Marvel’s Civil War

The Civil War is over. Sorta.

Marvel’s “Civil War” series started almost a year ago — originally a 7-part “summer” series, it turned into a 7-part “all year” series, for a variety of reasons. For those who’ve forgotten what it was all about, the short story is that it addresses the question: How can a society survive with super-powered vigilantes operating in secrecy and relatively unchecked?

As I noted back last May. the trigger is some semi-amateurish super-heroics in pursuit of some villains that leads, unintentionally, to the deaths of several hundred civilians, including (of course) school children. This leads to a backlash in the Marvel Universe against unregulated heroes, and the establishment of a new Federal Registration Act for all metahumans — register, reveal your identity to the government, and,
if you’re going to be out there Doing Heroic stuff, do it in a regulated, controlled, authorized — deputized — fashion.

In the face of this, some heroes agree, deciding either on the plan’s merits or fearful of what might come next, to go along. Others, feeling this is an infringement of freedom and a dangerous aggrandizement of power by the government, disagree. Push comes to shove comes to arrest — and a Civil War amongst the Marvel heroes ensues.

Great idea, really. One could easily make the case on either side. In the Real World, for example, we’d never tolerate (these days) “normal-powered” vigilantes with firearms running around fighting crime (heck, a lot of folks have heartburn with personal firearm usage for self-defense and protection of one’s own home, let alone going out and beating up drug dealers and pimps). On the other hand, the parallels to the Real World and the current sacrifices of “a little freedom” for “a little security” are all too
obvious. If you don’t trust vigilantes with guns, do you trust the Federal Government with all the guns, either — and with marching orders for anyone who has one?

My concern from Day 1 with the series was not that it would face these moral conundra squarely and uncomfortably — but that it would take the “easy” way out, My prediction for the series (both the actual Civil War series and the “event”):

First, the story will spin as the Government / Control Sorts vs. Freedom. Goliath vs. David. The Sheriff vs. Robin Hood. The British vs. the Sons of Liberty. The Fascists vs. … well, you get the idea. It’s a theme that resonates with most people, certainly in the US. Heck, even a fun-loving Bonnie & Clyde get sympathy against those nasty cops. That already puts a strike in the sympathy game against the regulators. Heck, framing it as “regulation” already presiposed folks against it.

This is made even worse in the present circumstances. The idea of governmental control of super-powers is kinda scary, in the right light. The idea of George W. Bush having control of super-powers is outright terrifying for a lot of people, I suspect.

This will be, I predict, enhanced by the tactics used by the “for” camp in the story. If this is truly a civil war, the betrayal, already hinted at, will come from the folks taking the thirty pieces of silver from the Feds. We’ve already seen that, with attempts being made to arrest and detain Captain America (always a silly thing to try, as well as a guaranteed sympathy-gatherer for one rhetorical side), as well as an anticipated betrayal by Iron Man (and others) cropping up at the end of the first volume.

Indeed, it seems that play will be to the emotions, with Captain America representing (very literally) the side of freedom and liberty and emotional power, and the other side being represented by the side of logic and intellect, as embodied (on the last page) by Iron Man, Mister Fantastic, and Yellowjacket.

So the argument comes down to patriotism, on the power of the individual, individual responsibility and freedom, arrayed against the dangerously pragmatic, practical, logical, functional.

In the polemical opera which is comic books, there’s no question where the sympathy, and the result, are supposed to lie.

How did my predictions play out? [Spoilers below the break.]

Well, I hit not too far off the mark.

1. The case for the Registration Act is never well-made. It comes off as fear at best, fear-mongering at worst. Mr. Fantastic/Reed Richards is never able to articulate why he’s a prime architect of the implementation of the Act. Some of Iron Man/Tony Stark’s motivations are inferred in the Civil War: Front Lines series, but not conclusively. Most of the heroes supporting the Act mutter about obeying orders, following the law, or acting out of fear of imprisonment themselves.
2. The anti-Act folks get most of the good lines. Cap, of course, is the leader here. But Spider-Man, too, who starts off working with Stark, but eventually defects (at great personal cost), goes from doubts to certainties about the Act being wrong. The emotional side of the debate definitely falls on the anti-Act side.
3. Especially since the pro-Act side ends up recruiting super-villains to bolster their forces. Ostensibly under control and parole and all that, but, still, it’s clearly a bit of pragmatic realpolitik sliminess — especially since the anti-Act folks are a lot more skeptical about admitting fugitive villains among their ranks. Realistic? Maybe, but it’s done in such a way as to undermine the debate by questioning the tactics of the pro-Act side, vs. the arguments behind
   them.
4. Add to that the collateral damage inflicted by the pro-Act side. Someone gets the brilliantly morbid idea of creating a Thor android — who proceeds to kill a rather long-lived, if second-string, Marvel hero. (Indeed, rather than learn from their mistake, they just tighten up the programming and build more androids of all sorts of dead heroes — ew.)
5. The CW doesn’t conclude with a definitive “win” by either side, neither rhetorical nor through fisticuffs. Indeed, the anti-Act side wins a moral victory — when Cap surrenders, rather than see the final Battle Royale further decimate New York. The pro-Act folks don’t win through moral suasion or being right — but by being the most willing to sacrifice the citizenry.

Bottom line, the pro-Act side does things in a nasty way, while the anti-Act side is largely virtuous in ts actions. One can imagine the opposite being true (one man’s freedom fighter being another man’s terrorist), but rather than both sides struggling to sort out ends and means, we get a clear sliming of the pro-Act side as fascists, crooks, and “at all costs” zealots, while the anti-Act side remains largely restrained and noble in how it does things — neither of which is per se an indictment
or support of either philosophical position, but which muddies the waters and makes it clear which side the reader should be rooting for (albeit, in some cases, sadly).

Put another way, imagine a Civil War in which the anti-Act forces decide that they will demonstrate how devoted they are to liberty and how hard they will fight against their repression by robbing banks (for funding, you understand), blowing up stuff/people (to show they mean business), and capturing and torturing their opposition (to demonstrate their desperate resolve). One can find plenty of real-life cases where that’s been the case — as many as you can find governmental forces willing to beat and
cheat and kill in the name of the public good. But it’s easier, it seems, to let the pro-Act side be the black hats and the anti-Act side be the white hats, as we have in Civil War.

Thus, in the end, the anti-Act folks remain the Good Guys, not defeated but self-sacrificing. The pro-Act folks come off as cold, conniving, and/or corrupt. Neatly enough, the winners are the losers, the losers are the winners. The polemic works — and launches …

… what?

Well, first thing, we have The Initiative, a new series wherein every state in the Union will get its own super-hero team, rather than everyone being focused in New York (or, on very rare occasion, LA). All of it run by the Feds, of course, with SHIELD — now run by Tony Stark — in control of all that. (From a practical standpoing, I’m not sure that Montana needs its own super-team, or North Dakota; were I organizing this, I’d choose the top 50 metropolitan areas, with appropriate radius of jurisdiction
— but, then, that’s probably a lot less likely to get Congressional approval.)

First off, though, Captain America, newly arrested (and getting a chance to make a statement in a couple of the subsidiary comics) gets assassinated. Part of the overall Civil War? Maybe, maybe not (and even if you read the “reveal” for it, I wouldn’t trust that). But certainly about as close as a “Thus ends the America we knew and loved” metaphor as you can have without beaming it directly into the reader’s
brain.

And there will still be, even with the Initiative, “rebels” who don’t sign up (even as most of the former combatants do), or who dodge off to Canada for Old School heroics. Expect more Freedom-Fighting Goodness against Cabals and Conspiracies and Corrupt Criminals in the Halls of Power. Lots of grist for exciting stories, and the Marvel Universe will never be the same and, yeah, it’s great to shake up the status quo but … but … all of this could have happened in a so much finer and more engaging fashion,
by acknowledging the merits of both sides’ arguments, that there is no easy answer, and that for either side to prevail will mean a loss of some sort. But we weren’t allowed to get that from Marvel, and that’s a darned shame.

It’s not that Civil War and the whole event and even the whole idea weren’t a fine concept, nor even fine in execution. But between concept and execution there’s a middle layer, the message, and the message being sent being sent here is not an open debate over the merits of governmental or societal control over and security against super-powered beings vs. the very real needs and ideals of personal liberty and freedom from tyranny. The message was, as I thought it would be,
decided up-front for the reader.

And that’s the biggest failing of the Civil War and what comes next in the Marvel Universe — that the writers didn’t leave it up to the readers to decide who they were rooting for (or against) but drew the white and black hats in themselves. They decided to tell the story with its moral, rather than letting the readers decide the moral for themselves. And, in so doing, have lost an amazing opportunity to really engage the issues of today. Because what we need today are opportunities
to let we, the people, figure out where we stand, rather than letting others tell us where we should. That’s the real tyranny we face, and the real abrogation of decision-making we’re asked daily to allow. It’s a shame we’re being asked again by the writers of the Civil War event.