It Needs to Be Said: Civil War Is Marvel’s Most Overrated Event

Marvel created the event comic with Marvel Super-Heroes Contest of Champions, and since then have been the single biggest abuser of it. Marvel’s event cycle of the ’00s was massively popular, but led the Marvel Universe to becoming a less new-reader friendly place, chasing off lots of fans. There are some great Marvel events, but there are also some that aren’t worth reading. Then, there are the events that are overrated, those events that are either beloved by fans despite being kind of mid or those that have had their importance over blown. A perfect example of the latter is one of Marvel’s most famous events — Civil War.

Civil War is a complicated beast. Written by Mark Millar with art by Steve McNiven, we all know the basics of the story by now — an ideological split between Captain America and Iron Man over the Superhero Registration Act leads to a war in the superhero community. When the dust settled, the Marvel Universe was a very different place. Civil War has its haters, as much because of writer Mark Millar and his creative tendencies as for anything else, and it’s taken an important place in Marvel history. However, anyone who says it isn’t overrated hasn’t been paying attention.

Civil War Has a Multitude of Problems but Not Many Upsides

On the one hand, Civil War is exactly the kind of story that event comics were made for. It’s a summer popcorn flick, full of big action and stakes, with just enough depth to allow the readers to paint anything they want into it. Reading it at the time of release, many readers believed it to be a anti-Bush Administration polemic, with Cap representing the protestors who were against the Iraq War and the Patriot Act and Iron Man representing Bush’s side. This head canon was confirmed by writer Mark Millar, but with the proviso that Iron Man was right, which is one of the many bones of contention with the story. Looking at the main series itself, it’s plain to see that Millar originally meant for the story to be a part of the original Ultimate Universe, something else he confirmed in the massive Wizard exit interview after the story ended. Cap and Iron Man are portrayed very much out of character, as are many of the people on both sides. While the action and art are all fantastic, the story leaves a lot to be desired. The problem is the stratification of the Marvel Universe into two sides, which feels as much like a contrivance as anything else in the story. It’s fun if you want to see superheroes fighting each other, but that’s really about it.

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I’m not going to lie to you — there are some great tie-ins to Civil War. Honestly, Civil War: Frontline is better than the main series, and The Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and most of the tie-in miniseries, especially the Young Avengers/Runaways one, are good. They do a much better job with the ideas of the story than the main series. However, at this point, unless you’re an MCU fan wanting to see the source material of Captain America: Civil War or are doing a deep re-read of ’00s Marvel, you don’t really need to read Civil War. Civil War kind of ruined the Marvel Universe for a few years. New Avengers got better, but we also got Mighty Avengers, which wasn’t good. Iron Man suddenly became the most hated man in the Marvel Universe by the fandom, and the scars of the war lingered for years. On the one hand, it led eventually to “Dark Reign”, the Marvel publishing initiative that gave readers Norman Osborn in charge of the Marvel Universe, which was awesome. On the other, it wasn’t really worth it. There’s no story that came out of Civil War that couldn’t be told without the story. You could still do everything the same just about. Civil War was also the genesis of “One More Day,” as Spider-Man revealing his identity was the impetus for that story’s events. A lot of bad came out of a story that’s highlights are some out of character fight scenes.

Civil War Wasn’t Worth the Trouble

I have long been one of the biggest partisans of Civil War. Being a fan of Civil War means ignoring a lot of problems with the story, the characters, and the detrimental effect it had on the Marvel Universe and just focusing on the good things, what little there are. However, looking at Civil War with a critical eye reveals a story that is something of a mess. It was definitely unexpected — back in the day, there was a fan theory that the whole thing was orchestrated by Mephisto because the chief protestor’s son’s name was Damian, and most of us expected the event to take a turn and the heroes to reunite to go after Mephisto — but that doesn’t always mean good. Civil War comes from an extremely overrated time in the Marvel Universe’s history, and got made into a movie. That’s basically why it still has the hold it does over fans.

Civil War was never perfect. However, it was perfectly hyped, and that went a long way in making a lot of readers enjoy it. The complaints about the story have always been there since the beginning, and it’s one of those books that really doesn’t actually work if you think about it too long. It was once an important part of the Marvel Universe, but even when it still mattered as a story, it was still overrated.

What do you think about Civil War? Sound off in the comments below.