A friend and Curmudgeon-lurker told me about the latest issue of New Avengers (#30), which has a Luke Cage monologue that feels like the writer, Bendis, speaking out to fandom:
We went off to the Savage Land and what did we find? We found out that there was somethin' really rotten in SHIELD. Then we found out there was something rotten in Hydra to...And all of a sudden, Nick Fury went bye-bye. And all of a sudden, the government turns us on each other. And all of a sudden it all went backwards on us real fast.
And I'm not just steamin' because we lost the war and Cap's dead. No, I'm steamin' because I think there's a lot more goin' on here. I feel manipulated. I feel someone pulling my strings.
SHIELD, Hydra, our secret war, the civil war... I think they're connected. Do you? And does that idea scare the holy crap out of you?
Luke, only the fact that Marvel continues to publish junk like Avengers Disassembled, Civil War, and the Initiative scares the crap out of me, but that aside...
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The above-quoted material feels to me like Bendis telling fandom something along the lines of, "Of course the Civil War wouldn't have happened unless someone or something bad was behind it all! Don't worry, our heroes are going to get to the bottom of it and all will be well!" I'll get back to this in a moment.
I have no idea what SHIELD rottenness the New Avs found in the Savage Land, or what rottenness there is in Hydra (although turmoil within criminal organizations like AIM and Hydra is nothing new). But of course, the idea that the Civil War was engineered by sinister forces for sinister reasons is something of a no-brainer -- and several of you have mentioned something about Wolverine and some other character knowing that the Stamford tragedy was somehow engineered or worsened by someone.
Of course in the old days this would have been obvious to all of the superheroes involved, and they would have banded together to get to the bottom of things and win back the public trust while Henry Peter Gyrich sicced Sentinels on them or something else along those lines. Instead we got storytelling that is most reminiscent of sitcom writing in that a great deal of the conflict is carried by characters simply not talking to each other, telling each other the truth, or refusing to back down from ridiculous and immature posturing.
Still, let's say that the above-quoted Luke Cage dialogue is in fact meant to tell us that something fishy was behind everything and the New Avengers are going to get to the bottom of it. And suppose they do get to the bottom of it. Suppose it's something like this: Dr. Doom or someone was behind everything, manipulating events to create a specific set of circumstances that would enable him to unleash his master plan (and the predictable thing at that point would be to have both sides of the Civil War team up to stop the plan in some titanic "final battle").
Suppose all of those things, or something along those lines. Does that make you feel better about Civil War?
Suppose that as part of the Villain Plot Behind it All, Tony Stark was mind controlled or otherwise manipulated by nefarious means (assuming that Tony isn't the villain behind it all -- which I would not be quick to assume), does that make you feel any better about the story, or doesn't that cheapen the whole idea that there were two legit sides of the argument? And doesn't it make those who sided with Tony look foolish?
When all is said and done, is it possible or realistic for the Marvel Universe to return to some kind of positive status quo where all of the classic Marvel superheroes are genuinely heroic and their adventures are more fun than dark and angsty? Is it possible for the MU to not feel tainted without pressing some form of Reset Button, even if there was a Big Bad behind everything as Luke suggests?
Posted by Chris M. at May 14, 2007 11:30 AM
I think Mysterio has escaped the comics into the real world, and this is all his doing..
"Suppose that as part of the Villain Plot Behind it All, Tony Stark was mind controlled or otherwise manipulated by nefarious means (assuming that Tony isn't the villain behind it all -- which I would not be quick to assume), does that make you feel any better about the story, or doesn't that cheapen the whole idea that there were two legit sides of the argument? And doesn't it make those who sided with Tony look foolish?"
One part of me would feel pretty good, insofar as I could resolve what happened with characterizations in Civil War with mind control or some other comic staple.
However, the other half would be rightly pissed off that Quesada, who pretty much sword upside-down and sideways that there WAS no bad guy, would have pretty much laughed all the way to the bank.
I suppose one could make the case that the original statements were MEANT to be true, and the "evil mastermind" idea is a damage-control measure (except that Quesada would be the evil mastermind in question, wouldn't he?), but that's a weak argument at best.
Honestly, the best way to paper over this is for Quesada, Millar and Brevoort to fall on their swords, take the blame for the whole mess, and leave Marvel. I mean, these guys ostensibly love comics, and look what they've done (from a storytelling standpoint, not a "wow, we made lots of $$$ screwing our readerbase" standpoint). Is it at this point physically possible to do a worse job insofar as the characters and intellectual properties go? I suppose they could bring in DiDio for some nice, wholesome gruesome slaughter, but other than that ...
Meh, I'm a bitter old fan, don't listen to me :)
Take it and run.
I agree--Civil War sucked and Tony Stark is the MU's newest and greatest super-villain. (Greatest in the sense of biggest and worst, not in the sense of "Wow, I love this guy as a villain!) But isn't it possible that they're setting up a a bit of old-fashioned tragedy of the kind we learned about in school? Tony, Reed et. al. have somehow developed hubris beyond belief and are being brought down by their own character flaws. The whole idea of mathematically determining the future smacks of extreme character flaw.
I realize that this idea is fraught with irony because it means that the Marvel suits are guilty of their characters' flaws and are writing a self-referential comic.
Of course, I could be wrong and they could merely be incompetent or maybe their waiting for their Bush from Avengers Initiative #2 to tell them that they're doing "a heck've a job, Brownie."
Suppose all of those things, or something along those lines. Does that make you feel better about Civil War?
Only in the sense that "Avengers Forever" made me feel better about "The Crossing" -- so not really. I liked Avengers Forever well enough, and thought Busiek made some fairly tasty lemonade out of the lemons he had to work with. But I will never read the Crossing again, ever, unless that happens to be the punishment in the circle of Hell I'm consigned to when I die.
When all is said and done, is it possible or realistic for the Marvel Universe to return to some kind of positive status quo where all of the classic Marvel superheroes are genuinely heroic and their adventures are more fun than dark and angsty?
Sure that's the easy part. Marvel just needs to start publishing comics along those lines and fans need to start buying them. After a few years folks will look back, shake their heads and click their tongues about how bad things were then, and otherwise it will be ignored.
The tricky part is that the current Marvel status quo seems extraordinarily popular among those who still frequent comic book stores and purchase Marvel comics. Which means that the likelihood of this occurring is slim to none at the moment. And when Marvel's sales DO start slipping, they'll probably take it as an indication that they need to be MORE dark, more controversial and more trashy to get comics buyers to pick up their books.
And from where I'm sitting, I'm sad to say that they seem to be right.
No, it wouldn't make me feel better, on due consideration. I think that the damage Civil War has done to the sense of heroics in the Marvel Universe can be ignored or pasted over but not satisfactorily resolved. They set up a situation in which heroes are lock into un-heroic molds, for simple lack of understanding of genre limits. Any move to restore viable heroics will have to break something, as nearly as I can tell.
Given the circumstances, I really strongly favor "Ignore" as the way out. Just stop talking about a lot of this junk in stories, restore heroid personalities, don't base new stories on these events, slide into something better.
It's a cop-out explanation, but then again, it may very well be acceptable in lieu of anything else - or at least it's the first available straw to grasp - so we can very rapidly forget about the clusterfuck that was Civil War.
It doesn't redeem the suck retroactively by any means, but if it allows the universe/creators to move ahead rapidly while averting their gaze from the disaster area behind them, so nobody has to keep justifying the mess anymore, I'm all in favor, really. It'll happen sooner or later anyway, so the sooner the better.
The thing is, Bendis kicked all this off Three years ago and he's still not progressed to the second act.
The Squadron Supreme miniseries opened with the indication that somebody called the Overmind had taken over the Squadron and the world, and that's why the world was in such awful shape.
Pretty much you'd need something on that scale to overcome the taint of Civil War. Like you say, just mind controlling Tony won't redeem the people who were on his side and participated in his atrocities.
Kal, you are absolutely right. Take away the storytelling and plot and what lead up to what and boil it down to money and timing and the upcoming movie about Iron Man.
There is no way on Kirby's 4-color comic earth that we will have a villian named Iron Man by the time the Iron Man Movie comes out. By then he will be squeaky clean from this mess and back to his boozing ol' self. You can write that on a dollar bill and mail it to me, I am so certain of that.
Sure, they might have to take some wacky left and right turns to get there...but they haven't written themselves in a corner, yet and even if they did they can bamf this mess into non-existence in one comic, if they wanted to do so. And they will. Just like Spidey got his black suit before the new movie, how Bat Villians in the comics seemingly out of no where find themselves fighting the same ones that will be in the upcoming movie. It is an economic law.
So Kal is right...there will be some huge Redemption of Iron Man saga that, if not starting now, will start after Hulk HOPEFULLY beats some sense into him. Or at least just pounds him to dust. Something along those lines.
Just have She-hulk waking up one month saying "oh god what a terrible dream I had again" and let every title is back to where it was before this whole mess started.
And yet, Spider-man has managed three movies without becoming un-married, and Superman one. The Hulk's status quo has managed to sail on blissfully unrelated to his movies, as well...
My guess is that Part 2 of Orson Scott Card's Ultimate Iron Man will be the most Stark-positive story between now and the movie time. And anyone who wants to write that on legal tender and send it to me can feel free to do so, as well.
Superficial stuff like villians and costumes, sure, they'll follow lockstep. But nothing beyond that.
Incidentally, how exactly can the be 'something rotten in Hydra'? Isn't Hydra a supervillainous organization, already rotten to the core from day one? How could you tell?
When continuity becomes a trap that you cannot escape bad stories from, it is no longer useful. Continuity should only be used as a tool to tell better stories.
It just needs to be ignored, and I think Martin has the most economical solution.
If history has told us anything, it's that that solution will not be used under any circumstances.
(Marvel's trade paperback model alone dictates that. They're not going to abandon that revenue stream by declaring that the last three/five years of stories, including the ones they're trying to sell right now, simply don't matter.)
Put better odds on the Ultimate Universe becoming the 'main' one and '616' becoming a private reserve of Bendis or Millar (or even David), like Earth-2 was for Thomas. But not very good odds on that, since the Hulk (and, to a lesser extent, the rest of the Avengers) is irrepairably broken in that universe as well.
More likely, it'll just go on like this indefinately, since we disgruntled few are vastly outnumbered by the folks enthusiastically buying every issue, a condition unlikely to change any time soon.
If things ever do change, it'll be in the Avengers Forever/end of the Clone Saga model: an overly clever, fannish explanation in the midst of a big explosive story that sweeps the most offensive elements off the stage, after which they are never spoken of again...
Jeff R: You're forgetting that "Orson Scott Card" and "Positive" are two mutually exclusive concepts.
Martin's solution is not the most economical. Do not have a character wake up and dream all the bad stories. That's mentioning them at all and that's one more step than is necessary. Just don't mention them ever. Don't explain them away at all. Just ignore, ignore, ignore.
Hey, isn't everyone forgeting about marvel adventures?
Iron man's a hero there at least.
And he's getting his own series.
Ralf: the problem with that is: there is ALWAYS a creator who comes along who let that story burn and shake him to the core, and who will jump through a bazillion hoops and crash and wreck ANYTHING to get things the way it should be.
See: Slott, Dan.