The year is 2016.
Last week everyone went to go check out Civil War and Batman v Superman, and pretty much everyone agreed that Civil War was better.
People called out Batman v Superman and mocked it’s grittiness, overuse of slow motion and darker tone.
It wasn’t even the movie’s fault, everyone was just used to the oversaturation of comedic brighter superhero movies that we have now grown tired of and are beginning to hate now in 2023.
But that’s not the point of this article, the point is Civil War.
Civil War is one of THE MOST complex, interesting and thought provoking marvel movies out there.
It introduced a variety of new characters and massively expanded off of the already existing universe while simultaneously ripping it’s core apart. It tore the Avengers apart in a way that is tragic, but still interesting to watch.
But DESPITE ALL THAT, you have the fans who always complain about how the comics were better.
Usually they’ll say something like: “cause the comics had more characters” which, I mean, IS fax,
The Civil War Comics had 200 characters fighting, while the movie barely even had 20.
But it does more with less.
It only has 20 characters, but it allows the story to zoom in on these characters. Almost every character in this story goes through something. In the civil war comics they mostly only focus on Iron Man, Spider-Man, Captain America, Goliath and Mr and Ms Fantastic.
The rest of the characters just stand in the background of the panels and look cool.
And even though half of the characters in the story are LED BY Captain America, he barely plays a role in the book.
He escapes SHEILD and gets beat up really badly. And his ONE moment that’s supposed to be deep and shocking and revealing ended up just feeling very unfufiled.
In the Movie, Captain America IS the main character. He has to deal with losing the last person from his past life, and then being expected to trust an organization running him, when the last time the Avengers were working with an organization, the organization was corrupt and trying to put hundreds of lives in danger. Then we he finds Bucky, his old friend, he gets hunted down and arrested.
And the movie actually gives him an objective. He doesn’t NEED to go into hiding. There are other out there to fight crime. But he has a mission and he knows he must do it alone. So even when being hunted, there’s a clear objective, and end point Steve can reach before giving up.
In one of my previous articles I talk a lot about Iron Man, but I’m actually team Cap, so if you wanna see a more in depth review talking about BOTH Cap AND Iron Man, as well as a theme analysis on the film, click here.
But as a member of team Cap, the comics really rub me the wrong way.
First of all, almost everything team Iron Man does in the comics is very unjustified.
First of all, the government agents SHOOT AT Captain America for disagreeing with the accords.
BEFORE THE ACCORDS EVEN BECAME LAW.
YES, they are only tranqualizers, I know that.
But he’s BEING ATTACKED BY THE GOVERNMENT for disagreeing with a statement.
NOT A LAW
A statement.
He hasn’t even done anything wrong yet! What if he changed his mind a week later and lived within the law?
Iron man hears about this and doesn’t even seem to care at all, acting like it was Cap who did something wrong.
Iron Man then proceeds to tranquilize two heroes who were working with cap to attempt to STOP a crime that was MADE UP. Iron Man USES other heroes’ will to do good AGAINST THEM, which is messed up in my opinion. But what he does next is even more messed up.
He begins to starts to completely DISMATLE Captain America.
HIS FRIEND FOR 10 YEARS
HIS TEAMATE FOR A DECADE
Beats him up because they didn’t agree on a contract…
But if this WASNT BAD ENOUGH, Iron Man Summons a ROBOT CLONE of a dead teammate to help win a fight he was ALREADY WINNING.
And guess what? This robot clone goes rogue kills a kid on cap’s team. A kid who looked up to heroes like him and risked his life every day so others could be safe!
AND THEN IRON MAN KEEPS FIGHTING AGAINST CAPTAIN AMERICA.
Then it’s revealed he locked up all the opposing heroes IN A DIFFERENT DIMENSION!
IN A CONCENTRATION CAMP.
FOREVER!!!!
Then hires THE MOST EVIL villains to help take down Cap’s team.
When I saw villain, I don’t mean people who were once good but but fell down the wrong path in life. I MEAN PSYCOPATH SERIEAL KILLERS LIKE CARNAGE. The dude who killed his entire family when he was little!
At least in the movies, the villains don’t get locked up in a different dimension, making Tony SOMEWHAT likable. Plus, Tony even apologizes to the people he locks up, saying he didn’t know they would get locked up in such a cruel place.
In the movies, Tony tries to reason with member of Team Cap even after Tony’s best friend got nearly killed in the battle.
But let’s talk about arguably the worst part of the Civil War Comics.
After all the wrongdoings of Tony Stark, after all the casualties, arrests without trial, the concentration camps.
It seems like almost everyone starts to side with Captain America, and rightfully so.
Captain America FINALLY has the upper hand.
Time to take down the injustice of Team Iron Man!
AND AT THAT VERY MOMENT, CAPTAIN AMERICA LOOKS AROUND AT HIS NEAR VICTORY AND THEN SAYS THIS:
HE SURRENDERS!!!!
This was SO WRONG.
This encapsulates everything wrong with the comic.
Iron man is WRONG in this comic. The viewers know it.
The heroes know it.
But yet Captain America is made out to seem wrong.
Whereas in the movie, Captain America’s team has to surrender for his Cap to reach the goal. And if you watched the movie and were team Iron man, I wouldn’t blame you. Iron man in the movie actually acts pretty rationally and he seems to have a valid point.
And IN THE MOVIE Tony only starts beating the crap out of Captain America because Tony felt extremely betrayed after Captain America lied to him and Cap’s best friend was revealed to have killed his parents.
But in the comic he just beats him up cause of a contract disagreement…
Overall, I believe the Civil War Film is a LARGE improvement from the source material despite working with less and having a more gargantuan task.
But let me know in the Comments if u agree with my take, or if you really wanna talk about it, head over the the Fan Page Forums.
Peace!