Roundheads and Cavaliers

Since I haven't talked about comics for a while, I thought it would be fun to express my opinions of "Civil War", the epic storyline consuming Marvel comics at the moment. For the benefit of readers who aren't into American superhero comics, the two main publishers (Marvel and DC) have taken to doing this kind of mega-crossover to excess in the last couple of years. It has the effect of temporarily boosting sales when an individual issue of any superhero comic is part of a wider crossover, so the logic is that if they do it all the time, sales will go on getting higher forever. Last time they went down this road, the bubble burst in spectacular fashion and Marvel went bankrupt - the problem is that what people buy comics for in the long term is the characters and their ongoing storylines, and when they're being constantly derailed by a story being part 274 of an epic that expects you to pay hundreds of dollars to read the whole thing, it gets old pretty fast. On the other hand, Marvel nowadays have lots of money because their movies have been so successful, so that's not such a big deal now. And, more importantly, Civil War is actually really good. Unlike "House of M" last year, which was diabolical.

The idea is that a major tragedy caused by second-string superheroes the New Warriors, which kills hundreds of children in small-town America, sparks a huge public reaction and finally persuades the government to put through a law forcing people with superpowers to register with the authorities, get proper training and work under government supervision. Which is actually quite sensible, but it goes against the superhero tradition of anyone just being able to put on a mask and go out and fight crime. So all the world's superheroes pick a side and end up fighting each other. It's an interesting idea that hasn't been done before on this kind of scale. The individual heroes' storylines have mostly been well done, especially She-Hulk (which gives the New Warriors the kind of serious treatment they've been lacking for years now) and Thunderbolts (which is always great and seamlessly incorporates this storyline into its many ongoing plots). The only ones I haven't bought after reading them in the shops are Wolverine (which has atrocious art) and X-Factor (which gives a token acknowledgement to the Civil War background and carries on with its own impenetrable plots).

We automatically sympathise with the rebel anti-registration superheroes, but they're making an effort to give coverage to the other side too - Spider-Man, at least for the moment, is firmly pro-registration, even revealing his secret identity to the world, and in the latest Civil War issue Captain America and his rebels are decidedly out of line, starting a big fight when Iron Man and his join-the-government-team gang just want to talk. I'm enjoying the whole thing, and looking forward to seeing where it goes (although you just know that it'll end with the whole thing being swept under the carpet and the status quo restored, like they always do. Maybe with Spider-Man's wife written out somehow because the idiot in charge of Marvel doesn't like her).

DC are also doing an epic storyline in a rather different way at the moment - instead of crossing over into their regular comics, they're doing an additional weekly series called '52', on account of it runs for 52 weeks. I don't normally read DC, but I'm getting this because I think weekly comics should be encouraged - I hate waiting a month or more for the next issue. The gimmick here is that it's in real time - each issue covers a week in the life of the DC universe, while all their other comics have jumped ahead a year in the lives of their heroes. So in '52', we get to see a world where Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are all missing, without it getting in the way of the other comics. We're eleven weeks into it now, and it's been very entertaining. Although the latest issue is focusing on the least compelling of the various interconnecting storylines, so it isn't as good.

If you want to get into the world of superhero comics, either of these is a good place to start. Try "Civil War" especially - see if your comic shop can get you all the comics so far, it's worth giving it a try.