New Avengers: The Illuminati
Fantastic Four 536-537
Amazing Spider-Man 529-531
Written by Brian Michael Bendis, J. Michael Stracynzski
Art by Alex Maleev, Mike McKone, Ron Garney, Tyler Kirkham
Publisher: Marvel Comics
For those who have read the Road to Civil War comics, one question stands out above all: What is Tony Stark up to? In the Illuminati special, he’s taken this position, in the Spider-man story he’s occupying that position. The Fantastic Four? They’re busy dealing with an escapee from Hell.
Is that all I’m going to say about it? Well, to be fair, the Fantastic Four two-parter, The Hammer Falls, is one of JMS’ best stories to date on the title – the characters are right, Doom sounds right and McKone delivers excellent art. Like the other 2 tales, it is clearly setting something up for Civil War, but is more mysterious as to what will happen (although if you read solicitation information on upcoming titles and know your Marvel universe you can probably hazard a guess).
Back to Tony Stark: The Illuminati has Stark proposing to support the Superhero Registration Act, advocating for it passionately even; yet in Mr Parker Goes To Washington he is arguing against it, going to the point of hiring the Titanium Man to attack the Congress to help the case against. How to square this circle?
My solution is simple: Stark does not believe the Superhero Registration Act is a good law, but he could live with it. As a businessman Stark has had to develop a flexible pragmatism and it is this that can explain his actions. He would prefer the proposed Act to never become law, but he is not convinced it can be stopped given the trends he is seeing in both politics and society. Add in an emotional charge or catalyst to these trends and the result is an avalanche that is impossible to stop. He also knows that bad legislation does not last; sooner or later the emotion fizzles out, things die down and the Act is repealed - until that point it has to be endured.
The problem is that not everyone is, or can be, as pragmatic as Stark. Captain America will probably take the view that principles have to be upheld. A compromise, even once, creates a precedent for the future. Here that precedent will be when the government has the right to require heroes to be registered. Cap’s view will probably be that once a superhero breaks the law, he or she becomes a super-villain – they are not immune to law, but law exists independently of government and politics. Once the two start to mix, once politicisation of superheroes begins, as a natural progression of registration, the principles they exist to uphold will be irretrievably compromised.
What of Spider-man? He indicates he does not believe the confidential database of registered heroes will stay confidential, that super-villains have a clear motive in targeting superheroes due to their numbers being limited. It is notable the analogy of heroes to police or soldiers breaks down in that their families or friends are often not targeted by enemies or criminals. Whilst criminals may resist arrest and kill police officers in doing so, they seem to draw the line at going after the officer that arrested them. Super-villains appear to possess a capacity for obsession over the heroes that capture them in a way that criminals, on the whole, do not, barring the occasional maniac or psychopath.
It is also notable that Stark asked the promise he did of Parker knowing he had him at a disadvantage, that Parker was already indebted to him and so would be easy to persuade, but would not know the full extent of what he was agreeing to. To be fair to Stark though, it is unlikely the disaster he foresaw resembled the one that actually happened – he probably anticipated a hard road of defeating the Act and regaining public confidence due to a litany of events in recent memory. He can work out that tensions are going to rise much faster, that events are going to be much harder to control, if the heroes are going to survive it they are going to need a united front. He was already convinced of that before the Stamford tragedy, as we see him and Parker discussing the civil war Lincoln initiated.
For Stark registration does not have to lead to the government having authority over the heroes, registration was a means to gaining the confidence and support of the public, who in turn influence the politicians. Stark might view Cap’s position as being flawed due to it being based on a future that might not happen, a future which could well be averted by registering.
For Spider-man’s arguments, Stark does not have an easy counter for he knows not everyone has the resources of himself or the Fantastic Four to protect themselves. He accepts Peter has seen his Aunt’s house be razed to the ground by a maniac and all the authorities could do was help clear up the mess. To win over people like Spider-man to registration the authorities have to show they can protect those near to the heroes from super-villain attack pro-actively.
How do the events of Civil War #1 affect these characters? For Stark and Spider-man there’s an emotional effect. For Spider-man he’s fearful and his fear is both fuelled by the event and past experience, he fears he’ll be forced to sign up despite it imperilling those close to him. For Stark, it’s more an emotional blindside. No rationalising, no scenario testing - nothing could have prepared him either for the tragedy of Stamford or its effect upon him. Stark feels he has to ramp his plan forward of supporting registration no matter what, he is fuelled by guilt, his rationalism skewed. And Cap? He is likely to be both angered and saddened by the event - anger at the needlessness of it, sadness at the carnage - however, unlike Stark and Spider-man, Cap has seen war, the most destructive war thus waged - WW2.
He knows that properly tempered emotion can be a great motivator, but he also knows battles are not won with blind emotion but calculation and courage. What he probably notices is misplaced rampant emotion that will make it harder for him to pursue the real villains behind the Stamford tragedy. Cap would probably agree with Stark’s position on the necessity of unity and he might even accept a need for registration, he is simply opposed to the sledgehammer means adopted by SHIELD and, unknown to him, possibly backed by Stark. Although whether this is the case is not yet known - it may be others, such as Hill’s backers are exploiting the tragedy for their own ends.
One thing is undeniably clear: In the course of this analysis it’s been a surprise to find I’ve been going back and forth between anti and pro registration points - I had thought I’d come down on one side or the other. Consequently, despite accusations of one-sidedness and simplism, I don’t think Civil War is going to be anything but. These characters really do embody both aspects, yet they, and to a degree we, are forced to side with one over the other: thus the war…
Ben Crofts is resident in Essex, works in London and has found comics and philosophy mix surprisingly well.