Civil War #4 Kicks Me in the Metaphorical Nads, Film at 11
Until today, I hadn't really read Civil War #4.
Oh, I'd flipped through it on Friday, but I hadn't had the guts to sit down and really get into the thing. I went the spoiler route and what I heard online was that this issue wasn't going to be pretty, so I'll admit to a little fear on my part. But when the guys over at Blog@Newsarama asked for volunteers to write on it to boost some hits, I raised my hand. After all, I had to have something to say on it, right?
Oh dear lord.
I've read it four times in the past 8 hours and each time is just as depressing as the last. Man, I officially have NO IDEA where they are going with this. None. This could all be Skrulls or robots or a dream or another reality or all of the above and it could be true because I still have the same questions I had from issue #1 through #3. Nothing is being answered, nothing is being gained, only more questions and more tragedy. In fact, how in the heck are they going to get 'winners' out of this? How is anything ever going to go back to normal again?
Between this and Astonishing X-Men, I feel wholely unqualified to review either. I just have to put my hands up in the air and wit until the story finishes to understand anything. Marvel's 'Wait and See' policy has finally done me in. Each issue gives you only a random part of a puzzle that I can only guess will turn out to be a picture in the end.
I need to go read Nextwave.
But I have an article to write first.
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September 24th, 2006 - 09:36
I’ve found that Guggenheim/Ramos on Wolverine is by far the best comic to come out of Civil War. It’s pure, funny superheroics without the kind of mean-spirited twang that Nextwave has
I’ve been very unimpressed with the Civil War miniseries, in no small part because Millar kind of sucks at characterization, which is the one thing that put Marvel far ahead of DC back in the day. I can’t think of one Millar character I don’t dislike, and when he’s written everything from Midnighter to Spider-Man, who I love under other authors, that’s saying something.
I also kind of fundamentally disagree with his “old washed-up but still gritty warhorse” version of Captain America. That’s crap, leave that in the Ultimate U. Brubaker’s Cap is confident, kind, caring, and most of all honest and dignified. Frank Miller wrote back in DD: Born Again that Cap had a voice that could command a god. Note that Thor, Hercules, and Sersi have been on the Avengers, so that isn’t just talking hot air
Millar went straight for the opposite. A caricature of a man who is so driven by his cause that he can’t see what’s happening around him.
McNiven is doing some great art work, but I’m so meh on the series it isn’t even funny.
September 25th, 2006 - 07:30
In fact, how in the heck are they going to get ‘winners’ out of this? How is anything ever going to go back to normal again?
Who says it will? Who says this won’t be a “new status quo” for the Marvel Universe – rendering it less and less like the real world with superheroes added and more like what the real world would actually look like with superheroes in it? That seems to be the vibe that they’re going for here.
Of course, if Reed and Tony don’t turn out to be mind controlled/shapeshifting imposters/evil twins/alternate universe doubles/temporarily infected by the stupid virus, then it really changes those characters fundamentally from the types of characters we’re likely to see in movie versions, so that might hurt things overall, but who knows what Marvel’s thinking. My cynical fan voice says everything will return to status quo by maybe a year after the end of this, but I could be wrong.
david -
I can’t think of one Millar character I don’t dislike
I can think of EXACTLY two – Ultimate Thor and Aztek. And Aztek may not count because that was in collaboration with Morrison. Every other Ultimate, everyone of his Authority, every one of his Ultimate X-men, I hate them all. They’re such petty and small people with their psychoses writ large that I just want to smack them and yell “GROW UP” into their faces.