Civil War II? [Marvel]

[The Twilight Mexican]

Yeah, this is way worse than that. That was something done to her, which was one of the things she overcame and put behind her on her road to making the world see her as a badass. Her awful history and her decision not to be defined by it is what made her a great character rather than just a tragic cameo appearance seen getting trashed every once in a while.

This "predictive justice" thing is just her consciously being as irrational and unreasonable as Tony during the first Superhero Civil War. Maybe even more so?

It's going to be hard to pull her back from this. Not that she can't be -- they managed it with Quicksilver after his turn as a villain in the pages of Peter David's "X-Factor," after all. It's just going to take some work for something that was quite unnecessary to begin with.

But I really don't get why they thought it was a good idea taking her this direction when she's got a movie coming.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

And it's finally over. Perhaps the worst written, worst plotted and most irrelevant Marvel event I've ever read.

But it's over.

Summary: nothing happened.

Spoiler

Ulysses's powers evolved to the point that he left to join the ranks of the universal abstracts, conveniently removing him from the board going forward. And Tony just ended up in a coma via a last-minute twist after two "Carol just killed him" fakeouts in the same issue.

Speaking of those fakeouts, this article says all that I was thinking about Tony's supposed death/effectively being dead. Especially these nuggets:

So Tony ISN’T Dead; But Who Cares?
To summarize: Tony appeared to be killed by Carol last issue, but was saved by liberal application of artistic license. Then he appeared to be killed by her again this issue, but was saved this time by an O. Henry plot twist. Despite surviving, however, he’s treated as though he’s dead by the rest of the Marvel Universe. But some of them interact with him as though he were still alive.

So, do we send flowers or not? In the past, major character deaths in comics were met with skepticism, and rightfully so, for nearly all such demises have eventually been reversed. In Tony’s case, though, it only feels like he died, or perhaps more accurately, feels like he should have died. When he returns, as he likely will, it really won’t be so much a grand resurrection as it will be a relatively routine discharge from a Marvel Universe hospital. And no one can rightfully complain about the implausibility of bringing him back, if he was never dead in the first place.

We’re all supposed to pull for our heroes, but arguably “Civil War II” unintentionally postulates that Tony would have been better off dying as a hero, rather than implausibly survive certain death. Comic book deaths have become cheap, in an era when death itself has become the equivalent of an illness that one simply recovers from in time. In this issue, it’s not even that severe; death came to Tony twice in the form to two cosmically-powered and rightfully fatal point blank shots, one of which he simply shakes off. If death can not only be recovered from, but now inexplicably avoided, then going forward it will take nothing short of Galactus devouring the entire world to convince readers that they’re supposed to take a character’s seeming demise seriously; even that may not be enough.

Tony Evokes The Crucified Jesus; Really?!
When Miles is seen cradling Tony after the battle, Marquez patterns the scene on Michaelangelo’s Pietà, the iconic 15th-century statue depicting Mary holding the body of Jesus after her son’s crucifixion. It’s a strange evocation that doesn’t draw any obvious meaningful parallels; Tony isn’t dead, for one, and the notion that Tony is some kind of savior-figure for his cause is overreaching. Miles, who’s younger than Tony, in Mother Mary’s spot makes no sense whatsoever and defies any kind of logical allegory. The moment is intended to be poignant, but instead it just comes across as awkward; some might even call it blasphemous.

This is not even getting into how Carol supposedly comes out of all of this looking like a hero. How the hell? This is as ridiculous as the world (and his friends/teammates) inexplicably deciding that Cyclops was a mass-murdering psychopath Hitler-wannabe despite killing no one.

Just a really, really stupid comic. These last two issues definitely could (and should) have just been one, and there are probably other issues that could have been condensed.