Not that I disagree with what you’re saying, but I always felt Ellis started that trend (or at least blew it into high gear) with “Authority.” Suddenly the tightly-plotted, character-driven “Stormwatch” became people punching bad guys and yelling snarky “I’m cooler than you” one-liners.

And who took over after Ellis left? Oh, yeah ….

Anyway, I keep buying it because I and a friend are doing a podcast review of the entire thing. We’re somewhat behind, but still, if you want a laugh, you could do worse than to check it out.

http://www.holynightmare.com/cwmenu.htm

To me, that’s no kind of liberalism. No kind of conservativism, either. Rather, it’s just so much sneering at any sort of belief: as though the idea of morality was vacuous to begin with, and everyone from relativist to absolutist exactly the same sort of deluded fool.

That’s the feeling I get from it, anyway.

Now, this isn’t the breadth and scope of liberal politics, of course, because it is possible to make moral commitments in some — I daresay most — brands of liberalism. But Millar’s brand? Not so much. It borders on but isn’t libertarianism, since Millar allows for the imposition of one’s will by virtue of power. It differs from leftism and right politics in that that imposition of will needn’t have any particular ethos behind it in Millar’s stories.

One quibble: you think Millar loads up his comics with comfortably liberal politics? I don’t see any liberal politics here. Seems to me part of the idea of telling the rubes that someone else is the rube is to emphasize that everyone, everyone, is morally compromised and basically a hypocrite. Whether or not they’re on the right side.

A schoolboy’s insight, that makes your rock criticism point even more cutting!

Mark Millar comics are to comics what rock criticism is to rock music.

or, alternatively,

Mark Millar comics are to comics what California ska-band covers of great rock songs are to rock songs.

It’s become very clear to me that the appeal of Mark Millar’s stories is that he loads up his fairly typical superhero battle scenes with ultraironic snark and comfortably liberal politics so that readers who want to be smarter than superhero nerds can pat themselves on the back while still indulging in superhero nerddom.

It’s a 2-part truism expressed by a lot of lowbrow entertainment these days:

1) Give the rubes what they want.
2) What rubes want is to feel like they’re on the inside and someone else is the rube.

All you have to do is deliver the same old crap, but with a wink and a sneer, and the rubes will mimic that sneer and declare themselves the kings of cool. Mark Millar gave out an easy joke and a simple inversion of the usual, and everyone who spots it gets to give themselves a gold star and wear a smug grin. Just like Mark does on his way to the bank.

It’s a seven-issue exercise in genre in-jokes and backpatting, dressed up as a ludicrous allegory of…something, I’m sure. Abu Ghraib, maybe. Or wiretapping. Or, uhm, gun control. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Define ‘we’. I sure don’t, but you know what? I don’t care about the New Warriors either, but I’ve got a room-mate who’s absolutely furious because he loved that comic and is just sick with anger that Marvel killed off some of his favorite characters. I’m sure there are people out there who have every appearance of Bill Foster, and were just hoping that his spotlight in Civil War, combined with Bendis’ affection for 70s Marvel, was a sign of an upcoming ‘Black Goliath’ comic.

This is the problem with death in comics–everyone is somebody’s favorite character, everyone has the potential to be revamped into a best-seller, and chucking things out like that just because you, as a writer, think they’re “lame” is a huge mistake–not just creatively, but from a business stand-point. (I realize writers shouldn’t think from a business stand-point…but editors-in-chief dang well should.)

And personally, I’m buying ‘Civil War’ strictly for business purposes (it’s even tax-deductible)–once it’s over, I will go back to not buying Marvel comics again. Except for the Marvel Adventures and Marvel Essentials lines, because those are the kinds of comics I want to read. The mainstream Marvel universe, though, lost me a looong time ago.

Sheesh, half the comics today have not a lot happening and read quickly so this is no different in that regard.

CLOR -We’ve seen Thor as a human man, a frog, a woman, and the power of Thor given to a horse looking dude. Is a cyborg/clone really all that crazy?

Black Goliath- when was the last time we cared about him.

Spiderman’s spider sense not warning him -I agree with the previous comment, there have been plenty of time he’s gotten his ass kicked even with the spider sense.

Imprisoning people in the negative zone -Where are they supposed to put these guys? And if we’re lucky we’ll get an OZ style one shot written by Ed Brubaker, while we wait three months for issue six. They could call it CIVIl WAR: SPEEDSHANK REDEMPTION where Speedball escapes through the negative zone and crawls through three football fields of human waste and somehow comes clean on the other side, and then meets up with Luke Cage on a beach in Mexico.

The Punisher claiming he’s been watching their backs the whole time even though he showed up in one issue wearing a ski mask. I’m sure a lot happened off panel that will be explained in an eight issue mini series by Bendis called CIVIL WAR: THE MASK where over eight issues, the punisher talks to a sales clerk about buying the ski mask, and then talks to manager about the correct price for the ski mask, tries on the ski mask at home and then calls the store about their return policy, finds out the illuminati sent the hulk into space, returns the mask for another, decapitates a gangster, and then watches some heroes from fire escapes, and then talks to a little girl about the horrors of war, then decapitates her.

Reed Richards and Tony Stark acting like douchebags- You see them acting out character. That they WOULD never use villans to track down their friends. Well they’re the smartest people on the planet, why wouldn’t they think the nannites or whatever they’re controlling them with wouldn’t work. They see that things have been out of hand for awhile and that maybe the heroes should have more orginization and accountability. Where you see them acting like villans I see an awesome one shot: CIVIL WAR MR. FANTASTIC and IRON MAN: Seriously, is it us? Are we really the douchebags here? Maybe we’re under the control of the Man Beast, or maybe Captain America’s the dick. It would be written by Grant Morrison where they would try to figure out if they’re really douchebags without ever meeting each other.

You see a raping of a Universe and its characters I see an oppritunity for awesome spin offs. Such as DAREDEVIL: THE BURN where Daredevil spends a week fighting crime and coming up the thirty pieces of silver zinger before he gets captured. It would be written by Kevin Smith look for it in 2018. FROM THINGRISE TO THINGSET where we follow the Thing and Bartoc the Leaper as they walk around Paris, talking about their dreams and aspirations. In the last few pages they would clobber Fing Fang Foom, and then make a promise to meet again ten years later. It would be written by Dan Slott. CIVIL WAR: ADAM WARLOCK: Hey I’m not doing anythig. Is someone going to pick me for a side? I have a gem. Anybody? How about that Ahnillation? That’s crazy. I could help out with that. No? Okay. I’ll just be sitting here crucifying myself, and then making a cocoon.

I guess I just like seeing the positive in things.

Not really. It’s been stated in the comics more than once that it was the way Spider-Man caught Gwen that killed her. Most recently in “Sins Past” and Millar’s MK story.

“And am I the only one that wants to know why Spider- Man’s spider sense didn’t warn him of the Jester and Jack’s upcoming attack? Why is this the first time in FIFTY YEARS the guy’s been taken by surprise?”

It’s not. Not even close. Spider-Man has been nailed a zillion times in situations where his spider sense should have warned him. Writers ignore it or downplay it whenever they want Spidey to take a hit. That’s all there is to it.

I guess Taskmaster was too busy being a total pussy over in Moon Knight.

Although, I have to admit that reading all your comments on how bad it sucks, and how stupid it is, and yet you’re sitll buying it is fairly amusing.

Thanks for the laughs

Not that this Civil War even is boring or lacking in “big” moments, far from it. In fact, it seems as though the pages between the covers have been stuffed with one exciting twist or shocking revalation or anything else Mr. Millar seems to think will drum up yet more enthusiasm in his readers. And, well, I guess I’ve just become numb to the whole thing by this point. I suppose it could be the late shipping date but, well, I haven’t enough money to follow all the books I want so the other day when my friend offer to loan me a few in exchange for a trade I had just sitting around he offered me the latest Civil War and I just said “Civil War? That isn’t over yet? Hmm, yeah, I’d rather have something else, thanks.” So I wish I could say more about the actual issue at hand but, frankly, so to speak, I’m more than a little sick of the whole thing.

See, I think it’s the relentless hype that’s driving me to apathy. This isn’t the first mega crossover lately. There’s Annihilation and Infinite Crisis and Countdown and Seven Soldiers and Identity Crisis and, bleh, it just seems like the bad old days of Atlantis Attacks and War of the Gods all over again. Sure, there’s some interesting stuff being put out but there’s just an incessant effort to convince me, the reader, that this next crossover is going to be the best one yet. Preaching to the faithful. Just pounding the drum a little harder each and every time. Whipping me into a frenzy of excitement that, yeah, I’ve been burned in the past but this time, this time, it’s going to be different. It usually isn’t but next time, well…

Just hype and more hype with nothing to back it up. I can’t say I have the kind of enthusiasm that moose n squirrel seems to have for using my dollars in protest. That takes a bit more anger and energy than I can currently gather. But, I’d think the companies that publish things like Civil War would worry much less about creating such passion than reinforcing my apathy by shouting at me harder. I know I worry about my interest just fading away as I read less and less and less…

Lol. Thank you Howard the Duck.