It seems that Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is going to try to salvage one of Marvel’s most scorned crossovers in recent years, Civil War. But what is it, and how could it work as a movie? Here’s what you need to know.
Explain Civil War to me, since I only watch Marvel movies, you comic book nerd.
You know how, in comic books, superheroes run around with enormous power and absolutely zero accountability? Civil War was all about whether or not they should actually do that, with Iron Man pulling for heroes to register and join law enforcement, while Captain America stood against it because something something freedom. Then they fight.
That actually doesn’t sound like a half-bad idea!
It isn’t, and in fact one does wonder why it doesn’t come up more often. Superheroes do actually need to be accountable because, let’s face it, Superman’s not paying for it when he gets punched through a building. Unfortunately, there were a few glaring problems with the execution.
Like what?
The fact that Tony Stark is completely in the right and Cap’s just kind of being a dick, for one. So, in order to make the plot work, they had to turn Stark into even more of a terrible human being than he usually is and make Cap into a parody of himself. But we can see a larger problem with this for the movies.
Do tell?
All the potential heroes are already publicly known and therefore accountable. Think about it: Tony Stark has publicly acknowledged he’s Iron Man. Cap doesn’t even have a civilian identity. Black Widow dumped her entire personal history on the Internet at the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and testified before Congress. Hawkeye is a SHIELD agent and is probably working for another government agency. Nobody can hold Thor or the Hulk accountable, since one’s a god and the other beats up gods. Doctor Strange is literally a doctor named Stephen Strange. Basically if you want to sue, subpoena, or otherwise annoy these people, you’ve got options.
You can raise an objection that HYDRA would love a list of all the superheroes in the world, but one assumes they’ve got a backup of their fancy predictive algorithm that was a plot device in Winter Soldier anyway. What is there to fight about? Where Scott Lang draws a paycheck from? There’s a movie: Avengers: Age Of Payroll Disputes!
I’m assuming they can do something else with it.
One hopes, and the idea of Robert Downey Jr. being the antagonist over a few movies is certainly a promising one. Like we said above, it’s actually a good idea, but it’s going to require a lot of nuance and care to make it really work. And, of course, the Cinematic Universe has never been truly beholden to the comics, picking and choosing what works best.
Also of note is the fact that it’s rumored the original Avengers will be off somewhere else doing Avengery things in their own movie, while Tony leads a new group of heroes in Avengers 3. So that may have something to do with it.
We’re still a while away from this; it will apparently begin with Captain America 3 and spill over into the next Marvel movie. But it looks promising. That said, if they roll out Robothor, we’re out.
