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Zeke, Marvel Civil War Veteran
I have that Illuminati issue someplace, and both the Namor reaction face and the Black Bolt "I'm with.... you" thing crack me up for some reason.

Also, garghble. You know I was just thinking about how much I like Black Goliath the other day? And he's one of the only casualties of Civil War. While that's far from my only problem with the storyline, it's one of my least favorite things about it.

That said, I loved Avengers: The Initiative, so nothing's all bad, right?
EponymousKid

ZeroPotential
I'm working on the next entry, but I thought I'd look back and post a comment on the subject of things that I wanted to talk about or should have but couldn't fit it in or wasn't thinking about it at the time. I've noticed this happening several times and I think the best way to address it is to come back later and post it as a comment. I'll probably have one for each issue. Spoilers ahead.

For this issue, we've got Iron Man's eerily specific predictions. Specifically, he mentions one thing that he should not have mentioned because it is creepy in a lot of ways and just gets worse when he does what he does later. While he's telling everyone exactly how the civil war is going to go down, he says:

"And because of this mini-rebellion, our lawmakers will be forced to make an example of someone. Someone like our friend Spider-Man. Someone they can unmask on TV, destroy his marriage and family and pin a crime or two on! All for the whole world to see."

Ah, Tony? Why are you mentioning Spider-Man? He's not here right now, not everyone's life revolves around him and generally there was just absolutely no need for such a specific example. And it doesn't help that most of this actually happens. Peter becomes a fugitive for aiding and abetting unregistered heroes and his marriage is retconned away in order to save his aunt, who got shot, all because he unmasked himself at... wait... Tony, why are you mentioning Spider-Man?

Tony, why are you mentioning Spider-Man? WHY ARE YOU MENTIONING SPIDER-MAN?!
Ezekiel
You know what's funny? Asgard is (was?) in Oklahoma, and the only major pro sports franchise there is the Oklahoma City Thunder.
EponymousKid
I thought the were just in the base, not all Radios in the city. and I think it's kinda cool that Reed can do the whole Cushion Bubble thing. I should make that a trope.
JusticeMan
Nice entry.
Bocaj
I enjoyed the Spider-Man tie-ins more than the main comic. Although that might have been from only getting hold of them years down the line and not having to work out the plot as I went.

Anyway, I actually found Titanium Man shoving political views in people's faces to be entertaining. And it makes a good starting point for Iron Man stepping onto the slope.
?????
I think the difference between Iron Man and Spidy was that everybody knows Tony is Iron Man, ya know? Like how everyone knew Ricky Martin was Gay.

Anywho, this issue sums up exactly why I'm so Pro-SHRA can you imagine the marvel Universe like Power Rangers SPD time a thosuand!!! It's be f-ing sweet. But the best we got out of this was a really cool Mighty Avengers series and then a few years of playing with Little Green Men before the idiots and marvel capsized to the bitchy fanboy marketbase a undid at least four years of devolpment in a crappy minisieres. Damn.
JusticeMan (edited by: JusticeMan)
I've read summaries of Civil War before but the stupid doesn't stop hurting. I was hoping it was something that a person could build an immunity against.
Bocaj
About halfway through this series, I thought someone should just post a "Hey Galactus! GOOD EATS HERE!" sign on the dark side of the moon and get it over with. Marvel Earth's population are just Too Dumb To Live.
arbane
Ugh... I hope you can get back to the tie-ins soon. The other writers might actually have known what they were doing. Or at least were better at dialogue.
?????
I like this, both it and the MGK version. And your Scale is seriously off. An A-Bomb vaporizing Broxton and killing 900 people? What?! An A-Bomb would do a lot more than just 900 people, and even then Broxton has a high population that that. and wasn't it more like 600? Get your numbers straight dude. And anyway love this review, even though I disagree with you on several points you take time out of your life to make entertainmet for us, so I have an imense repsect for you. keep chugging.!
JusticeMan
  • Starfox got a codename because when he decided to join the Avengers, they pointed out that all of them used codenames.

"I mean, Captain America isn't my real name."

"It's not?"

The Wasp was the one who suggested "Starfox".

  • Knowing the She Hulk title, she probably remembers Iron Man's brainwashing because Marvel's Comics were being ridiculously accurate about what happenned.

Back on topic, you can see what I mean about the tie-ins being better than the main title.
?????
Hmm, I'd like to point out that Hill was pointing guns at Captain America because he was you know activly asserting his denail of the authority of the law having someone under your authority in a military command structure esentially telling you to sod off is grounds for an insubordination at best and a full dishonorble discharge at best, I dont see why so many folks take grevience with that particular scene.
JusticeMan
But Hill didn't have that authority. She was giving him orders under the authority of an act that wasn't law yet, and as such he was under no prerogative to follow the order. Ex post facto - you can't punish someone for breaking a law that isn't a law at the time.
Ezekiel
I think there was a then-recent story starring "the character in shadows" explaining how he and his subjects had to leave their usual place and took refuge in Latveria... but I could be wrong and confusing it with a post-CW story.

I don't mind Humberto Ramos's art that much : it's got lots of energy, and that's what you need in a story that dumb. Because, let's face it, the Wolverine arc is all kinds of stupid ; but at least it's the right sort of stupid, as it makes no bones about featuring colorful characters punching each other.
Jhiday
I think it's stupid because Nitro vaporized everything so there wouldn't be much of a scent. Or that he'd never smelled Nitro before.
Deboss
Neither of those things is actually a problem in this case. I didn't really feel I could fit it into the entry, but Wolverine specifically states he got Nitro's scent from the prison cell he had spent years in, and the way Nitro's power works, his scent could very well be everywhere, since when he explodes he takes on a gaseous form until it's safe to reform, though that does raise another question...

Oh yeah, that's what was so improbable about it. Given the size of that explosion, Nitro's scent should've been overwhelming to even normal senses at any given place in Stamford, so how does Wolverine manage to pick out the point where he boarded the pickup truck? The actual trail would approximate to a needle in an olfactory haystack, and also all the hay is identical to the needle.
Ezekiel
Just a tip gaijin doesn't really mean foreigner, it's more of an all-purpose slur for any non-Japaneese person. probably puncuated moreso here because Wolverine's not human. as always good review, keep 'em coming.
JusticeMan
Most Writers Aren't Lawyers or In Any Kind of Rescue Work, I guess.
Bocaj
On Tony this issue, i think the Spider-Man unmaksing was a PR ploy, he's high-prfile, practckly NYC's mascot, and it would kill alot of the bad publicty he gets. As his provate employer Tony was giving a commnad.

And also I doubt you'd reference how you supported the "not-even written yet law" in your top secret superboy club in a a national press conferecne.

Good LB I'll keep reading.
JusticeMan
Liberals (or people who called themselves liberals on the internet anyhow) tended to be against the SHRA because of the whole "you must work for the government now and kill babies if we tell you to" thing that seemed to be what half the writers were portraying.
SKJAM
I'm not sure why comic book writers have such desires to be journalists. Well, I assume they do considering how often they end up being either Author Avatar or the best people there. Still pricks though.
Deboss
Registration, like so many of the things Jameson espouses and is portrayed as an ass for, strikes me as exactly the kind of legislation liberals would like. Is that just me? Because internally I keep comparing it to gun control?

It's a bit like gun control, but it's also a lot like racial profiling combined with a massively discriminatory draft.

The Stamford disaster was, in fact, a large-scale disaster in the Marvel Universe.

Not even close. in the Marvel Universe, a large-scale disaster is someone vaporizing California (happened at the end of Secret Wars II), a giant monster rampage, or Ultron wiping out an entire Balkan country (happened in the Avengers at LEAST once.)

On the disastermeter, this shouldn't even have rated a blip.
arbane
You know, after the first Iron Man movie, it's hard to take Tony unmasking seriously. I just hear RDJ offhandedly muttering, "I am Iron Man."
ManCalledTrue
Arbane, I want to say you're wrong, that "it could've been worse" doesn't mean "it's not that bad"... but in a more significant way you're very, very right. In a universe where destruction on a much larger scale than a single city seems to happen regularly, the entire nation has nearly been destroyed forty-seven times (admittedly by Stark's count so possibly inaccurate), world eaters roam the universe basically unchecked and there have been at least several threats to existence itself, it does seem completely ridiculous that Stamford was the trigger for a major upheaval.
Ezekiel
It was probbaly the mixture of teh youth of the N Ew Warriors, the public portyal of it, the ludcrt of it, and the factpor of aMilionIsAStatsostc. if you read in teh paers that Balkanisatn got torched or that some planet in sector Q was eaten ou may feel sad, but not that cincred. However if you hear taht asmall town in your own Country got taken out due to superheo incptce all for teh sake of a tv show well you'd be more miffed off. Contraty to poular bef disters arent defined by numbers, Lung cancer kills far more pople that Breast cancer and is pretty mcuh complty prvetble, yet the ;latter gets all the pretty pink ribbons and the pr. Peopel are emtnal beinsg and having 600 little kids get vaporized can be a lot more pignat that a bunch of foregners or aliens.

And also IM was saying that you'd need to unmask to the government or be hunted down, which is what happens. as we see in teh later stories your secret identity is really only know to the SHIEILD director.

And am I the only one who notes that the SHRA is actually making superhumans less illegal. It's basically setting up SHIELD as Heroes R Us PAYING the good guys and giving them free training support and tech goodies. Why would anyone not want to join up?
JusticeMan
It's just one of the many many reasons why comic books should stay away from politics.

Also, are you planning to continue this at all?
Deboss
Good timing on that question. As a matter of fact, I just finished writing the next update yesterday, and spent part of today finding pictures to go with it.

And no, JM, Stark definitely said "I need you as both Peter... and Spider-Man. Openly." Then went on to say that if he didn't unmask he'd be a criminal. He may not have directly said so but he was at least very intentionally implying that Peter needed to publicly unmask or be hunted down. The fact that that's not actually how the law works is exactly my point; he lied to Peter to get him to unmask.

And it was pointed out way earlier that it's entirely possible for the databases to be compromised, and it's possible for the people in charge to misuse the information, and either way the friends and families of anyone with powers are at risk, not to mention those people themselves, since this is the Marvel Universe and everyone without powers has always hated everyone with powers; these are reasons why superhumans should've been allowed to at least opt out somehow. That said... yeah, the mass rebellion was kind of unrealistic. It's not THAT huge an injustice.
Ezekiel
And am I the only one who notes that the SHRA is actually making superhumans less illegal. It's basically setting up SHIELD as Heroes R Us PAYING the good guys and giving them free training support and tech goodies. Why would anyone not want to join up?

To quote myself when I first heard about this, "Because I'd be an idiot to trust Dick Cheney with MY secret identity." And that's just the abuses of power in THIS universe. We're talking about the 616-US Government, which is in the habit of building giant killer robots to hunt down mutants.

I keep thinking that some not-too-bad country (or heck, even Latveria) who dislikes the US missed a great opportunity in offering sanctuary to supers wanting to get out of the US.
arbane
To argue with myself for a moment here, since comments can't be edited: On second thought, the mass rebellion actually was pretty much to be expected. Making registration mandatory practically guaranteed that.

Doubly bad is that it's so broad. It covers, if I'm remembering this correctly, "costumed adventurers", which you may notice includes non-powered non-heroes who happen to like dressing up, as well as all powered individuals, even if they just want to be left alone - and what's wrong with this is going to be illustrated for us soon enough, in the insane heavyhanded way everything else in Civil War is done.

Once again, the actual provisions of the Act are... acceptable. But every facet of its implementation is horribly awful. Accurate view of the problem, really insane view of the solution.
Ezekiel
Wait, wasn't the securirty on the secret identities so good that Norman Osborn taking obver wasn't enough to get them.

This is Iron Man here. He downloaded the data into his BRAIN to the point where he needed an entire story arc to keep it secret; and they still didn't get it.

Frankly it may just be my unabashed Statism talking, but having walking nukes in Spandex running around without Government payroll or oversight seems unseemly, and using any means nessary to stop a band of Superpowered rebels to the US government seems to be true.

And ro push it foward, I'm pretty sure the SHRA isn't what would force them to publically unmask. Afterall, like you said, what they do is inherntly illegal, so I'm not seeing the "Tony-lied" angle. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only comic-fan in the room who actualy LIKED CW and found the current Seige/Heroic Age to be a bigger artistic step-back since One More Day (and that lead to the awesomegasm that was Brand New Day so in anycase I consider it the equivilent of the needle before the heroin dose.
JusticeMan
You're not paying attention here. The lie Tony told in this case was telling PETER that the act required him to publicly unmask, which he here says it doesn't. And that lie led directly to One More Day.

And... Brand New Day sucks just as much ass as One More Day, which is to say, all of the ass. All of it.

I'm getting the impression you just have crappy taste in comics.
Ezekiel
[[blockquote]]Tony, there are so many ways this can blow up in your face you might as well start building a self-destruct function into your helmet.[[/blockquote]]

Heh. I spent a lot of Civil War thinking "If these are the kinds of decisions Stark makes when he's sober, he seriously needs to start drinking again."
arbane
That last picture made me think "gotta catch them all." Better throw out the Beatles though. Bug-types are basically worthless after the first couple gyms.
Bocaj
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