Books: Civil War

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The Road To Civil War
Written by Brian Michael Bendis and J. Michael Straczynski
Art by Alex Maleev, Mike McKone, Ron Garney and Tyler Kirkham
2007




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Civil War
Written by Mark Millar
Art by Steve McNiven
2007




Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/

Superheroes spend their time fighting bad guys. That's how it works. That's what they do. Fighting each other? The only time they tend to do that is when one of them is tricked by something or brainwashed or something: so the only reason Spider-Man is fighting Captain America is because he's been taken over by an evil space hamster or whatever: but in those cases - even tho they both look like good guys - one of them is secretly bad (clue: that's the one being controlled by the evil space hamster). But what if? What if there was something that made all the superheroes turn against each other that didn't mean that one side was in the wrong? That had good guy squaring up against good guy over a cause where the answer wasn't certain and everyone had just as much as a point as everyone else? Civil War was Marvel's 2006-2007 crossover storyline that turned things on their heads and friend against friend in a way that - for once - made things feel weighted because the conflicts all came from stuff that you already knew was imbedded within each character. Iron Man believes in the government. Captain America believes in moral absolutes. Spider-Man believes in his friends and family. And The Punisher believes in punishing (duh). Don't expect anykind of intellectual political intrigue or anything like that - it's still just people in costumes beating each other up: but it's one of those rare times that you might actually find yourself wanting both sides to win/both sides to lose. Which definitely counts as somesort of achievement.

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Links: GraphiContent Review, The M0vie Blog Review, Freedom versus Security: The Basic Human Dilemma from 9/11 to Marvel’s Civil War, Daily Skew Review, Film Fodder Review, NY Times Article.

Further reading: House of M, Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, Seige, The Avengers, Thunderbolts: Faith in Monsters / Caged Monsters, Iron Man: The Invincible Iron Man, Kingdom Come.

Profiles: Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Millar.

All comments welcome.