Is CIVIL WAR the death blow for Marvel?

We have had a couple threads lamenting issue four, there are hundreds of fans (and fanboys) carping about the story on line.

I went out and bought 1 through 4 and read them... and I can honestly say this looks like the end.

This story is so big, bigger than the mutant analogy of racism, bigger than the plunge into darkness of half of Marvel's characters, bigger than the endless retrofitting and recons...I cannot imagine anything in the Marvel Universe coming back to "normal" afterward.

Registration is the BIG event. It is where all time lines end and one post reg line begins.

It was the death of my best campaign back in the early 90's, our group had great adventures weekly (sometimes several times a week) until I entered a world where heroes had to sign in... then everything plunged into a paranoid world of running from the government, instead of fighting the villains.

Considering we live in a real life world of the PATRIOT act, presidentially sponsored wiretaps and war without end (which you are free to support or be called un-American), I suppose this was the next important thing... but how in the world can Marvel survive?

Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic have gone beyond redemption in their actions, Spiderman has made his choice and he cannot un-do his unmasking (to me, his character is done, period. You take away his secret identity and double life, you have a super powered adult with a bad haircut).
The resistence just isn't possible, how can you fight crime when the entire weight of a government falls on your neck every time you step out the door?
Seeing Captain America disguised as a mall security guard killed me. He has never fallen lower in the history of comics.

The other side is; who wants to see state sponsored super heroes? Not me and I hope not you. Iron Man in Iraq is just to depressing for words.

When I read the Ultimates, which I like a lot because it is just real enough to show a modern Marvel universe but well written enough to be it's own thing, I always have, in the back of my mind, a feeling like "Haha, in the REAL Marvel Universe, this could never happen"

Civil War has taken that away.
Mark Millar has run rough-shod over Marvel, from the first pages of the series where the New Warriors get snuffed by Nitro on a reality show. Their actions were totally out of character, Night Thrasher was inconsequential, acting like a total noob and who in their right mind would have let Spedball call the shots? I wouldn't have let him go down to the 7-11 for me, let alone lead a team against "real" super villains. Preposterous.

Showing the Thing as a pro-registration thug was insane, what writer would show him fighting against Captain America? I have to call BS on that.

Spiderman talking to a SHIELD helicopter on his com-link? Repellant!

Even the art is questionable, I honestly thought Wiccan was a girl until issue #3, and then I had to look the character up.
(props for Marvel having a gay couple in the Young Avengers, it is about time)

Aside from my personal quibbles (and dozens more from different bloggers) the biggest problem I see is how can the Marvel Universe survive Civil War?

You are shown the government team, they are all white, straight, non-mutant.
They are the fearful Americans who trade personal freedom for a false sense of security, one that is propped up by violence and suppression. Laws bend for them.

You are shown the resistence, they are everyone else and people of conscience... and they can't win.

When you have to look at that, how can anyone who has been paying attention ever look at these "heroes" in the same way? Doesn't this pretty much do in most of the Marvel characters? They are either being run down by their old friends or they have become beings unworthy of the title hero.

How can Marvel survive stepping into the real world?

marvel has alwasy lived on the edge of the real world. Takeing on real world issues and problems. This line is staying true to themselves.

Marvel is making better sales than they have in years thanks to Civil War.

End of Marvel, yeah right.


As far as the characterizations that seem so off, well people change. Comics fans seem to be the most resistant to this sentiment. But I sure as hell know i'm not the same person i was 10 years ago, I don't expect comic heroes or villains to be either.

I really dont like civil war,but they happen in comics and real life complex issues here.And yes I think there is kinda of a loss of Innocent here in Marvel but sometimes things change.

Controversy sells. They are reaching out to a new audience. In the last 5 or 6 years the Marvel machine has cranked out some major movies. Everyone knows Spiderman or Hulk but how many people new what a Magneto was, or about Daredevil and Electra.

They know they have the old die hards already, which they do. We will rant and rave about it on line but who are the first to by the issues and see the movies. I know my hand started to go up. Its not 2 or 3 guys making up a comic universe and telling stories anymore(Stan and Kirby), its corporate america with people coming and going. This is the reality show version of comics were seeing.

And quote me on this, there is mind control or something going on. When its all said and done the evil they did will be by some arch villian. Yes things will be different, tense, maybe some Heroes not talking to each other and the like.But in the end they will carry on like nothing happened.

And personaly, i would love to see Invisible Woman and Capt.America hook up. Reed and Steve are like opposites. Reed is all intelligence, detached,preoccupied by science and a malleable man. Steve is passionate, a charismatic mans man,involved in others problems and puts other before himself. Sue might like to feel some muscles instead of silly putty when she raps her arms aroung him. He seems to embody everthing that Reed isn't.

What do you think? Now that's some payback.LOL.

Steve and Sue would be cool, Sue and the Falcon hooking up would be amazing.

One of the big problems I had was killing Goliath off, he is a minor character and killing a minor character is just kinda lame, like a red shirt on Star Trek or the black guy who isn't Ice Cube in the horror movie, just to up the stakes.

You want to really shake things up? Kill off an A-list character... but you can't, because they have their own comics and you would lose $$$$

I think there has to be a villian in there some place, otherwise the villian is the government and how paranoid can a comic book become???

I'm not familiar with all the writers work but from what others have said he has a lot of political views. Its possible he is trying to have a shadow government involved in everything. But i still think its mind control.

Their was one of the CW related issues that showed the Puppet Master and i think it was Mr.Hyde,Mad Thinker or Controller talking about useing the climate for something big. Thats why im leaning towards a mind control excuse later on.

Then again with all the IronMan virus stuff going on that could be another avenue also, or some combination there of.

As for the stunning Sue Storm, I always believed she should be with Namor. I don't know, I just feel like that guy really loves her.

As for a villainous intent, i guess it's possible. but being a fan of Mark Millar's work, there may have been a villain manipulating things, but he likes to show that heroes themselves are flawed and with given just a little nudge, they can go headlong into a nasty direction all on their own.

His villain in Ultimates 2 is Loki. My bet is he's going for irony and in his mainstream story CW, he might go for Loki again, because people assumed he already used that villain in Ultimates. but honestly, I just think Reed and Tony might have a strong sell out side.

I think it will turn out some villian like the Hate Monger or someone with mind control powers is pulling the strings, and once exposed things will go back to normal

I personally don't think and hope there is no mind controll going on. The would be such a cop out of what they are doing. If you want to maybe mind control Tony Stark so that he is not a complete villian im find with that. But anything more then that it undermines the storyline.

I don't think CW is a death blow to Marvel. For me, it is a spring board back into comic collecting.

I don't find the characterization to be entirely unbelievable. Maybe a bit of a stretch here and there, but that might be understandable given the situation.

I never heard of Wiccan before. I'm glad to see the Marvel got the gender correct, ie. male. I always thought it was rather humerous that the diehard feminist branch of RW Wicca would take the masculine form of the word as their designation. It's an Anglo-Saxon word, and the feminine form is wicce, from whence we get the modern "witch".

As for mind control, that would be a big cop out. Likewise, they could always fall back on M-Day, but that too would suck.

I do like RAGNARoK's idea though, that there is something up with Hill. She more or less *pushed* Cap, gun-in-face, into the Anti-Reg camp afterall, which is just a tad bit peculiar considering the benefit of having Cap Pro-Reg.

I'd much rather see a villian master mind manipulating things behind the scenes by cunning and intelligence then a villian controlling peoples minds. Like a doom, Loki, even Red skull.

junderway Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'd much rather see a villian master mind
> manipulating things behind the scenes by cunning
> and intelligence then a villian controlling
> peoples minds. Like a doom, Loki, even Red skull.


Doom (portrayed correctly) wouldn't care. I can see Loki doing it just for SnG's. As for Red Skull, how would it benefit him specifically? As a major twist, having Magneto doing it to show non-mutants the horror of a registration program would be cool. It's not like he hasn't done something that hypocritical before.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/01/2006 02:22AM by ThatArtGuy.

You must have read image comics. And didn't joe Q come from that group. They raised government interferance to a whole new paranoid level.

People forget that mainstream heroes and villains really shouldn't change that much. The illusion of change should always be taking place, but what Marvel has done is totally destroy the fantasy elements that made the comics so awe-inspiring in the 60's, 70's, and 80's. Super-heroes are only quasi-serious and when you start to loose the camp and fun of it all it's time to walk away. There was always a tongue in cheek aspect to superhero comics that you either got, or you didn't. This Civil War stuff is utter nonsense.

The problem with Marvel is that they have never developed an outlet for telling adult stories using different genres (unlike DC with Vertigo) so they have been forced to gut and transform what are essentially children's characters to fit the ever changing sensibilities of their ever aging 30-something fan-base. Anyone with even a sliver of vision should be able to see that there is no long-term future in this type of storytelling. Get the fun back, get the kids back, or die superhero comics.

I think that one of Marvel's chief virtues is that it has always super-imposed superbeings on a real world backdrop.

The X-Men was, and to the best of my knowledge still is one of the top comicbook titles out there, and it is all superimposed on the backdrop of racism, racial harmony, and the civil rights movement.

About all I can say, in the negative, about the X-titles is that I eventually got sick of common people being portrayed as rabid bigots, with only a few select muties as the only good guys in the world.

Let's be honest...even in the 60's the team bickering, the "real-world" aspects, where all tame compared to the way the world was even then. Fans were excited about a new dynamic added to the traditon of superheroes, but the fans still wanted to read the comics for the same reason they read all those old DC comics: adventure and escapism. When this is lost there simply is no point anymore.

I agree with some of the later comments.

Imagine sticking Spiderman into an episode of Law and Order SVU... It just cannot work.

Super people who put on robot suits, or turn green or fly are larger than life, so their villians are larger than life (aliens, evil gods, mad scientists).

When you get to the point that the government is afraid of Captain America...then the government is wrong and he needs to defeat them. BOOM you have the Revolution of 2006 and in our current political climate, THAT is impossible.


The reason something like the Ultimates works is, on a fundimetal level, it has nothing to do with the Marvel Universe... so the NSA can run a black opp on Hawkeye and it is okey, since you have your own original story line that does not care about fifty years of comic history.

If CW was being run as a Darkhorse or Vertigo or Ultimate book, I would have no problem, and as interesting as the story is (I am really captivated, even though I am dismayed) but how are Iron Man and Spiderman going to go back to normal when this is done?

And yes, mind control would be a cop out, just like "it was a dream".

When government involvement and intervention pretty much ended my continuous gaming storyline, I had to play a cop out scenerio where key national law enforcement positions had been infultrated by shape-shifting aliens, so once they were ferreted out, the legislation became unenforcible and my little world needed superheroes even more than before.

I was trying to challenge and entertain 8 people, not run an international comic franchise.

Would any of you who are MSH Game Judges seriously introduce the Civil Wars scenarios as your base campaign?

I did use a registration act as an important event (one to be avoided, if possible). This was 1990 mind you.

I really do not suggest it it as an element, since once it happens it does take over your game.

Spiderman being chased by the cops or the X-men operating in secret is one thing, government killer unites and super beings hunting your character down is totally different.