Civil War II #2
Published on:6/15/2016
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
Art by: David Marquez and Justin Ponsor
Guys, I tried, I really did. The zero issue came out and I thought it was dumb but I held my tongue. Why not just start it here? Then the first issue came out and I thought it had all the problems of the original but more sensational. But I told myself not to jump to judgement. Maybe things would stop being so coo coo banana pants crazy and there’d be an actual story. So now issue two is out and things definitely didn’t get better in “Civil War II” The Two Towers.
Remember the problems of OG “Civil War”? Sure you do; Tony and Steve were so egregiously out of character I was surprised I wasn’t reading it on Fanfiction.net. The same problem plagues this book—okay, that’s not a fair assessment. Only Tony is a complete lunatic. Meanwhile everyone else is staring at Tony as he makes an ass of himself, thinking, “Is this the day Tony stops being Steve Jobs and starts being Howard Hughes?” It started in the first book but now the guy is kidnapping and torturing this random dude and invading sovereign nations. And his justification for this is super paper thin. It all stems from Marvel’s newest McGuffin, the Inhumans.
In “Civil War II” Secret of the Ooze, a random Inhuman dude gets the power to see the future. Everyone all over seems to think this is good. Say Doctor Doom decides to split the Earth in two and take the left half for himself—it might be nice for some headsup notice. And this is where Tony goes Batshit. He proclaims it’s dangerous. His reasons are thin and tenuous but when has that stopped Tony before? Then the dude gets a vision that Thanos is going to drop by and wreck some shit. Promptly, he tells the Avengers who all show up and punch things. Spoiler alert: War Machine kicks the bucket—weird how the Black guy seems to die first in “Civil War” stories right? Anyway, Tony then goes even crazier, blaming precog Inhuman dude for Rhodey’s death instead of—you know, Thanos? And at no point in time does anyone light up cigars and pop champagne. Because they beat Thanos! Remember? That same guy that invaded in “Infinity” and made everything terrible for three months? The unbeatable guy that could only be killed by his secret son? But that’s not good enough for Tony, he’s gotta stop this future stuff right now.
So this is where Tony goes from regular crayon eating crazy to full blown Kanye West insane. He invades the Inhuman’s nation and kidnaps this guy—two things that would get him locked on the Raft if he were a member of the Sinister Six. Then he justifies his kidnapping by postulating that his predictions—get ready for this… are you ready? Might have a bias. That’s it. That’s his whole argument. Here Tony, allow me to quickly solve the problem for you. Who gives a shit? Is the prediction a hurricane? Then the bias is toward people being alive! Is the prediction that one of the Avengers is going to betray the team? Cool, talk to them! It’s the biggest non-issue blown out of proportions I’ve seen in a crossover. The only way issue three could save this book at this point is if it opens with the Avengers chucking Tony in a mental health facility and pumping him full of Diazepam so he can calm the fuck down. Though even that will be impossible as Tony has apparently ascended from humanity to become the deity of egotistical douche bags.
One of the big set pieces in “Civil War II” The Wrath of Khan is a fight between Tony and all the Inhumans. We’re talking about an entire population of powered people against one guy with Siri and an ego problem. I’m not saying that Tony Stark is a slouch in a fight but at some point the odds have to be against him. You can’t just wave your magic “Technology” stick and get Tony out of any situation. At one point Karnack jumps into the fray. His one power, his one and only power is finding the weakness in everything. He’s knocked down buildings with a single punch. Do you know what Tony’s strategy is for beating this highly skilled foe? Easy, he just doesn’t have any weaknesses. Yeah, he looked at his weaknesses and thought, “Yeah, I don’t want these” and Boom! He’s got no weaknesses. It’s amazing nobody’s never thought of this before because imagine how useful it would be to just “Not have” weaknesses.
I’m not even going to bother comparing “Civil War II” From Russia with Love to “Invincible”. You know what? No! “Invincible” easily handled a situation like this. Several times. Remember when Sinclair was abducting people to make Reanimen? And then Cecil eneded up hiring him? Mark was super against it and ended up quitting his job with the government over it. See! Totally logical position and response. Or how about the time Robot invaded and took over everything then offered Mark a spot in his new world order? Mark told him to go to Hell and left Earth. He has faced this dilemma time after time, someone in power taking a position that he finds reprehensible but at no time does he go batshit crazy.