Comic Book Court: Civil War II – Whose Side Are YOU On?

Nobody can agree on anything within comics. Whether you prefer Alan Moore or Grant Morrison; reckon Archie loves Veronica and not Betty; or remain convinced that Wonder Man beats Wonder Woman (for some reason) – the one thing we can guarantee is that somebody disagrees with you.

But while it’s fun to argue…some debates simply must be resolved.

And so to deal with the greatest controversies to ever hit the printed page, we’ve formally set up a Comic Book Court to finally reach a definitive verdict on the cases you’ve always wanted closure for. Each court session will see Christian Hoffer take on a case against Steve Morris, as they go back and forth over some of the biggest issues in the history of comics. Also…some silly ones.

With that in mind…

Will you please all rise for: Danvers vs. Stark AKA “Civil War II: Whose Side Are You On?”

The Case for Carol Danvers (Steve’s Argument)

Throughout Civil War II we’ve seen Carol Danvers steel herself into a belief that being proactive, rather than reactive, is the key to heroism. And she’s not wrong.

With the help of the Inhuman Ulysses, she’s been able to see into the future, note crimes or tragedies that are going to happen, and set out to stop them. As a general concept? That’s pretty understandable. The Marvel Universe has been filled with ominous warnings of dread from the future, or from alternate worlds, and yet this is the first time we aren’t meant to take these prophecies seriously?

The X-Men have been terrified for years of a future promised to them by Rachel Summers, and yet have proved surprisingly timid when it comes to changing the present to ensure that this cannot come together. They’ve fought amongst themselves, given ammunition to their enemies, and kept on the long inevitable path that leads to Days of Future Past. Even small changes will have a ripple effect, and protect them from the inevitable – as we’ve already seen during Civil War II, Ulysses’ prophecies can be avoided with proactive change.

Cable and Bishop both used this to their advantage during and following Messiah Complex, attempting to one-up the other. Mystique – one of the most actually successful Marvel villains – has arguably been following a template set to her by her lover Destiny for decades. In real life, predetermination isn’t a thing, but in the continuity of Marvel Comics we have seen repeatedly that this is genuine, this needs to be watched, and it needs to be monitored. Prophecies come true all the time here.

Carol Danvers never advocated for someone like Hawkeye to subsequently put the law into his hands and kill people – but then again, Hawkeye has been getting a free pass for years. Here is a man who carries a flimsy piece of white card with an “A” on it, which means he can carry a weapon through the city streets. When people think of open carry and the Marvel Universe, they think of the Punisher… but Hawkeye is equally carrying around a weapon which he could use at any point to kill people – at a distance, up close, with no warning.

Carol is not asking for white guys with guns to pick and choose their own form of justice: she wants due process, and caution. If detaining Miles Morales leads to Miles not murdering someone, then why shouldn’t she do it? She’s not imagining him as a killer, targeting or profiling him – she has literally seen a prophecy, which will come true, which shows him with blood on his hands. He may not have done it yet, but he will do it unless something is done. Arresting him, or keeping him away from Cap, arguably will do the trick. Miles might even agree.

The only issues to come from Carol’s rationale have come not from her, but from the white guys surrounding her, who are wilfully misinterpreting her process in order to advance their own agendas. Iron Man’s actions do not speak to Carol’s thought process. Hawkeye’s murder of the Hulk does not reflect Carol’s goal during the event. Carol’s working in a smart, effective, in-universe approach which 100% will keep people safe. The problem is not enforcing it against her opponents – it’s enforcing it against her allies.
 

The Case Against Carol Danvers (Christian’s Argument)

The biggest difference between Civil War and Civil War II is the argument driving the conflict in the stories. In the original Civil War, Captain America and Iron Man argued over the ethics of superhuman registration, a controversial issue but one with valid points on both sides. Civil War II has no such nuance, as the central debate at the heart of the comic only has one “right” side.

The core argument of Civil War II is whether a person can be held accountable for a crime they’ll commit in the future. After discovering that a new Inhuman named Ulysses has predictive abilities, Carol Danvers and her allies try to stop catastrophes before they happen. Unfortunately, Danvers’ actions has led down an increasingly slippery slope that has caused the deaths of Bruce Banner and War Machine and the attempted arrest of Miles Morales for his murder of Captain America.

If racking up a multi-hero body count wasn’t enough to convince you that Danvers is on the wrong side of this whole argument, there’s also the fact that her side doesn’t have a moral or ethical high ground to stand on.

Danvers’ argument uses a crude version of predeterminism, the concept that a person’s actions are pre-determined and will occur no matter what, even if a person has foreknowledge of those events. There’s no true real world equivalent to predeterminism, but one could argue that it’s similar to criminal profiling, in which police classify likely suspects by looking at their background, physical characteristics, beliefs, values, and behavior.  Profiling doesn’t really hold up in court on its own, but it does provide police with enough reasonable cause to pursue further investigation.

Criminal profiles only work if the profile has a reasonably high success rate and any sort of precognitive justice would need to be dependent on that predictive system having 100% accuracy. After all, no court could possibly find a person guilty for a crime they haven’t committed unless there’s 100% certainty that they would have committed the crime in the future.  

And therein lies the rub, Carol doesn’t really know how accurate Ulysses’s visions actually are. Tony has already discovered that Ulysses’s “visions” are merely incredibly accurate predictions based on thousands of variables as opposed to actual visions of the future. If even one of those variables changes, Ulysses’s predictions could be prevented. We’ve already seen that Ulysses’s visions can be wrong. For instance, Ulysses’s prediction that the Hulk would go on a rampage and kill everyone was proven wrong when Hawkeye put an arrow through Banner’s head.

The second that one of Ulysses’s visions didn’t come to pass, Danvers’ side officially lost the moral high ground. Either the future is preventable, or it’s not. If the future isn’t preventable, then there’s no point in using Ulysses’s visions. And if it is preventable, then Danvers can’t hold people accountable for crimes they commit.

Either way, Danvers’ side is wrong. And frankly, there’s no argument that could justify her actions in Civil War II, which is why the comic is such a pale imitation of the original. 

Closing Arguments

For those unfamiliar with Comic Book Court, each side will get a brief chance to make a final closing statement to sway the jury (that’s you!) to their side:

Steve’s Closing Argument: 

“If” Ulysses visions don’t come to pass, you say? Doesn’t sound very certain to me. So far Ulysses has yet to be proved fallible, his prophecies coming to pass every time. And given how we’re still find fresh ways for Destiny’s prophecies to come true decades after she died, I can’t imagine there’s any way to determine whether you can ever definitively say that Ulysses’ statements won’t ever come to pass.

You know what my esteemed colleague has done, readers? He’s made a judgement against Ulysses before the character can be proved guilty or not. Who does that remind you of?

My opponent doesn’t seem to understand what due process is. Due process entitles a person to all of their legal rights, including the idea that a person is innocent until proven guilty. No matter what Carol Danvers says, a person cannot be proven guilty of a crime they haven’t yet committed.

As Steve points out, there’s probably no way to definitively determine that Ulysses’s visions won’t come true somewhere down the future. There’s also no way to determine whether ANYONE will commit a crime somewhere down the line, but that doesn’t mean that Carol Danvers and her posse can round up the world’s population for their own good. 

Even in our screwed up world, in which governments can detain people indefinitely under the “suspicion” of certain crimes, there is a burden of proof. The word of a podunk Inhuman from Ohio isn’t enough proof for me, or any sane person, to justify Danvers’ actions. That’s why I side with Tony Stark. 

So which side do you think made the better argument? Vote in the poll before to decide!