Thoughts, anyone?
I'm curious as to what the creators' feelings about registration are. Did they merely depict such a thing descriptively, as a possible MU permutation of a post-9/11 world, or do they actively favor it?
Such a law is clearly constitutional, and I'm surprised at how many supers were for it, and how no one seemed to argue that it would not have prevented what happened in Stamford.
How it would be enforced is also unclear. Does everyone with powers have to work with the federal government?
I also didn't like the ending, in which Cap just surrendered.
Other than that, it was a powerful story, and I got to be introduced to the art of Steve McNiven, which I later enjoyed during the first "Brand New Day" arc on Amazing Spider-Man, and am currently enjoying in the "Old Man Logan" storyline in Wolverine.
My thought, Andre, is how much I hate it when someone without anything to say creates a bunch of boards with the pointless message "Thoughts, anyone?"
If you don't have anything to say, DON'T create a board!
As I understand it in the Civil War miniseries everyone in the US with superpowers has to register themselves as "living weapons of mass destruction".
Except that not all superpowers are capable of mass destruction.
Sure, Hulk, Thor, the Thing & the Human Torch, definitely.
Questionable: Captain America, Spider-Man
Ridiculous: Mr. Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Thin Man, Flatman, the Gibbon.
Civil War is not exactly an original idea for Mighty Marvel. Just look here. (If necessary, look for the June 19th, 2006 entry.)
Excelsior!
Benn - Civil War is not exactly an original idea for Mighty Marvel.
I believe it first popped up as the Mutant Registration Act in the X-Books.
Apeaking of which aren't the members of what was X-Factor & some members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants already registered?
On another forum I've heard some refer to Civil War as Marvel's Watchmen.
That page only lists entries from December 2005 - January 2006, and I don't see any links for searching for other dates. Where are they, Benn?
Me: Such a law is clearly constitutional...
That should be "unconstitutional".
He posted that link back in 2006 on the Misc. Marvel Nits page. I moved them here since they discussed the topic. Guess the posts there got deleted.
Frankly I think the whole idea behind Civil War was poorly thought out. You should never base a story on the main plot hole in your genre.
The big plot hole in Superheroes is the idea that they could operate legally.
When superheroes started they were vigilantes which meant they had to hide from the police as they fought crime. When it became apparent that a lot of their readers were kids & that parents might see the heroes running from the cops as a bad thing they decided that the heroes would be legal so cops wouldn't be seen as bad for trying to stop the hero or incompetent for failing to catch him. But if you actually apply any thought to it the whole house of cards falls apart.
In the real world if super-powered people existed they would be subject to the same laws that hamper the police.
"So Superman, you say you used you X-Ray Vision & Superhearing to violate my clients right to privacy?"
"So Captain America, do you have any idea the damage hurling this 'metal frisbee' at a person could do?"
Civil War just took the elephant in the living room that is the illegality of superheroes as law enforcement agents & focused a whole inter-company crossover at how improbable the thing really is.
Whoops! Their bad!
Well, don't look at me! I didn't write that drivel!
(paraphrased from the joke about the bad actor performing Shakespeare)
Those were actually my thoughts when I heard of the storyline. I thought I had posted those kind of comments here, but I couldn't find them, so I guess I didn't. Rereading my post it makes it sound like that's my thought after reading the story, but I haven't actually read it. (And from what I hear I didn't miss anything.)
Luigi - I'm curious as to what the creators' feelings about registration are.
From what I've heard it was intended to be a serious analysis of the idea of a superhero registration, but that most of the writers hated the idea of registration so wrote the pro-registration characters as ruthless cardboard cut-out fascists & ignored the whole idea of trying to see it from both sides.
Oh, as for Benn's post with the link, IIRC it was clips from Fantastic Four #336 (1990) where the FF are testifying to Congress about the proposed Superheroes Registration Act & Reed manages to derail the whole thing by taking out a device that could detect superhuman physiology & showed that several members of Congress were registering as superhumans at which point cowardly self-interest took over & the weasels tabled the proposed act. (Reed didn't tell them he had the device set to 11. ;-)
Funny how Reed didn't remember that trick when the new registration act came up.
Although it's been pointed out that the existence of superhumans would completely transform life on Earth to the extent that if realistically depicted, it would be unrecognizable to readers (perhaps, I would suggest, to the point of being difficult to relate to or suspend one's disbelief), I've never perceived the legality question to be the most glaring plot hole in this respect.
This certainly bears mentioning for some heroes who not only operate outside formal legal channels, but whose activities require the cooperation and function of those channels to which they act merely as supplement, most notably, Batman. As I pointed out in the third nit in my 8.15.08 post on the Dark Knight board, Batman's motif as a detective (particularly in the stories that emphasize that particular aspect of him), sometimes hinges on collecting evidence not merely to catch criminals, but to prosecute them. This is moot in stories that end with the Joker escaping, but not in those that end with villain or group of villains tied up with a "Bat-note" attached to them for the police to find.
However, this is small portion of American superhero comics. Spider-Man, for example, can just catch a purse snatcher, web him up, and let the victim tell the cops what happened, and when battling a supervillain, he often settles for just foiling his plans or saving Mary Jane or Aunt May. The fact that some perceive him to be "bending" the law, whereas others see him as an hero (What, breaking an entering? Conducting a citizen's arrest?) is actually a part of his stories.
Many other characters either do not have secret identities, are accountable to authorities, or do not star in stories that hinge on breaking or bending the law, like the Fantastic Four. Some actually work for the authorities, which precludes legal entanglements, or actually plays into story conflict, as in the case with Captain America, which you yourself mentioned, Keith. Some like the Hulk or the Punisher, are simply viewed as criminals, vigilantes and fugitives by the authorities, which is a central part of their stories.
And I think there are some cases in which a hero's secret identity precludes them from making sure that a villain is properly prosecuted by the law is actually exploited by the villain. Hasn't this occurred with the Kingpin and Lex Luthor?
Keith: Funny how Reed didn't remember that trick when the new registration act came up.
Luigi Novi: Well, obviously, he wouldn't want to use it, since Reed was pro-registration.
Keith: Funny how Reed didn't remember that trick when the new registration act came up.
Luigi Novi: Well, obviously, he wouldn't want to use it, since Reed was pro-registration.
So what changed his mind? 'Cos at one time, he clearly wasn't pro-registration.
Excelsior!
The Stamford Incident. Such events indeed cause some people with more liberal attitudes to convert to more hard-line ones, just as 9/11 did.
In the real world if super-powered people existed they would be subject to the same laws that hamper the police.
DC comics got around this by frequently having superhero's deputised by the local police force. Batman was one, Superman was (I think) another.
Spider-Man, for example, can just catch a purse snatcher, web him up, and let the victim tell the cops what happened, and when battling a supervillain
Ultimate spider-man addressed this in the second annual. Spidey comes across Ultimate Shocker, again, and asks what he is doing out of jail. Ultimate Franklin "Foggy" Nelson notes that Webbing criminals up and leaving them for the police to find is not good enough. If Spidey wants to make sure that the bad guys go to jail he has to take them to the police and press charges. Otherwise any sober lawyer will get the case thrown out in minutes.
Civil war was dull...very dull...so dull it could be used as a treatment for insomnia. It is also very clearly a marketing gimmick, since the only way to get the full picture and understand half of what is going on is to buy all the characters comics to read. The same, unfortunately, can be said of every other major event Marvel has had in the last few years - and from the looks of things this is going to continue for the foreseeable future.
One review I recall from when this came out went (roughly) like this;
Good bye characterisation. Good bye established relationships. Good bye logical explanations as to changes in people.
Good bye Marvel Comics.
I bought the vast majority of the "Civil War" comics. (There's only a handful I do not as of yet, have.) It is the only time I've ever bought so much of a massive crossover event. I'll never do it again. Hell, other than Captain America, I've given up on buying any more modern Marvel comics. "Civil War" simply did not live up to what it was promoted to be. Not to me anyway. (It hardly presented both the Pro- and - Anti-Registration sides in an equal light for one thing.)
Since "Civil War", Marvel has had "World War Hulk", "The Initiative", "Secret Invasion" and coming next year, "Dark Reign". Until fans turn their backs on it all, I'm afraid Marvel will continue to trot out these Events Which Promise to Forever Change the Marvel Universe As We Know It And Nothing Will Ever Be the Way It Used to Be. (Sort of like Spidey's secret identity being an open secret. Ooops! That cat got shoved back into the bag, didn't it?)
Really, I have no interest in anything that Mighty Marvel is doing today. Just Ed Brubaker's Captain America. And when Ed leaves the book, I imagine I'm gone as well.)
Excelsior!
I only bought the main Civil War miniseries, Cyber, and I understood it all.
This controversial storyline took place four years ago. Needless to say, with the discontinuation of the Superhuman Registration Act in Marvel at the end of "Dark Reign/Seige" and the beginning of the new "Heroic Age" this year, everything that happened during the Civil War has become either outdated or obselete.
I'm glad for that, as the Civil War angle was a very depressing time for Marvel fans like me. Thankfully, things got better, but it took the death of my favorite character ("The Sentry/The Void" Robert Reynolds) for it to happen. I was not very happy about that, let me tell you.
Anyway, in hindsight, this storyline really stunk!