[NOT REALLY SPOILERS]
So Captain America: Civil War will not quite follow the same path as the Civil War saga in the pages of Marvel Comics — though the story doesn't get that quite right. In the comics, the Superhero Registration Act meant that all metahumans needed to (a) register with the government (as a "human weapon of mass destruction"), including revealing their true identities, and (b) receive training and operate under government supervision, e.g., for SHIELD, essentially as deputized peace officers. This all comes about as a result of an incident in which a team of young supers fighting a villain ends in an explosion which destroys a school.
Despite my problems with the saga (the core series stacked the deck in favor of Cap's "Don't Tread on Me" side), it's a neat and realistic idea. Those who support the Act can easily point to the value of training and of public accountability and control over such threatening forces. Those who object to the Act resent having to operate under someone's beck and call, and/or fear that their secret identity will come out (as victims in hacked federal government databases have discovered is far too easy).
(Insert "Obvious Gun Control Metaphor" here.)
However, since there are very few secret identities in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, that very emotion-laden aspect of the original won't be a significant part of the movie's story. But the idea that the government needs to monitor and control what the hell these mad geniuses and city-busting "heroes" are doing fits in perfectly well with the MCU, especially given how Age of Ultron ended (and started, for that matter). That leads to a penitent Tony Stark supporting such government oversight, and a burned-by-Hydra Cap opposing it.
Should be a good movie, if they play fair with the philosophical concepts involved. It will be interesting to see what other other parallels (and non-obvious differences) between the original and the MCU end up in the final print.
(h/t +Les Jenkins
Captain America Civil War Superhero Registration Debunked
For those still thinking that Captain America Civil War superhero registration is the driving force of the film’s conflict, it’s time to clear the air.
