Frontline was another Marvel event that was part of Civil War. It covered the same central issue, but the main characters were Ben Urich, a reporter for the Daily Bugle, and Sally Floyd, a reporter for the Alternative.
Frontline #1 opens at a funeral. It's raining. Everyone is carrying black umbrellas. I very much want to compare this to Watchmen. I know it always rains at funerals but for some reason that's just where my mind goes.
Anyway, it turns out the funeral is for the New Warriors' cameraman. The flashback we see shows that he seems to have been pretty close to Nitro when he exploded, and yet... for some reason, his corpse doesn't seem to actually be damaged in any way, nor does his camera. This is despite the fact that the explosion tosses vehicles around and vaporizes buildings. Also, later it instantly skeletonizes Wolverine, though of course that doesn't actually stop him. Oh, and apparently everyone at the funeral was a reporter. I say this because Bugle reporter "Robbie" Robertson is the one speaking at the funeral and his opening words are "John Fernandez was one of us. A newsman."
Cut to a bar where Ben and Sally are talking about the whole scenario. After they exchange a few words about John Fernandez, Ben brings up the SHRA.
This conversation seems to be to establish how the papers are handling the Act. You know, given the whole concept of the Marvel Universe, it would've been nice to see a little more of the media reaction, and I don't mean in the form of the brief snippets of rehashed arguments that we get. There actually are a few Civil War issues that are presented as Daily Bugle papers. That kind of thing, generalized, would have been a great way to present the whole sociopolitical backdrop of this event. Other papers, and...
...Sally is drinking her Coke improperly.
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Look at her bottom lip relative to the rim of the glass. All the liquid in that glass is going to go right down her shirt.
So anyway we establish that J. Jonah Jameson is still an asshole who hates liberals with a passion and you know I'm not sure anyone who's ever written anything in which Jameson is even mentioned knows the difference between conservatives and liberals. 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?
Ben and Sally are both sure that the SHRA is going to pass. Sally narrates about some things that are still uncomfortably heavy-handed, like 9/11 parallels.
I'm... going to halfway accept it this time, actually.
The Stamford disaster was, in fact, a large-scale disaster in the Marvel Universe. It had a large death toll... though only about a fifth of the World Trade Center deaths... and was very emotional for the characters involved, plus the superhuman elements of the universe make the repeatability of such an event all the more terrifying. So, a character making a comparison between the two is not that out of line. The emotional shock factor is very similar. But there are limits. Tony's cold, mechanical discussion of "It" and Sally's comparison of the aftermaths of the two events are out of line. Right now, Sally's statements come off as the writers trying to use controversy over the Patriot Act and the War on Terror to do their writing for them.
So the reporters go home and then it cuts to the next day, a meeting in the Daily Bugle conference room.
This scene... I'm just not sure. I don't know who that woman at the head of the table is, it seems like she's being played up as the kind of coldhearted sensationalist journalist that Jameson usually is. She's telling them to follow up on the story with the Stamford families, but to "Try to skew it away from the funerals, though. We don't want to make our readers miserable over their cornflakes." That seems completely self-contradictory, among other things. If you want to avoid news that makes people sad, why are you interviewing the families of a bunch of dead children? Also, when did reporters start caring about whether or not they make people sad? I thought that was one of the main things to do. Anything that provokes a strong emotional reaction sells papers, unless of course that reaction is "I hate this newspaper".
She's playing a video or something of the New York City Fire Department putting out a fire because... well I don't know. That doesn't seem like it has anything to do with Stamford at all, which wasn't all that much on fire and isn't even in the state of New York. Nevertheless, as she concludes the meeting she turns off the television that it's playing on.
Ben complains to Robby Robertson after the meeting that this assignment is complete bullshit. He says he doesn't want to focus on crazy sensationalism and would rather explore the issues behind the situation. Robby tells him that, no, he really doesn't have a choice, if he wants to still have a job in a few months he needs to help the newspaper not go bankrupt. So, that's a thing.
It then cuts to Sally's home, because... does the Alternative even exist? I've seen the offices of three newspapers in the Marvel Universe so far and the Alternative isn't one of them. There's the Globe, the Bugle, and Front Line.
Sally is playing with an Elmo doll, which... if you know where she got it, is extremely depressing. She's listening to messages on her answering machine, and she looks scared for some reason.
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She turns around and sees Spider-Man, clinging to her wall. Naturally she freaks out and starts screaming. He tries to explain that it's just him, and she yells that she has no way of knowing he's Spider-Man because of the costume. So, wait, a random thug recognizes Spidey in his new costume but a reporter doesn't...?
She throws the doll at him which... hurts him for some reason. I guess he has the proportionate resistance to bludgeoning damage of a spider? They argue for a few seconds about how absolutely idiotic it was for him to sneak into her house, and he's about to give up and leave, but they both decide to apologize. So, he offers her what he came for; an exclusive interview. They go to the kitchen where he reveals that he's not fond of chairs. He deals with it, and Sally asks what he wanted to talk about. Spidey replies that he's never told anyone who he is and now he's got to but he doesn't want to.
Remember this. It is relevant.
Peter talks a bit about how much pressure he's under and how nobody remembers that superheroes have families, and then before he leaves he decides to tell Sally to go to Iron Man's press conference the next day. I have to assume that Peter himself didn't find it very interesting because he doesn't go in person and doesn't watch or read about it.
As he's climbing out the window, Sally tries to hit on him.
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So Sally goes to the press conference. There's some banter with a friend of hers that I don't find interesting enough to talk about. Then Iron Man starts talking.
"Ladies and gentlemen, members of the press... one hour ago I met with the President of the United States." He talks exposition about things we already know, things he's already said. Then he says that his conscience has been bothering him ever since he started being Iron Man. Funny joke. Everybody laugh. As everyone knows, Tony Stark has no conscience. He asks, regarding his mask:
"Who exactly am I hiding from: My enemies, or myself?"
That's actually a very good question. Considering that his enemies are all basically just evil foreign versions of him, I'm not sure hiding from them is really a very big priority.
A reporter asks, "Isn't there hypocrisy in calling for support of the Registration Act, yet continuing to keep your identity a secret?"
Oh, silly little man. Your notions of honesty don't apply to Iron Man.
Case in point:
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That is what he is saying now.
Compare that to what he told Peter in their last conversation.
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Tony Stark is a goddamn liar. |
This is no longer an issue of changing legislation or retcons. It's no longer an issue of writers forgetting what they're writing about; that may or may not have happened, but the effect is that, for the sake of in-universe consistency, Tony Stark must have been lying.
So, after some unnecessary buildup, he finally removes his helmet. Everyone in the crowd looks shocked... sort of. I mean, they seem more or less surprised, all in subtly different ways; shock, awe, I think I even see some dismay in there. Also, since the good folks at Marvel can't seem to get eyes right, people seem to be looking all over the place. One androgynous person near the back is looking off to the right of the panel. Several are looking at wht I estimate to be the lower half of the podium, and based on their expressions I can only presume that there is a hole down there through which they can see that Iron Man's crotchplate is open.
Assuming some of them are, in fact, looking at his face, I'm not sure what's so surprising about it. Basically everyone in the Marvel Universe KNOWS that Tony Stark is Iron Man. It's been said several times since Illuminati.
So the issue ends with Tony announcing, again, that he is... oh, wait. No, the issue isn't over yet.
There's a completely different story after the press conference that has two guys running through the woods. One of them, "Albie", is the typical redneck. In upstate New York. The other appears to be Sherriff Andy Griffith, but Albie calls him "Pete". Albie leads Pete to an impact site of some kind. Anxious to discover aliens, they approach, and it turns out to be... Robbie Baldwin, aka Speedball, who looks kinda dead, which isn't really surprising considering he was last seen at the site of a nuclear blast in Connecticut. Albie looks concerned about Speedball, which officially makes him the nicest person in the Marvel Universe. Pete moves to administer CPR, which is when Albie notices that Speedball doesn't appear to be touching the ground.
Then this happens.
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Just in case you can't tell at this resolution: It looks like Albie and Pete were both just killed by an explosive fart. Following that, Speedball's powers deactivate and he falls to the ground.
Cut to a hospital where apparently someone else has found Robbie and brought him in. The doctors theorize that Speedball's kinetic field absorbed the force of the explosion, so that instead of being hit with flying debris or burned alive, he was just flung 500 miles, not counting vertical distance. They also say that this seems to have burned out his powers. Immediately, the unconscious Robbie starts dreaming about the incident and the hospital's instruments start recording a spike of activity which one of the doctors describes as "off the charts".
Speedball wakes up with a man standing over him who introduces himself as being Eric Marshall from SHIELD's Anti-Registration Terrorist Violation Squad - a SHIELD squad which, presumably, violates terrorists and is anti-registration, effectively making them the Chaos Space Marines of the Marvel Universe - and immediately starts talking about the number four. He proceeds to explain about the explosion and how a lot of people died and Robbie is now powerless. Then he places Robbie under arrest.
The issue ends with something I can't even describe. See for yourself.
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All I can say is... NO, MARVEL. The Superhuman Registration Act is NOT equivalent to the interment of law-abiding citizens who happened to look Japanese during World War II due to the paranoia that some of them might be spies. It is a ridiculously misimplemented and unnecessary piece of legislation, but anyone sent to jail under it would have been breaking the law even BEFORE it was passed. And all Peter is worried about is having to unmask, a fear which is based on a lie in the first place. It's absurd, and I cannot accept it. And the worst part is, they do something like this at the end of every issue of Frontline. Some are more legitimate than others, but generally they follow this trend.
Well, at least this issue is over now...
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