There’s so much crap going on in Civil War. Like I said, I only bought a fraction of it, and I bought over 50 comics. And there were small bits of some of the tie-ins I wanted to talk about, but not the whole issue, so I thought, why not do a lil’ grab bag post with just scenes from various books? And that turned into FOUR of those posts. So, then, here’s Interlude 1, featuring moments from 4 different comics. First up, let’s look at bits of FF 538 & 539. These issues came out before Civil War 4, and obviously, they’re the first books on the blog I’m looking at digitally. The future is here, in the past! I didn’t buy them at the time, but I can take a look at them now pretty easily.
FF in this moment is by J. Michael Straczynski, Mike McKone, a whole buncha inkers and Paul Mounts. The official inker is Andy Lanning, but it seems like every issue during Civil War has minimum 3 inkers. In 538, it’s Kris Justice and Cam Smith. 538 mostly concerns Johnny Storm’s hospital stay
We have fun. Reed & Sue storm out (no pun intended), there are Komedy Bits of Ben trying entertain the comatose Johnny, then he tells him about how Thor’s hammer landed in Oklahoma, then Sue comes back to relieve him. Out in the lobby, he sees a news report about how the Yancy Street Gang is making things hard on reporters trying to cover the conflict and also cops trying to keep people out of the fighting, so he pays his old pals/enemies a visit.
The Yancy Street Gang was historically unseen. They would prank or harass Ben, but we never saw them. I don’t know who first showed them, actually, but it probably wasn’t here. Or maybe it was, who knows? Ben leaves the Yancy Streeters with more to think about, we cut to an FF-specific subplot that doesn’t really matter for this, and then to “DB” taking Thor’s hammer and disappearing in a flash. See, I told you this would just be quick looks. So, then, on to FF 539, which, as mentioned last post, is the fight from ASM 534 from Ben’s perspective.
First, tho, we rewind to Cap planning the attack on the convoy, when the Yancy Streeters waltz right into Nick Fury’s secret base, which seems insane. They say they have all the info the team needs to intercept the convoy, which, again, seems insane.
Cut to the Thinker and Puppetmaster, who actually got going last issue, and their plan to use the heroes fighting over the convoy for their own nefarious purposes. They are the ones who told the Yancy Streeters the info they in turn gave Cap. Ok! They’ve built a thing that’ll let Puppetmaster use his powers to “control all non-powered people in the area” when the fight happens. Uh… ok! We quickly find Ben having a sandwich nearby, worrying the Yancy Streeters are in over their heads, and then we get to the convoy, JMS making easy money with the same dialogue over the same scenes. Until people start sumping debris on the heroes, which I guess is Puppetmaster’s doing, and then we find PM forcing a fighter pilot to shoot those missiles. I wondered where those came from. As the action proceeds as we saw, Ben happens to see Spider-Man zoom by wrangling his missiles, and that’s how he literally wanders into the battle.
So that’s why Ben was hefting the truck in ASM. He helps people avoid getting blown up, is taunted via one of the regular folks by Puppetmaster, and then sees his buddy from last issue was injured.
With both sides trying to use this to recruit Ben, he rightly dismisses them all as crazy and announces he’s leaving for Canada, and he may not come back. To be continued. Just the most fun event ever!
While all this stupid stuff was going on, Reginald Hudlin had picked up the somewhat obscure thread that T’Challa and Storm had a brief romance when they were young. A chance meeting led to a lifelong connection. This was first mentioned waaaay back in Marvel Team-Up 100 (But I didn’t cover it, of course, I was much stricter back then), then developed more in Christopher Priest’s seminal Black Panther run. And now, Hudlin’s leveraging it to have them rather suddenly get married. And at some point, it was decided their marriage would be a “cease fire” in Civil War, a chance for the combatants to meet on neutral ground where they weren’t allowed to fight. So this issue had a lot of business going on. It’s drawn by Scott Eaton, with inks by Klaus Janson and colors by the great Dean White, possibly making his first appearance on the blog. I think he’s among the very best colorists of his era, and he’s just getting started around this time.
Real BET personalities and everything.
A whole buncha other people show up, including Goliath (I guess this takes place before he died, whoops, too late, I can’t be expected to remember all this 20 years later), and Falcon wheeling in Isaiah Bradley, Patriot’s grandfather and sort of the original Captain America, causes a stir. T’Challa and Ororo chat elsewhere, then Xavier shows up, able to walk again (The amount of times he’s been able to walk, lost it again, got it back again, etc is comical) to give Storm his blessing and well wishes. Then…
Cut to the Watcher appearing. It’s one page before returning to Iron Man & Cap, it seems like a really bad cut.
I mean, did it look like I skipped a page? Bad story structure, I say. Also Scott Eaton putting the mask over Cap’s nose is a rookie mistake he shouldn’t be making. Cap responds to this by excusing himself and leaving. Tony then threatens T’Challa like an idiot before also leaving. With that out of the way, the wedding can get on with it. We see Kitty excitedly wishing Ororo luck, various world leaders in attendance, the arrival of bride & groom, them having to go to the ancestral plane for Bast to blessing the wedding (There’s one you don’t usually have to do!), then zapping back to reality.
People complained about this development. That it was out of nowhere and “they’re only getting married because they’re both African and that’s racist!” (Said various white people to the black writer of this book) But as someone fully in the tank for Priest’s Black Panther run before this, them having a longstanding love for each other that could never be, a starcrossed love, that has now become possible was fine with me. It was only years later I read the actual issues leading up to this one and found their courtship so rushed, hamfisted and badly done that I began to see why people complained. But still, in principle, I think it’s fine. And it stood for awhile. “Awhile” is the best most super-couples can hope for. Meanwhile, a villain called the Cannibal who can mindcontrol people has been haunting the proceedings, but he gets spotted by Dr. Strange and Brother Voodoo and bails.
Later that night, Ororo opens a wedding gift from Dr. Doom, who is drawn by Eaton referencing a statue that was released at the time, and I think that’s funny. He suggests that, with their allies in disarray, maybe they should consider an alliance with him. That doesn’t go well. But that’s nothin’ to do with us, and that’s it for Black Panther. Finally, we have Civil War: Choosing Sides, a one-shot full of short stories, one of which is mildly of note to this blog, and the other of which is really bananas and must be mentioned.
This was one of many things rushed out the door to fill gaps as Civil War slipped off the schedule, and the entire publishing line suffered as a result. Some things came out in the wrong order, but others were held back for their respective issue of the main series to release, and Marvel couldn’t just NOT sell comics that month, so they shoveled out a buncha filler, to be frank. First up, Marc Guggenheim, Leinel Yu and Dave McCaig tell us how Venom came to be part of the new Thunderbolts.The story opens with Mac Gargan on the phone in Port Washington, New York, seemingly negotiating some kind of movie deal when the oft-mentioned “Cape-Killer” agents blast their way into his house.
Gargan has the symbiote spread out controlling the guys, which is a pretty inventive use of it, leaving only one alive. He allows that guy to call in backup, then kills him, too.
Looooong foot on Radioactive Man!
I find this one a bit weird since this is not the creative team for Thunderbolts, but there you have it.
Then there’s a story about the new “Irredeemable Ant-Man,” a criminal named Eric O’Grady who stole an Ant-Man suit and was starring in a book at this time. He has a little (ha) adventure in the margins of the convoy fight. Then here, of all places, Daredevil is revealed as Iron Fist in preparation for his EXCELLENT new Iron Fist solo series by Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction and David Aja. So good. Then USAgent gets shipped off to Canada to be part of Omega Flight, and then Howard the Duck has a typical Howard the Duck adventure. And then, the weird thing happens. And it prominently features Spider-Man. It comes to us via Jim McCann, Alex Chung, “m3th” (Meth???) and Rob Ruffolo, the art team all part of the art studio “UDON,” who got their start shamelessly ripping off the Street Fighter house style and wound up working for Capcom on Street Fighter stuff. I dunno, man, I guess just steal your way to success.
Who are these people? I wouldn’t have known if Marvel hadn’t been very excited about this stunt.
Obviously, this is “maybe kind of in-continuity,” at most.
Her “guiding light,” you say?
Well, there’s antics as the rest of the New Avengers show up, and then the Sinister Five show up, and there’s an explosion when that lady zaps Sandman into the Quinjet.
Yes. This was all an official crossover with the soap opera Guiding Light. Now, I don’t think most comics fans in 2006 or any time before would have admitted it, but superhero comics more or less are soap operas all ready since the 60s Marvel days, so it makes sense in a way. Maybe you hope you’ll get some cross-pollination of audiences. But it still seemed A) A weird thing to do, and B) A Weird place to put it. “Guiding Light fans: Buy this expensive comic to see a small portion of it feature possibly familiar drawings of your favorite characters!” I dunno, man. If it led to any more serious partnership, I don’t remember. But that’s certainly not something you see everyday. This concludes the interlude. Stay tuned for New Avengers 23 next post.