OK, let me approach this one assume you don't know much about comic books.In the comic book publishing world there are two big hitters: DC Comics and Marvel. DC Comics are where you will find all the really big hitters: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman etc, they also have a couple of subdivisions: Vertigo & Wildstorm.
Vertigo release a lot of very adult comic books (for example Hellblazer and Y: The Last Man), a whole bunch of Grant Morrison's work such as Doom Patrol and The Invisibles which both require a bit of extra effort from the reader to really appreciate thoroughly - a background in the Dadaism and the works of the Marquis de Sade help with with those two for example, and then this is Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan - a book about the future which slowly and quite worryingly appears to be becoming true.
Wildstorm, well I'm not sure about Wildstorm. The books here seem to inhabit a middle ground between the famous superheroes of the DC Comic Universe, and the more adult material found in Vertigo books: Stormwatch, The Authority and Planetary are the only ones I have really followed - although they all have an annoying habit of hinting at really big story lines that sort of fizzle out. Sort of like what happened to the X-files...
Anyway, back to Marvel. The comic book heroes of the Marvel universe are going to be very familiar as they all seem to be making it into films nowadays: The X-men, The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, The Hulk, Daredevil, The Punisher etc... and then there are others who aren't in any modern films (yet!) but whom you may have heard of: Captain America, Iron Man, Thor.
Now Marvel can be split into two main streams, they have their Ultimate releases (Ultimate X-Men, Ultimate Fantastic Four, The Ultimates to name a few) and then they have everything else... The Ultimate stream of their comic books represent a modern update to all of there most famous characters starting from scratch, basically if you buy something like Ultimate Fantastic Four Volume 1 you are going to get a retelling of their origin story, but set in a modern setting without having to worry about any convoluted history that may exist in the regular Fantastic Four comics. The Ultimate range also allows writers to make potentially controversial changes to characters which they wouldn't be allowed to do in the regular Marvel universe, for example Colossus from the X-men is openly gay, Nick Fury is black, that sort of thing.
So, back to the regular Marvel world...
Marvel are really fond of crossover story lines which effect the whole super hero community. Recently we've had Avengers Disassembled (which dealt with The Avengers having a really bad time due to Magneto's daughter, The Scarlet Witch, having a nervous breakdown), House of M (after effects of our favorite reality altering female superhero's nervous breakdown where she recreates the world with the Mutants in charge), and Decimation (you know who has another hissy fit which de-powers pretty much all of the mutants).
The latest and clearly the most far reaching crossover is the new Civil War storyline.
The basic premise revolves around the United States introducing The Superhuman Registration Act which forces anyone in a mask or with a power to register with the government, submit to official training and more importantly reveal there identity. This occurs after a tragic incident where a battle involving a young, naive, media-savvy superhero team which results in the deaths of hundreds of children after a school is destroyed by a villain called Nitro.
The act splits the superhero community down the middle. On one side is a group apposed to government intervention lead by the unlikely figurehead of Captain America, and on the other side are those who agree with the government's proposals lead by Mr Zero Tolerance aka Iron Man.
What makes Civil War interesting to readers not just interested in the mother of all superhero rumbles are the clear political references to what is currently happening to civil rights in America. The way that unregistered heroes are hunted down and sent to the Negative Zone without trial or hope of release has a clear parallel to Guantanamo Bay, the way that one company profits from clearing up after the big superhero fights is very similar to some of the war profiteering in Iraq, the way the registration act is steam-rolled into law, that sort of thing...
Incidentally one major character missing from the Civil War arc is The Hulk, apparently he got exiled into space by some of the main supporters of the Registration Act, but he's coming back... and apparently coming back really pissed.
Anyway, I'm enjoying it. It's an interesting read, one cool thing about it being a cross over event is the books don't necessarily need to be read in a linear order, parts of the story are told multiple times from different angles - you just don't get that in most other forms of story telling.
The bad thing about it is it is costing me a fortune! I've got 17 of the related books so far and according to my Amazon Wish List there are many more to come!
You DO know what happens to Capt America don't you?
ReplyDeleteYes, the BBC news site spoiled that one quite nicely a while a go.
ReplyDeleteYou can see it a mile off to be honest if you read the books, there is no way the whole situation can end happily, and they couldn't really have Capt. America going back to being the pro US government character he was after he rejects his superiors and becomes what could loosely be described as a terrorist/freedom fighter (depending on which side of the media you subscribe to).