Civil War (2006) / YMMV

Alternate Aesop Interpretation: Some fans came to believe, running with the intended Both Sides Have a Point message, that the inconsistent treatment of the SHRA creates a deeper message than what was originally intended, interpreting the SHRA being presented as a vague law that manages to create chaos because of its lack of concrete detail or regulation for either side.
Alternate Character Interpretation:
- One humorous one is that Captain America isn't shamed into silence by Sally Floyd's interview but is simply too stunned by how stupid she's sounding to respond.
- Here's one for Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic from before the Civil War even started: Iron Man has stated multiple times that they knew the War would happen before anyone else did. Now, before the war began, they, along with the rest of the Illuminati (minus Namor) also decided to send the Hulk away on another planet because they deemed Hulk to be too dangerous. However, what if Tony and Reed had another reason? What if their real reason for sending Hulk away was because they knew that Hulk would be more likely to side with Captain America than with them and because they knew that whoever had Hulk on their side (again, most likely Steve) would have a huge advantage over the other side?
- Was Sally Floyd literally claiming that MySpace and NASCAR are the new pillars of America, or was she trying to explain to Cap that most people are more concerned with whatever helps them get through the day over abstract ideals (at least in the way that Cap was brought up on them)? Not that this lets her off the hook for her hostile, condescending tone.
  - Another element that most reviewers don't factor in is that up until that point, Sally had been caught in several hostile situations regarding the anti-Registration side and was even arrested on suspicion of withholding Cap's location. Which then followed into her seeing firsthand both sides of the Registration issue battling each other like maniacs in public and almost getting killed in the crossfire. Was she legitimately asking Cap the above questions about MySpace and NASCAR or was she just angry at his recklessness and lashing out by saying he doesn't understand what the lives or normal people are like now?
Anvilicious: All of the messages delivered in the the event are incredibly unsubtle, from the pro-Registration faction being fascist to the anti-Registration faction being anti-accountability, only made worse by the fact that the comic can't even seem to decide what its Aesop even is.
Bizarro Episode: In one of the crossover comic books, Howard the Duck tries to register. Not because he supports the law, but simply because he's too poor and cowardly to be running away from Iron Man and simply wants to avoid trouble. But he got into the wrong waiting line and wound up renewing his driver's license instead. When he found the actual place for registering, he was rejected—S.H.I.E.L.D. is so tired of receiving reports about "the duck man from Cleveland" (the duck man driving a taxi, the duck man insulting hot dog stands, the duck man painting graffiti in bus stops, etc), that they made it an official policy that he does not exist, and all the reports are dismissed. He yelled that they can not turn him into an Un-person just like that. Then the officer tells him they can because he's a duck... Which he instantly takes advantage of when he leaves the registration office because now, as an Un-person, he is no longer legally required to vote or sit on a jury (or pay parking tickets).
Common Knowledge:
- A common misunderstanding of Civil War is that registering may mean revealing the secret identity to all the public and becoming vulnerable to attacks from super villains. In fact, they were only legally required to reveal their identities to the government, not the public. Spider-Man took things a step forward as a gesture of support to Stark. Not helping is the fact that the actual text of the registration act was never shown, and different writers gave contradictory accounts of what it entailed.
- Civil War is often cited in the media, and other Marvel comics, as why Steve died in Captain America #25. However, he was assassinated by the Red Skull's henchmen in a scheme unrelated to the conflict. The only connection was that Cap's arrest at the end of Civil War put him in the location of his death.
Complete Monster: The unnamed warden of the "Cube", appearing in the Young Avengers & Runaways tie-in, is a government-licensed Torture Technician who admits, since a child, he's always had an obsession with playing private, sadistic games. Now able to exert his childhood fantasies over a classified superhuman prison facility, the warden subjects many hundreds of prisoners to paranoia agents and torture for his own glorification. When some of the Young Avengers and the Runaways fall into his hands, the warden is positively gleeful that their unique physiology means he'll be able to effectively torture them for days. The warden's prize accomplishment is what he does to Noh-Varr; after cutting him off from the Kree hivemind, the warden "stomped around in his head" until Noh-Varr becomes a conditioned killer, still somewhat aware of what the warden is forcing him to do.
Critic-Proof: Many fans do not like Civil War, and at the time critics were heavily split on it. On the other hand, the event did sell extremely well, and is one of the highest selling comics of all time.
Designated Hero: Marvel's official stance at the time was that Tony was the good guy. Though, the extent that this applied depended on the writers, who all had their own ideas and evidently no intercommunication. Which character was presented as being "right" is subject to change depending on what particular comic you were reading. Besides, he had supervillains working for them, and captured superheroes were jailed in the Negative Zone.
Designated Villain: Marvel's official stance at the time was that Cap was in the wrong, though the books themselves were constantly implying that Steve was right and Iron Man was acting fascistic. And given that Tony was locking up any captured anti-registration heroes in a concentration camp in the Negative Zone, it's kind of hard to argue against that point of view.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Hercules. The popularity he gained from him beating the clone of Thor with his own hammer got him his own series.
Fan Nickname:
- This is the storyline that led many fans to call Tony Stark 'Der Eisenfuhrer'.
- The Marvel brass really regretted not giving the Thor clone an official name right away, since the fans' decision to label it "Clor" seemed to irk them. Marvel later on named it "Ragnarok". Fans still call it Clor.
Franchise Original Sin: Civil War is usually seen as when Marvel began to go overboard with the Hero Vs Hero events. It was a welcome change at the time, good vs. evil conflicts are somewhat predictable as they always ends with good triumphing over evil in the end. If both sides are the good guys, then you can't be sure in advance who will win. The ending was in fact surprising, as Marvel's stories about a superhuman registration act always ended with either the act being repealed or with it leading to an evil dystopia. The more it was used, however, the more it alienated fans. More often than not, fans like both sides in those conflicts, and hero vs. hero events force them to choose either of them. And properly writing stories where Both Sides Have a Point is hard: plots frequently turn one of both sides into the villain of the story, and their fans will obviously not like that.
Harsher in Hindsight: The opening event of the story is a disaster in suburban Stamford, Connecticut that involves the destruction of, among other things, an elementary school, serving as the tipping point for a national debate over superhero registration. Six years later, an elementary school in another Connecticut town, just one hour away from Stamford, was the site of one of the deadliest killing sprees in history, acting (together with another massacre five months earlier at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado) as the tipping point for a national debate over gun control. Notably, unlike in Marvel where a sweeping superhero registration act is promptly passed, in real life those massacres did not result in any new gun control laws.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- The one big player on the pro-Reg side who turned out to be a Skrull is knocked out and impersonated by the half-Skrull, half-Kree Hulkling during the climax.
- Sally Floyd's Armor-Piercing Question "Do you know what MySpace is?" would be just as baffling to most people in the U.S. today.
Memetic Mutation: During the initial promotion for the crossover, Marvel released a pair of message board signature images reading either "I'm with Captain America" or "I'm with Iron Man". Within days, fans were creating their own versions by the dozens, and similar images are still being created for both Marvel and DC's Crisis Crossovers as well as things that have nothing to do with comics. There was also the Third Option: "You're all fucked when the Hulk gets back."
Misaimed Fandom: Captain America’s famous “No, you move!” speech in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man, taken from a quote by Mark Twain, was originally about having the courage of your convictions and thinking for yourself rather than siding with the crowd against the powerless or going blindly along with preconceived notions. It was immediately adopted as a motto by stubborn and/or toxic people on the Internet, equating outside moderation or attempts to curb their unpopular opinions and desire to harass people based on them with actual persecution and mob rule, as a reason to never rethink or reevaluate their opinions based on anything anyone else ever says, and remains so to this day.
Moral Event Horizon:
- Nitro crosses his at the beginning of the story. After being cornered by the New Warriors and struck down by Namorita, he uses his powers to cause an explosion so he can escape. He did it right next to a park of playing children, killing all of them and a total of 612 people altogehter.
- To Captain America, the Punisher crosses it when he just straight up murders Goldbug and Plunderer ^note after their attempted Heel–Face Turn just because they were once criminals.
Narm: Bill Foster having to be buried at giant size in over eighty burial plots because for no apparent reason they can't shrink his corpse. Kinda undermines the drama of his death, especially with them having dialogue discussing it.
Nightmare Fuel: Just think about the fact that Hulkling was vivisected and his organs were rearranging themselves.
Obvious Judas: Did anyone really believe the Punisher would follow Cap's Thou Shalt Not Kill philosophy for long?
- In "What If Civil War 1", Iron Man died during the Extremis arc, and Captain America led all the heroes against the Registration act. The law was enforced by Gyrich, Hill, Jim Rhodes, and their armies of Sentinels and mechanical Thors. Jim Rhodes negotiated an agreement with Captain America, but a traitor standing in the shadows told it to Gyrich, and they were both killed. Who was the traitor? Come on... as if you didn't see it coming.
One-Scene Wonder: The crossover generated a big upswing in interest in Hercules (kicking off what would turn out to be a few very good years for him), in a series of moments that amount to about six pages.
The Scrappy:
- Miriam Sharpe: The mother of one of the Stamford victims who blames heroes for her son's death — despite the fact that most of the people she attacks had nothing whatsoever to do with the disaster. Not helping matters was her appearance at Goliath's funeral, saying that Goliath's death was his own fault because Tony and the rest of the pro-reg side was just doing their job. Said comment not only comes off as extremely insensitive, but shows that Sharpe has no remorse for all the damage and death caused by the Act which she helped to push for. She remains reviled to this day.
- Sally Floyd: A reporter who accused Captain America of being un-American because he doesn't use a particular social media webpage, enjoy car races, or watch a certain TV series.
Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Like two other crisis crossovers that would later follow, this story focuses on superheroes fighting each other rather than supervillains. It's pointed out inside the story by Doctor Strange that nobody really is right or wrong in this, meaning it can be hard to decide who to root for. And finally, it ends on a rather dark note, with Captain America being arrested and assassinated while anti-registration superheroes still are operating against the law, giving you the impression nothing really was accomplished. You could be excused to stop caring in these conditions.
Trapped by Mountain Lions:
- Y'know what was going on at the same time as this event? Annihilation, aka the event where Annihilus killed Quasar and the entire Nova Corps (except Nova himself), stole the Quantum Bands thus making himself invincible, and then led a Negative Zone army on a warpath, trying to slaughter all life in the universe. This was a threat so big that almost every space superhero, villain, and alien race up to and including Galactus teamed up to stop it. Compared to that, the events here seem incredibly pointless. Not to mention the Hulk was on his way back to rain holy hell on the superheroes. Lampshaded by a What If? Issue where Nova calls out Iron Man and Cap on wasting everyone's time like this when a galaxy destroying army of bugs is on the way. Hell, it's lampshaded in Annihilation itself by Star-Lord and Nova, who argue whether the heroes would even be able to stop fighting one another long enough to not die if the Wave reaches their back door. Side note, Annhilus was waging this intergalactic war which killed trillions, out of rage that the universe was encroaching on his territory, the Negative Zone. Guess where Iron Man built his concentration camp without any permission from Annihilus.
- The event also went on during the same time as X-Men: Decimation, in which most of the world's mutants have been depowered and they're being hunted to extinction. New X-Men even has Emma give a five-page "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Ms. Marvel, telling her about all the students she lost while the Avengers were busy doing their own thing instead of helping them.
Unintentional Period Piece:
- The story was written in the aftermath of 9/11, the reaction of the Bush administration, and The War on Terror. At least a chunk of why it proved so notoriously controversial is that it came out in 2006, at right about the time that Bush burned through the last of his post-9/11 goodwill.
- Sally Floyd's infamous "Do you know what MySpace is?" rant convinced few readers even in its time, but it has only grown more laughable now that MySpace, Nascar, and American Idol would very quickly fall off in popularity and cultural relevance after 2006.
- The politics dealt with in the event have also not aged well. The frequent allusions to the Pro-Reg side operating more like police officers is especially cringe-inducing, since later controversies in the mid-2010's have led to the US police being heavily scrutinized and painted in a negative light by various sectors of the public.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The pro-reg side decide to back the government because "the law is the law"... which, natter-inducing argument aside, would hold slightly more weight if this A: Wasn't the government of the Marvel Universe, but more importantly B: Wasn't a government which a few weeks prior to the event beginning had tried to nuke the Avengers to get rid of one supervillain. And these are the people Tony Stark thinks are worth trusting?
- It also doesn't help that Tony Stark formed a group of supervillains to aid him in fighting the anti-reg side. For someone who's supposed to be in the right, his willingness to ally with villains who could have easily gone rogue makes his judgement all the more questionable.
- Cap himself refuses to hear Tony out when he offers to make peace and beats Punisher senseless for murdering criminals. While Punisher might not be the greatest person, the fact he refuses to fight back really makes Cap come off as the bigger jackass. It also doesn't help that the writer Mark Millar (who wrote The Ultimates) bled a good deal of Jerkass Ultimate Cap into 616 Cap.
Values Dissonance: Many readers from countries with conscription display more negative opinion on its conflict, especially the Anti-Registration's views on Superhero Registration Act as slavery.
What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: Didn't help that writers of the tie-ins directly brought politics into their writings.
The Woobie: Speedball survives the horrific incident that kick-starts the entire mess, is made the scapegoat for all of it, and while completely powerless is sent to a maximum security prison, where he is, naturally, attacked repeatedly with no way to defend himself until his powers kick back in, and even then it's in a horrific new way that requires him to feel pain in order to do it. Not surprising then he goes mad.

YMMV / Civil War (2006)

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