After nine whole months, Civil War finally grinds to a halt. And despite the spin, there's no denying that the reaction to this final issue has been mixed, tending to negative. It's not another Civil War: The Return by any means - it's easy to find people who really liked Civil War #7. But it's hardly the ideal reaction.
Now, you can argue that the Internet is negative about everything. Obviously that's true to some extent. But Civil War has been going since last May, and previous issues didn't receive anything like this level of negativity from the ordinary message board posters.
You can also argue that Civil War sets up an interesting status quo for the Marvel Universe. There's some truth to this - I rather like the possibilities of a Marvel Universe where superheroes are either under the thumb of the government or total outlaws, removing the wishy-washy middle ground of tolerated vigilantism. But you can't defend a seven-issue, nine-month, massively-extended crossover on the grounds that it was just a prologue to the next story down the line. An event on this scale has to work as a story in its own right.
Personally, I don't think the final issue is as bad as people are making out. It's not so much this issue; it's a structural problem with the whole story that came before. Marvel have produced many, many comics that were far worse than this.
But the reaction should still be cause for concern. Marvel hyped this series to the hilt, and by stretching it for a further three months, they built the anticipation even more. Clearly a big chunk of the audience felt that they failed to deliver on the hype. With a normal miniseries that wouldn't be a problem - after all, they've paid their money. Civil War isn't a normal miniseries. It exists to define the direction of the Marvel Universe and to set up a ton of new stories. If readers aren't leaving Civil War satisfied and enthusiastic, well, that's not good.
The sheer length of Civil War, especially coming on the heels of Infinite Crisis, might also have led event fatigue to set in at last. If that's the case, then again, Marvel have a problem. The plan for 2007 is pretty much all event. Having once announced that there would be no equivalent mega-crossover this year, Marvel have now released an "Initiative" checklist that clocks in at fifty-eight comics, and a "World War Hulk" checklist covering another thirty-three. I'm reminded of the state of the DC Universe five years ago when it was spastically lurching from stunt to stunt with rapidly diminishing returns.
Fundamentally, though, the problem lies with the story. Most of the criticism has focussed on the ending, where Captain America surrenders and the war finishes. And if nothing else, issue #7 did deliver a clear winner. However, it seems to have been widely read as an arbitrary capitulation.
Reading the bullet-point synopsis that editor Tom Brevoort released, and Joss Whedon's own comments on the editorial conference where he made his minor contribution, you can see that this isn't the effect that they had in mind. The idea was meant to be that Captain America looks at what's happening, and realises that by his actions, he's been proving Iron Man right. So even though he's on the verge of winning the fight, Captain America recognises that he's on the wrong side of the argument and surrenders.
This is a perfectly reasonable ending, and if you re-read Civil War #7 knowing that this was the plan, you can see the glimmers of it poking through. But even with that knowledge, it doesn't work as an ending.
Mark Millar's problem is that he thinks in moments, not in stories. This particular moment would only work if it was set up properly by the preceding six issues. It's the conclusion to a story where the anti-registration heroes start off with a perfectly reasonable position but, as they fight for their "freedoms", they ironically prove the other side's case, thus forcing them to recognise that their position is untenable. Unfortunately, that's not the story Millar told. There's a glimmer of it in Civil War when the Punisher shows up, but that's about it.
How does the big fight in Civil War #7 prove Iron Man's argument any more than the Stamford disaster back in issue #1? Wasn't that a perfectly good demonstration of the dangers of amateur superheroes? After all, the New Warriors did fight Nitro right next to a school, in order to boost their TV ratings. That's pretty dumb. Why has nobody on the anti-registration side ever attempted seriously to grapple with the moral implications of their argument? Is Cap really saying that he thinks masked vigilantes should be wandering the streets unchecked? (The Punisher was presumably introduced in order to play off this point, but nothing effective was done with him to explore it.) When Millar could have been developing the necessary themes for his big finish, why was he wasting time with unmasking Spider-Man - a stunt that contributes nothing but extra hype, and doesn't even bear on Spider-Man's eventual defection? What the hell was the point of the cyborg clone of Thor?
Instead, with his usual crashing lack of subtlety, Millar has attempted to wrongfoot the readers by setting up Cap's group as the apparent goodies, and Iron Man as the apparent baddies. Now, in theory, this isn't a bad idea, as long as we start from that position and see some actual development over time that finally leads to Cap's epiphany and surrender in issue #7. In practice, it fails dismally for two reasons.
One, Millar (and Jenkins and Straczynski, in the major spin-off books) massively overplay their hand by making the pro-registration forces into unequivocal villains - borderline murderers, consorters with homicidal maniacs, defilers of the dead, torturers of imprisoned heroes. It's taken to such a degree that Millar finds himself trying to write a finale where Cap figures out that the fascists have got a fair point. Plainly that's a non-starter.
Two, during the entire storyline only one character gives serious consideration to his position and changes it. It's Spider-Man, and he goes the wrong way. Spider-Man's change of heart makes sense because he's increasingly confronted with the evidence that he's sided with the neo-Nazis. Captain America's surrender makes no sense because it requires the atrocities committed by Iron Man's forces to be swept under the carpet in order for us to accept that he's truly seen the light. In contrast, only two minor characters (Stature and Nighthawk) are seen to defect to Iron Man's side during the course of the storyline, and they seem to just give up because they think the rebels are fighting for a lost cause.
Marvel insist, as they always do, that Civil War was mapped out from the beginning and that the plan was not changed. If that's right, then it's remarkable that professional editors and writers failed to realise how poorly the ending had been set up in the earlier issues. And there are definite signs of last-minute re-writing in this storyline.
Remember those two Fantastic Four issues that were billed as Civil War prequels? The ones about the real Thor's hammer? Well, what did those have to do with anything? If Thor's return was planned as a feature of this story, then the inclusion of Cyborg Clone Thor makes at least a modicum of sense. But it would also mean a last-minute re-write. If on the other hand it was never planned as a feature of this story, then those two Fantastic Four issues were falsely solicited. (And the ending of issue #3 was perhaps the most cynical bait-and-switch in years.)
More interestingly, Joss Whedon says that the previous version of the ending (before his contribution) involved Miriam Sharpe running in to put an end to the fight. Sharpe plays no part in the published version of issue #7, but she still hangs around the rest of the series like a ghost from a previous draft. Just how late in the day was this ending changed? And why did nobody bother going back to remove her scenes and replace them with something that set up the ending they actually used?
Mark Millar is all about the Cool Moment, and his stories arguably aren't meant to stand up to much scrutiny. This is fortunate, because they generally don't. However, even the comic book equivalent of a Bruckheimer film still has to hit the buttons to set up the big finale properly. This series doesn't, and that's why it doesn't work. It's not the final issue, it's everything that came before it.
Pretty pictures, though.
Rating: C
