peter_crispin (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} peter_crispin) wrote,@ 2007-01-15 18:00:00 |
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In Praise of Marvel Comics’ Civil War
All images in this review are copyrighted material belonging to Marvel Comics, and are reproduced here for strictly non-profit making and critical purposes and can be removed on request. There are also some minor spoilers in this article. Please visit the Marvel website: www.marvel.com
Captain America's been torn apart
Now he's a court jester
With a broken heart
He said turn me around
And take me back to the start
I must be losing my mind
"Are you blind?!"
I've seen it all a million times.Paradise City by Guns N Roses
So sang Axel Rose at the end of the 1980s, and what was once metal’s tortured allegory for the death of the American dream is now the plot of what has to be the most exciting development in mainstream American comic books of the last twenty years.
Marvel Comics is the publisher of titles such as The Amazing Spiderman, The Fantastic Four, Captain America, The Avengers, The X-Men, The Incredible Hulk and The Punisher. Presently, Marvel’s cultural currency has never been so high, with successful Hollywood adaptations of its books (the Spiderman films, the X-Men films, Fantastic Four) breaking box office records and rehabilitating the superhero genre after the dire and frankly embarrassing Batman films of the 1990s. Marvel, as a publisher, has capitalised on this, placing strict editorial controls and standards on its entire stable of titles, attracting renowned writers from other media to write regularly for its books. In recent years, Joss Whedon (the creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer amongst others) has had a run on The Astonishing X-Men, J. Michael Straczynski (the creator of Babylon 5) has tackled The Amazing Spiderman and The Fantastic Four while Kevin Smith (the film director behind Clerks, Mallrats and Dogma) has written for Daredevil. Not only has it brought a new adult audience to these books (much in the same way that the 1980s phenomenon the ‘graphic novel’ did for a while with such fare as The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: The Killing Joke), but it is has noticeably raised the quality of the titles and, in turn, the game of the other writers.
What casual viewers of the movies or the intermittent readers of these titles may not be aware of is that they all inhabit the same fictional universe and stories and characters overlap, sometimes with witty and incisive aplomb or at others for cynical reasons to boost the falling sales of a failing title (a very popular character turns up in the book for no good reason; in Marvel’s case, this is usually the X-Men’s Wolverine). This is a blessing and a curse for the comic fan, as sometimes it’s great to see how the events in another part of the ‘Marvel Universe’ impacts on the narrative of your favourite character while it can also be a forced, illogical intrusion that makes little sense if you don’t follow certain other books, and is to the detriment of the titles that you do read.
Aside from Marvel, there is DC Comics, which is home to the slightly older and more established characters such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Green Lantern, The Flash and The Green Arrow. These DC characters never interact with the Marvel characters apart from the odd (in all senses of the word) publishing gimmick one-offs, which are never artistically satisfying. The DC characters too share their own fictional universe, although this is somewhat more fragmented and bogged down with a highly complex continuity that takes in hundreds of parallel worlds and differing creative intentions, if only due to the fact that DC has been continually publishing since the mid-1930s whereas Marvel has only really been in business since the mid-60s (although it did acquire the rights to one or two character of the 1940s, such as Captain America, who they have since interwoven into the fabric of Marvel continuity).
Every couple of years, both Marvel and DC run a ‘crossover event’ in each of their own respective universes, an over-arching plot that runs throughout all their major titles. These, more often than not, are cynical marketing pushes at times of the year when sales are down (the summer months) and are of a variable quality. Both publishers also use these events as a house-clearing exercise, whether it is tidying up that annoying bit of continuity, killing of an artistically expired character or using it as platform to reintroduce, reinvent or create an old character or brand new hero or villain. Last year, both Marvel and DC ran their own crossover series, DC’s being called Infinite Crisis while Marvel’s was titled Civil War. Both were publishing events within the industry and both were meant to restructure the publishers’ universes to appeal to a new generation of comic books readers as well as attract back those who may have drifted off. Out of the two, only Marvel’s emerged as the unqualified artistic and commercial success (the failures of DC’s Infinite Crisis will be touched upon later), andunderlines all that is good, innovative and engaging at ‘the House of Ideas’ (as Marvel’s affectionately know as by its fans).
Marvel’s Civil War at its heart has a brilliant conceit that allows writers to bring in contemporary social and political concerns into this fantastical universe. A group of inexperienced US superheroes known as the New Warriors disastrously botch a raid on a supervillain hideout, resulting in a huge explosion that takes out a nearby school with hundreds deaths, mainly children. All of this is captured on tape by a reality TV crew, and the nation reacts violently against all costumed vigilantes, forcing the superhero community to examine its own actions and its very existence. A split emerges, with those who now decide that all superhumans must be registered and trained by the US Government, while others see this as an infringement of their freedoms and are suspicious that they will become mere pawns, super-soldiers to be deployed at whim by a bellicose administration. Two factions emerge, relations deteriorate, further deaths ensue, and one group of heroes become sanctioned by the government to forcibly track down, prosecute and (if needs be) imprison the others who resist registration.
The main story is self-contained in a special seven issue limited series actually called Civil War, while the story is expanded upon in all the characters’ regular titles and another series called Front Line, which follows a pair of investigative reporters at The Daily Bugle (the paper for which Peter Parker/ Spiderman works as a photographer) looking at a possible political conspiracy behind the Superhuman Registration Act.
Marvel claim that the actual Civil War title is self-contained, and that the reader will not need to buy all the other spin-offs to follow the main plot, and for the most part this seems to be bourn out. However, there are occasions where ‘off-panel’ events are casually dropped in and jars the casual reader.
The main Civil War title is therefore, and correctly, the main motor for this crossover event, and is masterfully scripted by Scottish comic book writer Mark Millar and brilliantly drawn by Steve McNiven, who virtually animates the panels to convey the kinetic, cinematic action. Millar is an astute writer who cleverly decides to accentuate the ambiguity of the situation, imposing a ‘what if?’ realism to the far-fetched Marvel world. While instinctively one feels that the plot and the characters would rebel against the notion of government-run superagents, Millar (quite rightly) underlines the point that where people expect police, firemen and medics to be properly trained and licensed, would not the non-powered denizens of the Marvel world be aghast at vigilantes repeatedly taking the law into their own hands, regardless of the collateral cost? This point is underlined all the more when these vigilantes are wearing garish costumes, can walk up or through walls, turn themselves invisible, fly or put themselves on fire without harm.
This is not entirely new territory for comic books; Millar’s own post-modern re-imagining of Marvel’s premier superhero team The Avengers into Iraq-invading, George W. Bush bootboys in the highly successful The Ultimates series shares many elements with Civil War, and The Ultimates has its own antecedent in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen series (in which a still in power Richard Nixon uses registered heroes to bring about the end of the Vietnam and Cold Wars). However, this is the first time that a writer has been allowed to play around with the fundamental basics of some of the most profitable popular culture icons of the second half of the Twentieth Century. Marvel promises that the resolution of Civil War will stick and that the characters’ world will remain forever changed, a world that will bear more of a resemblance to our own mores, values and political climate.
Miller is writing for the jugular in Civil War. Iron Man, a millionaire technological wizard who fights crime in his own specialized body armour, is made out to be a war profiteer, someone who will gain huge riches on all the technology needed to carry out and then enforce registration. His alter ego, Tony Stark, is the most visible and vocal superhero to campaign for registration, drawing parallels with the way some in the Bush Administration manipulated the case for invading Iraq to suit their own oil interests just as much as those of national security.
Going up against Stark/ Iron Man is the aforementioned Captain America, a super-soldier from the Second World War who is still fighting due to a convoluted history involving super serums and cryogenic suspension. Millar has the most fun with this character, as ‘Cap’ was actually a comic book hero from the 1940s, published during the war for propaganda purposes. Millar wrong foots us, with the readership thinking that such a patriotic character would automatically come out in favour of the government, justice and the American way. However, Millar rightly interprets that such a character who epitomises liberty, and has throughout his entire fictional career fought nasty totalitarian regimes (whether they be Nazi or Communist), would automatically bridle against the introduction of compulsory identity cards, state super armies and violations to the US Constitution. Captain America goes rogue as the US cracks down on civil liberties, becoming a figurehead for a resistance movement he cannot necessarily choose, making strange, ethically compromised bedfellows.
Millar deliberately plays his own cards close to his chest as to where his own sympathies lie, and both sides and arguments are portrayed to have their valid and invalid points. Tony Stark may be a war profiteer but has he also got the flawless argument? Captain America may be an incorruptible war veteran, but isn’t there a touch of the redneck militia in his tirade against big government? The story imbues a complex dialectic that seems to be totally missing in most North American art or news coverage, so it is heartening that Marvel is ensuring that the kids are not going to be starved of ethical roughage in their ravenous consumption of the entertainment ‘industry’.
Aside from his intelligent handling of Captain America, Millar brilliantly handles that other great pop icon, Spiderman. As anyone who has seen a Spiderman movie or read the comic book will know, Spiderman is the gawky kid who is always torn over what the right course of action is for him… should he fight crime with the gifts of his superpowers or should he ‘selfishly’ live a normal life? As, famously, the character reasoned with himself "with great power comes great responsibility", and, as one can imagine, the events of Civil War cause Spiderman no end of angst, torn between the two sides, initially culminating in him publically declaring his true identity so the public could have faith once more in its own heroes. Millar being Millar, this does not herald in a new age of Aquarius, as all the villains Spiderman has fought come out of hiding, retirement and prison to hunt down and persecute his family. Spiderman has always been the comic book’s Everyman, and Millar uses him as the readers' guide through the moral complexities of the story.
Elsewhere in the Marvel Universe, ramifications are felt everywhere. The Incredible Hulk is exiled into deep space, superhero marriages break up, heroes become villains, villains become heroes, and even the apple pie Fantastic Four split up. To get incredibly pretentious about it, Civil War is the Marvel Universe’s Dreyfus Affair.
What gives the story its edge is that you are aware that the writers have almost been given total free rein to do whatever they feel necessary. We are talking about Marvel's chief financial assets being totally taken apart, and the cosy, predictable mainstream narratives and norms have been shattered in a way that has not happened since the radical social commentary of Chris Claremont’s X-Men run of the 1980s. All bets are off, and one expects iconic characters to be rubbed out (pardon the pun) before the story’s over (there is one issue left to go). It’s heartening that sales of Marvel books have gone through the roof in response to this devil-may-care approach to Marvel’s crown jewels and it will hopefully encourage other creators and entertainment companies not to be so bloody precious with their assets. The recent James Bond reboot would a complementary comparison to show that everyone’s a winner when producers or editors take well-thought out risks.
One keynote sequence that characterises the daring of Millar and co is a face off between Captain America and The Punisher, a non-powered Vietnam vet vigilante who wages a perpetual war against the Mob. Cap has reluctantly taken The Punisher on his side, only to find him gunning down two villains in cold blood. Cap attacks the Punisher, only for the Punisher to refuse to fight back. Others observe that the reason why is that the Punisher probably went to ’Nam due to the patriotic inspiration of Cap (Millar wryly commentating on the character’s original propaganda origins) and that they are in effect the “same guy, but different wars”, to which Cap blows his top, claiming that the Punisher is insane, where he is not. Not only is Millar drawing a valid comparison between two characters who have never been compared before, he is also highlighting Marvel’s somewhat morally dubious decision to make a children’s hero (and a lot of money) out of character that distributes instant, fascistic justice by machine gunning down those he deems guilty. And this is all in a mainstream comic, not farmed off in a specialist edition or a graphic novel aimed at adults, but at the general readership which ranges from people in their pre/early teens right through to people in their 30s/ 40s and beyond. Millar and Marvel deserve plaudits for this approach, which is uncharacteristically daring for an industry that has more often than not engaged in cynical marketing than valid character development.
Just compare Civil War to what DC Comics are currently doing. Aside from the Batman and Superman titles that are literally as well as figuratively bulletproof, DC is flailing wildly in quality and content after its own recent reboot of its universe. DC seems content to revisit past glories, xeroxing old plot lines and characters so much so that one wonders why they don’t take its logical conclusion and just reprint old classics. In ten years’ time, DC Comics will be extinct and irrelevant due to its own editorial mismanagement whereas Marvel has guaranteed that its popular cultural assets will remain valid, relevant and enjoyable in our rapidly changing world.
As Stan Lee, legendary founder of Marvel Comics, used to say “Make Mine Marvel”.
Marvel Comics’ Civil War concludes with issue 7, published on 17th February 2007 and will be available from all good comic shops. Back issues are still available, and the series will be collected as a tradepaperback by Marvel at a later date.
Official sites:
Marvel Comics
Millar World (Official Mark Millar website)
Unofficial sites:
Newsarama (Comic Book News site)
The Marvel Database
Comic Book Resources (Comic Book News site)
