Civil War #4 - Page 2

Why not?

Anyway, I think they did a good job making Mr. Fantastic come off as a good guy in Civl War: Front Line #6. In it he gives Speedball a chance to speak out in his defense in public as well as offering to help out his situation regarding registration. He also expresses an interest in helping others out who've been imprisoned. He seems to be far from Tony Stark who seems to be of the mind to toss 'em in jail and forget about 'em.

Also, Reed expressed some good sentiments in ASM #535 regarding fighting the law legally rather than the way Cap's opted to.

Tony's past the point of no return it seems. I think there's more going on with him than we know. I don't think it's something like Hatemonger mind-controlling him or something like that 'cause it kind of goes against what Tom Brevoort said about there being no mastermind behind the Civil War.

What does anybody think of the justification for Stark's behavior in Civil War spelled out in Invincible Iron Man?

Issues 6-12 (I think) had an arc of him killing terrorists because somebody was controlling his mind. He overcomes it, and in the last page, mutters about registering heroes so that the same thing couldn't happen again.

Personally, I think it's kind of weak.

To give the people behind Invincible credit, there did seem to be a tendency in the book for Stark to act slightly fascistic (not sure that's a word). He's constantly at odds with the Avengers, he thinks he's above them, he builds robots capable of killing off all his teammates, ostensibly to create world peace, and that managed to thoroughly kick their asses. He's definitely not squeaky clean.

But the jump from that to jailing heroes in crazy dimensional land still seems like a stretch, though.

And I don't believe I'm thinking this much about a comic book character. I don't think I could ever come back from that.

My problem with that is they keep bumping up everyone's age to make them closer to the common era. Well, everyone save for The Punisher, Nick Fury and Captain America.

It just seems a little weak in the total scope of things, even though it's a minor thing.

Back to the business at hand, I just got done checking out the Speedball backup in Civil War: Frontline. Nice to see an Oswald move, wonder how it plays out.

So who's the guy on the fire escape? The Punisher? He was wearing a mask, but the coat screamed Punisher, and it looked like there was the silhouette of a pistol there.

Iron Man

Tell you one thing-- people haven't been this interested in Tony Stark since he first started drinking. With this much passion about the character, you'd think his book would occasionally crack the top 30. Or even 50.

It was Scourge.

Pum! Spack!
"Justice is served!"

My bet is on the Punisher. Millar said this character brings a whole new dimension to the series, and the Punisher's thoughts on the matter could really put a new spin on things.

The reason he's wearing the mask is A) for the mystery and B) he just recently broke out of prison.

LOL
As if he wasn't already on the FBI's most wanted list already.

I was thinking about where Marvel can go after this series. I can only think of one acceptable path. Iron Man must go rouge and stay rogue. I think this can be done really well. Don't make him just evil, but put him in a permanent grey zone. Imagine if Stark stays convinced his way is the right way and he refuses to back down or apologize. After Civil War Tony has to sit back and lick his wounds for a while. Then bring him back with an almost mad level of determination to make the world a better place. Put him at odds with both the bad guys in the Marvel U as well as the good guys. Don't have him apologize to Cap and come crawling back to the New Improved Long-Lasting Tastes Great Avengers.

I think it was Devin above who said Marvel is tryting to Batman him. Do that, but make him like the Batman in Kingdom Come. How freaking cool would it be if Stark picked a city and said, "This city is under my protection. No supers unless registered and working for me. No lawlessness of any kind will be tolerated." Then actually have him be successful at it. Eventually he starts branching out to an entire state, other cities, etc. and some named heroes start coming back around to his side.

As I was typing this I realized the foil to my master plan above. The real world Iron Man movie Favreau is working on. You know that there is no way in hell Marvel makes Iron Man anything other than a good-old boy, super-dooper hero just in time for the movie tie-ins as they try (fruitlessly as it never works) to bring in movie fans to the comics. Damnit.

JS

Well, they've already got Iron Man showing up in solicitations for Mighty Avengers #1 which should be coming out in January 2007.

Whether it's Tony or Rhodey remains to be seen. But, I wouldn't mind seeing that mentality applied to a team. Especially, since it looks like the Avengers splinter following Civil War.

Prison is like a Motel Six for Castle. He comes and goes as he pleases. Hell, the only reason he ever goes to prison is if he wants to talk to or knock off someone inside.

Bear in mind that we already know Frank jumps into the Civil War in the upcoming War Journal series. This could certainly be the lead-in.

While I've always enjoyed the Punisher character and some of his books have been really good (and some reeeaaaallly bad...i.e. Black Punisher!) his whole existence in the Marvel Universe bothers me. The man is a sociopathic vigilante who routinely tortures and kills people. Sure he does this to bad guys, but come on. He would have been hunted down by the heroes or the government a long time ago.

If he comes into Civil War on the side of the anti-regs, he is siding with law-breakers (which he obviously is all the time) and fighting the US Govt now. If he comes into CW on the pro-reg side he is now fighting some of the best heroes known to man and numerous women.

JS

LOL hey yeah. Didn't even cross my mind.

I guess the deal is it's been established that while officially the police and government say they want to catch Frank, they all see him as a blessing and do nothing to actually stop him. In light of recent events, however, they're cracking down harder on his kind so I guess he needs to go the extra mile of wearing a mask once and a while. I'm sure it's very hard on Frank having to cover up his face after all these years of care and mask free violent abandon.

This, however, is presuming it IS Punisher in Civil War #4 spying on the Anti-Regs. I know he's getting involved (like somebody above pointed out, his new ongoing series is a tie-in at first), but I also think he'll have a rather significant part in the main series.

One thing's for sure, it's not fucking Nick Fury (as some idiots who can't count to two have thought) unless, after all these fucking years he's decided to get a new eye.

Pretty much, yeah, but I'm sure getting in/out is a bigger deal now what with real heroes getting locked up. He was also in jail because of Daredevil most recently, as far as I know. Don't spoil me on how he got out in DD, either 'cause I haven't gotten that far in the series yet.

That's what makes him so interesting in the Marvel Universe. I love seeing how he interacts with other characters, especially other vigilantes. A recent Daredevil/Punisher series was really good at showing the appeal both heroes have to the public they serve. He also had a hilarious "team-up" with Spider-Man back in the MK Punisher series.

Sure, like you said, eventually he'd have been stopped by Daredevil or somebody by now, but this is a comic book. It's like saying "SURELY Spider-man would have been murdered by now." If they stopped him for good, then they've killed him off and why do that? Why close off further story possibilities?

This is why he'll be an interesting character to have in the story. I'm sure he'll be anti-registration, but only because of how it's enforced what with the murderous villains working for the government and all that. I bet Punisher would LOVE the idea of registration, except he'd know it would never work and damned if he would ever submit to it himself.

I think the most likely scenario is that he begins hunting down the government-sanctioned supervillains (aka, Thunderbolts).

I understand Stark and Richards' position completely.

It's not at all dissimilar to current positions on National Security and the "by any means necessary" ideology that motivates so many people, both public and private.

Only that philosophy is comic-booky already.

my money's on it being Clint Barton under the mask.

It could be Fury with a fake eye.

I was listening to the color artist being interviewed on a Podcast and one point he made was "Did you see the gun in the shadows" or something to that effect. The obvious implication being it's the Punisher. One of the Podcast guys remarked that it couldn't be him because the Punisher never wears a mask, but I wouldn't trust the Civil War crew to necessarily follow that rule of thumb.

But My God, just looking at that last panel, Janet with that goofy look in her eyes, "They don't look happy about working with us." No shit. And she doesn't care that it's Bullseye - who killed Murdock's girlfriend (whose funeral Janet attended IIRC), Lady Deathstrike, a murderer who has a vendetta against a current Avenger, Venom - the only one I can see making actual sense is Tasky, since he's done services for the government before.

I can appreciate that Millar & Co. are trying to draw some real-life tension into the story, but it's one thing to hire some mercs, and another thing entirely to employ people who personally murdered your close friends' loved ones.

The only way Marvel can work this Clone Thor angle is if the REAL Thor shows up and kicks the fake thor's butt..

or are we gonna get another Clone of a clone of a clone like they killed spidey in the 90's...???

Once again a great series being detracted from by the continuity nuts. Read a good book sometime, real human beings aren't so simple as black and white. I can see some criticism over characterizations, but damn if marvel didn't need this to step up to post IC dcu. Hopefully they don't simply ignore or weaken the impact of this series like they did to Grant Morrison's run on X-Men.

I doubt it. This is like their baby. Morrison's stuff was Morrison's baby.

EDIT: Fuck. Smeagol again.

I can't wait! I loves me some Bullseye!

Is there a list going of which Supers are being held in the Negative Zone? Can someone fill me in?

Daredevil is going to want a long explanation for why the fuck Stark is employing Bullseye.

That's the problem with this story. Yes, it is a very entertaining story and lots of fun. But continuinty and repercussions be damned.

But I still think the bad pub down the road will force Marvel to use some major Deus Ex Machina that will show this was all a scam or some bad guy pushing the buttons of the heroes.

Can I get AMEN for some HateMonger action? AMEN! Who doesn't love evil Hitler clones? No one, that's who.

I think some of the fun will be dealing with the repercussions.

Anyway, they may retcon it to be masterminded, but not for a while. Brevoort, editor of the event, stated there is no mastermind behind Civil War, as *I* have repeated 80 times on these boards. This COULD be a smokescreen, but until we find out, I'm going by him.

Christos Gage, currently writing the very good Union Jack mini, is doing a one-shot Cap/IM for later this year, 'Casualties of War.'

http://www.comicbookresources.com/ne...em.cgi?id=8568

Oh God....I never thought I would get sucked back into this but I keep hearing about Civil War and i'm probably gonna go and pick it up this weekend.

Do I really need to grab all the tie-in issues or can I get by with just picking up the Civil war books itself.

You can easily get by with just the main title.

Civil War is the most interesting mainstream crossover in years, and although I've now opted to wait for the trade to finish the series, I'm hoping that Marvel takes this ball and runs with it.

Having a Registration Act that's ongoing and a group of heroes divided would add much needed tension and danger to their world.

But knowing Marvel, they'll tidily wrap it all up in time for Atlantis Attacks! II!

Sounds like a trick answer to me. For one thing, Wolverine has been turning up evidence of fishy business behind the Stamford incident.

That's what I thought too, but I don't know if I would say they masterminded it all so much as pushed it along for their benefit. The issues of Civil War were brewing for a long time, and I doubt Damage Control did all that much beyond giving a few villains here and there power boosts.

Someone was asking what Reed and Iron Man had done that was "evil" ... hmmm, well using Super-Villains to get the job done seems fairly underhanded.

on its own, that still doesn't qualify as evil. devin made the point about the OSS in WW2 and the use of mercenaries by most sides in most wars. questionable as a tactic, sure, but the heroes think they can control them.

anyone read the last issue of amazing spider-man?

Creating a murderous clone from your dead friend's DNA isn't evil?

they didn't think it would be murderous, they thought they could control it/him. the ethics of cloning are a different matter.

to be honest, the guantanamo they've built in the n-zone is harder to defend.

True, but with these known arch-criminals there's more than a good probability they will just work to their own ends. It's a clear deal with the devil when you're employing the likes of Bullseye and The Green Goblin. As soon as that notion even crosses someone's mind they should know things are going a little far down the wrong road.

I'm kinda thinking Pym is the traitor for some reason.