Civil War II (SPOILERS)

[The Baron]

OK, so having read #0, I see several plot threads:

1)Jennifer is in court, defending the Jester.  I wonder what the legal complications would be of a lawyer acting as an amateur law enforcer.

2)Rhodey is keeping the peace in Latveria. I don't know why they don't just hand control of Latveria over to Victor in perpetuity. He always ends up in charge there eventually, anyhow.

3)Later, the President offers Rhodey SecDef, as a stepping stone to the Presidency, since if a super-hero is going to be President someday, he doesn't want it to be Tony.  Surely Stark has so many skeletons in the closet that if he ran for anything, they'd need to summon the Ghost of Ray Harryhausen to animate them when they all came dancing out?

4)At Ohio State University, a girl and a boy who had just worked up the nerve to ask her out are Terrigen-cocooned.  Do they really just let the Terrigen float around, mutating whom it will?  Surely, one of the MU's many science geniuses could knock up a giant fan to blow it away from populated areas?

5)Leonard Samson visits Carol Danvers, to make sure she hasn't gone nuts.  She is concerned about the menace that they will not be able to stop.

6)Maria Hill informs Jennifer that the Jester - who was convicted- has been killed in prison. Jennifer is outraged, but Maria is all like "He would have recidivated anyway, they always do."  Was Maria always an @$$hole, or did she become one at some point?

7)Back at OSU the kids hatch out of their cocoons. (They just leave these cocoons lying around? they don't collect them and take them somewhere, or at least cordon them off?)  The boy looks normal-ish, but the girl looks demonic and flies away, yowling.  There is some kind of an episode - it's unclear what - and the boy (and the reader) is left wondering what the Hell happened.  He is alone in a devastated city - presumably Columbus, since that's where OSU is in the "real" world.

I'll tell you my main concern - years ago, I was just starting to really get into the Avengers book, and the first Civil War came along and blew it all up, souring me on Marvel for years. I sure hope that's not about to happen all over again.

[Commander Benson]

The position of Secretary of Defence as a "stepping stone" to the Presidency?  Obviously, we aren't talking real world here.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

“Goldballs”?

“…a private investigator hired by Miles's grandma because he got a C in a class.”

Do people really do that?

[Detective 445]

I liked CW2 #4 a little better than the previous issue. It's an interesting ethical dilemma. If you knew there was a 40 percent chance that Villain A was going to destroy the world, would you kill him? 20 percent? 1 percent?

I don't see how they ever resolve it short of Ulysseys losing his powers or dying.

[Mark S. Ogilvie]

 I'm sure some do.

Jeff of Earth-J said:

“Goldballs”?

“…a private investigator hired by Miles's grandma because he got a C in a class.”

Do people really do that?

[Wandering Sensei: Moderator Man]

'Goldballs' is a mutant that was a part of the X-Men created under Bendis. He can... make...gold balls. And that's about it. Ganke was excited because he sees Goldballs as a "fellow chubby", even though Goldballs looks a lot like a linebacker and Ganke just looks lazy.

As for the P.I., I have no idea. I want to say Miles's grandma might be paying for his schooling (?) and has some stake in how he does. I still think she's being obsessive, much like Ganke. I get pretty fed up with people like this, wanting to just tell them to get lives of their own.

Jeff of Earth-J said:

“Goldballs”?

“…a private investigator hired by Miles's grandma because he got a C in a class.”

Do people really do that?

[Jeff of Earth-J]

I read Civil War II #3 and The Fallen #1 (featuring the death of the Hulk and its aftermath) last night. I have often referred to Hulk as “my first favorite character,” and there was a time in my youth I could not imagine a time in the future when I would not be reading Hulk, provided it was still being published. If it were not being published, I used to wonder, how would it end? Would Marvel go out of business and simply end it mid-steam? Or would they bring the series to a close somehow?

I haven’t been reading Hulk for a while now, but AFAIAC, Civil War II #3 and The Fallen provide all the closure I need. After the revelations of the two recent Totally Awesome Hulk issues by Alan Davis, it’s ironic that Bruce Banner had to die so soon after finding the peace he craved for so long, but if Marvel never publishes the Bruce Banner Hulk again (and what are the chanced of that, really?), I’ll be satisfied.

[The Baron]

I haven't been following Totally Awesome Hulk - I had my fill of Amadeus Cho back when he was buddies with Hercules,  I am curious as to how he became a Hulk.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

I'm not certain. I read only the two recent issues drawn by Alan Davis which featured Bruce Banner.

[Luke Blanchard]

Amadeus debuted in Amazing Fantasy #15 in 2005. So he's now been around a full decade, roughly 1/8 of the period since New Fun #1 (1935).

The 2004 Amazing Fantasy series was a try-out title. (I don't know if it was initially intended that way, or became one when the first feature, "Araña", was given its own title.) The 15th issue celebrated Spider-Man's debut in the original Amazing Fantasy #15 by introducing a whole host of potential new features, one of which was Greg Pak's updated "Mastermind Excello", featuring Cho. The original M.E. is described here.(1)

The issue also had a two-page Spider-Man story by Dan Slott called "I Was That Guy in Spider-Man's Armpit!" which told the story behind the cover of the original Amazing Fantasy #15.

(1) He appeared in Mystic Comics [1940 series] #2-#3. The GCD interprets the first part of his name as two words: "Master Mind Excello".

[The Baron]

OK, it's time to discuss issue #5. As always, here's a picture for spoiler space.  This time out, it's the lovely and talented Beverly Garland, patroness of MST3K fans everywhere.

This time out, most of the issue is taken up with a pitched battle between Carol and her pals and Tony and his pals. The main difference is that some of the Inhumans come in on Carol's side.  Not much goes on except heroes hitting one another and making smart remarks to one another.  Have I mentioned how completely I feel that Bendis thoroughly and utterly fails to capture the "voice" of these characters?   They all sound like twisted versions of themselves, as though they've caught mental/moral head colds.  If someone had set out to make these characters sound as unheroic, incompetent and unappealing as possible, they couldn't have done a better job than this.  The only two characters that come across well are Kamala Khan and Miles Morales.    (I find the Inhumans particularly unpleasant.)

As for the others, as things stand now, I don't see how anyone's going to trust any of them again after this mess. During the battle, the Guardians' spaceship is destroyed, and the Triskelion is heavily-damaged. The battle comes to an end when Ulysses shares a vision with all of them:  On the steps of a heavily-damaged Capitol Building, Miles Morales is seen holding the impaled, presumably dead, body of Steve Rogers.   Kamala moves to his side, and Carol moves to arrest him.

Seriously, they had to miss a month to come out with this?

Well, I'm still interested to see where this story goes, but it's now more in the way that, if I saw a car break through a guardrail and start rolling down a hillside, I'd be interested to see where it goes.

If I had a TARDIS, I'd violate all the Laws of Time to ensure that issue #6 was guest-written by Gardner Fox and featured the Silver Age JLA and JSA sorting this mess out and smarten up these soi-disant "adult heroes". Maybe they couldd recruit Kamala and MIles to the Teen Titans to get them away from these bad influences.

[Richard Mantle]

I agree - in (almost) every title/hero he's ever written!

The Baron said:

  Have I mentioned how completely I feel that Bendis thoroughly and utterly fails to capture the "voice" of these characters?   

[Mark S. Ogilvie]

"As for the others, as things stand now, I don't see how anyone's going to trust any of them again after this mess."

  I hesitate to say anything but as I learned after cw1 as soon as the writers get tired of the heroes not trusting each other the heroes decide to trust each other again.  It might be the next big event that brings them together (after the inhumans/mutant war that's coming up) or they writers may decide to ignore everything that's happening now, but they'll trust each other again.  They'll have to so that the writers can set up the next time when all the characters are horrible to each other.