CIVIL WAR

Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM

CIVIL WAR #4 REVIEW

Reviewer: Robin Lewis, lucillerobin@aol.com
Story Title: Civil War (part four of seven)

A death, a funeral, a betrayal, and oh God, no, not a c-word.

Writer: Mark Millar
Penciler: Steve McNiven
Inker: Dexter Vines
Colorist: Morry Hollowell
Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos
Assistant Editors: Molly Lazer & Aubrey Sitterson
Associate Editor: Andy Schmidt
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Editor In Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
Published by: Marvel Comics

WARNING - SPOILERS AHEAD. TURN BACK NOW ALL YE WHO HAVE NOT READ THE ISSUE YET.

It's all very different from a year ago, isn't it? The House of M was crawling by in ever-more actionless episodes, and we were all about to be hit with the Decimation. Now, the focus has switched from the angst-ridden halls of Xavier's mansion and the plight of mutants worldwide to the group that has become the biggest-selling team in Marvel's stable. After many years of languishing in the doldrums behind the X-Men, the Avengers have finally returned to centre-stage. Iron Man and Captain America are the two most important figures in the universe right now, and now a third member of their illustrious team has just returned in a flash of lightning to tilt the balance. And boy is he annoyed about something. I say 'he', but that might not be the correct term to use here. 'It' sounds a bit clinical, but as one of the later scenes shows Reed Richards inserting needles into Thor's head as if he were a crash-test dummy it doesn't seem too far from the truth. Since he's been away from nigh-on two years we've heard rumours of Thor coming back several times. After he was spotted leaving the pages of The Fantastic Four a few months ago everybody guessed that he would be making his big comeback in the pages of Civil War. Well, you were sort of right.

At least those of you who have been complaining that the heroes in Civil War have been acting out of character were, perhaps accidentally, more right than you knew. That's something, right? Well, maybe not. Having a clone as a key part in Marvel's tentpole summer event may cause those of you who remember the infamous Spider-Man saga to start battening down the hatches in preparation for an almighty explosion of shoddy plotting and ludicrous retcons. This would be overly pessimistic. Millar and Marvel have already worked out the ending of this, for a start, and won't be making it up as they go by chucking darts at a board with sections marked 'Resurrect a villain!', 'Stall, goddammit, stall!' and 'Oh Jesus, can we pretend we just didn't start this?'. Also, the whole Spider-Man saga unfairly besmirched the good name of clones everywhere. They're a perfectly valid plot-point in a genre which regularly relies on our acceptance of what, on paper, are ludicrous propositions, and the way in which his creation is explained chimes in well with the way Tony Stark has been portrayed recently. He's a futurist, and thinking ahead is what he does best. Of course, it's no coincidence that this sort of clear-eyed brutally practical thinking has a lot in common with another character Millar writes. One Tony Stark, resident of a universe two blocks over from the 616.

That's not really fair, though. Tony isn't sinking martinis before going into battle, and Millar makes a real effort towards the end of the issue in trying to come up with some moral weight for Tony to take on board. It comes up short, of course, but that's because when the pro-reg heroes aren't rubbing their chins wondering if they're right they're signing up to an obviously reprehensible agenda. There's a real case to be made for the pro-reg heroes, but, as many have noticed, it isn't being made by any of them. As the Radioactive Man pointed out in The Thunderbolts, they're planning to put Captain America in jail: saying it out loud just drives home how badly Marvel have botched the pro-reg case. And now they're siccing a cloned God on to the fugitives and killing them. Oops. Butterfingers. And then sending some mass-murderers after them. Oh, I'm sure that'll turn out fine. And now there's a Negative Zone prison where heroes who don't sign up can be shipped off to that is in no way supposed to remind you of Guantanamo Bay. As an action story with all the power of a frieght train and a narrative that's loaded with wonderful action (compare and contrast with the House of M), Civil War is working better than I could have hoped. McNiven is knocking this so far out of the park it's in the next state, and Millar has managed to keep control of a huge cast to great effect. But as a clash of moral points of view it's failing miserably.

Marvel have, understandably, hyped this thing to the hilt. Major plot points have been trailed months in advance, though they haven't been shouting the specifics out to the hilltops (they don't need to - readers of Fabian Niceiza's regular titles are able to divine the coming events of the Marvel universe as if by magic). We knew a death was coming in this issue (and many guessed it would be the suddenly reactivated member of Cap's group after many years in Limbo) and we knew someone would switch sides (again, many guessed that Sue was going to leave - Marvel stated plainly that the Fantastic Four were going to be split down the middle, and it didn't take a genius to see who was going to walk). The internet spoils everything before it gets into our hands (if we let it), but Marvel have been actively announcing the most exciting and shocking parts of this story in the hope that we won't dare miss out on the next issue. They don't need to any more. Civil War is selling like very, very hot cakes, and the delays aren't likely to hurt it very much (though they may derail the raft of new titles that are coming after). I'd like to have at least one surprise during Civil War that wasn't preceded by Marvel nudging me in the ribs and telling me that 'You won't believe what happens in the next issue: here's a hint...'. So what's next? We already know that in the coming issues one of the pro-registration heroes will switch sides (if I could cough and say Spider-Man under my breath so that you could hear me, I'd do it now) and that one side will definitively win the idealogical war. Many believe that there's no way Cap and his group can prevail, but as far as I'm concerned it's a foregone conclusion who's going to win Civil War now. In the last part of the book we get a glimpse of some of the heroes who've joined Cap's cause. He now has utterly unbeatable allies. He has Nextwave.

OVERALL: