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Well, Wolverine's solo book tied in to the mini. I don't know exactly how it ended, but basically it consisted of him striking out on his own to hunt down and apprehend or kill Nitro.

Also, apparently Civil War Frontline #11 revealed that the guy who manipulated the war was Tony Stark himself, solidifying his place in the Comic Book Douchebag Hall of Fame for the forseeable future.

-M

Maybe that quote is why I thought there was supposed to be a big twist villain at the end of the mini.

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u51/The_Mutt_pics/yl71AAAA.jpg

In short, the head of Damage Control (don't recall his name at the moment) was responsible for providing Nitro with something or other that boosted his powers, thus enabling him to explode the way he did at Stamford (I guess normally Nitro wouldn't be able to produce a blast that powerful, but with this little boost, he was able to kill hundreds). Anyway, this was a bit of war profiteering on the part of Damage Control. The more that super humans fight, the more property damage that there will be. The more property damage there is, the more work and money there will be for Damage Control. So he technically wasn't behind the war so much as he was behind Nitro's power boost, which was the catalyst for the war. I don't think it was his intent for Civil War to take place, though he surely wasn't complaining when it did.

-r-

Superboy, er, the Hulk punched something really hard and reality shifted.

That question sure read like you wanted to have a rant and only just restrained yourself (Just as well, mind you, as you could hardly announce that you tried to ignore the entire event and then complain that you didn't understand one of its details

But yes, it was the Damage Control thing as Richard says above. An interesting idea, and I thought it was a tie-in done well... it was specific to Wolverine's character, and the central story wasn't spoiled if you didn't know about it.

~ Gil

The Damage Control CEO was named Walter Declun.

Gil, I read some of it, so I could have ranted, but I was serious about the question. That just seemed like an important plot point that I hadn't heard about in all the ranting about the series itself. It sounds like an interesting idea, and perfectly plausible in a comic-book universe. But I guess it was too "comic-booky," and in Marvel World these days, everything must be REAL!!!!!

Also, the Frontline #11 reveal is hardly that Stark was behind the Civil War, but rather that he engineered Norman Osborne's deliberately botched attempt on an Atlantean ambassador's life in order to justify stricter control regulations on the New Thunderbolts and unite America's heroes against the vague threat of an Atlantean war that may never come to pass.

The whole thing is much less "TONY STARK IS THE VILLAIN BEHIND CIVIL WAR" than a lot of people make it out to be.

I like the comments in that old article - there's some gold.

"79 tie-in issues? For a seven-issue miniseries? This may even top DC's Last Laugh as the most annoying, intrusive, in-your-face-whether-you-are-interested-or-not crossover ever." - Greg Hatcher.

Man was he right.
Note that everyone was shocked by the 79 issues back then - it's actually gone up with new specials being added all the time.
Makes you wonder how they can still claim, with a straight face, that it was all planned out from the start if they keep adding more to it.

"With 79 tie-in issues, maybe Marvel should restart Star Comics so we can have the Civil War affect Peter Porker the Spider-Ham, too.." -sideorderofninjas.

Didn't Loeb write a special about Spider-Ham and Civil War?

"That said, the pro-registration side is going to be made up of beloved superheroes with well-established fan bases, so I doubt they're going to be caricatured that heavily. They can't just turn Iron Man and Reed Richards into bad guys if they expect this thing to work.?" - Irong Lungfish.

No, they would never do that.

"But I am going to cry because you picked on me. I'm fragile that way." - Greg Burgas.

There's nothing funnier than when people hate Greg.

The solicitation is accurate, although only very technically. The story reveals how Nitro got so much more powerful than he used to be, which (if you kind of squint) is what leads to Civil War. But the villain in question wasn't trying to bring about Civil War. He was just indirectly responsible for Stamford.

I think the solicitation overplays it, but it's not out-and-out wrong.

Since we're talking about tangents and the "man" behind Civil War thing, here's another thing I've been wondering and haven't seen referred to much in all the commentary.

I've followed the events of CW a little, but haven't been reading anything except New Avengers, but ...

I had always assumed that Tony Stark been acting like he knows better than everyone else because his brain was altered when he went through the Extremis process so that his brain could be hardwired into the Iron Man armour, in the Ellis's six issues of Invincible Iron Man. I mean, they seemed to be setting up "Tony will be a smug douchbag henceforth" in that story arc.

Was that not touched upon at all in any of the 80-odd issues and tie-ins?

I'd been a bit suspicious about Iron Man ever since his latest armour (at the time) had a face-plate that looked suspiciously like Ultron...

Also, I'm pretty sure I read in the Official Handbook that, not too long ago, Stark came up with a way to "remote detonate" Nitro, defeating him by repeatedly setting him off. My, now that's handy...

All the "Wolverine hunts Nitro" stuff was basically a sideshow, and all of the "Iron Man is secretly evil" stuff is very clearly being used as fodder for another crossover down the line.

And for all that Marvel's trumpeting the "sales success" of 'Civil War', issue #7 sold 260,000 copies. Great by today's standards, yes, but isn't that really more of a sign of how small the market has become than how great 'CW' is doing? If a crossover this major sold 260,000 copies a decade ago, or two decades ago, Marvel would be firing editors left and right. Now, it's a victory.

I thought the Extremis might be involved, too - it seems like it's a really, really convenient reset button for Stark's character. Just say "Ultron hacked his brain" or something. I mean, it's not like Tony doesn't have a history of being manipulated by supervillains for extended periods in the name of overblown crossovers.

What I would like to know is: Is the general public (not to mention the journalists) of the MU so stupid that there wouldn't be an uproar the minute the government started using mass murderers to police the registration act?

I mean, come on, Bullseye? Venom? The Green Goblin? These aren't low profile criminals, these are infamous mass killers. Bullseye's body count alone would be all over the front page once it was known he was working for the government.

"Didn’t Loeb write a special about Spider-Ham and Civil War?"

That was JMS, not Loeb.

Dave said:
"The Damage Control CEO was named Walter Declun."

Walter Declun is obviously...

Uncle Walt D(isney).