Oct.13-19 - More Returns and Changes

Are You Now, Or Have You Ever Been..?
(Mainstream comics catch-up: Marvel's Civil War over the past three weeks)

As noted in a post yesterday, my latest Westfield package arrived Friday. That brought me comics I'd ordered which came out over the past three weeks, back through June 1st. Also as noted yesterday, I decided (not that it was a new decision, but hopefully one I'll stick with this time) to take a few minutes to at least note something about each of the series I'm picking up. This is with the idea in mind that if they're not worth commenting on or, worse, I'm finding myself ashamed to be associated with something then why is it on my list? Obviously, if there's a good deal going on in a given issue and I'm interested - positively or negatively - it'll be considerably more than a few lines on each. (A quick look, pre-publication shows that I should probably spend at least 15 minutes checking this and editing/condensing it, but my Saturday is not boundless, so it is what it is.)

Below I'll start this off by focusing on the most recent parts of Marvel's Civil War arc - Thunderbolts #103, Amazing Spider-man #532, Civil War #2, and Civil War: Front Line #1.

There will be spoilers.

Okay.

The hot item over at Marvel right now -- well, at least for the comics that are in sync and as per the boys in marketing -- is what's at the heart of the Civil War arc: The Superhuman Registration Act.

An interest in forcing costumed adventurers to register with the government and become government employees, granting them official license, pay and benefits while making them accountable and, presumably, controllable. An incident in Stamford Connecticut, where members of the New Warriors were filming a Cops-like superhero reality show as they descended on a suburban safe house for some second-string supervillains went desperately awry when Nitro (a metahuman who's ability is to blow himself up and reassemble his scattered molecules) went off...
...while standing next to a school bus parked adjacent to a school and playground. Over 600 dead, many of them children. What was formerly a matter for a senate sub-committe investigation blew onto center stage in the media.

The most recent batch of comics brings the story up into a running pace. The overlap of info makes reading one title potentially delating to another, so among the four comics on this list the best sequence for them to be read is likely Amazing 532, Civil War 2, Thunderbolts 103 and CW: Frontline #1, which in some respects seems to be dancing to its own tune. Come to think of it, one could even read Frontlines before any of the others, as the events in it happen during/before most of what's in those other issues.

Amazing Spider-man #532 is part one of six of an arc titled The War at Home. The story is told out of sequence, giving writer Straczynski a chance to work in a variety of scenes all framed by Peter's wrestling with one of the greatest decisions of his life: Should he reveal his identity to the government? Moreover, if he's going to go that far then should he reveal it to the world?

As ever, Pete's primary concern is the safety of his loved ones -- his Aunt May and his wife, Mary Jane. Along the way we get to be in Stark's jet when the specifics of the incident in Stamford come to Stark, and Peter's in the seat beside him. We listen in on several conversations between Peter and Tony, on the jet, at the site of the disaster in Stamford, and in and near the White House. In the end, Tony takes a "the world is changed" stance that we've heard so many times since 9/11/01.

Oddly enough, whereas I don't buy it in the real world there's quite a good argument for the move being proposed here in the comics. Tony does a poor job of selling it on any basis other than fear, though. At one point he pitches the argument:

"We live in a time when everyone has has to make sacrifices of their privacy. Wiretaps. Increased surveillance. Random searches at airports."

Which, frankly, had me thinking that doesn't make all of those right any more than HUAC was in the 1950s. We've been sheep, and we're going to pay the price for it for some time to come even once we begin to push back.

Back to the story and Stark's pitch to Peter -- I can't help but see a conniving angle in the play of events, as part of how Tony drew Peter into the Avengers was by offering sanctuary to Aunt May and MJ, who moved into Stark Tower along with Pete. Security, comfort and a degree of cameraderie were all extended... and now there's the sense of a bill coming due. Considering that Tony extracted a promise from Peter to stand with him even back before he told Pete about the then-secret (and pre-disaster) subcommittee hearings... it all stinks a little of a set-up. My take on what the writers intend is that we shouldn't hate Tony for being a futurist, for seeing the shape of things to come and setting himself up for the best. Still, the fear is turned up on high when Tony says to Pete:

"It's not me asking, Peter. If you don't unmask you'll be just like the other powers who defy the law. Wanted criminals. Hunted. Jailed. Not just you, but MJ and your aunt, because they'd be considered accomplices."

and

"If you turn against the law, I can't have you with me. I won't be able to protect you... or your family."

Pete tries to think through the options, including grabbing such cash as he has in the bank (his modest, pre-marriage money, not MJ's/their joint funds) and running. Ultimately, Peter takes the case to MJ & Aunt May, as he feels the decision is at least as much theirs as his considering his secret identity's always been about protecting one or both of them.

Along the way MJ raises the thorny issue of naming names - another HUAC reference and a plot point that has to be explored during this arc or else the writers are incompetents. She asks Peter both if he'll have to name names - which Peter momentarily tries to weakly sidestep on the basis that Tony knows all of the secret identities he does - and then whether or not Tony would rat Peter out if he doesn't do it himself. Peter's forced to admit he doesn't know the answers. That slippery slope of loyalty to friends, to government, and what one has to do to prove it in the context of a repressive government, should prove to be the most interesting human issues in this arc.

In the end it's May who sways both Pete and MJ by underscoring how proud she is of Peter and what he's done as Spider-man -- the countless lives he's saved -- and casts the mask as something of a mark of shame when he has nothing to be ashamed of. That she parrots the same argument seen in other issues of various comics -- concerning how judges, policemen, government officials all go about public work that potentially makes their loved ones targets -- is something for the reader to decide if she's saying it because it's something she's come up on her own or if it's part of the talk show & newspaper buzz that has to be coming from every direction in the past day or so. Either way it's more than I'm going to quote here because Stracynski's Aunt May is the long-windeed and firm voice of moral rectitude, always comin' out of left field with that old timey wisdom that brings a tear to Pete's eye and sets him right. Goshes!

While Pete comes very close to skedaddling anyway, May turns out to be up early, too, and hands Pete an old costume of his she repaired. Pete's been wearing some techno-togs Tony put together for him a few issues back -- part of the benefits package of not only being an Avenger, but also being current best buddy/right hand man to a multi-billionaire, cutting edge technologist.

May suggests he wear his old costume so no one will doubt it's him. That Pete's fancy new costume not only offers a plethora of tech extras but also responds to his thoughts, so he could wear it at street clothes while travelling and make it look like his original costume for the press conference seems to be forgotten... but, damn it, this is Aunt May and her Old Timey Wisdom, after all. Can't argue with that and still call yourself an American, eh?

The issue ends with Peter showing up just in time for Tony's press conference (it's not clear what Tony was going to do to justify the event if Pete didn't show, though) and Pete making a prelude to unmasking himself.

Now, if this were just happening in a Spider-man comic we'd suspect that something would happen next to disrupt the conference, but, no... we see the next scene, where Pete unmasks and reveals his identity at the close of the next comic on my list (Civil War #2), and it's an important bit of breaking news within the first few pages of the comic after that (Thunderbolts #103.) It was even covered in the international press by Thursday.

As mentioned, Civil War #2 (of 7) was next on the list.

In the first issue we saw Captain America, confronted by Maria Hill, the current director of S.H.I.E.L.D. , refusing to help hunt down those who would refuse to register with the government, and taking down a group of SHIELD agents before breaking out of the Helicarrier. So doing, Cap set himself up as the inspirational heart of the anti-registration resistance movement that was to come. The issue ends with Iron Man (Tony Stark), Yellowjacket (Hank Pym) and Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards) presenting a unified front in a promise to the president to police their own by either bringing Cap around to their side or in.

Issue #2 finds SHIELD realizing Cap's already drawing allies.

In the days before the legislation goes into effect Tony and the other heroes already operating with a nod from the government try to fix their public image. While they appear to be succeeding (a tad conveniently, but hey...) conversations among them come back around to Captain America -- someone few if anyone in their ranks believes fits the classification of "kids, amateurs or sociopaths" Iron Man refers to the non-compliers as. Most are hoping Cap will come around before the deadline hits.., but he doesn't.

The legislation becomes law.

Meanwhile Reed, Hank and Tony have gone into high gear with various secret plans, and Reed appears to be in hyper-hog heaven as he rushes about working on various projects. We begin to see the barest hint of a possible rift between him as Sue, as Reed seems so sure of the positive nature of registration but Sue is faced with the reality that a sudden, angry mob caught her brother (Johnny Storm, the Human Torch) unaware in a civilian setting and hospitalized him with a severe concussion. A disc in Reed's lab is simply marked "42", and when Sue asks about it Reed has to beg off because it's classified. At least he hasn't said (at least not yet) that it's the answer to life, the universe and everything.

Later, when Captain America and the Falcon (disguised as SHIELD special agents) organize the escape of a group of young heroes (the media-tagged Young Avengers -- a name they'd not given themselves) who were just captured, one of the other agents who's enthusiastic about taking down the "mystery men" and seems to have a major erection over every detail mentions rumors that "number forty-two" is a special, super high-tech prison facility being built to house errant superhumans. Cap and the Falcon (with the help of one of the kids' teleportation ability) get them back to a secret base and welcome them to the resistance. We see that Daredevil is there and in costume. I haven' t been keeping up with DD, but at last check he was in a really dicey situation since he, as Matt Murdoch, had sworn that he wasn't also Daredevil, so if he were to be forced to unmask he'd not only lose his law license he'd likely be sent to prison.

The issue ends with a variety of players in different locales catching the press conference where Spider-man unmasks and informs the world that he's Peter Parker, and has been Spider-man since he was fifteen. The best of the reactions, as you might expect, is from J.J.Jameson, who either passes fully out or so loses control of himself that he drops out of his chair behind his desk.

Okay, so, they've really done that. Or at least as "really" and permanently as anything in comics ever is. I'll be interested to see where they take it.

Next up is issue 103 of Thunderbolts.

Oh, jeez... I'm not going to try to recap the subplots, etc. here. Writer Fabian Nicieza is very much of the Chris Claremont school of piling on the subplots and lettin' 'em dangle for a long time. This issue keeps moving fairly rapidly, though. I will give Nicieza points for the mix of personalities and tactics that remind us that this is a group of "reformed" villains who've gotten behind the project for various reasons, and while some are happily embracing the role of hero some are considerably less than heroic. Meanwhile, they're now being led by Baron Zemo, a fascist who has in the relatively recent past come into vast power that responds to his thoughts. He's recast himself as a savior of the world, and is coming across in as creepy a fashion as one would expect of a benevolent fascist who is convinced he knows what's best.

In this issue a meeting in Washington DC with Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic, Yellowjacket, Henry Peter Gyrich, and Dallas Riordan finds the Thunderbolts under Zemo considerably less than trusted, but being extended an opportunity to help. How? Not by hunting down renegade heroes, but by capturing and recruiting super-villains. By issue's end we find that the team's already been covertly doing that for three weeks. Moreover, the captives are in machinery that have not only kept them in a sleep-state but are being effectively brain-washed to the Thunderbolts' cause. Zemo assures Songbird that he's merely presenting the argument to them for becoming a Thunderbolt, and that the choice will be theirs. So, presumably, soon we'll suddenly see the T-bolts grow many times its size. To what specific end..? That remains to be seen, though looking at the cover image for next month's #104 it at least appears that Zemo's plan to bump up the size of the team works:


Finally, we have Civil War: Front Line #1 (of 10.) Written by Brit comics writer Paul Jenkins. Like the final spirit on Scrooge's dance card, this is the one I fear the most. Why? Well, while Jenkins has been much-lauded by a fan base I've yet to see much of the cause for it. My impression has been that this is another case of an outsider (someone not a fan of the characters and their history) who came in and made a splash by writing stories (many of them Spider-man ones which I was unable to read because every time I took a look the "artwork" was the hideous work of Humberto Ramos) that appealed to newer readers.

It would take some stunning work to get me to forget that this is the guy who not only had Spider-man use british slang in casual conversation with Daredevil ("gob" instead of "spit") but had Spider-man asking DD if he ever got his jollies thinking about spitting down from on high, tickled at the thought of someone looking up to see the guys in tights and getting smacked in the puss by a wad of phlegm.

Who the f--- is that supposed to be? Was he supposed to be out of his mind with fever?

(The above, as best I recall, was from a three-issue Spider-man/Daredevil miniseries.)

Anyway, having someone who wrote that scene and who has admitted that he didn't know who many of the characters were when he was given a list of characters and carte blanche in deciding who falls on which side of this registration issue... well, yeah. It's like seeing some wifty, court-appointed guardian (some Marvel editor) leave the kids in his care (the characters) in the hands of a drug addict/ pedophile because he wowed the crowd with his fancy accent and glittery patter at a recent cocktail party.

The premise of this 10-part, bi-weekly series is two reporters, each essentially embedded with heroes on each side of the Registration issue. In a twist that borders on interesting but ultimately fails for me, Ben Urich is taking the pro-registration side. Keep in mind this is the reporter who learned Daredevil's secret identity years ago via excellent reporter's skills and in the end sat on it because he realized he'd do more harm than good in revealing it. I won't drop it solely on that basis -- Urich's a thinking man who's seen a lot of trouble come of secret identities, everyone's reeling from a single incident that claimed so many lives, and we're still seeing that Ben's uncertain. It's the push of his job - he works for the Daily Bugle, after all, (in)famous for crusading against mystery men. So, hey, I can buy that part.

Still, the issue starts out weak. We come into it via a funeral for a reporter - John Fernandez - and so a gathering of reporters. That much is fine, but the eulogy included a sort of timeline for John, who was an award-winning television/video reporter. Now, this was a guy who'd done "four tours of Bosnia, three to Afghanistan and maybe eight or nine to Baghdad with CNN," then goes on to list an emmy nomination credit for a piece on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln... and then tells us that landing a job working on a reality show featuring the New Warriors was a "big break"? I don't know... a lot of guinness was mentioned, maybe the guy was just looking for an easy paycheck after all that?

The issue features a press conference that happens pre-passage of the legislation and pre-unmasking of Spider-man where Iron Man appears somewhere (it's unclear where) and reveals his identity. This appears to be happening in the background of everything else, though I could have done without Tony reverting to the AA approach of "Hello. My name is Tony Stark and I am an alcoholic." Uh... why? To show the world that he's prepared to come clean on everything?

Eh.


Most of he remainder of the issue shows that there was one survivor of the blast in Stamford (aside from Nitro, who quietly recollected himself and is hiding out somewhere, too -- some form of him appearing in current Wolverine issues I wouldn't buy on a bet, where Humberto Ramos' pencils will give you the impression that Nitro and pretty much everyone else was horribly deformed in the accident -- see image on the right) as Speedball is found some 500 miles away. His kinetic energy-absorbing powers had saved him but key neurological channels appear to have been burnt out, so he's funtionally powerless at least for now. While not even fully conscious he was brought up to speed on what had happened and then arrested by SHIELD.

Revealing myself as an insensitive prick, I must note that the final three pages of the issue, given over to an anonymous poem circulated around the Poston War Relocation Camp (one of the spots where those of Japanese ancestry were placed during World War II) is run in some limp juxtaposition with Spider-man thinking things over is, at best, out of place. Yes, yes, I know it's supposed to be deep, but this is a case of someone trying to force a connection and drain a real world event of signficance for a cheap boost he apparently doesn't feel he can muster from his own writing.

(Sucktastic, symbolic cover to Civil War: Front Line #1. Does Wolverine have to be on everything? Even when he doesn't appear in the issue? And can't someone just hurl the abject waste of space that is Sentry permanently into a million, blazing suns? Oh, well, at least Johnny appears to be out of his coma and it's nice to see Bill Foster -- former Black Goliath and now just plain ol' Goliath -- again. Why does every woman I see these days have a cell phone pressed to her face?)