Civil War
Year: 2006
Author: Mark Millar
Length: 196 pages
One of the most engaging elements of superhero comics is how many of them coexist in the same universe. While this can lead to some awesome team-ups to take down enormous threats to their collective homes, the more engaging storylines center on the ideological differences between these fleshed-out characters. Even though I haven’t read a ton of superhero comics, I know the Civil War series from Marvel is notably famous for having most of their superheroes forced to choose a side in a world that has grown terrified of their unchecked power.
What’s great about Civil War is that there’s a human aspect to the conflict. It’s not really about superheroes as much as it is about the right to privacy. That these heroes are literally fighting each other over an issue as complex and multifaceted as public safety shows how tightly held their convictions are. If anything, it’s a little weird that the resolution of this disagreement was physical violence; but when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
I can appreciate that there wasn’t a clean way to really resolve the conflict in these comics, but the ending felt somewhat abrupt. I almost would have liked to see a few more issues that wrapped up the aftermath of the violence, but at least the first few issues managed to show the more diplomatic side of things. In the end, we often put all superheroes on a pedestal but don’t consider that their physical feats of strength don’t always translate to the correct side of an argument. Then again, the gray morality of some issues is what makes runs like Civil War more interesting than just a beat-‘em-up story.
A complex issue resolved with superhero violence, I give Civil War 4.0 stars out of 5.
