KILLAR MILLAR STORIES: CIVIL WAR
This series produced by the Flipgeeks Crew picks one Mark Millar story and dissect, nitpick it for all the comic book geeks in preparation for the arrival of the Scottish writer — the KILLAR MILLAR STORIES.
This entry focuses on “Civil War” which was written by Mark Millar with art by Steve McNiven and Dexter Vines.
The Scottish writer takes a different tone and focuses on the age-old topic of Privacy vs Security. This book launched a lot of major changes, a character death and a massive change of tone for Marvel Comics for the next few years. It’s also controversial due to the ending as well as a very off-the-wall revelation for one of the characters.
In my opinion, this has got to be one of the top books that the creator has written over the past decade and eclipses the importance of the other titles he has worked on.
So what makes this book an important piece in your collection of Mark Millar books? How about splitting the Avengers in half with the hard choices. Mind you its not just the Avengers but just about all of the super heroes operating in New York. Sprinkle in a powder keg of a situation and two of the biggest Avengers leading both sides.
If you still can’t relate here’s the lowdown. The book begins with a tragedy which is caused by the New Warriors which causes the death of thousands of school kids in Stamford, Connecticut. This pushes the US government to go forward with a superhero registration which cracks open because Iron Man agrees with the idea of surrendering secret identities in order to make the heroes official, government-sanctioned agents.
On the other hand things take a turn for the worse when Captain America is tasked by the US Government to lead the hunt for the unregistered and unsanctioned heroes who operate in NYC. The Sentinel of Liberty disagrees with the ideas of hunting down his comrades, friends and team mates and decides to go rogue. He effectively disbands the New Avengers and goes with street level guys like Luke Cage and Cable.
Some teams like the Fantastic Four also feel the strain and the pressure of the Superhuman with the Human Torch and the Invisible Woman leaving Reed Richards in disgust and joining Captain America‘s Secret Avengers. There are other super powered teams like the X-Men who decide to just stay neutral about the whole situation seeing that they have already experienced this type of situation. In one of the 7 issues of Civil War we even get to see Tony Stark trying to convince Emma Frost to join the Pro-Registration side.
Now I don’t want to prattle on about why this book is good and a must-read. I’m simply trying to sell the idea of this book actually living up to the standard and at the same time be an enjoyable book that you can read over and over again.
What I truly loved about Civil War was the fallout from the events that transpired in this book. If Millar did not write the book, we wouldn’t be having One More Day/ Brand New Day in the Spider-Man books, nor will we see Bucky Barnes take over the mantle of Captain America. We wouldn’t have any awesome Fantastic Four stories written by Jonathan Hickman.
Overall, without Millar’s realistic and awesomely clever Civil War story (as well as the spin-offs and the other tie-ins) Marvel Comics wouldn’t be as awesome. heck there wouldn’t even be a Mighty Avengers book starring a Pro-Registration Team including the Greek god of war Ares and the bat-shit crazy Sentry.
This wouldn't be possible without the controversial ending for Civil War
Clever storytelling added with a dash of real-world paranoia and a lot of great action sequences drawn by Steve McNiven. This has got to be the perfect Marvel Comic book story for the teenagers and the grown-ups who grew up with classic characters like Cap and Iron Man.
It’s also a tale about how cool Captain America is when taken out of his element and how creative Iron Man can be when he can tap into an entire country’s financial resource. Plus, if you’ve seen “Marvel’s The Avengers” you’ll know that the seed for this movie has been planted when Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark clashed with Chris Evans’ Captain America.
Get your copy at all National Bookstore outlets and don’t forget to join us on May 27 for “The Milla in Manila”
