Civil War #3-#4

 

So far we have seen:

Part One

Issue Three starts off in Wakanda, with Reed Richards trying to convince Black Panther to join his cause.  Panther’s response is very similar to mine.

 

Reed further proves he’s a cold-hearted ingrate by admitting he hasn’t visited his brother-in-law for a few days—you know, Johnny Storm, the guy who got beat up?—and changing the subject from his family to “hey, cool country you got here, bro.”  T’Challa calls him out on that because he doesn’t suck, but Reed has too much self-righteousness clogging his ears to listen.

Meanwhile, Yellowjacket and Wasp are having about as much luck recruiting Doctor Strange as Iron Man is having with the X-Men, that is to say, they all think the SHRA and the Civil War are a load of piffle and won’t touch either of them with a twenty-foot frost giant.  Emma Frost makes a particularly compelling point.

 

She’s referring to when Cassandra Nova, an evil mutant spirit type thing, killed millions of mutants on the east African island of Genosha.  That was another tragedy on an even greater scale caused by someone with powers.  Granted, the rest of the world probably didn’t care since they hate mutants as a general rule, but why is it that the deaths of several hundred ‘normal’ (we assume) children served as Tony’s “moment of clarity” as opposed to the deaths of millions of mutants?  What’s the difference?  Does Miriam Sharpe’s spit contain mind-controlling properties?  Is he anti-mutant?  And now that I think about it, assuming Emma’s right about how the Avengers did diddlysquat to help, why DIDN’T they help?

The more I think about this, the worse it gets.  Tony, Reed, Hank and everyone else have faced many major tragedies in their lives, some of them very personal, and the comic really hasn’t sold me on the idea that this one is somehow so special that it causes our heroes to start fighting each other.  I can believe that the public and (maybe) the government would react the way they have, but I have seen no good evidence for why the heroes should turn on each other.

As Tony leaves, Bishop stops him, wanting to talk.  Don’t worry about that though.  It never comes up again.

Over in Cap’s camp, the rebels are adapting to the new secret identities Nick Fury gave them to use until the whole Civil War thing blows over.

 
No one is going to believe that.  Plus, they’re discussing their secret plans and true identities in the middle of a diner.  You guys stink at this.

While they’re talking, they get a call about a fire at a chemical factory, so they all run off to save the people trapped inside.  It’s like that scene in The Incredibles where Bob and Lucius sit around listening to the police scanner so they can save people on the sly.  Hmmm… how can Marvel make this idea less hilarious and more stupid?

Paging Admiral Ackbar.

So yes, apparently Tony thought it was a good and rational idea to burn down an entire factory to get all of the rebels in one place.  I’m sure the people who worked there and the clients who do business with Stark Industries appreciated that.

This also begs the question, why did all of the rebels show up at the factory?  They know they’re wanted by the government.  Surely it’d be better to spread out a little more, fight crime in shifts while others wait at the bunker as back-up?  Seems like there’s plenty of dumb to go around.

Iron Man tries to get Cap to surrender, which goes about as well as anyone with a brain would expect.  A major slugfest ensues, with neither side gaining the advantage until Thor shows up.  This is a big deal because Thor was kind of in a godly coma at the time, unbeknownst to the heroes of Earth, who just know that he used to be missing and is now beating the spandex off the rebels.

 

Is everyone in this comic a telepath?  They keep channeling my exact thoughts.  EVERYTHING IN THIS COMIC IS WRONG.

The rebels retreat, but not fast enough to prevent Thor from killing the black guy.  Not their fault: no one ever moves fast enough to save the black guy.  It’s like a law of physics.  Nothing can move at a speed equal to or faster than the speed of saving the black guy.

Invisible Woman has had it up to here with these pro-reg clowns and projects a force field around the rebels to protect them from another one of Thor’s lightning blasts.  This gives them enough time to escape and for Reed to… shut down Thor?

I’m guessing the fact that Wagner is the shutdown code is a reference to The Rings of the Nibelung, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it actually meant Reed thinks of himself as a misunderstood genius accused of being a terrible person.  Fortunately, no one else agrees with that assessment.  Invisible Woman and Spiderman in particular begin to question what they’re doing here.

Back at Avengers Tower, we find out that Thor isn’t really Thor, but a clone cooked up by Tony and Reed.  However, I get the feeling it’s mostly Tony’s murderous baby because Hank says the DNA sample they used to create the clone came from a strand of hair Tony’s been saving since “the first meeting of the Avengers.”  Well screw you guys, thanks a lot!  How am I supposed to enjoy the early Avengers comics with THAT in mind?!  Gah!  It’s like the rape of Sue Dibny all over again!

No wait, I got this.  He really saved the hair not because he thought it might be necessary to betray all his friends one day, but because he had a crush on Thor.  You know, the creepy kind where you stalk the person around all day gathering up every tissue and bread crust they ever use because omg my crush just touched that I must have.  Still icky, yes, but it’s miles better than what’s actually going on.

Also, isn’t this going to be super awkward when the real Thor gets back?  I don’t think Hallmark makes “Sorry I stole your DNA to create a murderous clone to sic on our mutual friends” cards.  That’s assuming Tony, Reed, and Hank still have enough of a soul left between them to realize what they did was wrong, and I doubt that.

At the bunker, some of the rebels are also wondering if they’ve picked the wrong side.

Rrrgh.  How many times do I have to call shenanigans on you people?  Okay, if you don’t recognize her, that’s Stature, another member of the Young Avengers, which the writer clearly has never read.  As I mentioned in the last review, the Avengers most emphatically did NOT approve of YA’s activities and told them to stop.  YA did not stop and continued fighting crime in direct violation of the Avengers’ orders.  Stature in particular disobeyed because she thought it was more important to save lives and carry on her father’s legacy (her dad is Scott Lang, a former Ant-Man who was dead at the time) than it was to listen to the people telling her to knock it off—which included not just the Avengers but her own superhero-hating stepfather, who is one of those cops she claims she doesn’t want to be pitted against.  This makes what Stature is saying now complete and utter bull.  If she didn’t want to risk fighting other heroes or getting into trouble, she would have hung up her tights a long time ago.

As Stature and a couple others go to the dark side, we see a man in a ski mask spying on them from a fire escape.  Ooh, spooky.

We cut to Goliath’s funeral, which Tony has oh-so-generously paid for.  Hey, it costs a lot of dough to bury a guy who’s ten stories tall and too dead to shrink back down.  And guess who has the gall to show her face at the funeral?

 
Oh man, this is rich.  One second she’s blaming Tony for the death of her son even though he had nothing to do with anything, and the next she absolves him of all responsibility for the death of a guy he actually was responsible for.  I’m trying to give her the benefit of the doubt here, since her initial statements came during a time of great stress for her, but she seems to genuinely believe everything she said at the memorial.  Which kind of makes me wonder why she let her kid play with an Iron Man action figure (which she now gives to Tony, to “remind you why you’re doing this”) if that’s the way she felt about him.

Incidentally, if I was Goliath’s family, I would take great pleasure in spitting in Mrs. Sharpe’s face and throwing her off the property right about now.  How DARE you show up to MY loved one’s funeral for the express purpose of talking smack about him!  (Actually, I have the same issue with Tony; how does he keep getting into memorial services he shouldn’t be welcome at?)  I really do sympathize with the fact that Miriam lost her son, but she is not the only person grieving here, and her feelings are not more important than everyone else’s.

Back with the Fantastic Four, Sue has come to her senses and leaves Reed so that she and Johnny can join the rebels.  She even goes so far as to call his plans “fascistic” in her goodbye note.  And what is Reed’s reaction to learning that his wife and brother-in-law are joining the creators of the “social dangers” he so desperately wants to eradicate?  We’ll get to that later.  You’ll love it, I promise.

On a side note, judging by the stuff Sue writes about how Reed is always obsessed with his “all-important work” to the point of ignoring their two children, to say nothing of the fact that Reed was apparently clueless about how unhappy Sue had become, I have to wonder why she stays married to Stretchy McDipstick in the first place.  He doesn’t have a single redeeming quality that I’ve ever seen.

Speaking of stupidity (wait, when did we stop?), Yellowjacket is worried because more people are defecting from the pro-reg team to the rebels than vice versa.  What does he propose to resolve this?

 
No, I don’t care that all the villains have shock collars to prevent them from going rogue, EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS PLAN IS ILLOGICAL AND INSANE.  I know Hank had a nervous breakdown at one point.  Are we sure he’s not having a relapse?

Well, we’ve passed the halfway point now.  Just three more issues to slog through before we can forget this whole thing ever happened.  Well, sort of.  Civil War has yet to be retconned out, so in order to actually ignore it, you have to be very careful about which post-Civil War comics you read because the stink of it continues to permeate more recent storylines (Original Sin, anyone?).  Dangit, Marvel, what did I ever do to you?!

Next Time: “Miranda Rights”?  Who’s that, a model?

 

 

Images from Civil War #3 and Civil War #4