Marvel's next big event: Civil War!

[your father is]

Newsarama:

Continuing the upheaval that began in Avengers: Dissembled and then House of M, and as previously revealed stemming from the March Brian Bendis/Alex Maleev The Illuminati one-shot, the tagline and now title strongly suggest factions will develop amongst the Illuminati members – Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Namor, Black Bolt, Doctor Strange, and Charles Xavier – leading to all-out war between these factions, and likely causing or forcing many of the other heroes of the Marvel Universe to choose sides...

This one's a ways off yet, but nobody does BIG like Millar, and it'll be neat to see McNiven get a chance to really stretch his wings. Anyone out there excited for this?

 

[Aaron L]

Whats this Illuminati? I dont mean in general, I mean Ive never heard of a Marvel Illuminati.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Whats this Illuminati? I dont mean in general, I mean Ive never heard of a Marvel Illuminati.

That's because it never existed. In the wake of Avengers: Disassembled, Brian Bendis (and perhaps a couple of others, but he's the main one) decided why not have a group of Marvel's "bigwigs" get around every once in a while and compare notes- and then why not decide retroactively to have this group in existence since, oh, the original Kree-Skrull war. So the idea was approved and they made their first group appearance in New Avengers #13-14 recently.

The concept itself, I suppose, isn't that bad- even though it is kind of hard to justify (IMO) why this group has seemingly never gotten involved in any of the *many* Earth threatening conflicts that have ravaged the Marvel Universe over the years (you'd think that if it existed at all that, say, the Avengers might have had a bit more forewarning about that whole "Onslaught" thing). Still, I suppose it could create for some interesting "flashback" stories where the group was operating "behind the scenes" in some of those events. So, in and of itself, not a terrible idea, though certainly (IMO) not one that was needed.

Where I think the idea has just gotten terribly off-track, though, is with this "civil war" event that Marvel is hyping. To just introduce this concept out of the blue, decide to print one one-shot about what it is and what it has been up to all this time, then have it break up and divide the Earth's heroes into opposing camps seems incredibly rushed and far too contrived to have any resonance to me.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Some would say that Marvel is trying to catch up with it's competition.

 

[Green Knight]

No kidding. It smacks of trying to milk off of DC's success with a similar theme in their titles (For/Against mindwipes, For/Against Wonder Woman killing Max Lord, For/Against Batman spying on everybody, etc).

 

[your father is]

^Many people have considered DC's heroes divided approach to be them finally adopting the Marvel style of storytelling. It's all cyclical in any case, with each of the big two canibalizing the other -- let's all buy Image comics!

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Feh.

I'd be more impressed if they could point to specific instances where the Marvel "Illuminati" actually communicated. Like, if one issue of X-Men has Professor X learn something, and then Iron Man mentions it in passing about six months later.

Of course, that would require them to not have it as a humongous retcon.

I accept that retcons are necessary. However, I'd like them to not be particularly egregious. Oy.

Brad

 

[Particle_Man]

Why are the heroes all fighting each other and the villains are uniting? Isn't that backwards? Wouldn't the good guys band together, and the bad guys tend towards backstabbing and infighting?

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Why are the heroes all fighting each other and the villains are uniting? Isn't that backwards? Wouldn't the good guys band together, and the bad guys tend towards backstabbing and infighting?

You'd think so.

More to the point, IMO, is that the whole "Illuminati" concept was created to show how the various supergroups keep each other informed and assist one another for various reasons- ie, it was created to add a sense of unity where it often seems as if the Marvel heroes are operating in different universes entirely- and instead of helping to foster that unity, it is only being used as a plot device to foment more divisiveness. Completely unnecessary, in other words. The sense of disunity already existed if the writers really wanted to go with this "Civil War" storyline; there was no need to create a third party entity to force it into existence.

 

[Viking Bastard]

*YAWN!*

Well, at least it will have Millar going for it.