Marvel's Civil War: Would you side with Iron Man or Captain America?

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

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I'm not sure how the upcoming movie will spin it, but here's what I understand based on recently reading issues of Ms. Marvel that tie in with the Civil War story arc:


After a terrible accident involving the super hero team New Warriors results in the death of hundreds of school children, the long debated Super Hero Registration Act is finally made law.

Heroes must register their identities with the government and be trained as proper law enforcement officers. Failure to register is a crime punishable by incarceration.

Heroes have divided into two camps - those allied with Iron Man, who supports the law, and those who follow Captain America, who has moved underground to fight back against a government that has turned its back on him.

Iron Man argued that the changing political landscape meant that resisting the law was pointless, and that it is reasonable for heroes to have proper training and oversight, whereas Captain America argued that heroes required secrecy in order to protect aspects of their 'normal' life, such as spouses and children, and to allow them to act in whatever means necessary against threats which the ordinary emergency services couldn't cope with.

I lean more towards Captain America's view points. How about you?

[Pike]

I side with the "Civil War is terrible" viewpoint :colbert:

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

Terrible like "this writing/premise sucks" or terrible like "omg my beloved characters are fighting why is this my life"?

[Slothy]

Considering Iron Man ended up deleting his own brain to prevent Norman Osborn from getting the last copy of the list of registered super heroes I'm going to have to say that Cap had a point about secrecy. Though heroes also needed training when possible. It's almost like both had a point and they were forced into a conflict that seemed a bit... forced.

[Pike]

Terrible like "this writing/premise sucks" or terrible like "omg my beloved characters are fighting why is this my life"?

Terrible like "the original Civil War comics were terrible." I don't care about characters fighting, heck I would pay a full movie ticket price to watch two hours of Iron Man vs. Cap. Unfortunately I'm sure they'll stuff it full of obnoxious Civil War story stuff.

[Old Manus]

Why do superheroes have to solve everything with violence?

[Psychotic]

The law is stupid but fuck me if I'm ever supporting anyone but Tony Stark.

[Freya]

I've always agreed with cap on this one. I'm excited to see how they play it.

[Shorty]

Cap til the end.

Not generally a Marvel fan, but I'm excited to see this storyline manifest.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

I'm actually reading through all of the Civil War stuff now just because. Cap all the way.

[Pike]

The law is stupid but fuck me if I'm ever supporting anyone but Tony Stark.

This.

Tony Stark could support flying around the world and personally punching every single person in the face and I would be okay with it.

[Spuuky]

That's funny, I have no opinion except that Tony Stark is always wrong.

[Pike]

I don't care if he's wrong or right so much as I care that he has a sexy robot suit.

[Madame Adequate]

Civil War is an abomination and everything about it is dumb as trout.

This is how dumb it is: The Pro-Registration side employs Green Goblin, Venom, and others. To perform officially sanctioned government work. Not in some sort of vaguely clever "We need bad guys to stop someone even worse" way, they just... hire them.

Meanwhile, they throw dedicated and proven superheroes who have an objection to either the principle or implementation of registration into the Negative Zone with no due process, no lawyers, no trial, no appeals, nothing.

But more than anything else, there was a total failure of communication between all the different writers. Everyone had their own ideas about what the arguments were and who was in the right, which could have been effective if it had been done well, but it happened due to sheer incompetence on the part of Joe Quesada.

Oh speaking of him, remember when he explicitly said Spidey's revealing his identity would not be undone through some "magic retcon" (exact words) and then in One More Day (Which is atrocious for plenty of other reasons), literal magic was used to undo the revelation and make everyone forget? Yeah that happened.

Plus of course one of the main viewpoint characters who we are supposed to feel has her head screwed on right, delivers to Cap what is portrayed as a huge verbal smackdown that shows him just how out-of-touch with Modern America he is. Because he doesn't watch NASCAR, use MySpace, or vote on American Idol. Has swears, but this (http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y31/ngrey651/bull10.jpg~original)is how that vapid idiot should have been treated.

And the details of the Registration Act varied according to different writers, because there was apparently no brief or anything.

And SHIELD tried to arrest Cap before the law was even signed into law. Putting aside that generally a law doesn't get enforced with SWAT teams and stuff at 12:01 AM the day it comes into force, especially if it involves registration, because you give people time to comply with it. It can be done, but it's widely considered bad form and a lot of court cases would be launched because how can you register when you get arrested before the registration centers open? Oh but nevermind because, of course, the law simply doesn't apply here.

Oh and remember when Stark had Black Panther's wife attacked for refusing to sign, even though she, as wife of a foreign chief of state, would almost certainly have diplomatic immunity, to say nothing of the fact that pissing off Wakanda would be almost as dumb as pissing off Atlantis in the DC-verse.

[Calliope]

TEAM ERIC

[Madame Adequate]

Oh oh oh, and don't forget how the X-Men just plain couldn't appear in Civil War, because their entire run and a large number of their story arcs has presented government-mandated control or oversight as the beginning of the genocide of all mutants.

[Freya]

I liked the part where mister fantastic looks into an alternate timeline where alternate timeline cap kissed alternate timeline tony and the civil war never happened. Just massive sexual tension.

http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090402142040/marveldatabase/images/7/78/Natasha_Stark_(Earth-3490).jpg

[Pike]

I liked the part where mister fantastic looks into an alternate timeline where alternate timeline cap kissed alternate timeline tony and the civil war never happened. Just massive sexual tension.

http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090402142040/marveldatabase/images/7/78/Natasha_Stark_(Earth-3490).jpg

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[Madame Adequate]

That's true that part was good.

However, what else was not good: Do you know what was happening elsewhere in the universe at the same time as Civil War? Annihilation. What happened in Annihilation, for the uninitiated? Well, Annihilus killed the ENTIRE Nova Corps except for Nova himself, made himself immortal, and led an army from the Negative Zone to wipe out everything in the galaxy. Do you know how big a threat this was? Annihilus was such a massive threat that it forced the Guardians of the Galaxy, Nova, Super Skrull, Ronan the Accuser, and smurfing Galactus to work together. So yeah, it got a Kree and Skrull to co-operate and Galactus to put aside his usual goals for a minute. That's what the rest of the galaxy was up to while Iron Man and Tony Stark were failing to discuss any sort of reasonable compromises or sensible implementations of the Registration Act.

[Shorty]

Bunch of negative nancies in here!

The Captain America films have risen to unprecedented success with Winter Soldier being the #2 film for 2014 only behind Guardians of the Galaxy, not to mention the outrageous success of The Avengers films. This is only the beginning of the Civil War storyline, it's obvious that this story will later bleed into The Avengers and I can almost certainly guarantee it will be our third Avengers film several years down the line, which means Joss Whedon will be directing it, and everything Joss Whedon touches turns to pure gold. Additionally, there's no possible way to include all of the happenings that go on in Civil War because there would be way too little screen-time for far too many superheroes, so it's a safe assumption to say that they will include only the most pertinent events to the storyline in order to eliminate plotholes and waste.

so how's about you settle down nerds and enjoy some more superhero films because this is a fantastic dilemma to pit heroes and comrades against in a continuing series of integrated storylines and it would be excellent for the silver screen

[Madame Adequate]

I do hope the filmed version does better (and it could hardly be worse) because if it was handled right it would be a great premise. But it was handled terribly and matched by, what, One More Day, and that's about it, for recent Marvel fuckups?

Also I've not said word one about any of the Marvel Universe movies, nerd.

[Freya]

Hey shorty, that's my argument about the tolkien movies.... That it's excellent for the silver screen :D

Nerd rage is the most amusing rage.

[Shorty]

I know that, nerd! But the this thread is about the upcoming film :jess: Or so I guessed, maybe I was wrong!

and freya I respectfully disagree xD to each their own!

[Madame Adequate]

I will admit I'm being unfair towards Joe Quesada though.

Mark Millar has plenty of fucking blame to accept for this debacle.

[Madame Adequate]

Oh oh oh! I just remembered something else!

Everyone got mad at super heroes because a super villain blew up a school.

That's like demanding SWAT teams be disarmed because Adam Lanza shot up a school.

[Shorty]

Also, on recruiting Norman Osborn and Venom et al, you are correct. Saying "these known villains and terrorists will sign and support our bill so let's pardon them and sic them on all of the goodwilled superheroes who refuse to also sign even though they have saved our asses countless times before from said superheroes" does not make a whole lot of sense.

[Madame Adequate]

Hey remember that time Kang blew up D.C. and enslaved the planet and nobody demanded a Super Registration Act? That happened just two years before Civil War. Supers failed to stop him at first, and the damage was enormously greater than Stamford in Civil War, but nobody demanded registration then.

[Freya]

How strict have the past movies been in lines with the comic book stories?

not very.

So you're dislike of the comic book storyline probably wont translate to the movie.

It will be an awesome storyline for a movie :D

[Pike]

I still think they should drop the story and just have two and a half hours of a Cap vs. Iron Man vs. Thor vs. Hulk free-for-all.

[Shorty]

For the record, I'm okay with this turning into a bitch about Marvel plotholes thread, but I'm not sure that's what LWL intended it to be xD

[Madame Adequate]

They tried to set this up as an analogy to other first responders, and the principle isn't entirely unreasonable given the setting (even though a law mandating registration on the basis of who and what you are would never stand up to Constitutional scrutiny) but it didn't make any god damn sense in the execution. Yeah, paramedics and cops and stuff are given extensive training and supposed to be held to account, but superheroes don't choose to be what they are by and large.

Most heroes are gonna do the right thing, and most villains are not, by virtue of their nature. A voluntary scheme set up explicitly to train newbies how best to use their powers, how to keep civilians safe, which kept their identities secret even within most of the organization, etc., would have been accepted by just about everyone except Frank Castle. You'd get some rookies who overestimate themselves at first, sure, but if you get a united front of the Big Shots like Cap and Iron Man and Thor to say "Hey the Superhero Training and Support Act is a great idea, we encourage everyone with powers to register, we can all do better things more effectively" would get a lot of those kids on board anyway.

Instead Tony "Der Fuhrer" Stark decides to fight and throw into negative-zone prison everyone who opposes mandatory registration.

e; Yeah I am pretty confident the movies will do it far better than the comics did, but I will never pass up a chance to bitch about Civil War. :p

[Madame Adequate]

hey guys remember that time the side going on about accountability and registration to prevent accidents and stuff ended up killing Goliath and just shrugging their shoulders and moving on without a second thought because eh who cares about stuff like accountability

[Shorty]

Cap and the side of opposition are concerned with maintaining their privacy. So, okay, sure. Is there any real reason why superheroes could not privately register their details with the government in order to not be held accountable on a civilian level to the rest of the nation? Was there any reason for Peter Parker to publicly unmask himself? Clearly it served as a plot device to swell some drama between the opposing sides, but it doesn't seem like there was a real necessity to it. I don't see why we can't have our superheroes register privately in order to be held accountable on a government level for any misdoings or accidents or so on instead of risking an omission of privacy to the public.

I'm not familiar with the intimate details of SHRA, just trying to arrange a compromise here for fictional events which would work for all parties! :jess:

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

Just to clarify:

My intent with the original post was to see which character people felt aligned with their ideals if they were in that type of situation.

I was going for comic and movie alike as I imagine the basis is similar for both :monster:

[Slothy]

I don't see why we can't have our superheroes register privately in order to be held accountable on a government level for any misdoings or accidents or so on instead of risking an omission of privacy to the public.

That was what they did. But then the government put Norman Osborn in charge of SHIELD, and Tony Stark not only had to destroy every copy of the registration list that was running loose in SHIELDs database to keep it from him, but also erase all of the information he held in his brain so that they wouldn't be able to pull it out of him with a telepath, or by dissecting his brain if he died. Mind you, that was an excellent story in his solo series, but jayzus it's just a bad idea to have lists of super heroes and all of their secret identities lying around. Sure it means you can't arrest them if they break the law unless you catch them in costume, but it also means you don't get villains getting their hands on the list and systematically destroying their lives. That tends to happen often enough anyway.

[Shorty]

It's a bad idea to be sure, which is why it was such a great plot piece used in Mission: Impossible. I would still say it's safer to have a privatized list available only to certain individuals rather than the public but hey ho.

[Pant Leg Eater from the Bad World]

I don't have an answer and I won't read this thread because I haven't finished reading this event yet.

[escobert]

I lean towards Capin FUCK YEAH MERICA's side but, I hate the actor who's played him and Iron man is badass.

[Spooniest]

After a terrible accident involving the super hero team New Warriors results in the death of hundreds of school children, the long debated Super Hero Registration Act is finally made law.

Heroes must register their identities with the government and be trained as proper law enforcement officers. Failure to register is a crime punishable by incarceration.

Uh...

Yeah. Regular old cops are supposed to incarcerate the Hulk. Mm hm.

This storyline is bollocks.

[Shorty]

Regular old cops don't come into it, the rebels are tracked down by superheroes themselves. Also, Bruce Banner sides in favor of the act and is all for it.

[Sephex]

Well, as far as Captain America goes, I think--CRAP I SPILLED SOMETHING

KrZHPOeOxQQ

[Night Fury]

I want to have sex with both of them so this is a really difficult decision.

[Quindiana Jones]

Justice is in the mind, not the vagina, Locky! :stare:

[Shorty]

I don't see how they're mutually exclusive tbh

[krissy]

squirrel girl for president 2016

[Quindiana Jones]

I don't see how they're mutually exclusive tbh

Well, one does your thinking for you, and the other one controls your body. Who knows which is which, though...? :gator:

[Sephex]

I don't see how they're mutually exclusive tbh

Well, one does your thinking for you, and the other one controls your body. Who knows which is which, though...? :gator:

Well, I personally have a strong, independent vagina that don't need no brain.

[Quindiana Jones]

Well, damn. I didn't expect you to pull the Vagina Card on me. Now I look like a total asshole. :erm:

[Spooniest]

I still say this story is shit.

[Madame Adequate]

Did I mention I dislike Civil War as it was presented in the comics?

[krissy]

i never read it tbh

[Ayen]

The comic book version? Capt. The movie is "Civil War" in name only so I have no idea what the crisis is going to be about this time. They kind of have to change it since there hasn't been enough world building done in the universe and there's like one superhero who has a secret identity, I think. Marvel has done well in all their movies thus far so I have faith that it will be good despite the comic book story sucking. I'll probably be rooting for Iron Man though because RDJ.