This Week in WWAC History: Pre-Movie Release Thoughts on Marvel’s Civil War

Marvel Comics Logo, Marvel Worldwide Inc, The Walt Disney Company, 2000

Last December, when the Captain America: Civil War trailer premiered, our WWAC staffers pulled together two roundtables to discuss the comics vs. the expectations of the upcoming movie. With such varied opinions and the high and/or low hopes regarding the movie, it’ll be interesting to see how the opinions change and/or stay the same after the official release on May 6th. Enjoy!

W.W.A.Civil War: The Comic Edition, December 15, 2015,

2194408-ms_marvel_5With the release of Captain America: Civil War trailer officially hitting our screens fan and viewer reactions have been mixed between the positive and negative. At WWAC our staff began discussing in detail about both the upcoming movie, and the 2006 Marvel Civil War comic event written by Mark Millar. The event pitted Captain America against Iron Man over the proposed Superhuman Registration Act, which would force superheroes to reveal their identities. Iron Man was firmly for, while Captain Amierca was utterly opposed. The result?

“…Civil War has long been one of the most contested and disliked events in Marvel history, with the major critique being that the behavior of all the characters involved was way off the map and that it dismantled years of continuity for what ultimately was not that compelling of a story. In my experience as both a fan and a retailer, Civil War is often cited as the reason a lifelong reader dropped Marvel for a while.” Dear Marvel: Literally No One Wants a Civil War Movie

But not all of us disliked the event and our discussion revealed a civil war of our own. What we quickly realized was that our staff had strong feelings about the original event and were as strongly divided on it as Cap and Tony themselves.

So we decided to do what we do best: break our thoughts down bit by bit in detail with passion and snark. Welcome to the WWAC Civil War Roundtable.

JAM: Civil War was a garbage fire.

Kate: Civil War was the event that made me take Marvel seriously. READ MORE

W.W.A.Civil War: The Movie Edition, December 1, 2015,

When the world first discovered that the third Captain America movie would be called Civil War, fandom’s reaction was, well, divided, to say the least, with some quite firmly against the idea thanks to the 2006 Marvel Civil War comic event on which the film is loosely based. Writes our Ivy Noelle Stevens:

“Let’s be real: Civil War was a hamfistedly allegorical post-9/11 pseudo-intellectual machoist posturing slapfight between Tony and Steve.”

Captain America: Civil War trailer (Marvel - MCU)

Bishonen Barnes.

With the release of the first official trailer for the film, WWAC’s reaction has been equally divided. Not necessarily because the trailer itself is bad, although some of us aren’t particularly impressed and/or are already jaded by the recent Marvel Cinematic Universe offerings. Other staff members have high hopes for the upcoming movie, and positive recollections of the original Civil War event. Some question the film’s motivations and the questionable concept of centering the war around Bucky Barnes, whom Megan Purdy describes as “a sad bishonen with a metal arm and a dark past,” while others recall the strong political aspects that resonated with them at the time of Civil War’s original inception.

Our thoughts on the latter have us enacting our own civil war about the comic event, which you can read here. What we can agree on is that none of us expect the film to closely adhere to the Civil War storyline of the comics, which the directors, Joe and Anthony Russo, confirm:

“The comic book isn’t applicable to the storytelling that we’ve structured up to this point, but the concept of registration, the notion that heroes need to be either monitored or controlled because their power can be scary, is applicable.”

But a trailer that still shows us the same kind of “masochist posturing slapfight between Tony and Steve” has some of us concerned, while others see more in the images presented and are hopeful for the Russo Brothers’ next contribution to the MCU, especially because of their successful work on The Winter Soldier.

Here are some of WWAC’s initial thoughts on Captain America: Civil War:

Civil War #7 | Marvel Comics

Hercules sets the record straight.

Kat: I am hopeful because this interview touches on all the things I was hoping the trailer was implying, and because The Winter Soldier was my favorite MCU film. Plus, it seems to be barely related to the comics event, and while I’m sad that means we won’t see CLONE THOR, it is for the best.

The trailer doesn’t even say the words “Superhero Registration Act” and for that I am supremely grateful, because the MCU essentially has no secret identities, so making it an issue of government oversight rather than just registration neatly side-steps a lot of the incompatibilities in the comic arc with the MCU world-building. I’m wary of the number of heroes appearing in it, but I also think it’s sort of the nature of a character like Captain America, whose stories are often about how others react and respond to him. I liked the team up of Natasha, Sam, and Steve in Winter Soldier, but I think a movie just about those three finding Bucky (the assumed plotline of Cap3 before it was announced it would be Civil War) could have been treading worn ground, as well.

My biggest question coming out of the trailer—other than “where are all the women especially Sharon Carter???”—is why does Black Panther give a shit about Winter Soldier or anyone else in this movie? If Wakanda is still as isolationist as it is in the comics (and from the tiny glimmers we’ve seen, it seems to be), then why would he just show up out of nowhere to face kick some rando, even if the rando is the Winter Soldier? I’m not saying I’m not amped to see him in the film but it seems like a weird plotline to involve himself in—hopefully we get some backstory on a Wakandan assassination attempt by Winter Soldier or something, because T’Challa is pretty neutral as a character. READ MORE

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Melinda Pierce

Melinda Pierce

Contributor for WWAC, mother of 2 mini-geeks, writer, and girl geek. Dreams of having enough time to write Veronica Mars fanfiction. @melindabpierce

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