Civil War II #4 is out, which means that it’s time for another review on Marvel’s latest hero vs. hero event. Check out your friendly neighborhood blogger’s latest Youtube video and share your thoughts in the comments section below!
Civil War II No. 4 Review: Captain Marvel learns to love the police state
Written by Douglas Ernst
Posted on 13 Comments
Douglas Ernst Blog 
Marvel: destroyer of beloved characters. After the first Civil War, it was especially hard for me to even like Iron Man and it wasn’t really until the movies that I began to soften towards him. And now it’s being done again, but to several characters, including Captain Marvel. I think Carol has been mishandled in recent years and I can never root for her because she’s, well, a word not suitable for polite conversation. I’ve been told she’s always been a bit like that, but personally, she was way more likeable in her Ms. Marvel days than she as Captain Marvel. How I’d love to see Mar-Vell return, tell her he’s ashamed of her polluting his name, then take it back. I’d be a great way of redeeming her recent behavior.
“Marvel: destroyer of beloved characters.”
Heh. I have to laugh so I don’t cry. 😉
“I think Carol has been mishandled in recent years and I can never root for her because she’s, well, a word not suitable for polite conversation. I’ve been told she’s always been a bit like that, but personally, she was way more likable in her Ms. Marvel days than she as Captain Marvel.”
Agreed. I’m not sure how “headstrong” turned into “woman who would support police-state tactics suited for the old Soviet Union”…
Seems this is an awful habit with Marvel…on the eve of making a big cinematic impact with a hero, the event with this name seems hell bent on dragging the character through the mud. Happened with Tony, though his movie actually saved his character in the eyes of the mainstream while the comic book version suffered for years and is only now under Bendis considered to be going through a creative renascence…must we wait ten years for Carol to be salvaged?
“Seems this is an awful habit with Marvel…on the eve of making a big cinematic impact with a hero, the event with this name seems hell bent on dragging the character through the mud.”
Are there any feminist websites that are ripping into Bendis over what’s going on with Carol Danvers? I probably should check… I have to assume that some of them are livid right now.
Okay Civil War II, my opinion : using an old idea to turn characters you liked into idiots and story into garbage.
At its core Civil War I was the idea of heroes and oversight. Something that can be used to create comics and even a pretty good movie.
At its core Civil War is the idea of Pre-crime. And it is hilarious to see these jokers at marvel trying to outdo the works of Philip K Dick and Spielberg and failing miserably. It is like comparing the sixteenth chapel to a 5-year old fingerpainting.
Case in point: in the movie “Minority Report” we see Cruise solving a pre-crime. He arrests a husband wanting to stab his wife and her lover. He barely succeeds in making the arrest just when the husband is standing over his wife with a pair of siccors in his hand.
It is not difficult for us to see where that scene would go if Cruise had not intervented. We have sympathy for the husband, but we can also see why he was arrested. Hell, in the movie Cruise actually gets a go from a judge after he finds out about the pre-crime, but before he makes the arrest.
But in Marvel Civil War II, screw all that, lets just bust into people’s houses at night because they are going to do something in three days. And this happens by the way in Ms Marvel 9, where Ms. Marvel and the Junior Jackboots bust into the house of the high school jock, taking him away. Not arresting him, taking him away. Meanwhile his parents are crying in the background.
They do this because his girlfriend dumped him and the next day he would do something at the school that would create casualties.
I looked at this and found a thousand things that sane people would do first before taking him away at night from his house: talk to his parents, talk to him first, warn the school, send a psychiater to his house first, ask the girlfriend to talk to him, arrest him when he actually does the crime, arrest him 10 minutes before he does the crime. But no, bust in and take him away, lock him up in a cell with exploding locks and don’t tell anybody where he is.
I refuse to use the word arrested btw, because I have the enormous privilege of living in a country where people in uniform will not bust in my house in the middle of the night and take me away without telling me who they are, why they do it and where they are taking me.
Maybe the Marvel-people should talk with people from the country where Ms Marvel’s parents are from and ask them about how they feel about those people and if they think those people would be considered as heroes.
You can not make people look heroic when they look at things like “probable cause”, “habeus corpus” and find those terms funny.
And the biggest joke in that issue and the final straw for me in that issue and the whole Civil War II-crap was when they are dragging this poor sob outside.
We get a marvelous piece of dialogue (paraphrasing)
Junior Jackboot1 : we are arresting you because of precrime and you fit the profile of a jilted ex-lover doing crimes because she broke up with you, white boy.
Kamala : Hey, aren’t you profiling here and didn’t we at Marvel just spend an entire issue of Sam Wilson’s Captain America telling Danvers and Tony (and the readers) in a 2-page spread that profiling is bad with all of the subtelty of a hammer to the face?
Junior Jackboot2: (actual dialogue) : It isn’t profiling, we are just connecting the dots.
Kamala: ….
So remember children profiling is bad, unless it is we who do it, then it isn’t profiling and all is okay.
Conclusion: This precrime-thing was done better by people who actually knew how to make good stories.
There is nothing in this entire arc that is salvageable, and i have come to the realisation writing this screed that the Japanese write more likeable heroes than Marvel.
PS: sorry for this long rant.
“In the movie “Minority Report” we see Cruise solving a pre-crime. He arrests a husband wanting to stab his wife and her lover. He barely succeeds in making the arrest just when the husband is standing over his wife with a pair of siccors in his hand. It is not difficult for us to see where that scene would go if Cruise had not intervented. We have sympathy for the husband, but we can also see why he was arrested. Hell, in the movie Cruise actually gets a go from a judge after he finds out about the pre-crime, but before he makes the arrest. But in Marvel Civil War II, screw all that, lets just bust into people’s houses at night because they are going to do something in three days.”
Boom. That is my problem with Marvel. If one wanted to write a “hero vs. hero” tale, then there are way to do it that don’t compromise the integrity of characters. The comic book division, for some stupid reason, always decides to make one group look like cartoonish idiots or just evil.
One thing I thought was weird about Civil War II No. 4 was how Carol Danvers wanted to arrest Tony for freeing someone she was unconstitutionally detaining. Haha! How does that work? How is anyone supposed to ever root for Captain Marvel when she is basically has gone full police state. Never go full police state, Carol…
“Sorry for this long rant.”
No problem, bvdemier. Rant away! 🙂 You’re definitely not alone with these thoughts.
“the Japanese write more likeable heroes than Marvel”
Yes. They do.
American comic writers are 40-50 year old toddlers playing with toys, pointing and screaming about unfairness and throwing their creations at the audience when they disapprove.
This whole series depends on all these characters being total, unprincipled morons.
In a competently written tale, all they would need to do is tail the person and stake out where the event is allegedly going to happen. It’s legal to arrest someone for what they are conspiring to do, or about to do, as long as you can show evidence of such. But no, they’re arresting people for something they might do three days from now.
So, in other words, the Marvel editors make their hero characters idiots.
In addition, the Captain Marvelites are violating the writ of habeus corpus, one of our most fundamental rights. And Hawkeye should be put to death for committing a murder.
http://ccrjustice.org/home/get-involved/tools-resources/fact-sheets-and-faqs/faqs-what-habeas-corpus
“This whole series depends on all these characters being total, unprincipled morons.”
Yes. Again.
“In a competently written tale, all they would need to do is tail the person and stake out where the event is allegedly going to happen. It’s legal to arrest someone for what they are conspiring to do, or about to do, as long as you can show evidence of such. But no, they’re arresting people for something they might do three days from now.”
What the heck is the problem with these writers? Why do they take a good story and then pick the worst possible way to tell it? They made the conscious decision to trample all over Tony in the first Civil War and now they are doing the exact same thing with Ms. Marvel. Unreal.
Two good people can disagree about something important and can both be kinda right without either suddenly transforming into a villain. It happens all the time in real life. Why does Marvel findit so hard to write that kind of story?
I don’t have a problem with a hero vs hero civil war story. In fact, I kinda wish Marvel would do one some day.
“I don’t have a problem with a hero vs hero civil war story. In fact, I kinda wish Marvel would do one some day.”
Zing! Yes, I really did have high hopes for this one. I think one of the problems with these industry-wide events is that the quality of writing varies so much from writer to writer. Bendis can barely walk his own self-made tightrope and then guys and gals who aren’t as technically proficient as he is are tasked to deliver.
Did you see the Marvel “Free Preview” for its upcoming books? Or, as the guys in my local comic shops called it, the “poster book”? It was just a bunch of images with no information as to what the books will be out. The guys in my comic shop are like, “How am I supposed to order for this? What am I supposed to tell customers? How do I sell this?”
I just laughed and said, “I’m beyond the point of defending Marvel these days. I won’t make excuses for them.”
There are times I wonder if Dan Buckley and the Brain-Fart crew (Quesada, Bendis, et. al.) are deliberately trying to sabotage the MCU out of spite, because of how Feige managed to break free from their grip.
The Hulk will be co-starring in the new THOR movie, so the magazine kills off Bruce Banner. The MCU is planning a Captain Marvel movie, so the magazines turn Carol Danvers into a hateful Fascist. MCU and Downey are toying with the possibility of one more IRON MAN movie, so the magazine dumps Tony Stark out of his own story. Marvel has a history of pettiness and self-undermining, and the current magazine guys are petty dudes — Ike Perlmutter at the top of the heap.
But even if I’m right, such cheesy machinations never amount to anything. I’ve read that no one goes out and buys the magazines because of the movies anyway; so messing with the magazine characters has zero financial impact on the MCU. If the MCU ever wants to make a HULK movie with Mark Ruffalo, they’ll just make it, even if Bat-Mite is starring in the Hulk magazine. And the MCU guys can mine any plot combinations they want, from 70+ years of stories.
“There are times I wonder if Dan Buckley and the Brain-Fart crew (Quesada, Bendis, et. al.) are deliberately trying to sabotage the MCU out of spite, because of how Feige managed to break free from their grip.”
You are not alone. The mere fact that you and many others think that is proof that these guys are screwing up in a monster way. You lay out the case nicely. It’s what is on everyone’s mind:
“The Hulk will be co-starring in the new THOR movie, so the magazine kills off Bruce Banner. The MCU is planning a Captain Marvel movie, so the magazines turn Carol Danvers into a hateful Fascist. MCU and Downey are toying with the possibility of one more IRON MAN movie, so the magazine dumps Tony Stark out of his own story. Marvel has a history of pettiness and self-undermining, and the current magazine guys are petty dudes — Ike Perlmutter at the top of the heap.”
Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. How can anyone argue with these points? It’s not really possible. What kind of editors would behave this way unless they had some sort of weird hangup with the movie (i.e., money) makers?
“If the MCU ever wants to make a HULK movie with Mark Ruffalo, they’ll just make it, even if Bat-Mite is starring in the Hulk magazine. And the MCU guys can mine any plot combinations they want, from 70+ years of stories.”
True. It’s just a shame that immature and vindictive man-boys seem to be running the comics division.