Catching up with Ms.Marvel

During House of M, the one non-mutant character besides Spider-Man that figured prominently and foreshadowed great things was Ms.Marvel. If you're unfamiliar with her, that's not surprising. While she's practically Marvel's answer to Supergirl, she's also been forever relegated to second-stringer who plays best as a member of the Avengers than anything else.

While the conclusion of House of M launched a promising solo title, it unfortunately got caught up with the Marvel Civil War event... which meant I reluctantly dropped it. I refused to read any tie-in material while waiting for the event's headliner mini-series to run to completion. Which in turn means nearly a whole year elapsed before I went back to pick up the collected editions for Ms.Marvel... Here is what I get:

"Civil War" and collects # 6-10 plus the "Ms.Marvel Special" that was published that summer. While Ms.Marvel did take sides in MCW, in reality, the issues that this collection spans only contain 3 issues that actually tied into the event directly. The first arc chronicles her adventure with fellow Avenger alumnus Simon "Wonder Man" Williams as they encounter a Arana and deal with Arachne (formerly Spider-Woman II). If anything, I found this arc to be fascinating because like the Spider-Man tie-ins to MCW, they explored the gray shades as Arachne served as a double-agent causing Ms.Marvel to question her position as head of a SHIELD team tasked with taking down unregistered heroes.

The second arc stepped away from Civil War and explored her relationship with Rogue. Personally I felt this was a rather weak attempt at infusing some humanity. While their fight has lasting implications for Rogue (she more or less had a permanent set of powers absorbed from Ms.Marvel), they didn't seem to do much to Ms. Marvel except to leave her really pissed off. Anyway, the arc involves her pissing off the X-Men in return.

The final bit of the collection is a reprint of the summer one-shot. In this story, Carol is having lunch with Simon when they get caught up in a someone's reality-warping power run amok. The tale is a simple adventure story and introduces a powerful new villain(?). And it sort of momentarily brings back Ms.Marvel's cosmic persona "Binary" (sort of, but not really; who can tell when alternate reality is involved?)

"Operation Lightning Storm" collects issues #11-17 and provides a much more linear set of stories. After the filler material with Rogue, the title went back to the events that started in Civil War. Carol deals with finding direction in her life while A.I.M. (a mad-scientist terrorist group) start brewing trouble. Ms.Marvel also gets back to Arana who is now something of a protege. This bad for everyone involved since the MCW has left some bad blood among the population... including a recently released Julia "Arachne" Carpenter ...who was last seen forcibly separated from her daughter by the authorities. Arana meanwhile learns the hard way that hero work is dangerous to one's health. The meat of the volume, however, is story of a deal Carol makes with Tony "Iron Man" Stark to assemble a paramilitary strike force of hand-picked SHIELD specialists to take down the likes of A.I.M..

Reading both these collections in rapid succession helped a lot I think. Between the Rogue filler and the sudden change in pacing of the later issues, everything flowed better that way. The Arana story in particular flows better as it has a clear beginning when she registers in the MCW issues and a clear conclusion after her injuries in the next collection. The Arachne story spans both volumes likewise. But for straight reading beginning to end, I have to rate volume 3 higher than volume 2 for it's simple cohesiveness.

Civil War: Iron Man

Civil War does a pretty good job of vilifying Tony Stark. This collection lets us see what's driving him. The Iron Man collection includes the "Casualties of War" 1-shot, Iron Man #13-#14, and "The Confession." Interestingly, the stories in these issues also provide a direct look into Captain America's view of the Marvel Civil War.

In Casualties, Tony and Steve meet in secret. The encounter is told using vignettes of their past relationship as Avengers team-mates. While the contexts are very different, the parallels are striking. We start to tie together all the flashback and retroactive stories and realize Tony sees the Super-Human Registration Act as the lesser of all evils. He may be a futurist, but he's also a pessimist. Supporting the Act is the only way he can see will set the public at ease over super-powered folk.

The Iron Man issues are introduced with a concise "summary page" bringing us up to speed on what's been happening in the regular monthly series. It's both a blessing and a shame since we find Tony is having a crisis of faith over a recent plot which turned him into a murderer. If this isn't build-up to his shaky state of mind in Civil War, I don't know what would be. The audience finds Tony struggling with issues of morality and responsibility. It's quite a powerful arc and it most definitely recommended reading.

Finally, the last part of the collection is "The Confession." This was published concurrently with the infamous Captain America #25 and is a spin-off from those events. Taking place after the conclusion of the war, Tony and Steve meet again: in the brig of a SHIELD Heli-carrier. Tony is there to finally lay out exactly why and how the SHRA came about. He reveals that his plans go back as far as the retroactive events depicted in Illuminati and that he knew all along he would lose his reputation and the respect of his peers. But that he stood for what he believed in: a responsibility to the trust of those whom super-heroes have sworn to protect. And he finally answers the most important question: was doing what he's done worth it in the end?

If there was one major tie-in collection that bookends with Road to Civil War, this is it. Highly Recommended.

Civil War: Captain America

The funny thing about Captain America's role in the Civil War is that he is a symbol more than anything. Civil War tended to focus more on grey-area cast like Spider-Man (rightly, as that's where the drama is). As such, there's very little to say about Cap once established as the leader of the anti-registration underground.

As such, the solo monthly makes time to spotlight love interest, Sharon Carter. The 3-part "Drums of War" tale shines a light on the people around Cap but rarely gets inside his head. There is almost no internal monologue for him and instead uses dialogue for exposition. In fact, it is more of a build-up to the turn of events in issue #25 than advancing the Civil War plot. It feels much like the Captain America: Disassembled collection that way: anciliary.

Also in this collection is the Winter Soldier: Winter Kills 1-shot about the return of Bucky Barnes. He was one of few examples of heroes killed and not resurrected... until now. Like the Illuminati retroactive continuity, Bucky was revealed to have survived and was coerced into operating as a drone assassin for years. The story is about how a time-displaced man attempts to accept how the world has changed since he last saw it in 1944. While it doesn't tie in directly with Civil War, it touches on Nick Fury's activities and reveals that Marvel's super-villains are still at large and taking advantage of the Civil War confusion.

While, I cannot recommend this as a Civil War book, it is a must-read for getting on the Captain America #25 bandwagon.

Civil War: Spider-Man (2for1)

There's no question that Spider-Man was one of the major players in the Civil War storyline. He almost represents the reader's point of view in that he starts out in the beginning at one end of the spectrum and slowly drifts to the other side as the Civil War events unravel. Given such a spotlight it's easy to forget that the actual page count featuring Spidey in the main arc amount to very little. In fact, in the first couple of issues, Spidey doesn't even figure into the story until Iron Man's news conference where he shockingly reveals his secret identity to the world in support of hero-registration. Enter the tie-ins... And for once, Marvel did it much better than the tie-ins in previous event-years (I'm looking at you, Avengers: Disassembled).

Civil War Amazing Spider-Man
This volume collects issues 532 to 538 of the monthly title that ran concurrently with main arc. Like the Fantastic Four book I looked at previously, the individual book takes a small plot line from the main arc and expands on it. In this case, that would be the public unmasking of Spider-Man.

In the months leading up to Civil War, Peter Parker had taken a job as Tony Stark's assistant (Amazing Spider-Man 529-531 can be found in The Road to Civil War). Tony not only took in his wife MJ and Aunt May, but also gave Peter a new hi-tech "Iron-Spider" suit. For once in his life, Peter was riding high on success. Peter follows Tony around as an executive assistant and is thus drawn in when Tony reveals to the government that he is Iron Man ...giving Peter a chance to do the same. This collection explores the reasons behind Peter's decision to unmask, his interactions with wife MJ and Aunt May, and the reaction from the world around him in the aftermath of his appearance on television. And interesting editorial decision is to skip over all the events where Spider-Man appears within the main arc: the plot goes right up to his decision to break away from Iron Man's pro-registration faction (where he goes fist to fist with Tony) and escapes into the sewars, but then jumps right to his reunion with MJ and May after they've gone into hiding.

Review Bullets:

• Robbie Robertson undergoes the "editor doesn't care" treatment here. He's back to his trim middle-aged man look (whereas his appearance in Frontline resembles more his movie-counterpart played by Bill Nunn).
• Jameson is downright nasty in this account of the unmasking. He's not comically falling out of his chair, but played straight-arrow. Not only does he fire Peter (and considers suing him for fraud) but we also get a look at how he really feels about Peter Parker and we realize how he feels betrayed by Peter.
• Peter gets a phone call from the Fantastic Four's Reed and Sue Richards... what they talk about is important and ties in several places later on. MJ and Sue's friendship in particular is followed-up in the other monthly that was running at the time.
• I haven't followed the Kingpin of Crime much but I do know that Daredevil eventually took down Fisk and he's now in jail... after the unmasking, Fisk is featured in a plot where he hires a hit-man to go after the Parker family... it's again one of those things the main arc glossed over because we were busy following Cap and Iron Man go to blows against each other.

Civil War: Peter Parker The Sensational Spider-Man
A quick opening note: when I first leafed through this collection, I was afraid it was like Captain America Disassembled where they haphazardly threw together different stories. They havent; this collection covers consecutive issues 28 thru 34 of Sensational Spider-Man which pick up the plot just after Peter's unmasking and explores the lives of the people closest to Peter Parker.
Issue 28 was almost a one-shot story and features a Joe Jusko-like painted look by Clayton Crain. That alone makes the book worth the effort but the story is a particularly good one. The story follows a young aspiring scientist. Not many comics tackled a super-hero's civilian life. If they are a reporter, then they go to work and deal with co-workers or bosses. If they are an artist, then they sit at their desk and start drawing under a deadline. But Peter's student is a fully fleshed out character in the 32 pages it takes to tell this tale.
The rest of the book takes a sudden turn in both art and story. The artists in this collection go totally "Todd McFarlane" on Spidey and reintroduce the frenetic extreme pencil lines so reminiscent of the Image comics of the 90's. The story is all about the women in Peter Parker's life. Interestingly enough, all 3 characters (MJ, Auny May, the Black Cat) already knew Spider-Man's secret identity. MJ undergoes a crisis of faith while Spider-Man is facing a gauntlet of his old villains (and getting attacked by super-villains, of course). We get a look at how Aunt May sees Peter even after all these years. And finally Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat, comes to terms with her own past involvement with Spider-Man (which features a very unusual showdown with Rhino).

Review Bullets:

• MJ looks suspiciously like Kirstin Dunst in this book...
• Speaking of Mary-Jane, she has an interesting conversation with Sue Richards and we see just how out-of-her element she is being married to a super-powered man.
• Seems like only yesterday I read the "Return of Venom" story where Felicia shows up at Peter's apartment not realizing that he's married since the last time they met. This is a weird because it's only now that Black Cat confronts her feelings towards Peter.
• There sure were a LOT of second-stringers in this collection. The story really digs into the Spider-Man mythos and brings out several obscure allies and enemies.
• On the other hand, you don't really need to know who Madame Webb is. Just know that she's the mystic in the "Spider-Man family" because not only does Peter try to get advice from her, but even MJ has a psychic encounter with her. And it's fine!

Overall, both these volumes contribute a very in-depth look at Spider-Man's life as he and his family experience the Civil War event. I would have to consider both books "musts" in the scale of tie-in material to a major event.

Civil War: X-Men

On the completely opposite end of the close-knit tie-in spectrum is the 4-part Civil War: X-Men (now available in trade format. If you are a casual reader who only came on-board with the Civil War event, this is probably one of the least important to read. If you were in it for the last few years however, this story follows-up on the events that have been unfolding ever since the aftermath of Avengers: Disassembled.

The last surviving mutants on the planet have gathered at the X-Mansion for protection and have formed a loose fraternity known as "The 198." The X-Men themselves however have reluctantly agreed to allow the government keep watch over them all with a special task force of Sentinels. However, this move has essentially turned the X-Mansion, once a refuge, into a concentration camp. Faced with public outcry over costumed heroes and the resulting Civil War, the X-Men publicly chose to remain neutral.
However, life goes on and Bishop, himself a legal officer of the law, is recruited to help Valerie Cooper and the Office of National Emergency when The 198 stage a riot and escape from the X-Mansion compound. Cyclops, believing nothing good will come of Bishop's mission, leads an X-Men team on their own "rescue" attempt for The 198. The one oddity about the tale is that due to the nature of the plot (the X-Men dealing with a government entity) it has tends to present a biased view in favour of the pro-registration camp despite a cameo with Captain America, the story ends with team of registered heroes led by Iron-Man arriving on the scene to help sort out the mess.

The Marvel Universe is vast and it's impossible to orchestrate a single world-shaking event that will directly affect every single character. The X-Men were addressed in the pages of the main Civil War arc, but once they established this position on the matter, they disappear after only a few panels hinting at the tension between Bishop and Cyclops. This story takes those few panels and explodes them into full form. I have only good things to say about how Marvel has managed to follow-up with the huge events from House of M (and the accompanying Decimation stories) and to tie the aftermath into the backdrop provided by Civil War, which when stripped down to basics, doesn't really involved the X-Men much at all.

Civil War Frontline Book 1

If this book had been but a little shorter I'd have put up a review sooner! As I complained before, Marvel's Civil War event used very-broad strokes of the brush to tell a story that had consequences across the Marvel world's landscape. And that means there will always been new facets to explore (possibly for years to come). One way to tackle this is to simply publish a whole bunch of side-stories together.

Frontline was an anthology title (published in 11 parts and collected in 2 volumes) that serialized several story-lines. The first dealt with reporters Ben Ulrich (of Daredevil fame) and Sally Floyd (of lesser X-Men fame) as they struggle to cover the events for their respective newspapers. While Ulrich must deal with his publisher Jameson who is losing his mind in the wake of Spider-Man revealing his true identity, Floyd finds herself digging deeper into the anti-registration faction but fails rather spectacularly as actually finding Captain America (who had become a fugitive).

The second major story follows Speedball - the last surviving New Warrior who was at the scene when the school was blown away. He is thrown in prison and given a choice: rot, or sign-up and be a poster-boy. Speedball refuses, believing that signing for registration will mean he admits guilt to the incident that left 60 children dead. What he doesn't know until AFTER meeting with Jennifer Walters (She-Hulk) is that while he's been in a coma and in prison, the outside world has vilified him as a scapegoat.

Interspersed with these chapters are bits of sequential art (each one about 3 pages each). They explore the concept of war in historical parallels including Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon, the American Civil War, stories of World War 1, etc.

And finally, we also get a glimpse at what life is like on the inside. In the third serialized story, Wonder Man gladly signed up for Registration in the beginning but slowly starts to notice little hints of fascism creeping up around him as he's ordered to track a suspected terrorist.

On a side note, I'd like to point out the irony that while Civil War is as shallow as the Spider-Man 3 movie I just saw this week, Marvel made a conscious editorial decision to tell a large-scale story using multiple publications. A movie does not have this luxury... put that way, while it doesn't cross-over directly into the events occurring the main arc, I still highly recommend the Frontline series because as far as tie-ins go, this one is probably one of the more important ones.

Civil War: Fantastic Four

Once a long while while, an editing team will produce a tie-in product that not only merely references happenings elsewhere, but directly addresses unanswered questions and expands on the history and backstory that fleshes out such an event. I believe Civil War's only serious downfall (beyond the lateness of each issue) was the very nebulous nature of the beast. There were so many players it was difficult to devote much time into exploring each of their internal motivations.

Reed Richards was a major player despite the fact that the war's two icons were Captain America and Iron Man. He figured directly into the Illuminati and in Civil War was revealed to be instrumental in the reappearance of Thor (who up until that point had vanished during the Avengers Disassembled story). Reed also later helped Iron Man design the extra-dimensional prison to hold their POWs during the war.

The F4 collected edition handles issues 538 thru 543 (which also happens to be an extra-long 45-year anniversary issue). It tackles several plot threads that are barely touched upon in the main Civil War arc. Most obviously, the book takes a close look at The Thing, who was relegated to a cameo in the main arc... the book explores the Ben Grimm's crisis of faith in the midst of his family taking sides and he decides to do what other protesting Americans have done in times of war: hang out in France for a while. We get treated to his wacky adventures in a taxi, at the customs counter... and joining a French group of super-heroes who appear to be thinly disguised analogs of DC's Justice League.

Interspersed with the Thing's story, the book also explores Reed's personal motivations for supporting the Super-Humans Registration Act. He is at first depicted as a heartless and severely clinical mind. Then progressively, shown to keep secrets from friends and family (on the subject of Thor, for example) and even making up a story to tell Peter Parker explaining why he supports the SHRA. And finally revealling that he's been working on solving a doomsday scenario and he believes it could be the end of the world (so much for rational thought!).

What I found particularly interesting is that this collection of issue behaves more like a cross-over than a tie-in. The plot runs concurrently with the main Civil War arc. The family are still together at the start of the book but Johnny Storm has already been hospitalized. There are references to the Thor reappearance later on. And still later, whereas the main arc depicted Sue and Richards in a "Dear John" situation, this book's interpretation is much more dramatic, demonstrating that Invisible Woman just might be the F4's most powerful member.

While things don't exactly go back to status quo by the end, the book does wrap beautifully with the anniversary issue of F4. One could argue that this indicident was one of their most trying times (especially on a character development level). Johnny and Ben sit at home with the kids watching a documentary called "The Fantastic Four: A Look Back" while Reed and Sue try to patch things up on their own. It's hopeful and bittersweet. And was also just the right place to pack in a couple of goofy 1960's styled back-up stories paying homage to 45 years of fun adventures.

I haven't had this much fun with a collected edition in a long time.

Reaction: Civil War (part 1?)

I'm one who wants to experience "the whole thing." With the trend in publishing now that where comics are frequently late (a chronic condition since the days of Image Comics back in the 90s), I find myself more often than not one of those "wait for the trade" types. And so it was with Avengers Disassembled, then it was with House of M, and then with last year's Civil War ...and very likely this year's World War Hulk.

Speaking of WWH, I'm going to kick of my Civil War post by taking a quick detour over to "Road to Civil War." It's important because it ties together a "floating backstory" in Marvel Comics that had been unwritten until very recently: Marvel's version of the Illuminati. In recent years, Marvel has been publishing a lot of retroactive continuity stories which reveal the "dark side" of their ficticious world. For instance, in Deadly Genesis, the second generation X-Men learn that they are actually the third generation X-Men after a failed second team were killed in action. The Illuminati stories likewise tell the untold tales about Marvel's most powerful characters forming a secret cabal who would direct the destiny of humankind from the shadows. And it's quite disturbing where their paths lead them.

Which in turn sets the stage to understand why characters like Mr.Fantastic, IronMan, and Namor (among others) behave in the radical fashion that they do in the pages of Civil War... these are men who've taken it upon themselves to decide the fate of the world because they feel only they are in position to do so... things like banishing the Hulk to another world for instance (a decision that will come back to kick them in the nuts later this year, if you know what I mean).

Back to Civil War: it's about the Marvel Universe taking sides after a catastrophic suburban encounter between a group of desperate third-tier super-criminals and the New Warriors (who've sunk so low they're filming a reality show)... well, things go bad as in "thermonuclear accident" bad. Which turns the human populace on superheroes once and for all. A few patriots like Iron Man side with the government and support a "super-hero registration act." Others like Captain America who claims to value freedom choose to go underground, fugitives from the law, but rallying like-minded vigilantes in a large scale blitz.

Other character caught up in the war are shades of gray. Spider-Man owing much of his recent authority to Tony Stark's employment, publicly sides with Iron Man. Susan Storm fed up with the obsessive behaviour of Reed Richard (and witnessing an accidental death caused by one of his mechanations) follows her brother Johnny to Captain America's fold, effectively breaking up the Fantastic Four. What's really sad is that ultimately our heroes come to blows and it takes a psychopath like the Punisher to make one realize things just aren't the way they were.

When Frank Castle executes two unarmed super-criminals off-hand, Captain America beats him to a bloody pulp while screaming, "fight back, damn you!" To which, the Punisher only replies, "not against you." It's a warped sense of justice and honour, but it's the only kind left in this world. And finally, as the war spills over into mid-town Manhatten... well. It's time for one side to realize they are fighting a pointless battle.

I'm amazed how smoothly the 7-part story read. I think a lot of the bad feelings towards this "event" was due to its horrendous publishing schedule. But I was able to enjoy it within 2 or 3 sittings. I read somewhere that the action was slow in building in the first few issues. This was back during the initial publication and the reviewer speculated that perhaps the story was intended to be read in rapid-fire succession... Lucky me ...even if I had to wait several months for it to be released as such.