With this week’s epochal news that the Marvel Cinematic UNiverse will be adapting the Civil War event storyline, many are wondering…why? Few of the superheroes introduced in the MCU even have secret identities—which were the crux of the kerfuffle between Iron Man and Captain America. Some just think it’s a bad idea on other terms.
Noelle Stevenson, of Lumberjanes and Nimona fame, is one of the sharpest commentators on Twitter, with incisive character analysis delivered in short 140-character bursts. Her thoughts on Avengers characterization are below.
Librarian Ivy Noelle Weir suggested Dear Marvel: Literally No One Wants a Civil War Movie:
Let’s be real: Civil War was a hamfistedly allegorical post-9/11 pseudo-intellectual machoist posturing slapfight between Tony and Steve.
Okay, maybe I’m editorializing a bit. But it is true that Civil War has long been one of the most contested and disliked events in Marvel history, with the major critique being that the behavior of all the characters involved was way off the map and that it dismantled years of continuity for what ultimately was not that compelling of a story. In my experience as both a fan and a retailer, Civil War is often cited as the reason a lifelong reader dropped Marvel for a while.
Mark Sampson at ScreenCrush suggests how all the movie and comics storylines might tie together. In addition, all the rumours about Spider-Man joining the MCU for a bit in a deal with SOny would suggest that he could be recruited to play the cenral role in a movie he plays in the comics.
Finally, what about Mark Millar, who wrote Civil War? Millar is very busy with his own cinematic universe, including the upcoming The Secret Service., When the news broke he tweeted
Before sensibly adding:
Civil War is currently the #2 graphic novel on Amazon and #235 in Books.
WHOA. It turns out that Civil War tease Marvel sent out was just the prelude to the real blockbuster news: Robert Downey Jr. will play a major role in Captain America 3 which will feature the Civil War storyline.
Variety has all the details. It seems RDJ was negotiating for Iron Man 4, and a smaller role in Cap 3, but now it’s war:
The new pact is significant for the Marvel cinematic universe considering the plot will pit Stark against Captain America’s alter-ego Steve Rogers, played by Chris Evans, as they feud over the Superhero Registration Act, which forces anyone with superhuman abilities to reveal their identities to the U.S. government and agree to act as a police force for the authorities.
Stark supports the program, but Rogers does not, saying it threatens civil liberties, causing sides to be taken and Rogers, among others, to go on the run to avoid arrest. The moral question and battle with his Avengers teammate essentially makes Stark a villain of sorts in “Captain America 3,” providing Downey with a meaty role he could play out into future Marvel films, including a fourth “Avengers.”
Captain America 3 comes out on May 6, 2016.
According to Variety, Downey’s larger role in Cap 3 riled up Ike Perlmutter, who didn’t want to pay Downey a hefty salary. Ike ordered Iron Man written out of the script completely, until Kevin Feige insisted on staying the course with his plans for the MCU.
It’s worth noting that RDJ is th eonly person in Hollywood who is brave enough to publicly call Ike out, as he did over the summerwhen commenting on negotiations for his return.
“It’s down to Kevin [Feige, Marvel Studios president] and Ike [Perlmutter, CEO of Marvel Entertainment] and Disney to come to us with what the proposal is, and that’s on us to agree or disagree,” Downey said. “When things are going great, there’s a lot of agreement.”
Devin Faraci at Baddass Digest has more on the story, including how the Russo Brothers will not only direct Cap 3 but are the favorites to pick up Avengers 3 and 4 which will continue the Ultron and Civil War storylines.
I’m not clear on how the Civil War story will play out, since the Marvel Cinematic Universe doesn’t have secret IDs to reveal, but I can tell you this: the fallout of Avengers: Age of Ultron is going to be huge in this movie. There is a lot of destruction in that film. It makes an impact.
More than that, Marvel is looking at Cap 3 as Avengers 2.5. It’s going to be another ensemble picture, and it could feature Cap’s new team from the end of Age of Ultron. Last I heard (and they haven’t shot this scene yet, so it could change) that team is Falcon, War Machine, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and Black Widow, as well as probably The Vision (although I have been told Black Widow will not be much of a presence in Cap 3). And once again the events of a Captain America movie will reshape the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Could the Marvel Cinematic Universe get any more like a comic book?
As I noted in my previous piece, Civil War, in which Iron Man and Cap butt heads over whether individual freedom should be surrendered for the greater good, is very much a product of the post 9/11 mindset, but the comic itself remains a Marvel best seller. t would certainly make for an interesting movie storyline, although it would be interesting to see how the context changes.
All that said, Mark Millar, you’ve done it again.
Marvel’s Civil War was a travesty of a comic story. And it’s an absolute shame that they keep making Captain America the supporting character in his own movies. To me, the first Cap movie was the most optimistic and most enjoyable of all the MCU movies. And I find it unfortunate that they keep emasculating Cap. But hey. I suppose in the current world environment, with movies needing to sell tickets overseas, we can’t have a character called ‘America’ being too important anymore.
And Winter Soldier? Meh. Good comic. Bland movie. All the impact of the Winter Soldier storyline is lost when everything was introduced and resolved in 2hrs.
Literally no one wants a Civil War movie and yet Civil War is one of Marvel’s best selling trades? Odd.
“Literally no one wants a Civil War movie and yet Civil War is one of Marvel’s best selling trades? Odd.”
Not really. See: Watchmen.
Good point! You could argue that plenty of people did want a Watchmen movie, but the one they got wasn’t up to scratch.
At the very least, I don’t think the average cinema goer cares about the established continuity of Marvel comics in the way that Ivy Noelle Weir does.
I’m curious as to whether they might drop the Superhuman Registration Act and have something else ignite the Civil War. Say, there’s some kind of catastrophe and both Coulson’s resurgent SHIELD and Stark Industries’ private army jump in, miscommunicate, mistrust each other, step on each other’s toes, and make the situation worse. That makes sense in the context of the MCU as it currently stands; each has a good reason for mistrusting the other.
A Superhuman Registration Act doesn’t make sense unless they add a whole lot of unregistered superhumans in the movies and TV shows coming between now and then.
Thad has a good point: there’s no more than a dozen superhumans in the Marvel movie universe, even counting a few from Agents of SHIELD, and everybody knows who they are. I can’t think of one with a secret identity. So what’s to “register?”
I’m hoping this Civil War talk is just a trial balloon from the studio to see how people react. So I’m reacting. Just from a narrative/storytelling angle, it’s a bad idea. Moviegoers–many of whom have never read a comic–love Tony and they love Steve. Nobody wants to see a movie where two people they love fight to the death for two hours. It’d also be unearned, in much the same way the drama in “Star Trek: Into Darkness” was unearned. “Civil War” and “Wrath of Khan” built their emotional resonance on the characters having years of history together. As far as we know, the movie Avengers have assembled exactly once (twice after Avengers 2). Who cares if two guys who’ve spent a couple of days together (and shared an order of shawarma) have a beef? Low stakes, and nothing to be gained by manipulating viewers to hate Tony (face it, nobody’s going to take Tony’s side over Steve’s).
Here’s the deal:
Marvel has to write Iron Man out of the movies, because RDJ wants/deserves too much money. (Feige had to overrule Ike to get this deal done.)
In Ultron, not only does Stark create the tech which is responsible for Trillions of dollars of destruction, but he also puts on his slobberknocker Hulkbuster tank to fight the Hulk.
So, yeah, Civil War/Registration is the logical way to go, short of Tony Stark building a spaceship and fleeing Earth and a class-action lawsuit the size (and value) of The Moon.
Maybe they’ll pull a Seinfeld. Everyone loved Seinfeld, until the final episode, when fans realized just how self-centered those characters are. Maybe fans will find that out about Tony Stark.
Meanwhile, the new Superior Iron Man series seems to be following that theme as well. He’s gonna be even more narcissistic and manipulative than when he was head of SHIELD. (Go read the She-Hulk issues where she’s an agent…)
I don’t get the criticism of Stark the character. he’s a douchebag, and is usually presented as such. There’s douchebags in the world, too.
I must be missing something. Which Marvel movie was a direct adaptation of an existing comic storyline? To me, they’ve always just taken the core ideas of a story or three and used them as something to write a movie around. So, Civil War, The Movie? Sure. You have Tony Stark, a man overwhelmed by the new things he’s seen and can’t control, trying to control things. And you have Cap, who has seen that too much power in too few hands can lead to corruption and tyranny. They disagree. Go forth, movie, and fill in the rest.
Know what would be fan-fucking-tastic? If people wishing to convey information would stop trying to complete thoughts 140 characters at a time and wrote proper paragraphs in English on a platform that did not place arbitrary limits on the number of letters they can use. This is the internet. We don’t suddenly need to ration bytes of UNICODE.
Jesus fuck I hate posts full of giant blocks of twits. At least transcribe them into plain text so your readers don’t have to scroll down through multiple pages just to see a complete paragraph.
I think in all the secret identity talk, an artifact of superhero comics that is seldom questioned by fans but which superhero films quickly saw through and discarded, there’s been some overlooking of the second and more insidious nature of the Registration Act which required anyone with powers to join SHIELD and train as a super police officer whether they wanted to or not (which may not have been what was intended by Millar, but was frequently how it was presented by other writers, which was the norm for the series) which is a lot more heinous than not being to call yourself Captain Awesome anymore.