{"id":29253,"date":"2025-10-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=29253"},"modified":"2024-02-18T17:45:08","modified_gmt":"2024-02-18T21:45:08","slug":"civil-war-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2025\/10\/25\/civil-war-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Civil War 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Civil War. We made it. Not since Secret Wars II has a crossover engulfed nearly the entire Marvel publishing line, but after the runaway success of this one, it will be the norm for several years. That\u2019s right,almost every single mainline Marvel comic crosses over with this. Plus one-shots, miniseries, prologues and epilogues. I myself own 56 Civil War-branded books, and I barely scratched the surface, skipping major titles like Fantastic Four and Iron Man, the entire X-World, and so on. This event includes a Wolverine comic where he has all the flesh and blood burned off his bones, leaving nothing but a metal skeleton, and he regenerates from it, his healing factor being taken as far as it can. Stupidity abounds. And then the main book starts running later\u2026 and later\u2026 and filler material is commissioned on the fly to keep something on the stands, because you can\u2019t publish the Spider-Man tie-in to issue 4 of Civil War if issue 4 of Civil War isn\u2019t ready yet. This series is written by Mark Millar, so you could guess it sucks and is full of shock for shock\u2019s sake, wildly out-of-character characters and a bad ending, and you would be right, of course. It is penciled by Steve McNiven, already very popular, and the biggest guy at Marvel after this. He\u2019s joined by his usual cohort, Dexter Vines and Morry Hollowell. And while I think Civil War sucks, is a childish commentary on complex issues, and really should have been written by a professional, there\u2019s no arguing with the numbers. It remains the best-selling event in Marvel history, and it has an impact like quite literally nothing before it, with ripples felt all over the line. None of them good! So, you know, I sure am excited to revisit this. This is not just how the first cover looks, but  the official Civil War trade dress. They decided almost every comic tying in would have half a cover for the duration. I don\u2019t know why. Strong branding is nice, but that\u2019s a lotta wasted space. All the main series covers are wraparound. Here\u2019s the back:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That\u2019s the wrong Iron Man helmet. And so we begin. At this time, the New Warriors have been rebooted, and their gimmick is they fight crime on a reality show. So their superhero adventures are all recorded. And we start with them, converging on a house where 4 Raft escapees are holed up: Nitro, SpeedFreek, Cobalt Man and Coldheart. That last name is a wacky one. That\u2019s the lady with the sword Howard Mackie and Tom Lyle introduced as a sort of anti-hero in SM 49<\/a> who never appeared in anything again\u2026 until now. We\u2019re told all 4 of them are on the FBI\u2019s most wanted list, which seems\u2026 highly unlikely for Coldheart, at least.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Namorita\u2019s been through a lot since last we saw her. And there she is, Coldheart, her 2nd comic ever. Would you believe she appears in 8 more comics because of this? This random deep pull gave her an actual career for a bit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Warriors make short work of 3 of them, and we see the manufactured moments for their TV show. This leaves Nitro, and Namorita is in pursuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tony Stark told the Illuminati that some event would happen, sooner or later, that would give the people behind the Superhuman Registration Act all they needed to pass it. The New Warriors fumbling Nitro into blowing up a school is that thing. Next, we see a 2-page spread of various  bigger name heroes helping with the cleanup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Some part of the post-House of M X-Men status quo is the government has assigned sentinels to the remaining mutants for their protection, as opposed to the usual hunting, or something like that. Which means Wolverine shouldn\u2019t be surprised to see them, but that\u2019s the least of the logic problems this series will present. Goliath is telling Ms. Marvel it won\u2019t just be mutants the government hunts after this, and Carol says maybe they\u2019re right, who could justify something like this? Weird to see Goliath in the big leagues twice lately, but as it turns out, there\u2019s a very mercenary reason for that. Quick cut of She-Hulk supporting registration on Larry King, then we\u2019re off to the funeral for the victims, and afterward, Tony Stark approached by someone off-panel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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They did a version of this scene in the movies. And, again, all the pro-registration arguments are \u201cno, duh\u201d obvious, but also nothing you\u2019d ever want to happen in your Marvel Comics. Really a topic they should avoid, but here we are. Next, Johnny Storm meets a date at a nightclub, where an angry mob forms, smashes him over the head with a bottle and starts beating him while he\u2019s unconscious. We have fun. Marvel Executive Editor Tom Breevort appears as a news reporter talking about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Baxter Building doesn\u2019t have a bigger room for this? They\u2019re packed in there like sardines!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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At this moment, Matt Murdock is in prison, and someone’s running around Hell’s Kitchen in a Daredevil uniform. Back in the latter days of Ann Nocenti\u2019s sprawling run on Daredevil, she did a thing where Bullseye started wearing DD\u2019s costume, running around killing people in it. He did a thing where he was playing with coins, much like this, and then threw them at people, killing them. That\u2019s all I\u2019ve ever seen when I look at that panel. Bullseye. But this isn’t Bullseye, it’ll eventually be revealed as Iron Fist. Weird choice. Meanwhile, Captain America is on a SHIELD helicarrier, where Director Hill wants to know what he thinks is going to happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There\u2019s only 1 panel in this entire series where Captain America doesn\u2019t look absolutely furious. He\u2019s like a rabid dog.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The argument \u201canyone should be able to put on a mask and take the law into their own hands\u201d is so absurd. Would you want to live in that world? We only like superheroes because we know they\u2019re the good guys. In the real world, you wouldn\u2019t know who any of these people really are, and in the real world, it sure wouldn\u2019t just be good hearted, self-sacrificing people getting into the vigilante business. Captain America\u2019s entire argument would also work as a justification of Geore Zimmerman killing Trayvon Martin. But that\u2019s all we ever get out of him in this dumb trash. The more salient anti-registration points, like the safety of loved ones or the danger of the government getting to decide what superheroes do, are never part of his argument. He\u2019s just arguing that you should be able to put on a mask and fight in the street. I hate this comic so much. Cap fights his way out of the helicarrier and escapes, in a sequence that would later be done 100% better in the 2nd Captain America movie, both in terms of action and motivations. In this version, he jumps on top of a fighter jet and forces it to ferry him away. Then we see the Watcher appear at the Baxter Building gathering, which Dr. Strange notes does not bode well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And we\u2019re off. And I have to finally make a decision about what comics to include in my re-read. For example, the New Avengers tie-ins each focus on a specific team member, and Spider-Man\u2019s not one of them. But I kinda feel like including them, anyway. The tie-ins more or less connect to the main book to tell one giant story, and New Avengers has already been part of the blog, so\u2026 next post is probably an issue of New Avengers about Captain America. Probably.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Civil War. We made it. Not since Secret Wars II has a crossover engulfed nearly the entire Marvel publishing line, but after the runaway success of this one, it will be the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1864],"tags":[57,60,186,2284,2286,434,302,77,58,2038,49,1061,263,288,882,64,13,139,2140,2106,2039,1466,1354,235,811,379,247,665,337,2285,2,1041,2037,1710,663,62,300,781,2249],"class_list":["post-29253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2000s","tag-avengers","tag-captain-america","tag-carol-danvers","tag-civil-war","tag-cobalt-man","tag-coldheart","tag-colossus","tag-cyclops","tag-daredevil","tag-dexter-vines","tag-doctor-strange","tag-dum-dum-dugan","tag-falcon","tag-fantastic-four","tag-goliath","tag-iron-man","tag-j-jonah-jameson","tag-luke-cage","tag-maria-hill","tag-mark-millar","tag-morry-hollowell","tag-namorita","tag-night-thrasher","tag-nighthawk","tag-nitro","tag-rachel-summers","tag-reed-richards","tag-she-hulk","tag-speedball","tag-speedfreek","tag-spider-man","tag-spider-woman","tag-steve-mcniven","tag-sue-storm","tag-the-thing","tag-wasp","tag-wolverine","tag-yellowjacket","tag-young-avengers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29253"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29266,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29253\/revisions\/29266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}