15 Things wrong with Civil War

[kkhohoho]

They claim to be family friendly,yet there is swearing everywhere,they have an obssesion with r@pe,and they use the words "thought crime" unironicly.Thou that might be just the impression I got.

There's some swearing, sure, but it's not constant, and I don't really mind it. But as for everything else you mentioned, yeah; I just don't see it. I have been on TV tropes for more than half a decade, and I have never seen anyone there obsessed with r@pe or 'thought crime' mentioned even once except maybe as either a reference to 1984 or a sarcastic joke. So I don't really have any problems with it.

[HarryTrotter]

Hasnt really attracted me to register.Just saying.But Im not that crazy about the site either,so there is that.I visited it a few times,but I dont see whats all the fuss is about.

[GhostMachine]

Paul Jenkins is a hack, pure and simple. No other explanation.

And I take offense at the Sally Floyd character not only because she's an incredibly stupid character (She's Sarah Palin as a reporter!), but because my real last name just happens to be Floyd. The whole part about Cap being out of touch because he didn't use MySpace or watch NASCAR was beyond idiotic, and I'd love to slap the tar out of the writer for coming up with that crap.

The biggest problem with Civil War is that Stark, Pym and Richards didn't end up in prison for their actions once it was done. They were supervillains, not heroes, in that event.

[Talavar]

Paul Jenkins is a hack, pure and simple. No other explanation.

And I take offense at the Sally Floyd character not only because she's an incredibly stupid character (She's Sarah Palin as a reporter!), but because my real last name just happens to be Floyd. The whole part about Cap being out of touch because he didn't use MySpace or watch NASCAR was beyond idiotic, and I'd love to slap the tar out of the writer for coming up with that crap.

The biggest problem with Civil War is that Stark, Pym and Richards didn't end up in prison for their actions once it was done. They were supervillains, not heroes, in that event.

Pym at least had the good grace to be a Skrull imposter.

[Silver Shocker]

Wow, do I have a lot to respond to *deep breath*

[checks forum rules for rules against complaining about other message boards, just in case.....even though Tvtropes isn't strictly a message board...whatever]

For the record,TvTropes is not a good example of a civil board.I dont really have to explain why.

Wasn't saying it was. Because you're right, it really depends on what part of the forums. The AT4W or Jimquisition thread fine, but there's a reason barely anyone posts in the Zero Punctuation thread, it's because Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's fans are THE most defensive mofos you'll find outside of....well, Kirkman fans. (and keep in mind, that's WITHOUT making a political reference. Fill in the blanks yourself).

Actually, you might, because I think TvTropes is actually pretty darn civil myself, at least compared to most boards.

I used to say that too. It used to be my favorite site full stop. Then drama happened. And I just stopped reading anything that had to do with forum rules, forum drama, ect. I was much happier that way. Perfect example. Some overexcited little twerp made a thread called "Invincible aka SUPER AMAZING AWESOME SUPERHERO COMIC!!!!!" I choose to believe he was like 12 or something. I made one relatively innocuous comment that I didn't like the book. And someone else just straight up tells me "#$%^ your #$%^ my good man." I immediately called him out by saying that's not civil. Then someone (might have been the same guy) said I wasn't civil either. All because I said I didn't like the book, and that I dissagreed that every superhero series should be equally as violent. So yeah, not a civil site. That was years ago. I'm pretty sure it got worse from there.

I haven't really seen firsthand evidence of this myself, but I heard the site accused of having a large Neo-Nazi userbase. Take that as you will.

The site got so bad large chunks of userbase left and made their own chintzy rippoff versions of the site on free wiki sites that barely ever get updated.

They claim to be family friendly,yet there is swearing everywhere,they have an obssesion with r@pe,and they use the words "thought crime" unironicly.Thou that might be just the impression I got.

Fast Eddie's still in charge, isn't he? We all basically accepted that as long as he was running the site, it would never improve in a meaningful way. There was a girl who work on it in the beginning who was apparently his anchor, reigning in his worst habits, but she's not around anymore. Mind you, they say Eddie works/worked at either Raven Software or Human Head, and I'm pretty sure I read Human Head got shut down, so who knows. I certainly don't. I stopped following all this stuff somewhere around "The Google incident".

Paul Jenkins is a hack, pure and simple. No other explanation.

Look, I'm not defending Frontline, I never said that in this thread, but not everything he wrote was as bad as Frontline. Case in point: the scene in Peter Parker Spider-Man where Pete has a conversation with God after Flash is in a coma. I defy anyone to tell me that scene isn't well written. Yes, the entire rest of that two parter kinda sucked, but that one scene? Golden.

The biggest problem with Civil War is that Stark, Pym and Richards didn't end up in prison for their actions once it was done. They were supervillains, not heroes, in that event.

Hey, if nothing else, we all got that awesome sequence in Thor after the real Thor came back, tracked down Tony, curb stomped him, and told him in no uncertain terms to go &*%^ himself. That was a great scene.

[kkhohoho]

@TvTropes: All I know is that in the threads I visit, nothing like that has ever come up. Maybe if I went exploring other parts of the board, I'd find it, but as is, I just don't see it. For better or worse.

[Silver Shocker]

That's probably for the best. The "no referencing gay jokes, even if the movie you are discussing has gay jokes in it" is the only one I've seen recently, and I think that's completely unreasonable and draconian. For example, If we're discussing Identity Crisis on FR, a book that's infamous for including a sexual assault, that had a massive effect on the DC line for years, I think it's completely reasonable to mention sexual assault in the context of the comic. Not in painstaking detail or anything like that, but still.

[HarryTrotter]

So,lets forget TvTropes.I know Im trying to.Civil War,or at least Marvel comics,lets focus on that.
Okay,Peter meeting God was a nice touch.BUT,in the very next issue he goes to make a deal with the Devil.God just told him everything will work out,and he goes to Mephisto a minute later.Yeah,Peter is an idiot.
Well,I like Invincible,but Super Amazing is waaay too strong description.

[Silver Shocker]

Actually, wrong comic. That was Sensational Spider-Man by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. I actually read that series as well, and that issue was actually real good. It's also one of the biggest reasons why One More Day just doesn't work. The story's critic's point out the God thing all the time as one of the big criticism (remember, Peter also has a seance where the spirit of Aunt May tells him to let her go, since she's lived a long live. We all know how that ended). The sycophants at CBR insisted it didn't count because the character was never explicitly referred to as God, as if that nullifies even a single criticism of One More Day.

No, the Jenkins story happens years before that. This was around the time Spider-Man 1 was coming out (Marvel did this thing where whatever villain was in the Spidey movie at the time, would have a big arc in the comics. This time it was Green Goblin. Marvel actually PROMOTING the movies? Wow, times have changed) I think it was the very next arc after the Green Goblin arc with Ramos. Can't quite remember. But no, this was before Civil War. Heck, I'm not sure it wasn't before Avengers Disassembled. It's been WAY too long.

Forgot to comment on the Carol/Tony thing. They made Carol kinda hard to like back then, but that was Busiek's run. The story was covered in both Avengers and Iron Man, actually a lot of it happened in a crossover that included Captain America's and Quicksilver's ongoings. Yes, Quicksilver had an ongoing back then, and it was really good too. I just remembered they actually reprinted it when the Age of Ultron movie came out. I gotta order that one some time. Anyway, considering Carol got kicked off the team for her alcoholism, she had a reason to be ticked at Tony (even though it was Pietro who really called her out at the hearing), but again, she was a complete screwup/burnout at this point in the comics so it was hard to sympathize with her. She also caused a passenger jet to blow up in Tony's book, so yeah, kinda a low point for Carol. Things really worked out for her eventually though. One thing we can actually thank Bendis for. I'm actually a big fan of Carol Danvers. I read her ongoing by Brian Reed and I really liked that. I still need to read the newer stuff though.

Even if you like Invincible, would you really want every superhero series to have the same amount of violence, regardless of tone or approach? Doesn't make any sense to me.

[HarryTrotter]

My bad then.But Peter tends to meet God fairly often,it seems.
About Invincible,ofc I wouldnt want others to emulate it.Im first to point out it went too far with some things.But that would be a different and long subject.
I think the crossover you are talking about is Live Kree or Die.Way back when Mark Waid was writing Captain America.And for better or for worst,that the version of Carol Im mostly familiar with.

[Silver Shocker]

Yep that's it. One of the first trades I ever read. I totally forgot about Waid's run on Captain America. That was a really good one too. It's funny, the 1998-2004 or so era had really good books, and Morrison and Waid's JLA over at DC at the same time. Kinda makes you wonder happened after that in some respects?

[HarryTrotter]

Not a whole lot to wonder.Identity Crisis and Civil war happened.Btw,havent seen Meltzer writing comics in a long while.Identity Crisis aside,his JLA and Green Arrow were pretty good.
Not that I defending him or anything,but I guess Jenkins meant to say that the real America  isnt as ideal as Captain holds it to be.Only you know,it came out stupid.

[Silver Shocker]

Never read his GA, but His JLA was decent. The main problem I had with it was the pacing sucked. I liked what McDuffie did with his groundwork more, you know, before DC mucked around with his run and fired him.

I totally got what the idea with Cap and Jenkins and Frontline was supposed to be, but the actually execution was just not handled well. There's lot of material to be had about Cap being the ideal of America that they should all strive for, and it's been utilized in the comics before (Gruenwald's Cap run, for example) and I feel the movie's have captured that very well. There's a really good fan edit of the Frontline scene that has Cap call out Floyd instead of just sit there, and it turns out I still have it on my computer all these years *deep breath* [edit for language, naturally]

Cap: Oh for $%^&'s sake, I'm going to jail soon, so I'll just say my piece and let Ben [Ulrich] translate it into [expletive deleted] for you.

Firstly, Myspace? Nascar? Are you really that #$%^ing stupid?  You're talking about cultural flotsam. If this had been happening ten years ago, you'd be lecturing me about, #$%^, beanie babies or Pokemon or some #$%^ like that. [Ok, that's actually funny considering Pokemon Go, but I digress]. America's ideals - you know, the ones we pledge allegiance to in school -- don't change. I would have thought that would have been obvious, maybe it's just been a long week for you, what with your busy schedule of being offended by superheroes and all. I mean, it was only us horrible unlicensed superheroes who sent Kang packing a little less than two years ago. You might remember how he blew up Washington DC, which your whining about causalities in New York - well, as dumba$$ed as every else you say, Miss Floyd.

And as for you "I want superheroes to be elected and accountable" spiel, sure, it sounds good, but the thing about all bad ideas is if you don't think about them too hard at first, they sound good. Where are these elected and accountable superheroes going to come from, anyway? You think anybody with half a brain and moral fiber would want Spider-Man's life [kinda funny, considering Avengers: The Initiative tackled that exact idea and did a really darn good job at it in the process. There, I just praised Dan Slott. "Hey, I got a deal for you - you get these Spider-powers, and in exchange, you get to constantly help people and be met with not just indifference but outright hostility. And on top of that your friends and family will constantly be under the threat of attack from super-powered enemies, and many of them will die.

You've overlooked, Miss Floyd, that most superheroes get their powers by accident. We have been @#$%ing blessed to get such an array of human and decent people working for the common good. But really, it's to be expected that superheroes would mostly get their abilities through luck, because no morally sound person would ever endanger their loved ones for power, or even duty. If you told American soldiers that their duty would endanger their families, they wouldn't be an army anymore! [I'm not touching that one!]

Are you starting to get it, Miss Floyd, are you @#$%ing enlightened yet?

[awkward pause]

Cap: Not surprised. Say, how about them T-Bolts! An army of supervillains! That's keen! That, plus the suddenly-involuntary "Initiative" that Tony's cooked up, means that [Nope! Not leaving this part in! WAY too political! fill in the blanks yourself, folks!] Think they'll be making "Cap was Right" T-Shirts?
------------------------------

By the way, Marvel at least were good enough sports to take the urine out of themselves. World War Hulk Frontline had a short strip making fun of how annoying Sally Floyd was, where the punchline was hear yelling at Cap's grave "When was the last time you logged into Myspace?", while Dan Slott's Avengers: The Initiative featured Floyd as a noisy, Vickie Vale-esque reporter who prompted Henry Peter Gyrich (whatever happened to that guy anyway?) to utter "I hate that woman."

The biggest problem with Civil War is that Stark, Pym and Richards didn't end up in prison for their actions once it was done. They were supervillains, not heroes, in that event.

Because I'm me, I have to ask: in the case of Hank (if it had really been him and not a Skrull) would that be better, or worse, than a grotesquely out of character Hank being ok with committing robot genocide on the grounds that "they're not real people" in the Marvel U of all places? Though at least when that happened he got called out on it.

[HarryTrotter]

I saw that image of CA's response before.Anything is better then just a blank stare.You know,it would have been easier to judge whos right if we actually knew what was in the freaking registration act.Nobody ever tells us what the act actually IS.

Gyrich: Call IRS,tell them to check if  miss Floyd payed all her taxes.Yeah,that was savage.
And good question,I havent seen him in a long while.And about the political part of Captain meme,Peter Gyrich and Gauntlet were pretty explicit about that in Initiative #1.They flat out say they are training a superhero army for deployment in Irak.Word for word.

Meltzers Archer Quest had Oliver an Roy collecting all the mementoes Oliver left around in life(because Oliver returned from the dead a bit before that),like the diamond tipped arrow,or the pickup truck from Hard traveling heroes.It sounds a bit corny,but its a good story.

The aftermentioned group,in similar line up,also got a free pass for everything they did in Hickmans New Avengers.Thou,it maybe be that some of this played a part in Tonys retirement.

[Silver Shocker]

And good question,I havent seen him in a long while.And about the political part of Captain meme,Peter Gyrich and Gauntlet were pretty explicit about that in Initiative #1.They flat out say they are training a superhero army for deployment in Irak.Word for word.

Absolutely. I haven't gone back and re-read (God, I hope it holds up) but Slott and Gage's Initiative was a damn good book that completely owned up to how f-ed up a concept the Initiative was. They made no bones about it: the young heroes in the book were child soldiers. They trained Cloud-9 (her power was she could ride on a cloud) to be a sniper. The main villain of the series was literally called "K.I.A." if I recall correctly.

Come to think of it, that means the book was essentially Kyle and Yost's New X-Men run if it was actually good, didn't have the worst pacing in comics, and was actually self-aware. Ironic considering the last non-crossover issue of NXM had one of the characters insult The Initiative ("Some moron named 'Justice'", yeah, screw you too Hellion)

Meltzers Archer Quest had Oliver an Roy collecting all the mementoes Oliver left around in life(because Oliver returned from the dead a bit before that),like the diamond tipped arrow,or the pickup truck from Hard traveling heroes.It sounds a bit corny,but its a good story.

I did have an interest in reading that one back in the day. I read Kevin Smith Green Arrow run and I loved that, even if it had to be a little edgy for edgy's sake, but this is Kevin Smith, and you know what? It was Green Arrow, there's precedent for that too. And it's not like Judd Winick didn't own up to Mia being a former prostitute either. He treated that responsibly.

The aftermentioned group,in similar line up,also got a free pass for everything they did in Hickmans New Avengers.Thou,it maybe be that some of this played a part in Tonys retirement.

Well, if nothing else, the time-displaced younger Beast called out present day Beast for how much of a massive hypocrite he'd been for the last years of comics, so that was pretty sweet.

[HarryTrotter]

I havent read Winicks run,and nothing I heard about it makes me want to;but Smith-Meltzer era was very good.And Smith was pretty self-aware there.And he had a good grasp of DC characters.Some cool guest appearances there.

Initiative and Avengers Academy were good examples of introducing new characters,as opposed to basically everything Marvel does now.But IIRC,mostly everyone there got killed in a attempt to make Arcade look cool.

"Hey,Cyclops,you killed the professor.Now excuse me,I got planets to blow up in another title"
I know I complained about it way too much but-Avengers vs X-men-ANOTHER screwup that Tony is almost single-handedly responsible for.Ofc,some part of the blame lies with Wolverine.And just like Civil War,we get to see it in reruns this year.

[Silver Shocker]

Oh boy, let's not get into AVX again. Just think, if Marvel didn't take the timeskip as a opportunity to add in the Inhuman B.S. and Wolverine didn't go and croak, we'd STILL be hearing Him and Scott kvetch back and forth about him killing the old man.

Don't get ME started on Avengers Arena. Before the Inhuman B.S. settled in and I was all "nope, not buying any X-Men books until Marvel stops acting like a bunch of petulant children", I had already decided to boycott the otherwise-pretty appealing All-New X-Men purely because the writer of Avengers Arena/Undercover wrote it.

Even ignoring the callous disregard for established, cult-favorite characters that people might actually want to read about because "muh drama" (with Mettle dying in the first flipping issue), Hopeless sabotaged his own creations to boot. As soon as we were introduced to Deathlockett, I was like "this is one the greatest new characters in the past 15 years of comics". She was a teenage girl cyborg with a pandabear tank top. She was like if someone looked at Molly from Runaways and went "Nah G, we can make her WAY more awesome." Cats in the letters pages were already calling for this new bundle of wonderful to get her ongoing series running for one thousand issues and I was 100% on board for that.

And then Hopeless turned her into a grouchy emo girl who wanted to kill Captain America and I was like "I never want to see this character again." And I didn't, because none of the characters from this series (including the established ones) ever appeared again, last I checked (and no, Battleworld Runaways doesn't count). And then Marvel had to rub acid in the wound by having her appear in some mobile game a while back.....as a villain.

I have a lot of "If I ever write for Marvel" anecdotes. One of them is: If I ever write for Marvel, I'll bring Deathlockette back and completely ignore Undercover. If I reference it at all I'll pull a Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker and go "Finally, we can leave all that crap in Bagalia behind us."

[HarryTrotter]

Lets just,when Wolverine Lives #1 hits the stores(and we all know something like that will happen,with weapon etched 3D covers),I wont be waiting in line to buy it.But Im sure Death of X will remind us of that glorious era.
It think the biggest irony is that pretty much everything since Utopia was meant to paint Scott as an anti-hero,or a straight up villain,but ended up giving him more fans then ever.
Another old complain,but Robinson(another guy I not all that fond of in newer time) about killing Namor because of his crimes during New Avengers,yet he forgot everyone else.Okay,Reed is writen out of the universe,but Doctor Strange and others are still around.Thou,Namor is coming back now that Marvel had movie rights to him,so much for that.

[Silver Shocker]

Another old complain,but Robinson(another guy I not all that fond of in newer time) about killing Namor because of his crimes during New Avengers,yet he forgot everyone else.

LOL. I totally forgot about that. That was definitely a thing that happened.

Okay,Reed is writen out of the universe,but Doctor Strange and others are still around.Thou,Namor is coming back now that Marvel had movie rights to him,so much for that.

I think the Fantastic Four has suffered enough by this point.  That just reminds me, going back to Civil War, at least there was World War Hulk, where Hulk also got a chance to curb stomp Iron Man, AND Doctor Strange...and I'm pretty sure he beat up Black Bolt too didn't he? Planet Hulk/World War Hulk was actually really good.

[HarryTrotter]

All things considered,Secret War provided a dignified sendoff to Fantastic Four,and even left a hook for a possible return.So i don't have any complains there(about the epilogue itself).Actually,you could look at Secret Wars as a finale for the whole Marvel universe.
Now that you reminded me,Im sure there will be a Planet Hulk 2,whats with the event partially being adapted in a movie.I know Bruce is dead,but I dont really see that sticking either.Because movie.

[daglob]

Nah, Bruce will stay dead, just like Clark, other Bruce, Logan (95 weeks and counting), Matt, Hal, Johnny, Ben, Barry, J'onn... oh, wait...

Does anyone remember when they killed everyone on Earth in an issue of Dr. Strange? Maybe twice? Or did they decide that was an illusion?

I object to Bruce's death on the grounds that it is just a publicity stunt, to try and make people believe that  Civil War II is serious. The logic behind this is a free pass to kill every super-being in the Marvel Universe, because they MIGHT go bad at some time (hey, radiation tuned The Angel bad once).

And didn't Marvel do a miniseries that resulted in death being more permanent than before? Or did they make that didn't happen?

[kkhohoho]

And didn't Marvel do a miniseries that resulted in death being more permanent than before? Or did they make that didn't happen?

I don't know about a miniseries, but I do know that Marvel apparently had a policy in the early 2000's or so that anyone who was dead was DEADER THAN DEAD. Glad to see that sticked.

[HarryTrotter]

Yeah,If your Jean Grey.Anyone else...not so much.

[kkhohoho]

Yeah,If your Jean Grey.Anyone else...not so much.

I was being sarcastic...

[Talavar]

It's true though.  Despite her reputation of dying and coming back all the time, original Jean Grey (not the time displaced teenager) has been dead quite a while by comic standards.

[HarryTrotter]

Another earlier thing;not to defend Dan Slott or anything(the guy is a jerk),but he had some good stuff.Like Arkham Asylum:Living Hell,Thing,She-Hulk,Initiative,I would even add Mighty Avengers there.
Im not that versed in his Spiderman run,outside a few odd collections here and there.And Superior.Which we discussed a few times before.

[Silver Shocker]

Yeah, I read AA: Living Hell and I thought that was good (I've heard people say Magpie was out of character, but I can live with that, plus we're gonna talk about characters acting out of character in a Dan Slott book?). She-Hulk I read a decent chunk of back in the day, and I actually really liked that. Though it was the right book at the right time. It had far-reaching continuity nods and used a lot of more obscure characters at the time (like the New Warriors). This was kinda a novelty at the time because Marvel wasn't big on that, so it stood out. That being sad, there were warning signs. It was nice that there were Young Avengers cameos but an out of character Stature and Vision acting like morons and getting their a$$es kicked by Boomerang the Ox? That's modern Slott through and through (see the Young Allies acting like morons and getting their a$$es kicked during Spider-Island). Never read Thing, but it seemed like a fun book in line with She-Hulk. I'd give it a soft pass.

Mighty Avengers was a mixed bag in my opinion. The book always felt like it had potential it never lived up to; it was writing cheques Slott couldn't cash.  Then after the book was over Slott took to twitter to blame editorial meddling for the book not being as good (which came off a bit like sour grapes IMO). Besides, Gage wrote half that book anyway.

[HarryTrotter]

There was also Spiderman/Human Torch,another fun series with a ton of continuity nods.Spider-buggy anyone?(okay,its not that obscure,but a nice touch)But I guess Slott kinda lost that energy on the main title.Or hes too busy tweeting.

Okay,Mighty Avengers had its ups and downs,no denying that.And Im not that big on Frank Chos artwork btw.

[Silver Shocker]

I actually forgot about Spider-Man/Human Torch. I did read that years ago; it was fun. I know a lot of the critics of Slott's run who are longtime Spidey fans pointed to the mini and wondered why more of his run wasn't like that.

Actually, Frank Cho did the art for Bendis' run on Mighty Avengers, not Slott's. That was Koi Pham and later Rafa Sandoval (neither of which I'm much of a fan of) and Neil Edwards (who like Steve Kurth, is very much discount Bryan Hitch. I've found he's improved admirably over the years).

[HarryTrotter]

Heh,I guess the whole thing kinda blended together.It was a long time ago.
Im not a huge fan of Rafa Sandoval either.But I mentioned that before.