Why should Cyclops have to listen to the government when Captain America doesn't?

[flint_marko]

From Civil War #1 and #3.

















And Avengers vs X-Men #1.









If Cap doesn't have to follow orders from the US government when he disagrees with them, why should Cyclops have to follow his orders?

Comments

[freezer]

1) Those who don't learn from history...

2) The sheer unadulterated FAIL of those first scans never ceases to enrage me.

Huh...

[electricman]

I sort of find myself agreeing with Cap in these scans personally.

If I were Scott I'd say, "I'll agree on the condition that some of the X-Men are allowed to go with her, make sure everything goes smoothly." And then I'd call in Rachel to figure out what the hell is going on.

Re: Huh...

[sun_man]

I'm with this. Cap seems to be more rational of the two. Especially after Cyclops loses it and blasts him, you question if he's not quit thinking clearly. Cause that attack was unnecessary.

[big_daddy_d]

There's a bit of a difference as to Cap's reasons for fighting in Civil War and in AvX. In the former he was fighting against an oppresive act. In the latter, he only wanted to protect the world and was not trying to oppress the mutant race. He went about it the wrong way but his heart was in the right place.

[icon_uk]

Cap did completely fail to respect the fact that the only people on Earth to ever have any actual experience of working with the Phoenix were standing right in front of him and might know a darnsight more about it than he did.

[captainbellman]

See, with the above pages depicting Maria Hill, I understand better why the Republicans have been ragging on Joe Biden for his manner in that last debate. I don't agree with them, of course, because a man has every right to laugh when he's debating a living caricature, but I do understand. It takes away from the seriousness of the issue.

Although I find the AvX scans just as ridiculous, given that it's all just angry posturing.

[suzene]

Considering Ryan that related that little anecdote about auto accidents in front of a man who lost his wife and daughter (and nearly two sons) to one? Biden could have spent the whole debate kneeing him in the balls and I wouldn't fault him.

But really, no matter what Biden did, the right would be ragging on him. And no matter what Ryan did, the left would despise him. It's all about who can spin their guy the best for the seventeen people who haven't decided how they're voting yet.

Also:

[captainbellman]

Who's going to tell me this dialogue isn't a massive improvement? Thank you Mightygodking.com.

Re: Also:

[seisachtheia]

Works for me. And it's actually a lot more insightful. Sigh.

I'm new to comics, and in my reading, I've mostly tried to skip over the big events. I mean, look at that. There's a good idea way down there somewhere, but the execution is just all over the place and it's absolutely incoherent. Like, if I'm reading the original scan right, she orders soldiers to take him down for disagreeing with something that's still just a bill at that point?

Re: Also:

[yvonmukluk.livejournal.com]

How can you miss the Lip Balm page? Madness! MADNESS, I SAY!

Re: Also:

[mrstatham]

Except it was a Millar event, so it was never going to be handled in an entirely positive light. As such, even this parody kind of falls short for me.

I mean, what was the Registration Act even supposed to BE? What did it offer for the people signed up to it beyond having their identities listed and.. Well, registered? Would there be some kind of government benefits? Some kind of attempt to protect those that registered? It was so pathetically underexplained that I just never really gave a shit - because it was clearly just an excuse to smack people in the face and flanderise a few characters - chief amongst them Maria Hill, who was, yes, a hard-ass, but she'd been dumped right in the middle of a situation that Nick Fury helped cause. Using metahumans. That she had a mad-on for them would've made sense with anyone other than Miller, who just made her a complete asshole HBIC.

Re: Also:

[donnblake]

I am going to tell you that dialogue is not a massive improvement. I could do without throwing curses in, especially from someone like Cap, and I'm not even going to touch 'bitchsezwhat'.

[julian]

I forgot how much the art in Civil War made me hork.

[captainbellman]

There's not a single instance in Civil War where it's not apparent that Cap could simply have represented the superheroic community in congress and negotiate the SHRF into a more acceptable form using the diplomacy skills he's been naturally gifted with. Captain America, like Wonder Woman, is a character who, in a situation that could be dealt with by negotiation or force, will always choose to negotiate first.

Yes, Cap debating in congress would make for a much more boring series, but that just proves that "Civil War" is a toxically stupid idea for a series in the first place. If the only way to make the story work is the way that's stupid, then the script is what needs changing - not the characterisation(s).

[biod]

Funnily enough Captain America and Wonder Woman both share the dubious distinction of being popular characters I love but far too rarely see written well.

[seisachtheia]

I don't think it would have necessarily been boring. A more realistic outcome would change around the sides and the issues, and would have precluded a "let's everybody pick sides and fight randomly!" but it could have been really interesting especially bringing in stuff rooted in things in the real world (and it's not like we don't have enough examples of security theater and the erosion of civil liberties and making ugly compromises). And then the issues would have been clearer, but less straw-man on every side. A conflict like that doesn't need everyone to be trying to punch their friends in the face to be interesting; simply throwing it into the mix creates interesting dynamics and changes...and they often spiral out far beyond what anyone first imagined. Really, what they needed to do was have some talks with people who really understand how law, the government, and the various players function and interact. (Imagine if they had to rewrite it now and had to consult with- oh, the guy who writes Law and the Multiverse or something). You don't need to spend pages and pages hashing out the policy details in the stories if you've got the mechanics worked out in the background. The natural-developing consequences of whatever you've set in motion in the mechanics of things should be able to drive really interesting stories. IMO. And that's my overly long midnight rant.

[lilacsigil]

My favourite Wonder Woman run was the Greg Rucka one where she was the ambassador. It was a well-balanced series between negotiation, using the media, and some legit fighting. A similar series for Cap could be really interesting.

[espanolbot]

Ah Bruce Wayne went before Congress to complain about the NML bill before it started.

Unfortunately the public image of being a kind of doofy rich guy didn't help him much in that arena, especially as numerous other people had already lobbied to get it put through.

[icon_uk]

I'd never noticed Cap's "double finger gun"/"right back atcha" pose when he's facing Cyclops on the beach, it's just begging for him to be making that "tck tck" sound.

[mrstatham]

Well, I'm just glad Maria Hill was a character other writers could eventually rescue from the scrap heap. Personally, I saw her doing fuck-all worse than Nick Fury would've done in the same position, but Millar's writing and the fact she wasn't Nick Fury really, really didn't help.

[an_idol_mind]

What a great show of how Marvel sucks at these events.

Civil War: I'm still amazed that the dialogue makes it clear that the law isn't even on the books yet. Also, why would Cap be arrested for just saying that he won't enforce the law? That's like the government pre-emptively shutting down websites prior to that anti-piracy bill that made such a stir a while back and arresting people who said they wouldn't follow it.

Avengers versus X-Men: Aside from the stupidity of the conversation, this is just bad leadership on Cyclops' part. Yeah, cooler heads probably weren't going to prevail, but you let Cap be the aggressor and throw the first punch. Don't end the conversation by opening up a potentially lethal optic blast, because that just sets you up as the bad guy in the situation.

[jmacq1]

That was one of the top reasons this event was so poorly written: Captain America showed up on Utopia basically acting just like Tony Stark did in Civil War.

[starwolf_oakley]

Thinking Captain America is wrong about something will never work out well for you. Even if Cap *is* wrong, you can't think he's wrong or it will go badly. The Skrulls invade, Norman Osborn takes over, and Xavier is dead. This isn't the same as DC's "Batman is always right about everything because he's Batman" but it's close.

If only Cyclops had said six simple words: "It has to be Hope's decision." I would have respected him then. It could even still lead to the fight, if Cap was all "We don't have time for it be Hope's decision."

[flash_fan]

Cyclops had a decent point there, until he y'know...shot cap with his optic blasts. What did he think was going to happen when he drew first blood against the Avengers?

[halloweenjack]

I wouldn't argue for Civil War as establishing a precedent for anything, except that the real purpose of these events, of course, is to put roughly half of your action figures on one side of the table and roughly half on the other, and SMASH SMASH SMASH and some of them get broken beyond repair (like poor Bill Foster), but they're not the ones that were your favorites anyway. Logical, consistent storytelling doesn't really enter into it, as mightygodking's remixes point out rather excellently.