Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Alex Maleev
Published by Marvel Comics
This special is the official start to Marvel’s summer event Civil War, and covers the history of the Illuminati group (made up of Reed Richards, Iron Man, Namor, Professor Xavier, Black Bolt and Doctor Strange) first seen in the Sentry arc of New Avengers. It also acts as the launch pad for Marvel’s other major story of Planet Hulk and along the way does a bit of cleaning house, such as resolving the questions over Nick Fury’s appearances in various Marvel books despite him going underground.
Since this is written by Bendis it’ll surprise no one familiar with his style that it is very much a character and conversation piece, one that is firmly focused on the role of superheroes within the public realm. How far do their responsibilities extend? What is reasonable to ask of the heroes? Maleev’s art is a good match for the story, conveying each character’s position on the issues and attitude as subtly as Bendis’ script.
Starting in the aftermath of the Kree-Skrull War, the story begins with Iron Man seeking to take a more pro-active role and advocates unifying the heroes, ultimately with the aim of the heroes being representative of Earth to the galaxy with Black Panther/T’Challa also in attendance. Tony’s idea is shot down from a number of directions: Namor takes the view Stark is too arrogant to think it could ever work, plus there are some dubious heroes at that time such as Quicksilver and Hawkeye. T’Challa points out most heroes are not establishment figures, whilst Doctor Strange describes the heroes as being counter-establishment. Instead they decide to form a small group to share information but T’Challa sees a problem in regard to disagreement, what happens then? He also criticises Namor’s obsession with secrecy, that they are not trusting family and team-mates. The group decides to go ahead with the idea, with the exception of T’Challa, and Xavier mentions he needs to discuss an island named Krakoa (a reference to the formation of the X Men team featuring Wolverine, Nightcrawler etc). One neat sequence here sees Xavier enabling Black Bolt to convey his thoughts on the issue without a word.
Events move forward to the Hulk assault on Vegas as seen in Fantastic Fourrecently, as we see SHIELD watching a video of the Thing-Hulk duel whilst discussing superhero ethics. A SHIELD agent takes the view that Spider-Man is responsible for the Green Goblin’s continued rampages, and that by leaving him alive, Spider-man is responsible for the future actions of the Goblin, including the deaths. Though not in the issue, an obvious counter-point to this line of thought is that Spider-Man has not the right to execute the Goblin but the authorities do, so why haven’t they? How far does mental insanity protect a killer when that killer kills repeatedly and cannot be contained?
The issue of the Hulk’s latest rampage receives the Illuminati’s attention, with the Hulk being said to have killed many people over the years – it could well be they died at the time or afterwards due to injury and Banner never knew it. Stark takes the position he has never killed anyone, although the recent Extremis arc in his own title gives him a body count of 50 – perhaps he meant innocents. Namor accuses the group of over-compensating for their failure to deal with the Scarlet Witch by focusing on the Hulk. The discussion ends in a Namor-Iron Man fight that would have seen Namor kill Stark if Doctor Strange did not intervene. Namor is not being protective of the Hulk, rather he is convinced that wherever they send Banner to, he will return from and be insanely furious over the betrayal. The group resolve to go forward and as the plan is laid out, we hear of SHIELD using LMDs to cover for Fury’s absence which will be used to fool Banner.
A short while later, Stark convenes a meeting to discuss the upcoming Superhero Registration Act, with Xavier absent due to the House of M affair. Stark advocates that they pre-empt it by announcing co-operation as a means of controlling it from the inside. He explains his position by drawing a scenario in which a hero screws up and there is a huge public and political backlash, politicians take advantage of it to pull down the heroes and there is a schism as some co-operate with the law and others do not. Namor dismisses Stark’s scenario as a surface problem, irrelevant for him. Black Bolt does not approve. Nor does Strange who neatly pin-points the problem with the idea of co-operating with registration, that it gives into people’s ignorance and fear. Reed is oddly supportive of Stark’s position, but it isn’t clear why. And with that the Illuminati are no more…
Though the central question of responsibility is very well addressed in this story, it does have a couple of blind spots. One of these is the role and responsibility of the authorities and the other is the responsibility of villains for their acts. The conversation at SHIELD shows an attitude that wishes to deny any responsibility for the law where super-villains are concerned, and that the heroes should execute them. One question to ask is whether any government would really give a superhero that power? To act as judge, jury and executioner? It’s a fantasy that’s unlikely to happen. The other blind spot is that evil cannot always be prevented from succeeding, whether it is a bank robbery or nuking a country, a hindsight judgement is often useless, as it relies upon information not available to the agents involved at the time. There is a very strong attitude that bad things simply should not happen and politicians exploit it to the full, when they should perhaps be opposing it. Leadership is not always found in following the public.
Still, these blind spots are probably intentional, as there has to be some fuel for the other side of the Civil War, doesn’t there? Hopefully these two points will be addressed in due course. On the basis of this opening shot Civil War looks to be very promising, possibly even being to Marvel what Infinite Crisis is to DC, that is an exploration of an issue with the intent of showing what their comics are about at heart. Oh, what side am I on? Well, I may pack the colours of each side to switch at a moment’s notice, but right now? I’m with Strange, Black Bolt and Namor.
Ben Crofts is resident in Essex, works in London and has found comics and philosophy mix surprisingly well.