Walter Declun is obviously…

Uncle Walt D(isney).

That was JMS, not Loeb.

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.

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.

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…

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

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

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

-r-

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