Actually, that’s not quite accurate; there have been some good crossovers…but many of them have been completely ruined by the characters. Eh? You say? It’s quite simple; people buy comics to read about their favourite characters…and the big boys cannot lose. Batman has no place battling the Spectre, but he remains calm and composed despite being utterly outgunned by the all-powerful wrath of God. (Day of Judgement.) Superman has no place in the time war of Zero Hour, but he remains there and is even given a pivotal role, despite the fact that he’s utterly unsuited to that sort of confrontation.

But that is not the real reason for my irritation; crossovers just get too big! They want to involve AS MANY characters as possible. Infinite Crisis, in the DC World, is just too big to grasp; after the second issue, I was left thinking WTF? It only gets worse with the tie-in issues; readers have to buy each and every comic to understand everything…and then they tend to discover that lazy writers haven’t bothered to link everything up properly. In Civil War itself, mainly Issue 4, Sue Richards decision is tender and understandable; in Fantastic Four, she comes across as a whiny tart. There are so many glitches like that that people start to wonder just what happened.

Anyway…if you’ve been reading the comics – a quick look at the wiki page will help you if not – you’ll know that the conflict was all about an introduced act to register superheroes. As a piece of legislation, it trumps New Labour and the EU for foolishness; as far as the comics suggest, every super-powered being must register, hero, villain, or housewife. Following a disaster caused by a set of young superheroes – read idiots – in a US City, the act becomes law…and the Marvel superheroes are split into two competing factions. The pro-reg group, led by Iron Man, has to bring down the anti-reg group, led by Captain America. Cue fighting, a death, side-swapping, much cruelty…and a somehow acceptable ending.

I do not find Tony Stark/Iron Man to be acting out of character, despite some suggestion that that was what was happening. Stark is, very much, a responsible person; he sussed out that power and responsibility go together before Peter Parker made the phase popular…through his own bouts with dangerous behaviour.

Although Captain America is always – he cannot be anything else – the man who stands up for what he believes in, his own high standards make it impossible for him to accept the SRA. One of Civil War’s more irritating habits is that the pro-reg side seems much more evil than the anti-reg side; Marvel seems to be pushing an anti-bush message as much as anything else. Having duplicated the prison on Cuba in the negative zone, are they making a political point, or are they seeing the problem facing President Bush in the war on terror? Who knows…but I am inclined to see it as the former.

Peter Parker, otherwise known as Spiderman, acts consistently…incoherently through the pages of Civil War and Amazing Spiderman. I was not surprised to see him taking the pro-reg side at first – including unmasking in public in CW2 – as Peter has always been responsible, but then the entire concept of using him degenerates. The story would have been much more interesting, and understandable, if poor Peter had ended up running the pro-reg side following Iran Man’s death or crippling injury. Damn it – he’s a hero who went out on a limb, he doesn’t deserve such treatment.

Anyway, most of the other civil war books are worthless – the Howard the Duck tie-in deserves giggles, at least – the Iron Man/Captain America issue is well worth a read. For the first time, the pro-reg side gets a fair chance at making its point; registered superheroes are not black men from the south (a claim made by Luke Cage, a black superhero), but people with training. They’re not, in effect, dangerous drivers. Marvel dropped the ball on this one, forcing people to either read issues to know what’s happening, or miss out on details. Many issues are just trying to take advantage of the civil war header; they’re not worth half the money you have to pay to get them. Sometimes, unless I missed something, they don’t explain details; WTF is Namor doing in Book 7?

The series, overall, is not a bad read. There is some spectacular artwork – including ‘Thor’s’ return and some other details – that deserves comment. At the same time, it beggars belief that I, who can write a 130’000-word novel on a second American Civil War (no superheroes involved) over three weeks, can move faster than Marvel at producing and printing out seven comic books. The delays hurt civil war more than anything else; Marvel has joined DC in screwing readers. Rant! Rage!

Buy trade paperback, I urge.