I am not a huge Marvel guy. Between the movies in the MCU, which I have not honestly been a fan of since Iron Man 1, which I think is the best Superhero movie of the modern era, and the comics of which I read only in passing and only ever the ones that caught my eye on the shelf from where I was passing judgement on Flash or Batman. So my perspective on Marvel is somewhat weaker in an academic sense, I don’t have the background experience or the raw knowledge necessary to carry myself into a deeper level discussion of alot of the characters. That being said, I know what I like and what I don’t like, and I really liked Marvel Civil War.
To me as a DChud, Marvel Civil War smacks of DC Comics Kingdom Come, and that isn’t a bad thing. What I mean when I say that is that the initial passages of the comic are setting the scene with a few distinct things:
First, that new less experienced heroes are using the conventions of the modern world to elevate their status without any real thought for the good or evil that they are doing. Secondarily, that those who have been on the scene for a while have an inkling that they have been on the precipice of some sort of societal change for some time, and Thirdly that there are established thought leaders in the community who will be looked to in times of struggle for the community of “super heroes” as they exist peripherally and externally to normal society.
This makes a lot of sense to me for Marvel, whose “world” is built on the foundation of separate super hero communities sometimes at odds sometimes intertwined by the adventures of their major players. Sometimes Wolverine is an Avenger, but at heart he is an X-Man. But as we see in the first pages of Civil War, when something catastrophic and tragic happens as a result of super happenings, they roll out the giant mutant killing robots, just in case.
We see that the younger generation or median generation of heroes is very corporate minded already, they think of being a hero as having all the attributes of a JOB, and not a calling. The older generation, those who have been doing this a while know better. Arguably, they have been around the block with things like this before and understand that in order to emerge on the other side- they simply must pass through on their own merit and wiles.
Some others still find themselves wedged in the awkward place between “normal life” and the periphery of “the super hero world”.
For these characters, there is more at play than the legal or factual, Captain America and many of his… confederates… so to say… have an understanding of the world which in its essence is driven by the semi-spectacular as viewed from the level of the common man. Our comparison for Captain America here is Batman in Kingdom Come. They understand that the world, as much as it might cry now for certain things, is basically a dog begging for boiling water on the stove it can’t see and doesn’t understand. This is not to say that Iron Man doesn’t see the whole picture, or large parts of it. Iron Man and his allies in the Fed know that the literal place they occupy in society is a delicate one based on the public and administrative trust they engender with their actions, which has now been shattered. To them it is the best thing to repair this trust with an accession to terms. They don’t want to be the bad guys, many of them have BEEN the bad guys in their past, some all too often, Iron Man is one of them. But I argue that in pursuit of dodging the role of dictator to the common man, Iron Man becomes anathema and traitor to his OWN people- Superheroes. We will see Daredevil explain this too him later.
We can see that Iron Man understands the situation in these terms, but we also see that Iron Man doesn’t feel the need to articulate an argument to his own people beyond “trust me bro.” or worse, he can’t articulate that argument.
Here we can see some of the second order effects of Tony Stark’s play: a lack of humanity because of the presentation of facts and a legal order
We see again that Iron Man isn’t dumb, or really that hard headed, he understands fundamentally that the choices he is making have an impact outsized to the effort he actually has to put in because the other half of the argument isn’t putting in their max effort. The federal technologist is not in touch with his feelings beyond guilt or the assumption of guilt. We will see Daredevil play on this later
Here we see more of Iron Man’s ideology, his pragmata. The practical application of his ideology is to entreat the most powerful X-Men while patrolling their compound with a weapon designed singlemindedly to destroy them. Thanks Tony.
Still later, the first real battle in the soft war between sides sees Tony and Reed Richard debut a weapon to surpass metal gear. Perhaps the only character that can match or surpass Captain America in moral virtue is Thor, the God of Thunder. Thor isn’t available, so they make their own. All the power of a God, none of the morals. If this doesn’t paint a clear picture of the progression of Tony’s ideology and impact in the world so far, you need to look closer.
Those around Tony can see, the thing he is doing is now beyond his control. What the man in the suit lacks now is the compassion to control his power for the progression of good- can we call that being a superhero? Or is he now a tyrant to his own people. Spiderman has gone the full yard, done the unthinkable and revealed his identity to the world and is inescapably part of Tony’s regime which is now a regime of fratricide based on imitating the powerful.
And now that Tony has crossed that line into murder, there are no frontiers he will not breach. Enter: The Final Solution to the Super Hero Problem
Tony Stark and SHIELD have perverted the struggle of their people by polluting the internal politics with actors whose goals are never going to align with their own, their POWER is a means to Iron Man’s end. Luckily, even in the ecosystem of super-predators that is Superheroes and Supervillains, there is a force which is cultivated purely for the expression of non-standard violence, which surpasses all others in moral integrity in its service to its own goal.
In the background, events proceed as they must, those that resist the regime are gathered while being spoken to in therapy language about learning a lesson for their provocations.
Daredevil gets all he can out of his time with Iron Man. Leave it to a Catholic to grab victory in the jaws of death.
Iron Man is a Fed, we get it.
We then get the scene of Cap beating Punisher to a pulp over his killing of some minor villains. Cap is never okay with murder, he cannot abide by even the most casual line crossing. In this small way, Punisher is the clone-thor of Captain America’s side. This is an uncomfortable thing for Cap, who disavows him entirely. This is the single weakest point of Civil War for me, why Frank would just gun down 5 people in front of Cap of all possible bystanders I don’t really understand. In my mind he would be on his best behavior, Cap is his role model. But it serves as a needed reminder to Cap that the symbol that he is affects everyone in different ways. He has inspired The Punisher as much as Falcon.
During the prison break we are reminded “the times they are a-changin’”
It warrants some review at the very least that Captain America can get a REAL God on his side.
And if you are going to be back…
… be back in Black.
The final nail for Captain America is being tackled down by first-responders to the scene of a battle where he is about to kill Iron Man. To me, this represents somewhat of a betrayal of Caps philosophy throughout the story honestly, but I dont’ think its out of character. Cap has been operating under the premise that essentially “the man” doesn’t understand how heroes work, what breaks him is thinking that the people of the country think he is the bad guy. I think this is weak honestly, if anyone is conscious of the fact that the people are not always fully in their right mind, its the guy who took Sword Beach and then ran the gauntlet to Berlin. But, I can understand where the writing is. This is Cap falling to the thing that set Iron Man on this path in the first place, and in that way it is complete storytelling. Cap surrenders. The “War” is over.
What have you wrought Tony Stark? By winning the battle in the prison Tony thinks he has won the War. The actual soldiers, beg to differ. A darker world cometh.
This is my reading of this story. The Death of Captain America which follows is interesting, but I cannot help but feel the Marvel world of today has not capitalized on this comic, not really. This is my favorite modern Marvel comic, and my favorite Marvel comic that I own that isn’t written by Frank Miller. I think it is the most “real life” a comic can get, well illustrated and colored and written and has themes I think are real.
In hindsight, perhaps it was the start of much “event slop” but I think no more so than Secret Wars. The movie is awful, it doesn’t bother to communicate any of these higher themes, none of the struggles of the characters are anywhere near as visceral, or as tangibly delicate as in the comic.