Yes, you can interpret him as being significantly more sinister.

Out of curiosity, since I didn't read any of the series and I understand it ended yesterday, I went to wikipedia to check up on it. Their synopsis didn't make any sense at all; I have no clear idea of what really happened or how things ended. I planned on getting FF again now that McDuffie's taking it over, but I feel like I'll be totally confused for the first umpteen issues.

So, I ask, could anybody explain what happened in Civil War and how it ended? I understand the set-up, but...what actually happened? (No need for immense detail, just broad strokes is fine.) Thanks...

For sufficiently snarky values of 'broad strokes', I understand that Chris Sims' 30-second version at http://the-isb.blogspot.com/2007/02/civil-war-in-30-seconds.html
is pretty much accurate...

A) Dwayne McDuffie is taking over FF? Sweet!

B) I flipped through the last few Civil War issues in the shop, Jonathan, and I couldn't make much sense of it either. As near as I can tell, after much stupid fighting the heroes collectively realize what a horrible, stupid thing the whole affair was, the resisting heroes are all granted amnesty, and then at the end it seems that Tony Stark is set up to be an ongoing villain (hey, that's how it reads to me, but I can't pretend to relate to Millar's writing).

I didn't read the series either, but from what I understand, the basic outline of the series is as follows:

* A bunch of super-villains, including Nitro, are robbing a bank or somesuch, when the New Warrriors deicde to stop them.
* Nitro blows himself up, along with a busload of schoolkids and various other bystanders. The New Warriors are blamed -- it's argued that if they were properly trained, that never could have happened.
* The public demands that superheroes register, reveal their IDs to the public, and be trained. Iron Man thinks this is a great idea. Captain America thinks it's terrible. Battle lines are drawn.
* The pro-registration people, led by Iron Man, track down a bunch of people who resist registration and stick them in a prison in the Negative Zone. This is done without regard to whether someone is a hero or a villain, so we get Daredevil (for example) being thrown in jail, while guys like Venom or the Green Goblin get to be on the Thunderblots, since they've registered.
* The pro-registration people, led by Cap, break into the Negative Zone prison to free everyone.
* Captain America has Cloak teleport eveyrone from the Negative Zone to Manhattan.
* Everyone fights.
* Captain America's forces win, but Captain America looks around, sees the collateral damage that occurred as a result of having a huge superhero melee in one of the most densely populated cities on Earth, and realizes that Iron Man was right all along.

The end!

If the synopsis I posted is accurate (and to be fair, as I noted, I haven't read the actual comics), it is the classic Idiot Plot, and the resolution depends on Captain America not realizing that -- if your goal is to avoid collateral damage -- having a brawl in midtown Manhattan may not be the best idea. It's also full of plot holes. Exactly what sort of training were the New Warriors supposed to receive that would have enabled them to stop the guy whose power is blowing himself up from blowing himself up? And if Iron Man et al. had the ability to throw villains into the Negative Zone all along, why don't they just keep Magento and the Red Skull in there instead of Riker's Island? And doesn't Cap's epiphany have absolutely nothing to do with the Superhero Registration Act and everything to do with the Superhero "Don't Settle Your Disagreements with a Big Fight in the Middle of the City" Act? I mean, really -- exactly who is supposed to provide Captain America with the oversight and training that he was apparently lacking as an unregistered hero?

Jeff and Jonathan: Chris's summary and Wikipedia are, in fact, what I'm drawing my conclusions from.

Jason, I'm with you: Exactly how are the New Warriors at fault for Nitro, whose power is blowing himself up, blowing himself up?

This kind of "response not rationally related to stimulus" is what bugs me about pretty much the whole Bush administration.

Clearly, Evil Tony from The Crossing is part of the Stark matrix.

Also, rule one of fighting Nitro is that if you have a fast brick (like Namorita), get Nitro far enough away fast enough that he won't take out innocents...don't just punch him really hard and hope he lands somewhere safe (or that you manage to one-punch hime). Okay, that's rule two. Rule one is to deploy snipers to put a bullet in his brain before he knows you're coming. You can't trust a tranq to do the job.

"And if Iron Man et al. had the ability to throw villains into the Negative Zone all along, why don't they just keep Magento and the Red Skull in there instead of Riker's Island?"

This is covered in a caption (what it amounts to; technically it's a huge freakin' lump of exposition disguised as a letter written by Reed to Sue) where it's stated that the Negative Zone prison will be used henceforth for villains to replace those prisons with the revolving doors they used to be held in.

And, in fairness, if the New Warriors were more professional, there's reason to think they could've taken out Nitro without casualties. Nitro and 3 other villains were going about their daily business in a suburban house when the Warriors attacked. There was no imminent threat from the villains, so the professional approach, particularly with Nitro, would've involved either waiting for the bad guys to go to sleep or attacking Nitro first from cover with a long range attack (I'm thinking call in a sniper with a tranq dart if nothing else, as if I'm recalling correctly no one on that team of Warriors had much of a range attack; it was heavy on the up close and hitting types).

Boy, that was truly awful. All that Sturm und Drang, all those delayed issues, all that long-time friends at odds just fades away when Cap has an Emily Litella moment? What was the point of "whose side are you on" when ultimately Cap wasn't even on his own side?

My personal theory is that this wasn't the original plan. Mark Millar was late on the script, and Marvel couldn't abide any more delays. Based on any number of examples, but particularly on the set piece built around the Lloyd Bentsen paraphrase, I think Marvel published the Christopher Bird version.

Greg: And then there's the Wolverine tie-in arc, where it's revealed that Nitro was given MGH by Damage Control's CEO, who's been purposely creating disasters to maximize profits. Wolverine executes the CEO publicly in midtown manhattan, and explains everything to Miriam Sharpe. Yet Sharpe, knowing full well the real circumstances of her son's death, continues to goad Stark on.

Actually, I think we are supposed to interpret Tony as Hillary Clinton (before Bush lost Congress for his party). He knows which way the wind is blowing, and he will do whatever it takes to hold onto his power. Whether this is for personal gain or to be in a position to use it when things really go down depends on what you thought of Meryl Streep in the "Manchurian Candidate" remake.

And Cap is John McCain. Take a moral stand, but when the going gets tough, pack it in and vote the Party Line.

(Do I think Millar *wanted* Tony to be an indictment of Bush? Yes, I do. But the real failure of CW is that it couldn't even get broad parody right. "The Boys" has a more cognizant political position...)

As I understand it, the part that really got a feather up Cap's butt was the part of the Superhero Registration Act that said "If you have powers, you *must* work for the government as a super-soldier. No choice allowed."

I'm still trying to figure out how he decided he was wrong in objecting to that.

Dan: I wasn't aware of the Wolverine story, so thanks for sharing. Do these guys have no sense of shame whatsoever?

Tipop: While I acknowledge your confusion, I think you're looking for too much logic. I didn't shell out any actual money for this issue, I just browsed it in the store, so it's possible that I missed some details or my memory's faulty. But it seems to me that Cap's mind was swayed when a group of cops and firefighters swarmed him. Civil servants who specifically represent the enforcement of the state tried to enforce state edicts, and that was enough for him. I'll stipulate that a regular guy taking on Captain America does require a certain amount of courage, but they did swarm him, after all. This made him realize that the mob--I mean people--supported registration, and that was enough for him. I'm not sure why he didn't get the message when the mob--I mean people--attacked Johnny Storm and put him in the hospital, but maybe Cap's the kind of guy who needs to see it firsthand. But once he realized what the mob--I mean people--wanted, his inherent sense of democracy won out. Majority rules, after all.

Thank God he was still on ice during the McCarthy era.

Another observation:

Suppose Captain America's team had won. Instead of having the climactic fight in the middle of the city, suppose they teleport everyone to the Mojave, beat up Iron Man's forces, and are victorious. What then? There's still a Superhero Registration Act on the books, and I doubt that the American public, seeing their registered superheroes get beaten up by a bunch of unregistered guys and gals, suddenly feel OK with the idea of unregistered superheroes. So do Captain America and his crew all teleport to Washington and beat up Congress until they repeal the Act? What's the next step?

The funniest thing to me is that I've always thought the hallmark of bad literary fiction was a climax that involves a character coming to a shocking realization. I honestly never would've thought that a major superhero action crossover would commit the same sin, having everything building up to a guy changing his mind. Maybe Millar secretly wishes he'd gotten an MFA.

Jason: I don't think your scenario poses much of a problem. Had the story gone that way, with Cap and his allies beating up Iron Man the others in the Mojave desert, Tony Stark would've come to his own realization. In taking the beating, he'd understand that no one, and particularly not Cap, brave and pure of heart, would fight with such passion and determination for a concept unless that concept was Just and True. Iron Man may or may not have given a little speech to that effect, but it would be no time until the rest of the country recognized it, as well, and Arlen Specter or Joe Lieberman or whoever could tell which way the wind was blowing would run to Congress with legislation to rescind the Registration Act. In fact, Congress might not even bother to vote but would overrule the Act by acclimation.

So essentially, the flip side of the same ending we already got.

Apparently, according to Newsarama, a) it was Joss Whedon who came up with the ending, and b) it was supposed to be that people were /afraid/ of Cap, and therefore, Cap realized they Wanted Registration and he should Let Them Have It.

Which, while a bad ending, wouldn't be a /horrible/ one if they had actually managed to transmit that in the story and not via /interview/.

I honestly wouldn't mind this kind of a status quo change, and this kind of playing with thinly veiled politcal allegory, IF I thought they actually had a clue what they were doing. But in interviews, Millar and Brevoort keep saying that a) Iron Man is Correct and The Hero, and b) that we have all we need in the story to prove this.

We really, really don't. Sorry.

(And the fact that they think that Tony is Correct kind of worries me.)

it was supposed to be that people were /afraid/ of Cap, and therefore, Cap realized they Wanted Registration and he should Let Them Have It.

Because, of course, the best way to address fear is to give in to it.

Well, seriously, isn't Tony actually right on the broad point? I mean, not the cloning Thor or the deputizing Venom parts, but y'all aren't seriously claiming that there ought to be a right to anonymous violence and legalized vigilantism without any accountability or recourse for those whose civil rights might be violated by any of these vigilantes?

I mean, it's one of those questions that a responsible writer in the genre should studiously avoid asking. (right up there along with 'How come every type of criminal out there has a representatives in the supervillian community other than rapists?') But once you've asked it, the pro-vigilantism side is pretty well indefensible.

Exactly. And the next real-world topic that needs to be addressed in our wish-fulfillment medium is... Global Warming!

Really, what kind of carbon footprint does the Avenger's quinjet have? How much energy does it take to run that Negative Zone prison (or rather... how many barrels of oil a day?) It's those types of hard-hitting questions that need to be answered.

Jeff R: It seems like there's room to say "both sides are wrong on this one", setting aside the genre concern that the question is irrelevant to superheroics. Unrestricted vigilantism is bad; so is unrestricted tyranny and mayhem in the name of order. An actually mature story about it might include people who take both order and freedom seriously, or at least be more explicitly tragic with their absence.

But as it is...geez, this is so much like thinking Miss Marple stories would be improved with car chases and fistfights, or wondering about who builds and maintains all those homes in the storybook woods. Dear Marvel and DC: If you were to publish more stories about superheroes, I would buy more of them. I like to read about people with great powers who do good things with them, and with the rest of their lives.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The concept of the SHRA as sold to us by Breevort was something that rational minds could get behind. It boiled down to "if you want to fight crime in longjohns, you have to get a license and take a class." Nothing about making evil Thor clones, drafting people in the middle of the night via SHIELD goon squad, hiring Venom and Bullseye to hunt down folks who've saved the world, or throwing super-heroes into the Negative Zone without trial.

Mark Millar cannot create a work that does not glamorize evil often by revealing that "heroes" are either 1) incompetent naive dunces or 2) secret fascists. Civil War, given the description here, sounds like more of the same.

He has real talent, but I've given up reading anything he writes long ago.

About the issue of what Cap would've done if his group had beaten the pro-Reg group - he would run away, taking with him all the heroes who had been rescued from Reed's NegZone prison. So it's not like they weren't fighting for anything; they had broken a lot of good people out of prison, and winning would have allowed all those people to STAY free.

On another thought, Namor must be VERY pleased with Cap's surrender, considering that he even brought the Atlantean armies to support his old ally, based on the mistaken belief that Cap actually knew what he was doing. I hope that's the last time Subby makes that mistake...

And how can Thor's friends NOT be outraged at Reed and Tony for cloning their departed friend to build their own blonde-haired WMD? How can Susan return to Reed, if not ONE of the problems that drove her away have changed?!? If she returns, she deserves Reed.