Marvel's Civil War

[Velorath]

I wish I could say that this was a topic about a Civil War within the company itself, but instead it Civil War is just the name of Marvel's next "Biggest Event Yet (for real this time)."

Which leaves us with 3 big events announced so far next year, not counting the ones from this year that haven't finished up yet.  We still have 3 issues left of "The Other" in January, and the various Decimation minis won't be wrapping up until March-May.  Civil War joins previously announced events Annihilation, and Planet Hulk, as well as the Illuminati special which leads into both Planet Hulk and Civil War.

About the only thing Civil War has going for it right now is that it's not going to be written by Bendis.  Of course it's going to be written by Mark Millar which may or may not be much better.

More details will apparently be available this week, but in the meantime Quesada's weekly column at Newsarama has some general info regarding all these storylines, including some hints of Thor's return.

[HaemishM]

Civil War being written by Millar is indeed better, since we won't have to put up with Bendis's snappy (crappy) Spidey-style dialogue oozing out of the mouth of EVERY CHARACTER. I think that's one of the reasons Thor isn't around, Bendis couldn't make him sound like Henny fucking Youngman.

[Velorath]

I'm much more interested in seeing how Millar's upcoming Marvel project 1985 turns out.

[Llava]

Did anyone read the... oh damn I forgot the title.  Well, it was the Marvel universe, redone by Neil Gaiman to be set in Victorian times.  Its name was a year, but I can't remember the exact year.

Saw this in a store, looked interesting, but didn't want to drop the money on it.  Good?  Bad?  Anything?

[schild]

Marvel 1609 or something. Yea. I have it, and read it and would recommend it.

Edit: It's not perfect, but it's certainly quite good.

[Ironwood]

It's very good.  Excellent writing and good artwork (guy that did Origin).  I loved what they did with Spider Man.

However, the follow up is shite.

Really, really, really shite.

[schild]

I'm glad I didn't even know there was a followup.

[Ironwood]

Yeah.  It's awful.  It mostly follows Banner and Parker and introduces - wait for it - Iron Man.

Yeah. 

Iron Man.

In 1608.

It sucks.

[schild]

Ewwww. I hate money grabs in the comic world.

Luckily, I selectively read so few comics that the odds of me running into one are...uhhh.....Not High.

[Velorath]

Planet Hulk details revealed

14 part story of the Hulk as a gladiator on another planet.  Sounds like it could be fun for an issue or two.  14 issues though, not so much.

[HaemishM]

Yeah, I'm not so sure that will be all that interesting for all that long. But I haven't read Hulk since Peter David's first run.

[Azazel]

After reading the reccomendations on this board, I went out and read the first one of these. It was alright, kinda cute I guess, but it wasn't especially exciting either. I guess maybe it's just the superhero genre to me, and preferring more gritty stuff over the tight spandex-and-superpowers thing. Like the page of the X-Men's skintight costumes annoyed me. I used to enjoy Gaiman's work on Sandman, but I'm not sure if I've really read anything else (or indeed, his Sandman stuf for years).

Was the followup also penned by Gaiman?

[HaemishM]

The 1602 followup? No, it wasn't Gaiman.

[Velorath]

The hype machine has been in full effect for Civil War recently.  We know that Thor's hammer will be crashing down to Earth in FF.  We know that Reed and Sue will end up on opposite sides in the conflict, and that one member of the FF will end up in the hospital during the story.  We know Cap and Iron Man will be on opposite sides and the New Avengers will be divided causing some sort of reforming of the team.  We also know that some sort of superhero related disaster will pretty much blow up a nearby school and this will set Civil War in motion and presumably cause the need for the Superhuman Registration Act.

Sounds at least a little bit better than the Bendis events since this at least sounds like there's a plot to it, but I'm still very wary of Marvel event books.  This all comes down to whether or not Millar plays to his strengths when writing this or if he trys to do a traditional Marvel event.

[Velorath]

Marvel is trying very hard to kill even the minor interest I have in this event.  Between the overly dramatic voice-over and the attempt to connect a bunch of poorly planned and written "events" into a larger story rather than something that Marvel is just making up as they go along, this video clip reminds me once again of one of Marvel's major flaws these days: 

They just don't know when to shut the fuck up.

[Margalis]

Big Marvel crossovers/tie-ins have never really been any good. Secret Wars 1 was pretty cool, that was pretty much it though.

Most of the time it feels really cobbled together and it just gets annoying, books move from being character-driven to having to match whatever is going on in the bigger event. Like when books like Spiderman have to deal with shit like Inferno.

[HaemishM]

Nothing from Civil War preludes have left me thinking any of them will be interesting. As a matter of fact, since the Avengers Disassembled series, nothing Marvel has done has felt like anything more than one long series of gimmicks or events. The X-Men books have gone into the shitter completely, even when they have talent like Brubaker writing them.

Civil War feels like "We need to answer Identity Crisis." The Illuminati book was terrible.

[Velorath]

The X-Men books have gone into the shitter completely, even when they have talent like Brubaker writing them.

I think the current Astonishing X-men arc is getting off to a decent start although I'm not really thrilled to see the Hellfire Club and Cassandra Nova back.  Brubaker's X-men stuff has been pretty disappointing so far though to say the least.

[HaemishM]

I don't even think of Astonishing X-Men as being in the same universe. That's probably for the best. Astonishing seems to have taken off from where Morrison's run ended, while the other books are in Shitsville.

[Velorath]

I don't even think of Astonishing X-Men as being in the same universe. That's probably for the best. Astonishing seems to have taken off from where Morrison's run ended, while the other books are in Shitsville.

My understanding is that they've taken the X-books to new levels of Shitsville recently with the release of Wolverine's second ongoing.  Second ongoing Wolverine solo title + special appearance by Condoleezza Rice = new depth levels for the Shit Creek Marvel is sailing the X-franchise down.

[Velorath]

My main throught while reading this:

I really don't see how anyone would think it would be a good idea for the government to control the superheroes.  Doesn't anybody in the MU remember the time the president turned out to be a member of the Secret Empire?  Or what about that time when the Red Skull was Secretary of Defense?

Edit:  To go into further detail, my biggest problem with the story so far is that the registration act is on discussed in the broadest of terms.  The characters seem to react and pick sides before any sort of details are released as to how the act would function.

[HaemishM]

My main throught while reading this:

I really don't see how anyone would think it would be a good idea for the government to control the superheroes.  Doesn't anybody in the MU remember the time the president turned out to be a member of the Secret Empire?  Or what about that time when the Red Skull was Secretary of Defense?

Not to mention the fact that it's come up before as the Mutant Registration Act (which did only apply to mutants) and heroes like Iron Man who are for this registration act were against it AFAIK.