Writer: Mark Millar
Artist: Steve McNiven
Publisher: Marvel
Price: $3.99
Recently, Marvel have been taking a few more chances with some of their major characters, mainly led by the top-selling writer Brian Michael Bendis. Bendis has attempted some controversial pushes with titles and characters such as House of M and his New Avengers. Likewise, Mark Millar has had an almost unnerving drive to push what he believes can be achieved by mainstream superhero comics by basically upsetting every apple cart he can find – and then setting fire to the cart just to make sure. So between the two of them, and their fellow cohorts, Quesada, Whedon, Straczynski etc we arrive at Marvel’s next big event, Civil War.
As the title suggests, this isn’t about a group of butlers unleashing withering put-downs with the correct etiquette, but rather a large scale fight between the heroes of the Marvel universe. Running with one of Bendis’ ideas about having heroes signing up to a Superhero Registration Act, this series uses a human tragedy to polarise public opinion and the stance of the heroes: Register or you are the “enemy”. Of course, if you’ve been anywhere near the internet in the past few weeks you probably already know about the series. A marketing dream for Marvel, the tagline “Whose side are you on” has appeared everywhere and the number of spin-offs and tie-ins will be likely to empty your pocket quicker than you can say “Speedball’s dead?”
So what about the actual series itself? The first issue opens with the New Warriors using reality TV as a means to support themselves, having cameras follow them around as they “fight crime”. The opening sequence sees the team who consist of Speedball, Namorita, Microbe and Night Thrasher attacking a bunch of third rate villains in a Connecticut suburb. Full of Millar’s almost traditional excitable dialogue (within the first few pages we get “bondage queen” twice) what begins as an almost playful scenario soon escalates when Namorita corners Nitro who triggers a blast that engulfs a school, killing several hundred children.
It is this act that is the driving force for this first issue of the mini-series. The human reaction to the atrocity further advances the US Government’s drive to pass the Superhero Registration Act and ensure that all superheroes relinquish their secret identities and become governmental servants, not dissimilar to the police force. Millar uses the devastation of the incident to have Tony Stark confronted by a distraught mother who lost her son and blame him for her son’s death, “You fund this sickness, Stark. With your dirty billions”. This guilt over so many innocent deaths pushes Iron Man to take action in becoming accountable to the general public.
Of course it wouldn’t be a civil war if there wasn’t an opposing view to the registration act, which is where Captain America comes in. As ever, Millar bucks the average conventional view that Cap would be on the side of the government purely because the government is elected by the people and therefore represents what America is. Captain America has shown before that he stands for what he believes are the underlying principles of what America is, and here he believes that Stark and his people are wrong. Of course, Iron Man truly believes that he is also right because he is making the superheroes accountable to the people they effectively serve.
Whichever side you may think you are on, the irony comes from realising that being “wrong” is far more subjective than you may care to consider. And it is with that approach to the characterisations of the heroes and the effects of their actions and decisions that Millar has managed to parallel the current political climate once again. The accountability of those who are deemed to be protecting us is the core of what is being acted out here. Whilst you are obviously going to get two sets of superheroes beating the crap out of each other for our visual pleasure, the conformity inherent in the registration act demands obedience to those in charge. The resistance to such a restraint becomes a belief in the ability of people to understand what freedom is, and how it can be taken back in the face of such pressure.
Now, whilst we could probably read just about anything into this series if we wanted to, let us not forget the pure enjoyment that can be derived from explosions, a lot punching, some shooting, and smashing through windows. Stand up, Mr McNiven. The artwork is beautiful. Steve McNiven has always been just about to smash into the upper echelons of the industry and I think we can safely say he just arrived with a pencil so hot Quesada must be crying tears of joy into handkerchiefs made of Marvel money.
From the opening pages to the closing scene, the linework is a delight. It has a fresh, vibrant approach that also allows good depth of facial expressions whilst delivering energetic action scenes. The opening confrontation with the New Warriors has some great scenes such as Namorita smashing Nitro into the side of a school bus, but it doesn’t prepare you for the action scene later in the issue when Captain America is called into action that looks like something straight out of a blockbuster Hollywood film. But better. A special mention should go to the colouring, because though McNiven’s artwork could probably work perfectly well in black and white, once the colouring is added to the mix it raises the quality even higher by accentuating the tones of the scenes. Bright and definite in the opening scenes before tragedy strikes, sombre and brooding when things turn ugly. The book looks wonderful.
If any criticisms exist here, it is really going to be down to a matter of personal taste. Millar is not a writer that everyone likes, mainly due to his perceived political approach to most of his work, or his colourful dialogue that some accuse make all his characters sound the same. Let’s face it; if you dislike his work, chances are you will have compunction to think the same of this. The artwork is almost impossible to fault, and would again come down to personal preference. And the usual corporate push to fleece you of all your money with impossible hype and multiple tie-ins is bound to get on a lot of people’s nerves.
Having the core characters of Iron Man and Captain America at such odds is a wonderful dynamic, and is something that will have to addressed at a later date beyond the two smacking the living daylights out of each other in later issues of this series. Millar has promised that this series will have a lasting effect on the Marvel Universe, and on the basis of what has been setup here, I don’t think we will be able to argue with that. As Daredevil states: “This is the end of the way we do business. You can smell it on the air.”
Issue Two promises to be one of the most important issues that Marvel has ever put out. Whilst no comic can possibly live up to that sort of hype, everyone of us is in for a heck of a ride discussing, debating, arguing, and hopefully enjoying what is being done here.
James Dodsworth - Born and raised in Yorkshire, residing in London since 2000, James has a Law Degree and works for the Anti-Financial Crime Office of a International Asset Management Company. He is a writer and editor for FractalMatter.com.
But his main claim to fame is living next to the pub where Shaun of the Dead was conceived.