Whose Side Are You On?

Marvel's Civil War has begun. The first issue has come out and at the posting of this blog it is another twenty days before issue number two.

Some information on Civil War...

It's being written by Mark Millar who just might be my favorite comic book writer at the moment (sorry Peter David, but I haven't been able to really get into X-Factor). The first comic book that I read by Mark Millar was The Authority. They were a Justice League/Avengers style superhero team who did not affiliate themselves with any government, especially not the United States. They hovered over the planet in their giant space ship and did good where they saw it needed to be done, regardless of anyone else's agenda. Millar's run on The Authory had the team battle other superpeople who suspiciously resembled a lot of Marvel's characters, which caused some controversy between Wildstorm/DC and Marvel Comics (he had an evil Captain American rape an elderly nurse!!!). Another controversial moment that Millar wrote into the title was a kiss between gay characters Midnighter and Apollo, which DC censored. More recently Millar has been writing for Marvel, he wrote the first two volumes of The Ultimates and did an excellent run on Wolverine.

The plot of Civil War involves a crisis caused by superheroes that results in the deaths of around eight hundred civilians. As a result the US government wants superheroes regulated and employed as civil servants. The hero community divides and turns on each other. Captain America leads one side that believes superheroes should remain above politics and not be made into agents that do the government's bidding. Iron Man leads the other side, because he believes that heroes are too powerful to be allowed to deliver wild west-style justice and by regulating them superheroes can be trained and held accountable for their actions. Marvel claims that there is no right or wrong side to the story and has also said that the story is an allegory for the events of 9/11 and the Patriot Act.

The first issue of the series did not reveal anything that was not already known by comic book fans that have been following Marvel's press on the comic. The plot jumped through the New Warriors blowing up part of Stamford Connecticut, to the government proposing registration, public opinion turning against heroes, Captain America refusing to lead a force to bring in "rogue heroes" and then escaping SHIELD by surfing a jet, and concluding with Iron Man assuring the president that Cap will be taken care of.

This series shows more promise than many of Marvel's past big summer events. At a Q&A at the Pittsburgh Comicon, Brian Michael Bendis (New Avengers and Ultimate Spider-man) claimed that readers would only need to read the core Civil War series and be able to enjoy the story. Typically, large scale summer event series come with a lot of cross-overs that meander through many titles. It seems that with Civil War, Marvel has learned that fans don't want to buy thirty different titles to have to be able to follow a plot.

Check this site out...
http://www.needcoffee.com/updates/civil-war-whose-side-are-you-on-ours/