Post by HoM on Jun 21, 2016 5:46:22 GMT -5
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
So, the premise of Civil War II (stupid name) is that there’s an Inhuman who can predict the future and there are two sides who either are all for utilising his power and the other isn’t.
It’s Minority Report meets Civil War.
Captain Marvel is very all-in with believing everything this Ulysses guy tells them, and so far he’s helped them stop an alternate universe Celestial from destroying reality, and then they were able to get the jump on Thanos, which unfortunately led to the death of War Machine and maybe the death of She-Hulk (while the first issue had her flatline, I thought the second issue made it out that she wasn’t dead. Odd). They do have Thanos in custody though, which is massive, considering he’s a space god.
Iron Man isn’t for using this power. He thinks it’s wrong. But he’s so far coming across in the book as so unlikable. I read the first issues of Bendis’ Invincible Iron Man because it looked SO COOL but after the end of the first arc I dropped it because it was garbage. Amazing art, but terrible decompression and stilted dialogue without flow. I don’t like how Bendis writes Tony, it’s like they’ve turned Robert Downey Jr up to 11, and nothing he does makes him likable. I didn’t like him in New Avengers back in the day, I didn’t like how Bendis wrote him across the board, and now he’s the main writer for the character. Not good. Pretty art, but not good.
Now, so far, Civil War II is kinda crappy. The #0 from Free Comic Book Day had the Thanos battle, which was dramatic, eye-catching, did what it had to do for a FCBD issue. Get eyes on the product. Then #1 took place AROUND that, so if you didn’t pick up the #0, you have this awkward break in the middle of the issue between the Celestial fight and the aftermath of the Thanos battle.
After James Rhodes dies (stupid death), Tony is pissed off at everybody. He’s in shock, clearly, in mourning, totally, but he’s awful to Carol Danvers—Rhodey’s girlfriend!!—and then flies off with evil intentions, revealed in the second issue to be the kidnap and scientific examination (read: torture) of Ulysses.
So I’ve been thinking about the premise, and the characterisation. Tony doesn’t want to utilise Ulysses’ powers (I think) because it takes away our free will. If he says something bad is going to happen, they have to act, right? The second issue elaborates on this—what if Ulysses is a bad guy? What if he was a drug addict, had an abusive childhood, or he wasn’t coming from a “pure state” (awkward Bendis phrasing entirely his) but it’s a case of, is there a bias in the visions, what will he share, what won’t he share. It’s flimsy.
Captain Marvel wants to use this advantage to stop crime before it happens. But then, does that mean they’re stopping the crime before it’s committed, therefore no crime has been committed, etc? The main problem with Minority Report was that the structure, the hierarchy for the whole mind crimes thing, was corrupt. And they could cherry pick the futures they looked at, but so far, there's none of that here!
In #2, Tony says—and I think the writing is deluded if it’s actual motivation—“…Carol wants to control the future!”—which is bloody ridiculous! Cap wants to save lives, doesn’t she? It’s not about controlling anything, she wants to save lives, as many lives as possible, she wants to stop disasters! The Ultimates is a title I’m really enjoying right now, and that title’s mission statement is: “Ultimate Problems need Ultimate solutions”, which is brilliant. Al Ewing is doing great work across his Avengers titles right now, and I’m pleased a fellow Brit is being given two big, flagship titles to thread a really high concept story through—and better than Hickman did too!
Right, anyway: I’m Team Cap. Iron Man think it’s fair to use the power to stop the Celestial, but a line has to be drawn? He’s biased because the whole affair has led to Rhodey’s death (how many times has War Machine died now?) and now he’s having a mental breakdown, but so far nothing he’s done has made him the ‘good guy’. He’s rude, he’s kidnapping kids, invading sovereign nations, etc. This isn’t an Iron Man I want to read.
Similar to Civil War (I, ugh), it feels like they’re painting one side as the good guys—Team Cap—and they’re giving this very extreme characterisation to Iron Man, which is a shame because so much rehabilitation had to go into his character after the first event to use that name.
But it’s an interesting premise, and maybe we can explore it in the DC2 some time. A character comes along and can predict the future. How? I don’t know. Is he biased? I don’t know! But he helps stop an invasion from Apokolips, say. He’s legit. He does other legit things. But then his power leads to deaths. Be it a hero, or a town or a city, something big. If the characters hadn’t taken his prediction, would they have been there to cause the disaster, or would they have exacerbated it?
Who would want to use the power? Who wouldn’t? How could this be approached in a way that doesn’t make everybody awful? And who would be interested in seeing that story told in the DC2? Are there characters with that powerset already? Raven, maybe? Is this next year’s event taking shape, or am I going mad?
Oh and next issue they're going after the Hulk. That'll end well. Nothing pisses off the Hulk more than being told he's going to do something bad. So was the terrible thing the Hulk did in the future vision going to happen anyway, or was it caused because the heroes intervened? At this point... I don't really care but the whole concept is frustrating to me.
So, the premise of Civil War II (stupid name) is that there’s an Inhuman who can predict the future and there are two sides who either are all for utilising his power and the other isn’t.
It’s Minority Report meets Civil War.
Captain Marvel is very all-in with believing everything this Ulysses guy tells them, and so far he’s helped them stop an alternate universe Celestial from destroying reality, and then they were able to get the jump on Thanos, which unfortunately led to the death of War Machine and maybe the death of She-Hulk (while the first issue had her flatline, I thought the second issue made it out that she wasn’t dead. Odd). They do have Thanos in custody though, which is massive, considering he’s a space god.
Iron Man isn’t for using this power. He thinks it’s wrong. But he’s so far coming across in the book as so unlikable. I read the first issues of Bendis’ Invincible Iron Man because it looked SO COOL but after the end of the first arc I dropped it because it was garbage. Amazing art, but terrible decompression and stilted dialogue without flow. I don’t like how Bendis writes Tony, it’s like they’ve turned Robert Downey Jr up to 11, and nothing he does makes him likable. I didn’t like him in New Avengers back in the day, I didn’t like how Bendis wrote him across the board, and now he’s the main writer for the character. Not good. Pretty art, but not good.
Now, so far, Civil War II is kinda crappy. The #0 from Free Comic Book Day had the Thanos battle, which was dramatic, eye-catching, did what it had to do for a FCBD issue. Get eyes on the product. Then #1 took place AROUND that, so if you didn’t pick up the #0, you have this awkward break in the middle of the issue between the Celestial fight and the aftermath of the Thanos battle.
After James Rhodes dies (stupid death), Tony is pissed off at everybody. He’s in shock, clearly, in mourning, totally, but he’s awful to Carol Danvers—Rhodey’s girlfriend!!—and then flies off with evil intentions, revealed in the second issue to be the kidnap and scientific examination (read: torture) of Ulysses.
So I’ve been thinking about the premise, and the characterisation. Tony doesn’t want to utilise Ulysses’ powers (I think) because it takes away our free will. If he says something bad is going to happen, they have to act, right? The second issue elaborates on this—what if Ulysses is a bad guy? What if he was a drug addict, had an abusive childhood, or he wasn’t coming from a “pure state” (awkward Bendis phrasing entirely his) but it’s a case of, is there a bias in the visions, what will he share, what won’t he share. It’s flimsy.
Captain Marvel wants to use this advantage to stop crime before it happens. But then, does that mean they’re stopping the crime before it’s committed, therefore no crime has been committed, etc? The main problem with Minority Report was that the structure, the hierarchy for the whole mind crimes thing, was corrupt. And they could cherry pick the futures they looked at, but so far, there's none of that here!
In #2, Tony says—and I think the writing is deluded if it’s actual motivation—“…Carol wants to control the future!”—which is bloody ridiculous! Cap wants to save lives, doesn’t she? It’s not about controlling anything, she wants to save lives, as many lives as possible, she wants to stop disasters! The Ultimates is a title I’m really enjoying right now, and that title’s mission statement is: “Ultimate Problems need Ultimate solutions”, which is brilliant. Al Ewing is doing great work across his Avengers titles right now, and I’m pleased a fellow Brit is being given two big, flagship titles to thread a really high concept story through—and better than Hickman did too!
Right, anyway: I’m Team Cap. Iron Man think it’s fair to use the power to stop the Celestial, but a line has to be drawn? He’s biased because the whole affair has led to Rhodey’s death (how many times has War Machine died now?) and now he’s having a mental breakdown, but so far nothing he’s done has made him the ‘good guy’. He’s rude, he’s kidnapping kids, invading sovereign nations, etc. This isn’t an Iron Man I want to read.
Similar to Civil War (I, ugh), it feels like they’re painting one side as the good guys—Team Cap—and they’re giving this very extreme characterisation to Iron Man, which is a shame because so much rehabilitation had to go into his character after the first event to use that name.
But it’s an interesting premise, and maybe we can explore it in the DC2 some time. A character comes along and can predict the future. How? I don’t know. Is he biased? I don’t know! But he helps stop an invasion from Apokolips, say. He’s legit. He does other legit things. But then his power leads to deaths. Be it a hero, or a town or a city, something big. If the characters hadn’t taken his prediction, would they have been there to cause the disaster, or would they have exacerbated it?
Who would want to use the power? Who wouldn’t? How could this be approached in a way that doesn’t make everybody awful? And who would be interested in seeing that story told in the DC2? Are there characters with that powerset already? Raven, maybe? Is this next year’s event taking shape, or am I going mad?
Oh and next issue they're going after the Hulk. That'll end well. Nothing pisses off the Hulk more than being told he's going to do something bad. So was the terrible thing the Hulk did in the future vision going to happen anyway, or was it caused because the heroes intervened? At this point... I don't really care but the whole concept is frustrating to me.