Civil War Revisited: Pre-Crime!!

Well, between vague promos and vague movie announcements, Marvel's Civil War has been talked about an awful lot the past few days.

One article, when describing the nearly-a-decade-old Marvel event, described it as "well written."

Hahahahahaha.

Now, this blog wasn't around during those days, even though I've made my disdain for Civil War: Front Line #11--The. WORST. COMIC. EVER.--quite clear.

But since it's back in the news, I'm glad to have the opportunity to share with you the exact moment--the very second--when it was clear that this series would be pretty damn stupid.

It's issue 1 of the main series, and we're up in the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier. Maria Hill is quizzing Captain America about what the heroes' reaction will be to the pending Super-Human Registration Act, and whether Cap will lead the Avengers in enforcing it:

No, I'm not going to ding Mark Millar too hard for criminally blurring the distinction of whether S.H.I.E.L.D. is a national or international organization. Marvel writers have been blowing that one for decades. S.H.I.E.L.D. is an international organization, and has been since their founding. And anyone who says different is kinda wrong.

Still, even though it's a common mistake, it should be noted that this mistake really undermines the series' premise in a big way. Having S.H.I.E.L.D. enforcing the SHRA is akin to having NATO or U.N. troops enforcing the Patriot Act on U.S. soil--not bloody likely.

But again, common mistake, let's give him a pass.

No, what's more important is something that Hill says. Close-up, please:

See, the SHRA hasn't become law yet. It hasn't even been voted on in Congress yet, and doesn't look to become the law of the land for at least a month.

That's kinda crucial, as Cap and Hill argue about the act:

"CHIK-CHAK"??? Really?

Yes, really.

Let's be clear--S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are drawing their weapons on Captain America and are preparing to take him down BECAUSE HE DISAGREES WITH AN ACT THAT CONGRESS HASN'T EVEN VOTED ON YET. He hasn't broken any law yet, made any threatening move...apparently, in Mark Millar's view of how politics work, agents (federal or international) can draw their weapons on you for merely expressing a contrary opinion on a hypothetical law.

Ah, but it's just some out of control lackeys, right? This isn't official policy, is it?

Uh, yeah, it is. The director of S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to detain Captain America refusing to promise to help her enforce a law that hasn't passed yet.

And that's when you knew there was little hope of Civil War making a lick of sense.

Look, there were some interesting ideas in the mix for Civil War. A discussion of vigilantism, of private citizens holding essentially weapons of mass destruction, of post-9/11 America being willing to trade some freedom for security...I'm not saying that these are necessarily great ideas for a comic full of costume wearing super-heroes. But somebody else might have been able to make the idea work, at least a little better.

But when you try to make super-heroes a metaphor in your real-world allegory, and can't even get the basic facts about the real world right, you've lost before you started. By carelessly turning this into Minority Report--where people can be punished before they commit crimes, indeed before the law even exists--you're no longer making a slippery slope argument, you're setting up a very stupid strawman that takes everyone away from your real arguments. If your text doesn't make any sense, your sub-text doesn't, either.

All because Millar couldn't find a better way to get Captain America initially involved, and needed an action scene in a book where people spend pages and pages standing around talking politics.

"Well written" my ass.