"War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over."- General Sherman

SPOILER ALERT!!
So, I had a request to do a post about Marvel Comics Civil War Maxi Series. What to say....
The series has jumped the shark. The premise is solid, After a horrible Superpowered disaster in Stamford, CT, the federal Government decides that all Super Powered persons need to register with S.H.E.I.L.D. the world-wide peacekeeping taskforce (think the U.N., but useful). Some heroes (i.e. Iron Man, Reed Richards & Spidey) came out in favor of it, and some went against it and found themselves as outlaws (i.e. Captain America, Falcon & Daredevil). So, the registered heroes have to arrest the "Non-Registered Combatants." (Sounds a bit familiar, hmmm?) Kind of like a 3 year too late analogue of the Patriot Act. It's cool, but would have been cooler 3 years ago... Weeelll, after #4, the series jumped the shark and has revealed itself as a GIANT fanboy masterbation story. If you've ever sat and wondered "Who would win in a fight between Captain America and Iron Man?" this is your story. And that would be fine if that's all that this was. But no, the House of Ideas had this grandiose notion of an intelligent criticism of governmental policies and they have failed. In #3, it was 'revealed' that Thor (who was thought to be dead or in hibernation (huh?)) is back and he's on the registeration side. Okaaay... I couldn't figure out how, since he's not even a US citizen (he's Norse, natch), but I bought it. In #4, Thor is apparently a clone. A... CLONE... I'll let that sink in a minute....


Ok. The last time clones were used as a plot device in comics was in the 90's during the infamous Spider-Man Clone saga. That was majorly bad and led to me dropping comics for about 3 years. Leaving that aside, the clone was made by IronMan and Reed. So, apparently in the Marvel U,which is grounded in "reality", Clones are OK. Super Clones are ok. The fact that medical technology can't produce a viable human clone yet is apparently a non-issue in the 'reality-grounded' Marvel U (let alone cloning a GOD. Think about that, if we can't clone ourselves, how can we clone an organism that's supposedly so far above us? Unless the Cloning a God is a metaphor, and Mark Millar is trying to say that "Man made God, and therefore Man is all-powerful" hmmm...). the fact that GWB is president in the Marvel U and has banninnated all cloning in the US in the 'real' world is apparently not an issue. The fact that superheroes don't clone people for their own ends, because the ends don't justify the means in the hero mindset is NOT AN ISSUE. Marvel has their heroes acting in decidedly un-heroic ways. Iron Man and Reed have taken on the Villanous Mastermind personae in this series, which leads Sue Richards to leave Reed, and take up with the 'rogue' heroes. Oh yeah, and IM and RR have recruited badguys to do their dirty work, too. Murderous bad guys like Venom, Bullseye & Lady Deathstrike to name a few.

So, my opinion is that this series is going down faster than a 2 dollar whore. I hope that they pull up, because they had a really cool premise coming into this and now it's looking like it's gonna be a typical event book. All flash-no substance. If this book has any lasting repercussions, i'd be amazed. i.e. I doubt seriously that Spidey's secret ID stays public. I doubt that Cap stays an outlaw. But we're only 4 issues into a 7 issue miniseries. Maybe they'llpull it off and have us all scratching our heads saying "WTF? That was the best comic series EVAR!!!"


Let's hope.