind, I did NOT get a copy of the core series for review of this storyline, but while my disdain for this story is strong, it was MAINLY due to my not being able to track down a library copy... a brief summary of events.
The opening threads of the "Civil War" storyline can be traced back to the launch of Brian Michael Bendis' "New Avengers", the "Secret War" event, and even Warren Ellis' run on "Iron Man". Tony Stark was becoming more convinced that the "policing" of super-heroic activities was becoming a credible idea, after some BAD encounters with the Extremis human-alteration program. S.H.I.E.L.D, after Nick Fury's disappearance, was starting to shift focus under the leadership of new director, Maria Hill. (No... Sam L. Jackson did NOT just step in, afterwards.) And after the Scarlet Witch broke asunder the Avengers, a new team rose from the ashes... but it was a VERY tenuous alliance, at best. But the floodgates for "Civil War" were broke WIDE OPEN when this period's "New Warriors" team... a "reality television"-based squad of teen superheroes... assaulted a villain hideout in Stamford, Connecticut. There, a villain known as Nitro, whose power is being able to generate powerful explosions with his body, blew up in the middle of a peaceful neighborhood, killing off 600 innocent bystanders, and even some of the New Warriors team. Not only was the loss of innocent lives tragic enough, but this was also the point that series writer, Mark Millar, decided to kill off ANY credible characteristic moments for our Marvel Universe, so he could squeeze out his steamy loaf of "narrative commentary".
While before this series, Tony Stark was only thinking about the Superhero Registration Act, due to this event, Iron Man became the FIGUREHEAD for the Registration Act. Before this event, the name of Captain America was respected by the government of the nation. But upon launching, he became a TARGET for the very government he represented. Now granted... this ISN'T exactly a new turn for Captain America, because similar events happened during the 70's for the "Secret Empire" storyline, along with the late 80's when the latter U.S. Agent replaced a dismissed Steve Rogers, but these two events involved a RATIONAL and STRATEGIC Captain America, that was STILL respected by the heroic community. And probably... most irritatingly for me... the series basically made the S.H.I.E.L.D organization a villainous group under the sneering dogmatic leadership of Maria Hill. Latter story beats for Maria made her a FAR more interesting character, but in "Civil War", with her reflecting "real world" political agendas in the comic book pages, the spy agency that we all grew to love as a general Marvel policing agency became a group of "stormtroopers" to enforce the Registry Act. Oh, but that's not ALL of the "delightful" twists this story had to offer us!
For one, remember that Stamford, CT explosion event with Nitro? You would think in a SANE universe, the general public would realize that Nitro... a VILLAIN... was the one at fault. But they hair-triggeredly pointed their venom towards the superhero community, even going so far as to spit at Tony Stark during a public event, and assaulting Johnny "Human Torch" Storm at a nightclub. Geez... You build up public heroes just to tear them down, eh? A tilting linchpin of the series comes in the place of Spider-Man. For Peter Parker, while Tony Stark gave him a SPECTACULAR job at Stark Industries, along with the nifty Iron Spider armor, Spidey surely believed in his right to retain anonymity in his heroic activities. So, what's the best way to dissolve the tension... which was being reflected in Tony Stark, all of the sudden, DOGGEDLY chasing after Captain America, and both heroes gathering other heroes to "sides" in their conflicts? Of course! Why didn't I of it? Why not REVEAL YOUR SECRET CIVILIAN IDENTITY IN A PUBLICALLY TELEVISED PRESS CONFERENCE? NOTHING COULD
POSSIBLY GO WRONG WITH THAT!
Have we had enough stupid decisions, yet? Then how about a few more? Such as Reed Richards building a Negative Zone "detainment camp" for heroes resistant to the Registration Act, acting as a cold-hearted scientific ally to the EEEEVIL government forces. (And thereupon FORCING a wedge into the characters of the Fantastic Four.) Or maybe we could create a cyborg clone of Thor as a Registration weapon, POINTLESSLY killing off Black Goliath for a "shock" moment of the "Civil War" event. (But to be fair, Ragnarok DID become an interesting character, later, in the latter run of "Thunderbolts".) Or since Spider-Man decided to show off his secret identity to the world, why don't we have him AGREE to Captain America's stance, and have him hounded by Tony Stark and his S.H.I.E.L.D. forces, which ALSO includes a new team of Thunderbolts agents, headed by LONG-TIME Spidey villain, Norman "Green Goblin" Osborne. (And I will ALSO be fair in saying that this period's run of Thunderbolts stories were some of my FAVORITES since the original Kurt Busiek/Mark Bagley comic run!) Sigh... Are we at the end of the train, yet?
Not quite, since the end of the train involves the Resistance group being betrayed by Tigra, which leads to a MASSIVE hero VS hero battle in New York's TIME SQUARE. Now... I KNOW part of the "Marvel Charm" is that sometimes our heroes can scuffle with each other, but usually it will lead to some sort of understanding at the end, but the tone of this series... again, shoe-horned by an atmosphere of gross negativity by Mark Millar... is one of outright dismal bloodshed, in an effort to give the Marvel Universe a "new season" to run under. So our entire story ends up with Captain America seeing the results of his brawl with Iron Man upon Times Square, weeps, and surrenders to imprisonment. So we walk into a new Marvel Universe where Tony Stark is a complete jerk and villain figure, Captain America is in prison... and in a few short publication months, MURDERED, Spider-Man is a hunted man, nearly gets his Aunt May killed, and has his marriage with Mary Jane Watson absolved via a mystical deal with Mephisto, and the start of a BAJILLION Avengers books to come, with the launch of "Mighty Avengers" and the rebel "New Avengers" rebranding. It's not so much the end result of this core mini-series was the sole factor in my losing interest in a majority of current Marvel events, but the publication tone of this series that REALLY did me in!
Because it WASN'T enough that the core 7-issue series contain the main story beats. No, no... Marvel Publishing execs wanted to tie this event into EVERY BOOK, along with side mini-series. And if you missed ONE CHAPTER, certain events in the main series would make ZILCH sense! It also wasn't enough that for about 2-3 years, our Marvel heroes... who we came to love in their years of developments, had to conform to their outright nasty treatments due to this mini-series. I thought the trend this series established would FINALLY end after a nearly 3-year continuous story arc transition, from "Secret Invasion", to "Dark Reign", and HOPEFULLY to a conclusion with the ending of "Siege", which was supposed to be the beginning of the "Heroic Age", where all wounds would be mended from the events of "Civil War", and HOPEFULLY we could receive an event breather! ... But that's just the foolish thoughts of a man that feels that not EVERY story needs to be written to tie into a bi-monthly EVENT SCHEDULE, and not every story needs to conform to a "Written for the trade" mentality. Yes, I did still dip my toes into the Marvel Universe during the "Civil War" event, and even a little bit afterwards, but it also never felt like it was completely the same place I grew up to love throughout my life. I even start to worry about the outcome of the third "Captain America" movie, which will APPARENTLY serve as a semi-adaptation of this storyline, but I think the cinematic Marvel Universe can hopefully pull us viewers from the potential morass that came in the comics' wake of this misguided attempt to bring current "news" relevancy to a fictional universe, and to grossly mangle characters that may have their disagreements, but in the end, still worked for a cause of justice. Oh... but once my "homework" is done, we'll see ANOTHER similar scenario play out in tomorrow's entry, only in the case of the DC Universe, involving a major figurehead character that usually finds HERSELF in rather difficult relevancy footing, especially when she is being tentatively tied into a lead-in to ANOTHER upcoming event!
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