Civil War #7 - Spoilers

KrauserKrauser · Post by **KrauserKrauser** » 2007-03-01 09:01am

I have to have some faith that they realize the coossal pricks they are turning some of their flagship characters into.

In the DC universe this would be like Green Lantern deciding to join the US army and forcibly conscript all the American heroes into the same military. It's bullshit of the highest order and the I can't see how they don't realize it.

If they do realize it and are going to make amends with WWH, then great, they have some stones to be able to get their fan based riled up like this, but if they don't deliver, if they don't get their charcters back to normal, they are going to lose large amounts of readership in disgust.

A serious, and I mean serious as in multiple people dieing, retribution against the pro-reg people would easily make up for the shitting ending of CW, at least IMHO. I mean, with Millar's recent comments about video gamers, he might actualy just be that detached from reality that he thinks what is going on with CW and Iron Man is fine and dandy. I hope they can his sorry ass when he causes subscriptions to drop across the board.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2007-03-01 09:28am

Stofsk wrote:On the face of it, the SHRA does sound reasonable. Although as we see with Parker, 'coming out' has had disastrous results (assuming for the moment that Aunt May is dead for good).

Registration itself may be OK(although given the fact that the Red Skull has been SecDef in the MU I would be very unhappy with handing my home address over to the US government), stripping super humans (and anybody accused of helping them) of the right to a trial, sticking them in a prison for life in a dimension which causes insanity in a fair number of the people there (and strapping people to beds etc in that prison, which is certainly cruel and unusual punishment) and forcibly drafting people into military service, in peace time for life (with no lower age limit) based upon the circumstances of their birth/accidents beyond their control is pretty bad and is all part and parcel of the SHRA.

The Cooler King · Post by **The Cooler King** » 2007-03-01 09:31am

You know, I've been an Iron Man fan for years. Anyone who knows me at all in real life knows how much of a fan I am. Still, since the beginning of Civil War, I knew something was REALLY wrong. I started getting that same bad feeling I got from the crappy The Crossing storyline from about ten years back (the one where Kang manipulates Tony).

I've often complained about how Stark and Reed have had their characters assassinated by CW's storyline. I haven't read the final issue of Frontline, but now at least I don't have to.

TheDarkling wrote:Ten days later they go to see Herr Stark and reveal that he forced Osborne to attack the Atlantean diplomats in order to prevoke a war and get the heroes to unite against a common enemy, Sally applauds him for doing what needed to be done (i.e toppling buildings without democratic oversight).
They agree not to publish the story because it would jeopardise what Stark it doing, Stark tells them to get the hell out of his office and then throws his helmet across the room and falls to his knees crying.

Wonderful. They took my favorite character and turned him into a knockoff of Ozymandias, from Watchmen. Worst of all, they did it in a way reminiscent of how Justin Hammer took over his suit.

Now, I like Iron Man being devious and manipulative. It's part of his character; he's the type to have plans within plans within plans, with all sorts of defaults and backdoors along the way. But he's not a villain. Civil War seems to vacillate between portraying him as a Machiavellian bastard and an idiot (how could he NOT know Peter would mess with the suit?!?) Maybe they're paving the way for Emperor Stark (from the Exiles comic)? Either way, it's just not the same character I always looked up to.

KrauserKrauser · Post by **KrauserKrauser** » 2007-03-01 10:08am

Which is why he should die and then get a character restart. Even if he is revealed to be controlled, they should still stick his and Reed's asses into a prison in the Negative zone.

Especially Reed, he has no fucking excuse other than being a fucking toolbox.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2007-03-01 10:46am

KrauserKrauser wrote: Especially Reed, he has no fucking excuse other than being a fucking toolbox.

But he can see the future and knows that only a man with the fortitude to bend his body into the shape of a swastika can save the world

or something.

18-Till-I-Die · Post by **18-Till-I-Die** » 2007-03-01 11:01am

Like i said...

They need to reval that this Iron Prick is really an imposter, say Zemo with plastic surgery, who is using this to further his own ends.

Then the REAL Iron Man shows up, and with Cap and the genuine Thor, they assrape the evil Iron Douche and save the world.

A man can dream.

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2007-03-01 11:04am

Does that mean that Reed is going to turn out to be the Super Skrull?

I really don't have any idea how Marvel is going to get out of this one.

KrauserKrauser · Post by **KrauserKrauser** » 2007-03-01 11:45am

It all depends on how deluded the creative team is. If Millar is really as whacked as his statements about gamers would make one believe, then if he is not removed from the helm he will drive the Marvel boat onto the shore, across the beach and into the mountains.

If somehow reason prevails and Hulk is allowed to squish all the idiocy that Millar has allowed into the mainstream of the MU, then I could easily see how they could benefit from their choices in teh CW storyline. If they don't actually have some come-upance meted out to Iron Man in World War Hulk, Millar needs to be fired.

The Cooler King · Post by **The Cooler King** » 2007-03-01 01:11pm

KrauserKrauser wrote:It all depends on how deluded the creative team is. If Millar is really as whacked as his statements about gamers would make one believe, then if he is not removed from the helm he will drive the Marvel boat onto the shore, across the beach and into the mountains.

If somehow reason prevails and Hulk is allowed to squish all the idiocy that Millar has allowed into the mainstream of the MU, then I could easily see how they could benefit from their choices in teh CW storyline. If they don't actually have some come-upance meted out to Iron Man in World War Hulk, Millar needs to be fired.

As much as I like Iron Man, I would have to agree with you. If this is, indeed, really him (and not a disguised Zemo, as 18-Till-I-Die has mentioned... God, I wish that were true!), he needs a Hulk-sized boot in his ass. I like the character too much to just kill him, but he definitely needs some sort of ass-kicking to bring him off his high horse. And what's with the bit in Spider-Man, mentioning Stark making hundreds of millions of dollars off of no-bid contracts? Stark could piss a hundred million dollars and never notice!

Of course, the only way they could make the story 'dramatic' enough is to make the SHRA into some even-more-evil version of the Patriot Act and make Tony and Reed into caricatures of themselves.

KrauserKrauser · Post by **KrauserKrauser** » 2007-03-01 01:37pm

But what is the use of these caricatures if they just get off without any sort of punishment. What use is there in telling such a story about supposed heroes. I guess you could term it as realistic in the most pessimistic viewpoint, but come on this is the fucking entirety of the Marvel universe that is being effected, if this is a bid to seem gritty or tell morality tales, they are going about it in the most heavy handed bullshit way imaginable and ruining characters in the process.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2007-03-01 01:38pm

Tsyroc wrote:Does that mean that Reed is going to turn out to be the Super Skrull?

As Warren Ellis said: "Nextwave is the only canonical 616 book in the last five years. Everyone else is an imposter. And Skrulls."

KrauserKrauser · Post by **KrauserKrauser** » 2007-03-01 01:40pm

Can we start calling the imposter Skrulls, "Shills". I like the sound of that better with respect to the current direction of the MU.

18-Till-I-Die · Post by **18-Till-I-Die** » 2007-03-01 02:54pm

I cant imagine any other way this could unfold, other than this not being the 'real' Iron Man. I mean Reed i guess i can excuse--lets be honest, when has he EVER not been a tool? The "transformation" for him is little more than a realization of the writers as to how to properly write a douche.

But Iron Man was never depicted as being a complete asshole like this. One can say he is manipulative, but he's a fucking businessman of course he is. He was never a complete asshole until recently. Now he's gleefully profiting on wars, starting wars, recruiting supervillians, opressing a whole species of human, and God only knows what else. This character has been re-wired by a lot of different hands now and one has to question a lot of other shit that happened in the past--it's hard to tell what he did do, what he didnt do, what he did while under mind control and thought he did. They completely changed a longstanding character into somekind of mustache twirling supervillain, with no leadup at all. This isnt even like Paralax and Hal Jordan, for Christ's sake he had a reason beyond "LOLZER Watch me set us up teh WAR!" like the current Iron Douche.

SOMEONE has to do something, a huge retcon or something, or else this could have huge problems in the long term not just till World War Hulk.

Thank God 52 doesnt suck, or this'd be a rather depressing comic season.

The Cooler King · Post by **The Cooler King** » 2007-03-01 04:07pm

18-Till-I-Die wrote: I cant imagine any other way this could unfold, other than this not being the 'real' Iron Man. I mean Reed i guess i can excuse--lets be honest, when has he EVER not been a tool? The "transformation" for him is little more than a realization of the writers as to how to properly write a douche.

But Iron Man was never depicted as being a complete asshole like this. One can say he is manipulative, but he's a fucking businessman of course he is. He was never a complete asshole until recently. Now he's gleefully profiting on wars, starting wars, recruiting supervillians, opressing a whole species of human, and God only knows what else. This character has been re-wired by a lot of different hands now and one has to question a lot of other shit that happened in the past--it's hard to tell what he did do, what he didnt do, what he did while under mind control and thought he did. They completely changed a longstanding character into somekind of mustache twirling supervillain, with no leadup at all. This isnt even like Paralax and Hal Jordan, for Christ's sake he had a reason beyond "LOLZER Watch me set us up teh WAR!" like the current Iron Douche.

SOMEONE has to do something, a huge retcon or something, or else this could have huge problems in the long term not just till World War Hulk.

Thank you thank you THANK YOU for expressing my sentiments so precisely.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2007-03-01 05:06pm

Aren't silly mind control/clones/skrull stories the sort of thing we usually complain about?

KrauserKrauser · Post by **KrauserKrauser** » 2007-03-01 05:11pm

It would be preferrable to what they have done with the characters in CW.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2007-03-01 05:17pm

18-Till-I-Die wrote:I cant imagine any other way this could unfold, other than this not being the 'real' Iron Man. I mean Reed i guess i can excuse--lets be honest, when has he EVER not been a tool?

When Stan Lee wrote him. Reed was a noble man and very self-less, worked tirelessly to safeguard the earth against all manner of cosmic threats.

The classic issue whose title is something like "This Man, This Monster" comes to mind. One of Reed's rivals invents a body swap thingy, and takes over The Thing when he's feeling particularly depressed (because he broke up with his blind girlfriend because he thought he was ugly... or did she break up with him? Fuck if I know), so the Ben Grimm returns to looking human, and the rival masquerades as the Thing. He comes to FF headquarters, only to find Reed slaving over some freakish contraption that is supposed to help protect the earth and give early-warning on the likes of, say, Galactus.

To cut a short story even shorter, by masquerading as the Thing the villain learns that Reed isn't the stuck up, arrogant arsehole he had thought he was. Events transpire that leave the imposter and Reed trapped on an asteroid that's about to burn up in Earth's atmosphere, where Reed is more worried about his friend than he is of himself. Well, this affects the imposter significantly, to the point where he redeems himself by throwing Reed off the asteroid back in the direction of the portal they used to come there (look, I don't know how to describe it). To underline how much of a top bloke Reed is, after mourning the death of his friend only to discover he was an imposter, he still praises him.

To say that Reed was always a cunt is not even remotely accurate. If that hack Millar wants to write Reed that way, because deep down he wants to write something 'politically relevant', well fuck him. But his political views should not be mistaken for Reed's original character, who was one of the noblest heroes in the MU.

18-Till-I-Die · Post by **18-Till-I-Die** » 2007-03-01 05:18pm

Well the only other possibility is that this stuff is actually supposed to represent the characters personalities. It's completely out of character for most of them, not just Iron Prick, but also Cap for example. So far he's faced down destruction on a scale far vaster than that and he never bitched up before, now all of a sudden he's a wuss who gives up at the slightest thing. And Iron Man has been pulling bitch moves since this thing started, including starting a fucking war and planning/funding a terriorist attack on a sovereign nation.

Trust me, a clone is not silly in this case. Frankly not in any case really.

Personally in a world where people wear super powered armor suits and a guy who took steroids sixty years ago is still in his prime cause the shit was THAT good, i would consider mind control and clones to be considerably less silly than someone's personality completely changing in a few months time for no reason whatsoever.

18-Till-I-Die · Post by **18-Till-I-Die** » 2007-03-01 05:20pm

The above was directed at The Darkling, BTW.

KrauserKrauser · Post by **KrauserKrauser** » 2007-03-01 05:24pm

If I had absolutely nothing better to do with my life right now, finding out where Millar lives, determining the appropriate distance to be considered not trespassing and getting a permit for a public demonstration outside of his residence and standing outside his house with a sign that reads "Millar is a fucking hack." sounds like a great idea.

Just set up camp and reapply for new permits when the old ones expire. I bet if I did it long enough I would get on teh news and more than likely get a following of fellow uber geeks. Maybe I could get him fired.

Millar is just lucky I have a life I guess.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2007-03-01 05:25pm

TheDarkling wrote:
Stofsk wrote:On the face of it, the SHRA does sound reasonable. Although as we see with Parker, 'coming out' has had disastrous results (assuming for the moment that Aunt May is dead for good).
Registration itself may be OK

That's what I meant. I was completely on Captain America's side on the first issue when it became completely clear that the SHRA and SHIELD were just a bunch of jackbooted thugs. They tried to arrest Captain America for fuck's sake, and they even had the indignity to point weapons at him. Director Hill the Shill just liked being the Queen Bitch of her particular hill. How the hell can you support a side that would do that?

The idea of registering superheroes is not a new one, and it has been dealt with fairly well by other, better, writers than Millar. Vaughn writes about the politics of superheroes in Ex Machina, Moore has his seminal classic Watchmen. Civil War will live on in infamy, that's if it's not retconned the fuck out of later down the track (when Marvel gets maybe a new a editor).

18-Till-I-Die · Post by **18-Till-I-Die** » 2007-03-01 05:26pm

Stofsk wrote:
18-Till-I-Die wrote:I cant imagine any other way this could unfold, other than this not being the 'real' Iron Man. I mean Reed i guess i can excuse--lets be honest, when has he EVER not been a tool?
When Stan Lee wrote him. Reed was a noble man and very self-less, worked tirelessly to safeguard the earth against all manner of cosmic threats.

*snip for space*

To say that Reed was always a cunt is not even remotely accurate. If that hack Millar wants to write Reed that way, because deep down he wants to write something 'politically relevant', well fuck him. But his political views should not be mistaken for Reed's original character, who was one of the noblest heroes in the MU.

Well mind you i'm not a huge fan of the Fantastic Four. So you're most likely right and it's only recently that he's become a douche. Mea Culpa.

But nevertheless, his "political views" are insane. (i assume you mean Reed's, i've no idea what Millar thinks) Reed has been helping along Iron Man's asinine gestapo like "registration" movement for a while now, and anyone who followed CW will tell you just how well thats all gone...mad clones slaughtering innocent heroes and all. WHATEVER he was like before, he's become increasingly nutters. He's either so oblivious to reality that he really think's Iron Mna is right or he's become as much of a douche as Tony Stark (if that IS Tony Stark).

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2007-03-01 05:30pm

I was talking about Millar's political views.

From what I can gather, Reed has become a complete mad scientist. I am so sick of that cliche it's not even funny.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2007-03-01 05:34pm

Reed has apparently calculated the only way to save the world is to do those things, Reed putting the math first seems reasonably in character for him.

As for Stark, to be honest have always viewed him as somebody who thought the ends justified the means, all he has done here is decided that you can't fight the man and acted accordingly.

KrauserKrauser · Post by **KrauserKrauser** » 2007-03-01 05:34pm

Yes, Reed's character in CW is a horrible rendition and completely forgets the history of his character, just like Iron Man throughout the series and Captain America in the final issue. Bishop as well, hello I am from the future that saw the end result of this, the writers of CW must have forgotten to read up on his backstory and just thought, ohhhh big black man that likes guns.

Honestly some of the characters stayed relatively accurate, Spiderman got some sense after making initial mistakes as he always does, Wolverine killed people, Namor got super pissed and owned people, wait.... Namor, I forget, how did they just explain away the fact that he would want Iron Man to die now? They just shook hands and chuckled about a dead Namorita and the people that Iron Man had killed? Wow, that's a bit of a plot hole.

The Punisher comes out shining from Civil War, they wrote him spot on. He had the opportunity to kill alot of villains and did so with reckless abandon.