CIVIL WAR by Mark Millar was Marvel's big event of 2006 - though it ended up pushing into the beginning of 2007 - and arguably the most important influence on what Marvel's Earth-bases titles are right now. A seven-issue miniseries with over a hundred tie-ins, it was the talk of Marvel fans from beginning to end, through shocks, surprises, delays, controversies, and disappointments. Love it or hate it, Civil War made itself part of Marvel history in no uncertain terms.
The concept was simple and elegant: a group of reckless superheroes are seen to cause a disaster, leading to the government requiring all superheroes to fall under their control - some comply, some resist. That's the bare bones of Civil War, and part of its success can undoubtedly be attributed to the fact that it can be communicated so simply and quickly to someone with little or no understanding of Marvel comics. Everything you need to know is right there - no convoluted continuity, no twenty years' worth of backstory, just a simple set-up that resonates with contemporary issues. That latter point was equally important - the parallels drawn between Civil War and the War on Terror, between the Registration Act and the Patriot Act, gave the media - largely ignorant of comics, but eager for anything sensationalist relating to terrorism - an easy hook to hang their reports on. Civil War got press coverage that must have had Marvel thanking their lucky stars, and that too contributed to the event's steamroller popularity - suddenly Captain America and Iron Man were household names again, if only for a moment. In a lot of cases, that moment was enough to draw people into a comic shop, and that's what mattered.
The miniseries itself was a tightly-written action thriller - events move fast, points of view are voiced quickly and loudly, and thrills and spills are packed into every issue. Lip service is paid to high ideals and complex moral dilemmas, but for the most part the true intellectual value of the Civil War concept was left for fans to debate - all the characters in the book were too busy with chase scenes and all-in brawls. The real-world parallels tended to take a back seat to the action - which gave fans cause to complain - but in truth, Civil War was never about a debate of morals or ideals: it was about pulse-pounding action, plain and simple. More importantly, it was about being fearless - plot points like Maria Hill's attempt to arrest Captain America, Reed's cloning of Thor, and the final moment of the war and the choice Cap makes, were debated and often derided, but Civil War certainly can't be accused of playing it safe. These were big moments, moments that mattered, and continue to matter in Marvel history - if they didn't, no-one would have thought them worth arguing about.
The tie-ins were legion - but to Marvel's credit, few of them were pointless 'Red Sky' tie-ins, where the story truly had little to do with the event other than happening at the same time, and giving a panel or two's acknowledgement to it (though one or two, admittedly, trod that path - the latecomer 'Casualties of War' tie-ins tended to be rather incidental). Spider-Man was on Iron Man's right hand, and had a first-hand view of the war's ebb and flow. Ms. Marvel led a team of heroes charged with capturing renegades, former comrades who had defied the new law. Wolverine took on the task of tracking down Nitro and digging into the disaster that started it all. The New Avengers, with Cap and Iron Man on opposing sides, were split in half, with each member facing their own moment of decision between the two sides. The Fantastic Four were likewise split, the family fracturing as the pressures of the war took its toll, and first Thing then Sue and Johnny reached the point where they could no longer stand by and do nothing. Even the less tightly-related titles like X-Men drew on parallel themes, concerning government power, oversight, and corruption, and Black Panther, at first only tangentially related to Civil War, quickly took advantage of the opportunity to get right into the event.
Of course, co-ordinating all these tie-ins was a nightmare, and at times it showed. Spider-Man got Iron Man's plans for his '42' prison wrong, Fantastic Four mucked up the timeline of Sue leaving, New Avengers and Civil War: The Return resulted in Sentry decicing to join the pro-registration side twice, and Front Line spiralled off into a subplot concerning Atlantis that the rest of the Marvel world, Atlantis included, seemed oblivious to. Early attempts to construct a single timeline quickly got mired in contradictions, fans burned the midnight oil puzzling over how to reconcile titles with each other and getting nowhere, and ultimately, one had to just shrug and let it be - which no doubt contributed to several lengthy online debates being even lengthier, as fans resorted to picking and choosing what to consider canon and what to ignore.
Consistent or not, all of the tie-ins (aside, perhaps, from some of the aforementioned Casualties of War tie-ins) were based on the same premise, which allowed new readers to get to grips with them, regardless of how little they knew of each title's own history. For the casual Marvel fan interested in learning more, Civil War was an opportunity to sample over a dozen ongoing titles, in the knowledge that, should a title prove not worth continuing to buy, the Civil War storyline within it would have reached a satisfying conclusion, regardless of other subplots left hanging. Venerable Marvel heavyweights like Amazing Spider-Man and Fantastic Four were provided with jumping-on points - a considerable asset to a title up in the 500s - while less well-known books like Thunderbolts, Cable & Deadpool, and X-Factor had the chance to reach new readers who may never have noticed them before.
Aside from sales boosts to some titles (some of which were sustained, some of which fell back to their previous levels), Civil War had one very large impact on the Marvel universe, which can be summed up in one phrase: 'post-Civil War'. Like pre- and post-Crisis over at DC, Marvel allowed Civil War to be a story that redefined their storytelling world - existing titles morphed into post-CW incarnations, each according to how the Registration Act concept affected them, and new titles were created that specifically drew on Civil War, such as Avengers: The Initiative and The Order. For a reader new to Marvel, Civil War provided the answers to all the broad-strokes questions about what was going on in the Marvel world, and for existing readers it has by and large revitalised the '616' Marvel line, the regular continuity which, pre-CW, had been struggling to seem exciting and compelling in comparison to its newer cousin, the Ultimate line. Now the reverse is true - the Ultimate comics are the ones fighting for attention, and all eyes are on the original Marvel continuity. Civil War serves as an ambassador for Marvel - read Civil War and you'll know where you stand, and have a good idea of what you might like to read next.
