Marvel Civil War

By Billy Pasquarello

Marvel: Civil War is a crossover storyline written by Mark Millar and drawn by Steve McNiven.  Most of the characters involved are of Stan Lee’s creation including Iron Man, Spider-Man, and the Fantastic 4. The story revolves around the premise of a Superhuman Registration Act, which basically is a law that requires superheroes to live without secret identities, as agents of the government. The act is proposed after a group of heroes on a reality TV show called the New Warriors, attempt to apprehend a group of villains. Trying to get higher ratings, the New Warriors attack the group of villains even though they know they’re outmatched. In the battle one of the villains (Nitro), explodes killing not only the New Warriors, but destroying a large section of the nearby town including an elementary school.

 After the fall out, the general public begins to despise superheroes, blaming them for the devastation. Some civilians even go as far to assault the Human Torch, calling him a killer, even though he had nothing to do the incident. The notion of a Superhuman Registration Act starts to fill the air leading to the superhero community to be split in two. Both sides have a main figure head to represent them, pro-registration being Iron Man, and anti-registration being Captain America.

When the law is slated to go into effect, Captain America refuses to sign it, becoming a fugitive of the law. Among superheroes who did sign it was Spider-Man, revealing his secret identity on live television. Iron Man wanted people and other heroes to see that a superhero the likes of Spider-Man registered, and that they should feel more comfortable now. 

While underground, Captain America starts to recruit as many heroes as he can to his cause and starts the Secret Avengers, a group of heroes who still protect the innocent, but do so in secret to avoid being arrested.

Captain America leads the Secret Avengers, into an ambush by the pro-registration forces. However Captain America surprises Iron Man with a small device that shuts off Iron Man's armor when shaking his hand in agreement about the situation. This leads to a huge battle between the pro and anti-registration forces. A clone of Thor, was sent to help arrest the Secret Avengers, but instead kills Goliath with lightning. 

 As the pro-registration heroes attempted to control the clone, the Secret Avengers retreated. Reed Richards (Mr Fantastic) starts designing a prison in the Negative Zone (a parallel universe) to hold the anti-registration heroes as well as some villains. Upon hearing that anyone who refuses to register would be imprisoned indefinitely, Spider-Man leaves the pro-registration side to join the Secret Avengers (also he realizes that Iron Man is going too far in his pursuit of the Secret Avengers in what he is willing to do to catch them). Punisher is sent to steal the plans for the Negative zone prison from the Baxter Building which he does so successfully, leading the Secret Avengers to head to the entrance to free their allies.

Once there, they are met by Iron Man and a team of heroes and nanite controlled villains, trying to stop them from freeing their allies. Once freed, there is a battle of epic proportions, pitting friend against friend and in some cases husband against wife. The battle concludes with Captain America about to lay a finishing blow to Iron Man, but stops himself once he realizes that they are no longer helping people and fighting for justice, just fighting against each other. The story ends with Cap surrendering himself over to the authorities and everyone being left to deal with the devastation.

 The story is very picture based. That being said though, you are never lost for dialogue of content because of that. Some of the images are great to tell a story without words, but when the words are incorporated, they are as compelling as the pictures they’re within. As for the content, the story itself is a great read and I never really felt like anything wasn’t working within the story, just sometimes felt like they had some of the characters change from my perception of them. For example, I didn’t find that Mr. Fantastic was very consistent with himself from the other stories I’ve read. He didn’t seem like someone who was a superhero he seemed very cold and uncaring especially towards his wife. The main idea of the story really worked for me because I felt like a story like this was always in the back of everyone who reads comic books minds. Should superheroes be held accountable for their actions like cops or should they be above the law. It raises a lot of interesting questions and lets the reader pick whose side their on and maybe they don’t agree with their favorite hero, that leads to some awesome discussion.

 This comic has an important place in comic book history. It’s the first time anyone looked to make superheroes accountable for their actions and have some superheroes become the villains of the story depending on what side you chose to side with. The fact that the outcome of the story is either a positive or a negative based on the person reading its point of view and that this one story affected the entire marvel universe for years to come is an awesome thing to think about. Definitely one of my favorite crossovers I’ve read and a must read for any comic book fan.