Musing: Marvel's Civil War and world building

Kimota94 inspired me to post my thoughts on this issue. Check here for his thoughts on the matter.

Marvel Comics is currently changing the face of the Marvel Universe. The latest event crossover, Civil War, has given all of the Marvel Universe (or at least the earthbound characters) a new status quo. The government requires all super-powered beings to register with them so they can keep checks on these 'persons of mass destruction' (Thanks Millar!). It seems like the majority of Marvel's heroes are going along with the registration, though, some of them, notably Spider-Man, are going underground in opposition to the legislation.

Allow me some exposition.

Marvel has kept their continuity fairly consistent for the past 50 some odd years. DC chose to reboot their continuity with Crisis on Infinite Earths in the 80's. DC thought it might simplify a few things. Considering that at the time there were multiple Supermen who lived on different Earths in different universes serving on different teams who were for all intents and purposes different characters, I can see what they were thinking. Creating a consistent world for characters is a hard task. Maintaining that world with a minimum of contradictions across multiple titles is just tricky. I won't even look up the number of books Marvel is putting out for their mainstream universe right now, it's more than 20, which seems like a lot to me.

Anyway, Marvel has been putting out a product that has garnered many loyal fans for a long time. Part of the loyalty that comic book fans have is universe specific. Fans who like one company more than the other tend to like that universe because they've been reading it longer. They're more familiar with it. When DC rebooted the universe it theoretically allowed anyone a chance to jump in. It didn't work quite like that, but that was the intention.

What Marvel has done with Civil War is, to me, very similar. Instead of changing around bits of a characters history Marvel changed the way that the universe functioned and it's heroes relationships within that universe. It's not a reboot, but it is a shocking change of status quo.

Personally, I think it's a very ambitious project. I think if pulled off well, it can lead to a lot of interesting stories. I think super hero registration is an interesting enough idea that it can be milked for stories for a few years to come.

Do I think that this is the best move for the market? I'm not sure. As much as I love monthly super hero comic books, I'm just not positive that every character Marvel has on roster can work with this shift. For instance, Ed Brubaker's titles, with the exception of Captain America, have all but ignored Civil War thus far. It'll be interesting to see how he fits Daredevil and the Uncanny X-Men into the new universe. I think Dan Slott's She-Hulk would be better served without this move. Slott is an amazing talent, but Shulk's strength has lied in the fact that it plays loose with continuity, now it's being asked to play in line with it.

I'm interested to see how this will work. I wish Marvel the best.

Musing: The 'Death' of Captain America

That's not a spoiler at all if you were awake yesterday.

It's the story that no newspaper, television news station, or internet news failed to cover.

My contention is thus: As much as I enjoy Captain America (I'd be perfectly willing to get into a fanboy argument with nearly anyone about how I think Cap is the most iconic comic book character), I'm under the impression that anything that draws this much media attention to comic books is probably a good thing. Evidently Captain America #25 is flying off retailers shelves, so Marvel's PR people did a good job.

Creator's have been interviewing all over the place. Ed Brubaker, the current writer on Captain America, says he's been planning this for the past two years, and that he has two more years worth of Cap stories plotted out. Joe Quesada, Marvel's Editor in Chief, is loving the limelight, giving interviews to major papers (or at least AP). Even Jeph Loeb is getting some attention, as he's writing a five issue mini series about the Marvel Universe's reaction to the death.

I'm hopeful that this might draw in some new readers. Ed Brubaker is a fantastic talent for Marvel (this is what, third post in a row that deals with him?), though I'd be concerned that his book might not be right for new readers. While Brubaker's Cap is one of the best books coming out of Marvel, it's pretty well mired in continuity. Hopefully though, between Cap and Loeb's mini, the people at Marvel can turn some heads and get some more respect for comic books.

Of course, we all know Steve Rogers will be back in a year, right?

I was reading an interview with Matt Fraction and Ed Brubaker about Iron Fist, when I scrolled down and saw a panel from an upcoming issue. Take a look.

Normally, when you read a comic it's read left to right, top to bottom. It's just how the American eye works. But whomever drew this panel chose to buck that trend, and do things a little differently. I can't think this was in Brubaker and Fraction's script. Only because it's too outside the box for a writer. Though, if they did write it, hey, kudos to you guys, it's frickin' cool.

I've been noticing page layouts similar to this one; where one image is used for multiple panels and only the character shifts within. This page takes that style to an extreme, and I think I love it.

The panel flows, quite wonderfully, with Iron Fist moving left to right, right to left, left to right. It's perfectly natural, and the only thing that took me out of it was that I knew it shouldn't be natural.

Fantastic work.

A Pro Speaks: Ed Brubaker on tragedy in Criminal

Ed Brubaker has really busted out in recent years. A while ago I'd never heard of the guy. Now, he's writing Captain America, Daredevil, Uncanny X-Men, Iron Fist, and his very own Criminal.

I read and enjoy four of those books. Pretty good, especially considering one of those books would be a very hard sell for me. If you really want to, you can figure it out, one of those titles is very much unlike the others.

If you've read the title, you might be expecting this, but I'm very interested Brubaker's use of tragedy in Criminal. Not only is tragedy one of the least used storytelling devices, it also resonates with me like a Low B on a bass guitar (for a long time in layman's terms.)

From Brubaker's interview with Newsarama:

Tragic. It's a noir, but it's got the twist of, I want Leo to survive to tell more stories about him. But there are levels of survival in noir, that leave a lot of messed up possibilities open to me. I will say Criminal #5 is probably one of the most brutal things I've ever written.

I love noir. I love tragedy. They go hand in hand (though, wouldn't it be interesting to see a noir that ended on an upbeat note?) and are so underused that I jump on anything that includes those elements.

Which is why I think it's so great that Brubaker is writing a comic book, especially a comic book, that might draw in people who are larger fans of genre than they are format. I'm sure people like that exist.

I just want comic books to be more than super hero comic books. Not because I don't enjoy super hero comic books, I do, but I'm also interested in other genres and I love the comic book format.