"Justice for Damien"
The Story - It´s a new era for Marvel Heroes since the disaster that happened in Stamford,´cause normal people now wants the government on the super heroes as well that those get proper training and licenses to work. Will this politics from Washington be a good or bad thing for the heroes community?
The Concept - Mark Millar is a great writer, perhaps one of the top five in this industry, and this story arc of him is a stone mark, is an event so big that rupture Marvel´s foundations and, I dare say, has made comics good to read again. I highly recommend this issue for new readers, it´s definitely something worth picking up.
The Writing - Mark Millar starts seeding the conflictous idea of Civil War since the beggining of this book, in the city of Stamford where the New Warriors (Speedball, Namorita, Nighttrasher and Microbe) are about to strike Nitro, ColdHeart, Speedfreak and Cobalt Man, without any back up, just to promote their TV reality show: the outcome is a disaster, since Nitro manages to blow up an entire school in his attempt of escape. That´s the birth of Civil War: are heroe prepared enough to deal with super villains and to protect human lives from their actions? It´s commom ground in any heroes story (and real one too) that are casualties and collateral damage in confronts between good guys and bad guys (let´s just say we can´t put a figure on how many times the
city of Manhattan was in ruins after the battles of Spider-Man, X-Men and Fantastic Four, just to name a few). In the words of Goliath : "Are you kidding me? After Philly getting bombed, the Hulk thrashing Vegas...Wolverine saying he was gonna kill the President? This is the start of the witch hunts, honey. They´ll be coming after us with torches ans pitchforks". This is the central idea that Millar works constantly in this book: does heroes have a free card to act the heroic way they always have done, no matter the consequences, or does the government have a legitimate motive to put a leash on them, to make some restrictions? And the excellent way that Millar work this antagonic ideas - are the heroes allowed to work free or are they supposed to be trained, tagged and controled - is reflected by the great dialogues in the entire book. I think the idealist battle between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers only began after Mirian Sharpe's (Damien mom) rage outburst towards Stark in the funeral - the registration idea really does fit as an important and necessary thing for heroes to work better in Stark´s mind, since he´d heard her words: "Oh yeah? And who finances the Avengers? Who´s been telling kids for years that they can live oustide the law as long as they´re wearing tights? Cops have to train and carry badges, but thats too boring for Tony Stark. Nah, Joe Billionaire here says all you need are some powers and a badass attitude, and you can have a place in his private super-gang. You fund this sickness, Stark. With your dirty billions". Yes, that´s very clear to me that Millar´s motive for Tony´s actions are the feelings of guilty and trying to do something good, so, to his own mind, he´s not the bad guy in this whole issue, he´s just doing the right thing. Millar makes the tension only grow by showing us how the population are feeling regarding super heroes (Johnny Storm is beated) as well in their inner circle (there´s a meeting in th Baxter Building with some heroes to discuss their action plan). But his master play is with Captain America being cornered in S.H.I.E.L.D´s helicarrier by Commander Hill, who antecipates that Rogers won´t help them with the new Registraction Act bill that´s about to be aproved in Congress: he makes him a rogue even before the bill becomes law, showing us that the conflict is iminent and upon us, and there´s no turning point: there will be a war, just like Steve said to Hill. It´s a very coherent plot, very original, with powerful dialogues and antecipating to be a major and significant event for Marvel (even Uatu shows up), meaning one of the best comic books ever made.
The Art - It´s Steve McNiven´s at his best, with great finish art by Dexter Vines and beautiful colors by Morry Hollowell. Why Mcniven is such a great artist? Because he pays atention to details (little things in the scenario, in the objects, character´s faces), he can draw action scenes a very precise and effective way (like Captain America fighting to scape from S.H.I.E.L.D.´s helicarrier), his sense of anatomy is very good, he makes hot girls (come on, he really does!!!), summing up, he can pencil a great battle, a difficult and full of details scenario, he has great sense of proportion and body movement, face´s expression are very good, and both his heroes or regular joes from the ground are both great. The best scenes to me were the splash scene from the Stamford´s debries, the heroes cleaning the place, the heroes gathering in Baxter Building and Captain America´s escape.
The Covers - Both the regular cover (McNiven) and the variant one (Michael Turner) are awesome.
The Verdict - After all I´ve said, I hope it´s served for, at least one thing, incitanting those that haven´t read this saga to Pick it up. For those who have read and had the patient to read this review, hope that you share my feelings and my enthusiasm regarding this book, specially in the art department (I know there are people that don´t like McNiven, but I just love the guy, so I´m biase related to his work, I´m not impartial). Anyway, hope you´ve enjoyed it.
5 out 5
The Concept - Mark Millar is a great writer, perhaps one of the top five in this industry, and this story arc of him is a stone mark, is an event so big that rupture Marvel´s foundations and, I dare say, has made comics good to read again. I highly recommend this issue for new readers, it´s definitely something worth picking up.
The Writing - Mark Millar starts seeding the conflictous idea of Civil War since the beggining of this book, in the city of Stamford where the New Warriors (Speedball, Namorita, Nighttrasher and Microbe) are about to strike Nitro, ColdHeart, Speedfreak and Cobalt Man, without any back up, just to promote their TV reality show: the outcome is a disaster, since Nitro manages to blow up an entire school in his attempt of escape. That´s the birth of Civil War: are heroe prepared enough to deal with super villains and to protect human lives from their actions? It´s commom ground in any heroes story (and real one too) that are casualties and collateral damage in confronts between good guys and bad guys (let´s just say we can´t put a figure on how many times the
city of Manhattan was in ruins after the battles of Spider-Man, X-Men and Fantastic Four, just to name a few). In the words of Goliath : "Are you kidding me? After Philly getting bombed, the Hulk thrashing Vegas...Wolverine saying he was gonna kill the President? This is the start of the witch hunts, honey. They´ll be coming after us with torches ans pitchforks". This is the central idea that Millar works constantly in this book: does heroes have a free card to act the heroic way they always have done, no matter the consequences, or does the government have a legitimate motive to put a leash on them, to make some restrictions? And the excellent way that Millar work this antagonic ideas - are the heroes allowed to work free or are they supposed to be trained, tagged and controled - is reflected by the great dialogues in the entire book. I think the idealist battle between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers only began after Mirian Sharpe's (Damien mom) rage outburst towards Stark in the funeral - the registration idea really does fit as an important and necessary thing for heroes to work better in Stark´s mind, since he´d heard her words: "Oh yeah? And who finances the Avengers? Who´s been telling kids for years that they can live oustide the law as long as they´re wearing tights? Cops have to train and carry badges, but thats too boring for Tony Stark. Nah, Joe Billionaire here says all you need are some powers and a badass attitude, and you can have a place in his private super-gang. You fund this sickness, Stark. With your dirty billions". Yes, that´s very clear to me that Millar´s motive for Tony´s actions are the feelings of guilty and trying to do something good, so, to his own mind, he´s not the bad guy in this whole issue, he´s just doing the right thing. Millar makes the tension only grow by showing us how the population are feeling regarding super heroes (Johnny Storm is beated) as well in their inner circle (there´s a meeting in th Baxter Building with some heroes to discuss their action plan). But his master play is with Captain America being cornered in S.H.I.E.L.D´s helicarrier by Commander Hill, who antecipates that Rogers won´t help them with the new Registraction Act bill that´s about to be aproved in Congress: he makes him a rogue even before the bill becomes law, showing us that the conflict is iminent and upon us, and there´s no turning point: there will be a war, just like Steve said to Hill. It´s a very coherent plot, very original, with powerful dialogues and antecipating to be a major and significant event for Marvel (even Uatu shows up), meaning one of the best comic books ever made.
The Art - It´s Steve McNiven´s at his best, with great finish art by Dexter Vines and beautiful colors by Morry Hollowell. Why Mcniven is such a great artist? Because he pays atention to details (little things in the scenario, in the objects, character´s faces), he can draw action scenes a very precise and effective way (like Captain America fighting to scape from S.H.I.E.L.D.´s helicarrier), his sense of anatomy is very good, he makes hot girls (come on, he really does!!!), summing up, he can pencil a great battle, a difficult and full of details scenario, he has great sense of proportion and body movement, face´s expression are very good, and both his heroes or regular joes from the ground are both great. The best scenes to me were the splash scene from the Stamford´s debries, the heroes cleaning the place, the heroes gathering in Baxter Building and Captain America´s escape.
The Covers - Both the regular cover (McNiven) and the variant one (Michael Turner) are awesome.
The Verdict - After all I´ve said, I hope it´s served for, at least one thing, incitanting those that haven´t read this saga to Pick it up. For those who have read and had the patient to read this review, hope that you share my feelings and my enthusiasm regarding this book, specially in the art department (I know there are people that don´t like McNiven, but I just love the guy, so I´m biase related to his work, I´m not impartial). Anyway, hope you´ve enjoyed it.
5 out 5
