First, let me direct your attention to Ye Olde Comick Booke Blogge, where a post from yesterday (and the comments following it) say pretty much everything I could say about Marvel’s Civil War “event.”
Here’s the thing: This is what you’re going to get from Marvel and DC with their mainstream superhero continuities from now because, financially, it works. You’re going to get events like Infinity Crisis, Avengers Disassembled, 52, and Civil War as frequently as they think they can pull them off, and they’re going to do the same things these manufactured events always do: they’re going to kill off some characters, radically alter/warp some other characters, and they’ll bring back to life or un-alter characters who were killed or changed in a previous event. And they’re going to do it over and over and over again because these are the things that make current readers feel like they can’t miss out on reading these things and keeping current on these new developments – these events also generate hype and usually get some kind of coverage outside of normal comics news channels, which DC and Marvel can rationalize will bring some new readers (how many and for how long is debatable, but that’s a different issue).
I had a conversation with a friend last week in which I mentioned seeing that Blue Devil was now in something called Shadowpact. I haven’t seen Blue Devil since his original series, which I liked well enough for the first year and half or so back in the day, and had no idea what had happened between then and now – but given the Event Era, I bet that Blue Devil had been killed, brought back, radically altered, and un-altered at least a few times. A quick trip to Wikipedia revealed that, indeed, I was right on the money.
See, these events are particularly harsh on second and, especially, third-tier characters – characters who are just big enough names to be recognizable to most current readers so that there’s some interest and shock value when the character gets radically altered or killed, but not such a big character that it’s really that big a deal. Of course, as we’ve seen, even first and second tier characters are ultimately fair game, but it’s the third-tier characters like Blue Devil and Adam Strange who seem to keep getting worked over (and then “fixed”) over and over again.
Clearly, I certainly understand the desire to know what’s going on and see what’s happening, even if it’s a “can’t look away from the traffic accident” kind of thing. I’ve seen people (including some very smart folks who regularly comment here and on other blogs) online saying that they’re picking up 52 or Civil War even though it’s not very good because they want to keep up with developments and feel they need to to stay current with the DC or Marvel Universes, respectively.
And here’s the big secret: You don’t actually have to buy this event crap to keep up with the characters or to know what’s going on – because, as mentioned above, you have Wikipedia.
The only way this endless recycling event nonsense will end is if their sales drop low enough. So don’t buy the damn things. If you want to keep up with what’s going on, hit Wikipedia for the event itself and for any individual characters involved that you’re interested in. Trust me, you’ll know everything you need to know and can stay on top of things without actually having to either financially support this nonsense or subject yourself to its sheer awfulness or mediocrity (depending on how strongly you feel).
Hey, if you actually like Identity Crisis or Civil War or whatever…okay, I can’t really relate to your point of view, but by all means, buy and enjoy. But if you don’t like what you’re reading, don’t buy it! You don’t have to to know what’s going on. Just hit Wikipedia and you’ll know as much as you want to – and you’ll have more money to spend on better books.
Posted by Chris M. at September 21, 2006 2:54 PM
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I haven't read four yet, but I have read the spoilers and it doesn't sound good. I don't mind the idea of the events, even Civil War can be interesting, but what I am struggling with is the heroes I grew up with acting like the villains I grew up with. Quick quiz, who would you peg to clone a 'dead' superhero so that he can attack other superheros, Doctor Doom or Reed Richards. Launch the Hulk into space? The Leader or Tony Stark? Killing heros and then getting back to work? Red Skull or the Avengers? This just reads off track to me somehow. I will reserve final judgement until I read the issue, but this thing just seems to be slipping away.
You have to give credit to Mark Millar for making the return of Thor as boring as possible. Take out all the mythology that made him interesting and different, get rid of (probably) his alter ego and make the entire Marvel U. more mundane now that Tony Stark (my guess is he turns into a fulltime villain by the end of the series, with everyone else turning on him) can just create superheroes whenever he wants. This is bigger than just killing off a few b-list characters, if there's nothing unique about being a superhero, the entire Marvel U continuity suffers.
Damn, only took this one issue to do a 360 on my opinion of the series.
Not only is Thor boring, but he is a murderous ass.
Wait...everyone in this comic is a murderous ass.
They lost me at "Hulk rampages have always caused large numbers of civilian deaths; really, they have. Every last supporting Hulk character is deeply delusional and/or a profoundly evil enabler."
Plus, I liked the opening sequence much better the first time I read it, when it was called 'Kingdom Come'. And not all that much better.
Note that I have, from the beginning, been following this event from the Internet, and not by paying for it...
I expected "Civil War" to not be very shades-of-grey. After all, Marvel has had an editorial opinion on the Mutant Registration Act for, what, 30 years now? I knew the instant I heard of the project that the moral would be that the Registration Act is evil.
But from the plot synopses I'm reading...even a lot of readers who agree with this stance (and the implied real-world political stances allegorized) are finding it, shall we say, a bit unsubtle.
If this is what Marvel considers shades-of-grey, not one-sided, and all that--dear lord, what would it have been like if they'd decided to go ahead and make it black-and-white?
I thought Civil War had potential. Really. I read the Illuminati issue and was one of those who thought that it was one of Bendis's better scripts in years (damning with faint praise, on hindsight), and the characterisation of Reed, Tony, et al., although a bit stark (no pun intended), still plausible given the histories of the characters.
But this... now, it's gone way beyond that. Ye Olde Comic Booke Blogge and the responses to it say it just as well as I can and to repeat the same points would be redundant. I can only say that at least the body count isn't on the scale of the necrophiliac circle jerk that was Infinite Crisis.
This is why I've basically stopped buying comics, and hanging on to reprints of old stuff. Exceptions would be the occasional Dan Slott-penned piece, or books I can enjoy without damaging my brain over continuity or character consistency like Seven Soldiers of Victory or the Ultimate line.
Isaac wrote:
Damn, only took this one issue to do a 360 on my opinion of the series.
Doesn't this mean your opinion hasn't changed? :)
I've been browsing Civil War in the store for many of the reasons Chris suggests above: to see what all the fuss is about, to know what people are buzzing about, and to keep abreast of the changes to the Marvel Universe. I don't know if the books are getting busier or if I'm losing interest, but I'm not sure I bothered to pick up #3 at all, and if I did, I didn't spend very much time with it. But this time around, Rich Johnston promised something important, something that would be all over the news, so I picked it up again. (Here's just a mild spoiler, but if you don't want even that much, cast your eyes away.) It was mostly a big fight scene, so it didn't really demand much attention. But I want to know what was so gol-darned newsworthy! A couple of big deal things happened, but surely nothing of more than passing interest to anyone who's not already reading. What was the bombshell?
(Truth be told, I just did a Google News search, and The New York Times had a blurb in a pop culture column on Wednesday, but I'm not certain that's not an online-only column.)
OK, I just read that review of Civil War #4.
It is worse than I could possibly have imagined. As the headline reads, "Has Mark Millar ever even read a Marvel comic?"
I find Wikipedia causes me to read more superhero comics. Being able to quickly come up to speed on continuity makes the continuity less daunting.
Avengers Disassembled proved to me that my continuing hopes that someway, somehow the decline of modern superhero (specifically Marvel) comics would stop was delusional. I can no longer associate what is being published with the characters I enjoyed. I no longer think of the currently published Iron Man or Spider-Man as actually Iron Man or Spider-Man. I can't or otherwise I would not be able to enjoy the memories I have of these characters. I suppose this is psychosis, but am I the crazy one or the publishers?
Wow, I just checked the link. This is beyond my most paranoid fantasies.
I have not liked Mark Millar's work for a long time. Although I acknowledge he has strengths as a writer, I believe his work glamorizes evil. In Mark Millar's world, no one is ever good or altruistic. Or to be more accurate, the few good people there are weak and naive, and not able to withstand or defeat the forces of evil. Everything is about power and self-gratification. During his work on the Authority, I actually started rooting for the bad guys because the Authority was descending into fascist madness. But I thought maybe this was just his take there, and his other work would be different. Instead, everything I read by him points to the conclusion that Mark Millar honestly and truly believes people are depraved, evil will corrupt everyone, and destroy everything eventually. Worse, he seems to delight in this, or at least delight in shoving our faces in it.
Can anyone truly believe this is really the Marvel Universe? It's not. It's some bizarro world. And I won't have anything to do with it.
My Marvel Universe exists primarily in black & white Essentials volumes, these days.
It actually is rather logical that the "pro-registration" characters would come across as unsavory. Regardless of one's own personal opinion on how/why/if a government should or could register and otherwise have control of superhuman do-gooders, we know that traditionally comic book superheroes, since they were invented, were almost never agents of the government except coincidentally. In most stories where the protagonists manifestly were controlled, supervised or worked for the government, they were talented, lucky, adventureous folks who didn't actually have superpowers (E.g. Blackhawks, Nick Fury).
Personally, I'd hazard the guess that if a person with superpowers, came to exist for real that the pertinent government(s) would co-opt them at all costs (if the person(s) was at such a cosmic-power-level they were immune to all coercion the world would then be a very different place). But in most comic book universes that wasn't the case, and the do-gooders were/are revered as heroes and beloved of the people and more-or-less tolerated by the governments (E.g. Central City erects a museum to The Flash, and the cops call on him when needed, and what-the-heck they can't catch him anyway), and the do-gooders were/are masked vigilantes who don't exactly follow police procedure. In those universes, that was the expectation of the characters (E.g. up to now, Peter Parker believed, with good reason, that it might be injurious to his health, his family, and the success of his quest to protect innocent folks, if everyone else knew he was Spiderman), and likely that's the automatic expectation of the writers, artists and editors who have given us comic books for the last 60+ years. So, yes, the "pro-registration" characters are looked upon as "the bad guys": they're putting their friends in jeopardy, they're allowing the government to suddenly begin exercising power over acknowledged self-sacrificing heroes, and they are the ones willing to kill and imprison those self-sacrificing heroes, whereas those that have reason not to become government cat's paws don't want to kill or imprison anybody.
For me, things like Infinite Crisis and Civil War just reinforce the wisdom of an observation William Stoddard made years back: if you remove the foundations of four-color morality, supers stories collapse into either science fiction or horror, depending on what else is in their universe. Done well, this gets you Watchmen (sf) or Elementals (horror). With this kind of story, we lose the reliable entertainment and simple but worthwhile reminder that good gets to triumph over evil, without picking up anything compensatory in deeper characterization, narrative complexity or structure, or anything else. Moving from Stan Lee to the bargain basement of Baen Books is not a net gain.
To be honest, Infinite Crisis was better than Civil War. It could have been even better if it was a standard "evil villain causing chaos then gets beaten by superheroes" story, but it tried to be too metatextual. Civil War is just rampantly out-of character.
Of course, you realize we will be the ones to fix this.
For all people who have given up on superhero comics, a have a few words for you: Buy Manhunter. You will not regret it.
Huh. That's what I get for not really paying attention.
There are some decent spin-offs of Civil War. Jenkins's "Front Lines" is very good, low-key and with the actual moral ambiguity and thought that should be in the main series.
Hine's X-Men continues his story from District X/Mutopia X/The 198 decently and shows good people in a bad situation all trying to act well.
But while I knew it wasn't good, I somehow failed to notice exactly how bad Civil War #4 was. I noticed each individual little bit of suck, but didn't really see how they connected into a big ball of awfulness. Time to drop it.
Oh, and Matthew--I read the first three issues of Manhunter. Didn't make an impression on me at all. Now, if you'd said Nextwave, I'd have been with you all the way.
Continuing, I think that one of the reasons that I didn't notice the sum total of badness of Civil War #4 was that I have trained myself not to notice things that comics writers do just to shock the readers. Most of the Thor plot from #4 is by-the-book reader-shock, as pioneered by Marv Wolfman in Crisis. ("Look! We're serious! We're killing characters who we otherwise would have cancelled or who haven't appeared in years!") As Maka said, this is event comics all over--the type of padding which holds the covers apart and keeps you from getting to the interesting things.
The parts that weren't standard even padding--i.e., the reintroduction of Thor--is standard post-Bendis piss-off-the-old-guard swagger. I also filter that out.
Take those out and . . . well, there's really nothing left. So the entire issue left no impression on me. I read it, put it in the "read comics" pile, and forgot about it entirely.
Dangerous things, habits.
The problem is not the idea of Civil War - superhero registration - it's the concurrent destruction of reputation of heroes, some headliners, that fans have enjoyed for decades. Given that superhero comics are now extremely dependent on retaining the allegiance of long term readers instead of recruiting new ones, this is a bizarre strategy.
Marvel has a deep bench of government stooges and second tier characters who could be the face of registration. If their actions ended up compromising the characters, it would not hurt their reputations. Some second tier characters might even receive personalities because of it. Granted it would be obvious that one side was right, but that was fairly obvious anyway.
How likely do you think it will be that the grumbling and ranting about this comic across the blogoshpere translates into really poor sales?
There likely won't be a sharp decrease in sales, Patrick, more like the slow decline over years we've been seeing. Note that Teen Tony and Spider-Clone didn't have enough impact soon enough to teach a lesson.
I do not bother with wiki. This blog is an even better source :)
Oh, and now I am morbidly curious to read Civil War 4.