Civil War

I weakened and bought this book a second time, not quite remembering why I disliked it. After all, Mark Millar is one of my favorite modern comics scribes and this story has been announced as the basis for the next "Captain America" movie. Then, after reading the let down of a "climax," I remembered what bothered me. I also bought the companion comic, "Choosing Sides", and another, even more compelling reason to be unhappy with this "epic" story hit me square in the heart. Does anybody remember when The Super Patriot, a.k.a. John Walker, took Steve Rogers' place as Captain America? This happened as the result of a successful plot hatched by Walker (now known as USAgent)and three cronies, who masqueraded as supporters of Rogers and called themselves "The Buckies" to discredit CA as America's symbol. Their timing couldn't have been better. Their efforts to replace "America's hero" coincided with Rogers being given an ultimatum: Do what the U.S. government tells you to do or surrender your costume. Cap, unwilling to compromise his ideals, resigned and Walker was chosen to "wield the shield." The Buckies, however, weren't so lucky. Only one (later to be known as Battlestar) passed government scrutiny, but Walker chose to grab his big opportunity anyway. So what did the two bitter rejects do? They outed Walker as the new Captain America and, as a result, his parents were brutally murdered. Despite his often bombastic and egotistical nature, John Walker became the most poignant character in the Marvel Universe (much like Green Lantern Hal Jordan did in the DC world when Doomsday destroyed Coast City and he felt compelled to do something about it.) So did the unthinkable consequences of revealing Walker's secret identity become the deciding factor in "Civil War?" No, it did not. And thus we have the biggest missed opportunity in the history of comic books.

Great Novel! I bought it to understand a little about the affairs of Marvel and of course, a lot happened after this event. Left me wanting more and i'm probably buying more novels in the future that are link to this time line.

Love the concept, the dialogue -and the artwork is gorgeous.But I thought the ending was a bit one sided and trite. They kind of opened up this gaping hole and let it bleed and then put a band-aid "Hollywood ending" on it and hoped we wouldn't notice. Still an heroic (pun intended) effort though, and well worth the read.

The artwork is remarkable! The story is solid. I love the concept, but the writing feels rushed at time (it's a lot of content to stuff into 7 or so issues). A lot of the major driving factors to the plot just didn't have enough kick to them, in my opinion, which negatively impacted the story as a whole.

Great comic. Very different then the movie but in an awesome way. The battles are much larger scale and there's a lot of characters who will never probably show up in the movies that you get to see. Its a great read. For comic collectors its a must have.

Masks vs. registration.

I ended up using this book to write a graduate paper for school. It was perfect.
This edition has the whole book's script in the back -so you get the names of each character, Miller's written instructions, and the realization of McNiven's artistic talent and interpretation. There are also interviews and articles included in this Hardcover copy, which were really interesting and useful.

I personally love what Miller did with each of the characters -on both sides of the story. Miller's a bit of a hit or a miss with me; Loved Red Son, hated Kick Ass... but in Civil War, I felt like he put each character perfectly in their place. It was so well written, I really found myself fighting for both sides of the war.

5 stars! Hands down after watching the movie, I HAD to read EVERY heroes opinion/stand on the situation and I HAD to read the full story for myself. GREAT comic and story, would definitely recommend it to any and every marvel fan.

This Is a really well polished story event from Marvel Comics. This book collects the first 7 issues of the "Civil War" story line. I'm so glad I've got this book. If you enjoy "Captain America Civil War", you'll definitely enjoy this masterful event from Marvel Comics.

Civil wars the big marvel event that all other derive from. It's fairly good as far as the story goes, but I have problems with the art at times. Sometimes a character will be in the middle of a word, and have these hilarious expressions on their faces. I know that the art is supposed to indicate movement, but it's still an unfortunate decision. Another issue is that large parts of the story feel missing. Like they were relegated to tie ins. Like why Parker turned against stark or why tigra was a spy. Also reeds letter st the end was just stupid. All in all thievery had an interesting question about the accountability of heroes, but it never really dived into that enough.

As a longtime Marvel fan (who has drifted away from and back to superhero comics several times in my life... ) I dutifully picked up a few of the Civil War titles and was planning on getting a couple more, to see you things pan out. The overall concept sounds interesting, and gosh, who doesn't enjoy the opportunity to see our favorite superdudes bash one another's brains out?

There are problems with this super-event, though, and I am forced to agree with nearly all the low-rated reviews -- this story really ain't all that. The main graphic novel, which collects the "Civil War" miniseries (issues #1-7) is ricketty and uneven. Because the "event" is spread throughout the entire Marvel universe, most of the interesting character work is in the regular titles -- Spider-Man's anguish at giving up his secret identity is better fleshed out in his book, the division of the Fantastic Four takes place in theirs, etc. The central story, then, plays like a highlight reel, with narrative jumps and storytelling shorthand that simply does disservice to the readers and the plot.

And the thinness is reciprocal: frequently the hero titles fail to compensate for the weakeness of the central book, most notably the paper-thin "Iron Man" graphic novel, which gathers several issues of Shellhead's mag that are written and drawn by different artists and feel disconnected from one another. Since Iron Man is the spearhead of the pro-registration forces, you'd think they might have done a better job planning his part of this saga out, and assigned these issues to one creative team, so that his side of the story had more cohesion and dramatic heft -- if Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev, who do the last chapter, had been given the whole story, it might have been a real doozy.

I agree with other readers who criticize the lack of action, as well as the choppy plotting and weak characterizations. The 9/11-ish "horror" of the initial event (a grade school getting blown up in the crossfire of a super-battle) seems like the kind of thing that would happen all the time in a super-world. All those battles that take place in New York City and no one ever gets hurt? Galactus invading Earth? Sub Mariner and those giant sea-creatures of his, with the tida waves hitting the East Coast? No bystanders ever gets caught in the chaos? While a media and public opinion backlash does seem plausible, the way it is portrayed is paper-thin and stick-figurish, as are the actions and motivations of many top-level Marvel heroes. Reed Richards, in particular, is stripped of his own personality, and falls in line with Tony Stark's police state vision with astonishing docility. His motivation seems highly improbable -- Richards tells Spider-Man that he had an uncle who stood up to the McCarthy-era blacklist and suffered career damage, which left Reed fearful of the same sort of thing ever happening to him. Excuse me? Mister Fantastic is a timid little mouse who would rather sacrifice his sense of justice, rat out his friends, wreck his own family and help create a fascistic future rather than risk damage to his own career? Sorry, I just don't buy it... Or rather, I *did* buy it, but I wish I'd kept my money.

Anyway, the series is full of stuff like that, and it's disappointing. Likewise, the portrayal of the public anti-hero backlash seems kind of random and sketchy, particularly since there are never any pro-hero protesters seen anywhere: are American's really such sheep that they have only one set of opinions, and that's whatever the TV tells us to think? What a morbid, dismissive world view -- and what lazy storytelling. Every time I saw the mother of the slain school child who kickstarted the anti-superhero movement by yelling at Tony Stark and spitting in his face while the cameras were rolling, I kept expecting her to burst into flames and be revealed as an agent of Loki or Dormmammu, controlling the minds of the world and turning people against their heroes. That would have been hackneyed, but more satisfying.

This series has some interesting ideas and intriguing passages, but they seem hastily strung together and a bit flat and dramatically forced. The series is important in that changes the Marvel comics continuity... I just wish the saga had been more exciting and fun to read.