Recently I've made film reviewing a regular staple of this blog, eschewing every thing else such my political opinions, personal experiences, and even my quips on comic books. Lately, however, I haven't seen any movie that has truly tickled my fancy, and the last movie I saw, Mission Impossible III, is not even worth taking the time out to pan. I will say, however, that in view of the damage his public persona seems to have inflicted on the grosses of his vanity projects, Tom Cruise should stick to making good movies from now on.
This post marks a return to my comics commentary for what I feel is a very special reason: Marvel Comics' Civil War #1.
Here in the Philippines and in the United States, the topic of civil liberties has, of late, been a rather sensitive issue. Here, it's been a question of how far the President can go to quell civil liberties in order to defend her tenuous grip on power, and there it's been a question of what the United States government won't sacrifice in their hunt for the terrorists who are allegedly threatening the American way of life.
The beauty of Marvel Comics characters, perhaps more than any other, is best appreciated when they are written as metaphors for the human condition. Spider-Man symbolizes the uncertainty and frustration of youth, the Fantastic Four stand for the love/hate relationship shared by most families, Iron Man represents humanity's growing dependence on technology, and so on and so forth. Ultimates writer Mark Millar plays this card to spectacuar effect in this miniseries.
The first issue in a nutshell:The New Warriors, a D-list group of superheroes, are the stars of a reality show that has them traveling across America in search of scumbags to beat up. In a suburban Connecticut town, they happen up four major supervillians who've only recently broken out of prison and are lying low, one of whom happens to be Nitro, who has the power to generate powerful explosions. They ambush the villains, and Nitro blows up, killing the Warriors and several hundred residents of the town. The bereaved residents of the town demand a response from the U.S. government, and that response is the Superhuman Registration Act, a piece of legislation designed to make superheroes publicly accountable for their actions by turning them into federal employees. Superheroes are uneasy over its implications, as exemplified by an attempt by SHIELD, a government super-spy agency, to subdue Captain America, which ends in the latter's escape.
When the hype for this book came out, the tendency of fans and naysayers alike was to act dismissive towards the title. For my part, my main hook was that Steve McNiven would be drawing this book (and he doesn't disappoint, either). When I read this book, however, I confess that all my fears turned out to be unjustified.
The commentary on sacrificing civil liberties "so that people will feel safe again" WORKS. It is intelligently written, although the treatment of the two different sides of the issue is not as even-handed as Marvel would have liked us to believe before. Still, the presentation is entirely credible, even if a little flawed, and the comic book, as a whole, works as both a superhero book AND political commentary, although admittedly not terribly in-depth.
I love the way Millar and McNiven painted in shocking detail the tragedy of Stamford, Connecticut, and then right away, posed the question "do you crack down on every super hero just because of one errant group?" It's been years since the Marvel metaphor has been used to such devastating effect. "Because there could be terrorists among us, do you remove our right to privacy?"
The masks and secret identities in this story stand in for people's private lives, their e-mail, their secret thoughts and opinions. The rage of the people whose loved ones died in the explosion mirrors that of the families of the 9/11 victims. Not even when they put Spider-Man right in the heart of the 9/11 tragedy did Marvel put its finger so squarely on the pulse of a nation at war with itself.
As ridiculous as this sounds, reading this comic book has made every other comic book on the market, including some that I am buying and enjoying, seem absolutely inane, and devoid of any relevance to humanity whatsoever, with the possible exception of Millar's Ultimates. This is probably just a passing feeling, but it was surprising nonetheless, considering I've never felt this way about a comic book before.
I know comic books do not have the mainstream acceptance they once had and that not a whole not of people invest time and money in them other than the select cache of geeks known as fanboys, but for the first time I find myself saying to anyone who reads this: I highly recommend this book. It's something quite different from anything that's ever come before it.
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