Civil War #6: Discussion Thread

nope, cause I didn't buy Punisher War Journal 2.

I was more put off by Namor having the cover and doing absolutely nothing. I also like that Punisher is shown as more noble than Iron Man.

I did like the Hulking reveal, that worked well, but other than that, I can't wait to see how this will fail to be wrapped up next issue.

Namor only got the Turner variant cover, didn't he? Those covers all suck anyway. Mike Turner's a fucking hack. Does anybody even ink his work?

The issue was pretty good, I thought, although I agree most of it was covered in War Journal, which is more of a criticism of War Journal than Civil War. I think if this is all the Punisher does in the series, what was the point of him? I did like how he just wasted those two guys out of nowhere. That was a really cool moment, especially with Cap's reaction.

Anybody else here think the newest iteration of Punisher in the Marvel Universe is perhaps the most insane he's ever been? Something about the way he keeps talking about the war is verging on stark-raving mad as opposed to the cold psychotic mad he usually is.

I too fail to see how this all gets wrapped up in the next issue, but here's hoping. At the very least it'll be interesting to see how some of the more violent characters on the Registration side keep to their orders in what'll likely be a really intense battle. I can't imagine Bullseye leaving too many people alive in his sights.

On another note, Frontline #10 sucked. Speedball's arc was completed in the most ridiculously angsty way possible, and the previous issue said the traitor on the registration side would be revealed, but no such luck. What gives? I also think this may be a different traitor than the one revealed in Civil War #6 considering the agenda they seem to be pushing in Frontline, which has yet to be revealed. Perhaps Tony Stark is the traitor and this whole thing was some sort of taking the plan down from the inside all along? It seems insane, I know, but there were some things that really hinted at it.

Nothing happened in this issue.
One thing kind of strange was that scene with the mother of the kid that died in Standford, about them adopting all "her plans" ...

Punisher War Journal was much better, funny and beautifully drawn.

Had any of you guys actually ever seen Goldbug or Plunderer before? Those guys were begging to die, they need to clean up Marvel's old vaults of discarded supervillains more often, Scourge style.

You say this with some sort of outrage that we didn't realize this, as if we were against killing them. Nobody said anything even remotely resembling that. If you're referring to me saying they were killed out of nowhere, in terms of how it unfolded in the comic, yeah it was out of nowhere. The Punisher pretty much just appeared and put holes in them. Well-deserved holes to be sure, but sudden and unexpected holes.

I was familiar with both deceased villains and I had no problem with their deaths. I just like how it reinforced the fact that the Punisher isn't going to change for anything.

I assumed as much, but I remember the actual comic itself saying the traitor would be revealed in the next issue. Could be wrong though.

Uh, okay. Aside from Penance/Speedball, I fail to see what there isn't to look forward to with the new Thunderbolts. Are you even sure Penance is Ellis' idea? I've read he basically picked the team from a list his editor's gave him, and Penance was probably insisted upon by them.

Yeah, Civil War should definitely resemble Infinite Crisis more in terms of inconsistent and shitty art to get it out on time. A fill-in artist would be fuckin' lame, like McNiven or not.

I'm sorry. I.... I'm just so angry. All the time.

And yet somehow Stegron is still alive in the Marvel Universe.

"A man named Steven Stegron gets turned into a dinosaur. What are the odds?

When Apocalypse first showed up, he was supposed to be old Daredevil villain The Owl until someone basically said he just wouldn't do after all the build-up. Perhaps this whole Civil War thing is just a clever ruse to make The Owl the formidable villain he was always intended to be!

Fill-in artists suck. I don't care how late the book is. If the quality of the book is there I can live with delays. For example, look at Planetary and Ultimates. They come out on approximately the same schedule as Haley's comet, but I'll be damned if they aren't consistently great books.

Civil War on the other hand, is a boring mess. So I am really peeved at the delays. I think McNiven's art is fantastic, but the writing, character "development" and overall execution is so poor the delays are unacceptable.

As an aside, I was thinking. Civil War has made Iron Man the bad guy. Fuck Quesada and his "we don't make calls on the winner" or "you can understand both sides" bs. Plain and simple, Iron Man looks like the world's biggest douche in these books. Why in the world is Marvel doing that when next year a huge Iron Man movie comes out? Why are they making their next potential film star into a douche and bad guy? This makes no financial sense at all. If anything, they should be pumping him up so that they can take full advantage of the movie's potential for crossover, other revenue streams, etc. This just makes no sense to me. If I was Marvel, I'd seriosuly be looking for Quesada's head over this Civil War delay mess and screwing up these characters like this. I don't think the short-term PR and financial game from Civil War getting other media hype will cover that.

JS

Funny, after issue 5, I thought the whole "Iron Man is a prick" thing would have died off. Both he and Cap are right.

Oh, and Damian's mother, the broad in Stanford? Loki.

I knew that bitch was SOMEONE.

On the other hand, when was the last time anyone gave two shits about Iron Man? The Civil War has established him as one of Marvel's heavy-hitters, instead of the second-string Avenger that he's always been. People are actually talking about him for the first time ever, and you know what they say about publicity.

Although the Captain America/Iron Man one-shot should have inserted as an extra issue of Civil War to help bridge the delay between books. That special went a long way toward un-douche-ifying Tony's actions.

There's that and the fact that most people will know Iron Man from the crappy nineties cartoon, if at all. Also, a little Downey junior goes a loooong way!

I saw a poster at the store the other day, apparently Iron Man is getting his own Direct-to-DVD animated spinoff from those two DTVD Avengers movies. It comes out on in a couple of weeks. I wonder if this is part of a push to get the world ready for him?

I always thought Iron Man was a heavy-hitter. He's one of the founders of the Avengers, which I always took to be Cap, Iron Man and Thor at the core of the team.

I'm glad he'll be leading the next incarnation of the Avengers, and is getting the DVD and movie push, but I ust don't grasp the character shift we're getting in Civil War. To be honest, the recent crossover events (House of M, Disassembled, Civil War, etc.) have really soured me on Marvel - to the point that the only Marvel book I get regularly is Ultimate Spider-man. The main Marvel universe isn't anywhere near as much fun or exciting as it's been in the past.

I meant "heavy-hitter" in terms of his visibility and public awareness, not in terms of raw power. He's always been in the same boat as guys like Thor/Daredevil/Green Lantern/Ghost Rider in the sense that a percentage of the general public MIGHT be aware that he exists, but they don't really give a shit about him either way.

Not saying Civil War changed any of that, but it sure hasn't hurt his visibility either.

Yeah, they should thank Christos Gage big time for that. Should've hired him to do more of the Civil War stuff, but I guess he came late to the dance.

So has it been confirmed yet that...

[POTENTIAL HUGE SPIDER-MAN SPOILER IF TRUE]

...a sniper is going to kill Mary Jane, thus prompting the return of the stupid I'm-wearing-black-because-I'm-sad costume?

Because between that rumor and poor Speedball getting turned into a bad Rob Liefeld character--seriously, he walks around in an iron maiden? What the fuck?--Marvel is sure speeding back down the grim-n-gritty path again. Yipee.

Slater, I checked the Marvel Boards and it looks like either (spoiler) MJ or Aunt May might get clipped, no one's sure which.

Joe Quesada absolutely hates the first character it seems, but knows if he does away with said character, he risks losing a sizeable chunk of Spidey's readers. Not a good idea when there's a new movie coming out and he's trying to build up an audience. Also, since there's been trouble bringing new readers into the books, why he'd want to alienate paying customers now is asinine to say the least.

Rumor has it in August the whole (SPOLIER) MJ and Peter realtionship will be addressed and will either continue (here's hoping) or end (boo!).

Spidey-spoilers, maybe:

I don't believe it's May for a second. Been there, done that, retconned the motherfucker. Why kill her again?

Besides, if you were a sniper looking to inflict the maximum amount of damage on Peter Parker, who would you shoot--the elderly grandmother who looks ready to keel over at the drop of a hat, or his supermodel moviestar piece of ass?

My guess is that Mary Jane probably gets wasted in Spider-Man 3--considering how Kirsten Dunst has talked about wanting to be killed off from the franchise--and this is Marvel's attempt to beat Raimi to the punch. Which is understandable, I guess, but still kind of lame.

It did? The fill in artists and the quality of Infinite Crisis was nothing to brag about. The series had a lot of potential, but really fizzled from middle to end.

Infinite Crisis was a disaster on every level. As Cap mentioned it was bad from a production point of view, but it also has no story. It's just "cosmic" events badly tied together without any effort at logic.

Civil War has problems, but I love it. I Byrne Stole the new issue tonight and thought it was great. Obviously this won't be wrapped up next issue because post-Civil War there's a team of American heroes who have escaped to Canada. The series will just end with a new status quo.

What's with the slick shit? How was I being a prick to you? I was a bit confused why Penance's creation was motivation for you to express your seemingly valid Ellis hate, but that was it, hence the confused "uh, okay."

Penance does suck, but he's not Ellis. I re-read the interview with Joe Q where they talked about his creation and you can blame him and Paul Jenkins. At least he isn't fuckin' Spider-man, like Quesada seemed to want.

I haven't read enough of his stuff. I'll take your word on it.

I seriously can in no way consider Infinite Crisis a success in anything other than financial terms (even so, was it financially successful? I really wouldn't know. I would guess it was.). I'd also like to hear how it apparently came together so much better than Civil War. Say what you will about screwing with beloved characters and shit like that, but it's pretty damn consistent with itself.

I never said you had to, and even specifically said you don't have to, but the fact is it's lame to read a comic that's one cohesive story and to have parts of it be done by a completely different artist. It'd be different if it were a conscious choice by the creative team like how Captain America and IIRC Daredevil lately have done, but that's not the case with this series. It's completely insane that it has caused delays, but I'd still rather not have a fill-in artist.

Oh that's been a definite from the very beginning. I'm really excited to see what exactly it is.

Slater, I just reports 'em like I reads 'em.

(Spoiler,yo!) I agree that if the sniper really wants to hit Peter where he lives, MJ's the way to go. But Aunt May is also supposed to die in the Spidey 3 movie, so Marvel might be prepping their audience for that. And they already did the MJ's dead thing in the comics as well (I think I read the fans were PISSED, and sales plummeted. Kevin Smith was asked by Joe Quesada to do it, before his "Evil That Men Do" series, and he said "No" because he knew he'd catch all sorts of hell from the fans because of it).

As to Kirsten Dunst splitting, that's all well and good (Maguire said he was only contracted to do three Spidey films, so he's probably gone as well). I doubt they'll kill MJ off regardless, since with Dunst leaving, they now have an opportunity to cast someone new for Spidey 4 - and the underlying theme for all these films has been Peter and MJ's relationship. True, I wouldn't mind seeing more of Bryce Howard (fuck Gwen, she should've been Black Cat), but MJ's become Spidey's Lois Lane in the minds of the common, non-comics reader. Ballsy move if Sam Raimi kills her, but I really don't want to see Spidey pining for Mj in Spidey 4 like he does for Gwen in the comics.

this is total wild speculation so i don't think spoilers are necessary but one never knows so:

as to how they get out of the Spiderman/Peter Parker identity, Peter helped Loki a while back and Loki said "I owe you one." some believe Loki is around in CW. the theory is that when it's all said and done Peter goes to Loki and calls the favor back in fixing his identity problem, maybe even doing a Sentry - making everyone forget Peter Parker.

the best response to this this was that Peter says to Loki, when calling in the favor, "bring back the woman i love" and Loki produces Gwen Stacy.

Slagar, that's good. I kind of hope it doesn't play out that way, but that's really good. The fans would shit themselves six ways to Sunday.

I guess that's better than "IT WAS BEN REILLY WHO REVEALED HIMSELF!"

i doubt they'd go that road, i'd be cool, but they already explored that story with Peter during the House of M series.

i'm not sure where they are going with it. both characters have been dead, or lost to Peter during various times in the book, so it's territory that's already been explored. i can only reason they are only doing it to give him a reason to wear the black costume again, which is a pretty silly thing to do.

Civil War # 7 is delayed until February 21st. I guess we didn't see that coming.

Crap. Oh well, should have expected it. Just getting inpatient with this whole series, it hardly seems like it should have taken 7 issues to tell this story.

This question is several issues too late, but can someone explain to me why Thor had to be cloned? It seemed like anyone could have been holding that electronic hammer. I don't know much about Thor, so… was it just for the cool visual, or did Tony really have to clone and cyborgify a god? Do the Anti-Regs think it's really Thor or do they know the deal?

Hey, man. "Acme Novelty Library" is hot shit. The elitists are right.

These delays are ridiculous. McNiven should have been fired and replaced two issues ago.

Also, who wants to bet that the Civil War ends when Tony learns about Mary Jane/Aunt May getting murdered and abruptly changes his whole stance? It's the most predictable--and therefore the most Marvel--way to patch up the whole situation.

After the big fight, Cap told everyone that the Thor who killed Goliath was a fake. And I could have lived without McNiven for the last two issues.

Wouldn't Iron Man have made that move after Goliath was killed? Weren't they friends at some point? Goliath died as a direct result of Iron Man and Reed Richards' plans - I'd of thought Stark or Richards would've said "Whoa. What the hell are we doing?" the moment Goliath got that hole blasted through him.

Re: the delays - why the fuck can't Marvel and DC, after all these years and similar delays, get all the books finished FIRST before soliciting the whole crossover? Especially if the crossover involves MOST of their books? Stories like this should be planned out almost a year in advance, and should be 95% completed before they even advertise them.

In a perfect world. Earth-8 perhaps.

Nah. I think they consider Goliath's death a tragedy that wouldn't have happened in the first place if the rebels hadn't decided to instigate this war. Goliath was never an innocent victim. The spoiler character(s?) are a different story.

Earth-8 has Kyle Rayner as the one true Green Lantern.

sounds like a perfect world to me. haha

oh and slagar, if your wild speculation happens to be at all right...you're a genius because as a retcon we know its coming, but that would be a much cooler way than what will most likely happen.

i.e. The Ben Reilly deal. lol

Good point, but I would have thought that Iron Man still would have called it off, or rethought his position, after that Yancy Streeter was killed, and the Thing gave both sides hell for it (don't know what issue that was, as I haven't been buying this series). I think Reed is going to break ranks soon, as well, what with what Peter Parker said to him, and his marriage falling apart.

Re: both Civil War and Infinite Crisis, I am in favor of Marvel culling some of it's characters, same as DC - both universes need some streamlining.

Marc, I dig the Rayner, too.

when this whole thing started i was saying that the only way i saw it ending was the death of either MJ or May. as Peter Parker is the only one who has revealed his identity it will have to be a loss by him to turn the tide. neither of them would have died if Tony hadn't insisted Peter reveal his identity. it seems that's been telegraphed from the start of this thing. as much as they are making it a Iron Man/Cap America fight it really revolves around Parker, as he is the one who put his neck and his family on the line (which Stark knew about as they lived with him in Stark tower when this started.)

I'm kind of leaning towards May getting killed off - her character (rumor has it) will be killed off in the next film, so Marvel's probably going to synch the comics and movie that way.

MJ has quite the rabid fanbase (count me amongst them, though not as rabid - had my shots), and has a couple of side series (Spider-Man and MJ, etc.) going, so I don't see her going yet. Besides, on the Marvel and Newsarama boards, they've announced that big August Spidey event where they address Spidey and MJ once and for all.

All this because Joe Q. doesn't like MJ...

Iron Man is in the post-Civil War Mighty Avengers, who are the above-ground version of the team. I doubt he changes his mind. There will be no real conclusion to this - Alpha Flight will include American heroes who have fled to Canada.

Civil War makes my brain hurt more with each subsequent issue. My biggest problem with issue 6: Are they trying to tell me that the Hulkling has been able to mimic Hank Pym, the third of the intellectual trinity which also includes Tony Stark and Reed Richards (both credited as being the two of the smartest characters in the Marvel Universe), this whole time and neither man has picked up on differences in language, inflection, or mannerisms not to mention the fact that Pym is a bloody genius and the Hulkling is... what... a Skrull? It was a big reveal, sure, but not a very logical one, unless I'm missing something about the character's capabilities.

That said. Tony Stark's drive and determination when he sets his mind to something, including forging on when there are casualties, is a trait in his character that seems long ago established. I'm not well versed in the character but I picked up the Iron Man: Armor Wars trade last week and it's a very similar Tony... who also happens to ideologically butt heads with Steve Rogers for the first time...! Of course, he wasn't this big a dick (and Millar's take is excessively one-note), but even the recent (and decent) Iron Man: The Inevitable by Joe Casey and Frazier Irving painted Iron Man as a man who often becomes absorbed by his convictions, whether it's alcohol, his sense of justice or fighting a supervillain. I don't consider him to be a true hero, but in many respects he's one of the most human comic book characters out there, for better or worse.