Civil War (Comic Book)/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Anvilicious
  • Better by a Different Name: This story was much better as the Cadmus Saga.
  • Broken Base: The debate over Registration itself can rage quite strongly among fans.
  • Crowning Moment of Funny: The Expanded Civil War hardcover features a script and behind the scenes comments with Mark Millar. The comments are both illuminating and hilarious at the same time.
  • Designated Hero and Designated Villain: Captain America (comics) and Iron Man. Even now, in any given comic, which was which depends completely on who's writing.
    • In fact, Dr. Strange near the end of the story even mentioned that he couldn't step in because there really WASN'T a clear good and evil team.
    • There was even one Iron Man comic during the civil war that had the two talk with each other, and neither of them could really decide who was right, because they both had valid points.
  • Dork Age: Marvel would be better off disavowing the whole fiasco.
    • Which finally happened now that Dark Reign is over and the Registration Act has been abolished.
  • Fetish Retardant: Maria Hill looked like some sort of nightmare in the first issue.
    • She looked like some sort of nightmare for her whole behavior during this saga. Is it even certain to fans now whether she can be trusted?
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: The one big player on the pro-Reg side who turned out to be a Skrull is knocked out and impersonated by the half-Skrull, half-Kree Hulkling during the climax.
    • In Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #2, Spider-Man is told by Tony Stark the benefits of unmasking. When Spidey tries to refute, Cap backs up Tony's assertions. What makes this even funnier is that the issue is written by Mark Millar!
    • There is also this.
  • Idiot Plot: A lot of the plot makes more sense if you assume the brains of everyone in the Marvel Universe has been replaced with fish.
    • One of the What Ifs? averted this by having the situation resolved relatively peacefully. With a compromise between the two sides.
  • Logical Fallacies: One of the tie-ins involved Sally Floyd asking if Captain America (comics) followed NASCAR, had a Myspace page, or watched American Idol. He responds by saying no. Floyd then accuses Captain America of being out-of-touch with modern America and he is stunned into silence. First of all, this carries Unfortunate Implications that American culture consists solely of race cars (mostly popular in just the Southern states), an online community (mostly popular amongst teens), and a TV show (based on a British show). Secondly, no one would be asinine enough to tell a politician that he or she was out of touch with America for not having a Myspace page so why would it matter to Captain America? Finally, considering Cap is a Superhero, one would assume that he is too busy saving the world to bother watching American Idol every night.
  • Memetic Mutation: During the initial promotion for the crossover, Marvel released a pair of message board signature images reading either "I'm with Captain America" or "I'm with Iron Man". Within days, fans were creating their own versions by the dozens, and similar images are still being created for both Marvel and DC's Crisis Crossovers as well as things that have nothing to do with comics.
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • Spider-Man began having doubts about his side when Stark proudly showed him his Negative Zone prison, before outright switching sides after Tony Stark, Reed Richards and Hank Pym CLONE A GOD.
    • Casual readers point out the moment Stark began to recruit super-villains as the exact point he went off-rails and that he should have given up on the whole issue. People with super-powers that clearly misused them shouldn't be given legal authority.
  • Nightmare Fuel: Just think about the fact that Hulkling was vivisected while he was still alive and his organs were rearranging themselves. It might just be this Troper, but I had trouble sleeping after that.
  • The Scrappy: Miriam Sharpe, Sally Floyd.
  • Straw Man Has a Point: Is forcing people with powers rivaling (and frequently exceeding) artillery to register with the government really that unreasonable? Depends on who you're asking. Fans continue to debate the subject, with reasonable arguments on both sides of the fence.
    • It doesn't just depend on who you're asking. It also depends on what exactly you mean by "registration", exactly what methods it will be enforced by, and exactly what obligations it places on the registratee. And the writers couldn't come up with a single consistent vision for that, let alone the fans.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Plenty, but perhaps most notably, the inference that Nitro's powers had only been as destructive as they were because of Mutant Growth Hormones given to him by Stark Industries Damage Control boss Walter Declun, who gets summarily executed by Wolverine.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Political?: Didn't help that writers of the tie-ins directly brought politics into their writings.
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