Civil Warness and ICology

Civil Warness and ICology

May 05

Lured by the fanboy siren song of a major summer comics crossover series, I picked up Civil War #1 on Wednesday, even though I’m not buying any other current Marvel titles, and don’t really want to get involved in their universe whatsoever.

Thing is, though, the damn issue was actually quite good. Especially considering it came hot on the heels of Infinite Crisis #7, concluding DC’s biggest crossover in years. In fact, it sorta kicked Infinite Crisis’ silver aged ass.

My big overwhelming feeling about IC, especially as we stand here now in the aftermath of its conclusion, is that it was a series of good to great ideas that suffered from good, fair, and occasionally just plain poor execution. The series itself felt incredibly tight and promising as it opened, but really started to fray at the edges as time went on, leading to a concluding issue that felt like the Cliffs Notes for some other really great finale. The huge fight scene, featuring all the villains in the world battling all available heroes in Metropolis, should have been an unmitigated masterpiece for Geoff Johns and George Perez (or Phil Jimenez, or whoever had time, I guess). It should have been pages and pages of superhero melee. Instead, it was almost an afterthought.

Did they just run out of room? If so, why not make it a longer miniseries? Or was it bad timing, and were they shackled by the need to get their ducks in a row before Superman Returns hits theaters and brings lots of snot-nosed kids into comic shops looking for Superman comics that don’t involve four different versions of the character?

OR was there a constant behind-the-scenes scrambling that inevitably deteriorated all the good planning and intentions that went into the event? That seems possible, given all the delays involved in the later issues…but we probably won’t know for another twenty years, when the Absolute Infinite Crisis edition is beamed into the microchips in our brains, featuring memos and interview clips from the parties involved.

And WHY not bring back the multiverse, honestly?

I need to stop there. IC’s over, the One Year Later titles are polishing my knob in a satisfactory way, and Civil War is the now.

And it’s good. Real good. Steven McNiven’s pencils are simply spectacular–sharp and energetic. The coloring and inking mutes the whole affair, giving the book a feel of smoky mystery and even bittersweet regret. (Okay, maybe I’m overstating it, but it looks cool.) And Mark Millar brings us a story and dialogue that actually feels kinda smart, especially compared with the average summer crossover. Sure, the whole “government tries to register superheroes” idea has been done. But I get the feeling that this time it will be EXPLORED in at least an interesting way, if not a totally new way. I’d like to have heard more about why the people who feel the way they do have those feelings, on either side, but it looks like even that’s gonna be easy. I just need to get the Illuminati special, and I’ll get what I want. Not four mini-series, four specials spinning off the mini-series, crossover issues for the four mini-series, and a one-shot priced at a dollar to kick the whole fucking thing off.

More than anything else, as I sat and read Civil War, I felt as though I were in capable hands. It seemed like the execution of a creative strategy that involved great forethought, a plan that was developed and then followed in a way that brought art (or at least fine craftsmanship) to what is essentially a marketing tactic.

Then again, as I’ve already pointed out, IC felt that way in the beginning too. But I can’t escape the sensation that Marvel just seems to have its shit more together on this than DC ever did.

Marvel’s drummed up some serious press for Civil War–NPR, New York Times, ABC News. The first issue is just a nice comic, with a slick and classy cover, good paper and cover stock, sharp writing and great art. There’s a two-page essay at the end where Joe Quesada makes suggestions to new readers on where they can find all the great characters in Civil War in other adventures. And there’s even a checklist.

A checklist! What a novel idea! Don’t make us dig up web pages where fans speculate endlessly on what happened when, and in what issue, and whether it counts as a “crossover” or not. Just give us a goddamned list if you want us to buy all these books. Hell, I’m not even gonna buy all the books, and I was glad to see the list. It shows the publisher gives two shits about making it easy for the fans to shovel money into the pockets of comic shop owners everywhere. (I wish the list was in some kind of reading order, but I’ll take what I can get.)

Was there ANY mainstream press coverage of IC? Didn’t the issues have, like, different cover stocks all the time? Did the musical penciler game provide any solid continuity between pages? Was there any attempt to offer supplemental material, in the form of essays or checklists? Did the average reader even feel like the writer and editor knew what they were doing, when issues hit the stands late and the product felt increasingly rushed?

Not really. Which is telling me that maybe, just maybe, DC’s banner 2006 is going to have the shit beat out of it by Marvel’s fucking spectacular 2006.

WikiWikiWhack: Modern Age of Comic Books, Fictional Crossover