Civil War: The Return

[fastballspecial]

The only thing good I can say about this is I like Tom Raney's art although I always have anyway. Its a poor sales gimmick. It didnt make me buy CA for it and it wont make me buy this title either.

[grider67]

JOE Q. does it again!

[drice6900]

An excellent review from Newsarama:

 

Civil War: The Return

From: Marvel Comics

Written By: Paul Jenkins

Drawn By: Tom Raney

Reviewed By: Kevin Huxford

 

I want my money back.

 

Now, don’t start making assumptions before you the rest of my review. I’ve already seen many fans of this issue dismiss its critics as just being mad that Captain Marvel was brought back. It tarnishes his emotional passing back in the day. It is an insult to Mr. Starlin’s great story and the love he personally put into it, choosing cancer because he had lost a family member to it around that time. That must be why I am livid about this issue, right?

 

Wrong. I have no experience with a non-Genis Captain Marvel…and I wasn’t all that emotionally tied to Genis, even. I share Mr. Starlin’s loss of a family member due to cancer, but don’t think a publishing company can stop themselves from creating good, new product because one of their work-for-hire contractors has an emotional tie to a previous story.

 

No…with apologies to a writer I really respect and have enjoyed previous work from…I take personal offense at having had to pay good money for this issue because it was a hack job. It is a thirteen page story that rushes Captain Marvel back into the 616 universe. Since it tries to rush, it misses some things.

 

It seems to miss that, according to the dialogue, Captain Marvel was transported to the Watchtower…yet without changing location, the Sentry is asking Mar-Vell to “stay here in the Negative Zone”. Either the dialogue is misleading or the in-story continuity is screwy. Given that the incident that brought him to our time was that Reed and Tony were working on ways to travel INTO the Negative Zone, it would make sense that he traveled OUT of the zone.

 

A smaller continuity problem would be that, from all accounts, the Sentry didn’t decide to side with Tony until after there was already a Negative Zone prison…which would suggest it should have taken place after the transportation and staffing problems were already resolved.

 

One of the other complaints is that they never truly make the timeline clear. Did he come to our time before Nitro poisoned him or after? Does he basically know when he is going to die because he feels fate can’t be changed or because he already is developing the cancer? Why is it that he believes all the days he spends in our time, before being sent back, aren’t already going to decrease the time he’ll have left when he goes back? How is he getting a second chance to make a first impression, seeing as how all indications are that the world has already seen him for the first time in the past?

 

The most frustrating thing with all those questions? They wasted 10 pages that could have been used to shore up the story with a Sentry backup tale. This book was called CIVIL WAR: THE RETURN. The Sentry tale had absolutely nothing to do with that title, thematically. It came off as filler…filler that told a story that already had a contradictory tale told by another writer. In the pages of the New Avengers, Sentry decided to join Iron Man…which would include registering. I know he isn’t the most mentally stable character in the world, but did we need another telling of this tale? If he seriously was having a mental issue, could it have been spelled out?

 

While we’re at it, why would a character that just INTENTIONALLY drove his opponent into the tanks of a gas station and INTENTIONALLY killed his opponent (with a hunch that he won’t stay dead) be a good volunteer for the Pro-Registration side? It would seem that Paul isn’t really stopping to think through what he has written in any part of this issue. My opinion of this story wasn’t helped by Paul’s turning Absorbing Man into an even paler copy of Parasite (I believe his powers were changed a bit by Bruce Jones’ Hulk run, but Paul takes it even further).

 

Let me be clear: I’m sure that someone will be able to tell some interesting stories about Captain Marvel and I generally like Sentry stories. But how compelling of a case is Marvel or the writer making that there are compelling stories to tell with Mar-Vell when they couldn’t even fill out 22 pages with his return? Sentry isn’t a bad character, but what is the need to put him in a book that he doesn’t fit in? Why the false advertising on Marvel’s part? This was a one-shot event issue that was supposed to be about a return.

 

I can’t spare Raney here. I think he is an artist with some talent, but his depictions of Captain Marvel were all over the map here. His worst bit of art in the whole book? Page 7…panel 3…Iron Man’s eye slits: how can he manage to make them so obviously non-symmetrical? Was the art rushed, too?

 

To sum up…what was supposed to be an event-level story was shrunk down into 13 pages that read like something that should have been a free, promotional handout story. It becomes ironic that an advertisement that I had to pay $3 to read would turn out to be an example of false advertising.

 

I give this issue 3 out of 10 “The Rock”s. Why? Because they can take this issue, shine it up nice, turn it sideways, and shove it up their candy…well…this is a family-friendly site.

[rob_allan]

[thanos_oftitan]

[WiseGuyX]

[Paladin]

Okay now i'm pissed, this is one of the worst decisions i've seen in Marvel history. Was there really a clamoring for this loser to come back?? Not only that but he gets his own issue?

 

The 90's are coming back...soon every medicore hero will have it's own title..I look forward to finally seeing the next volume of Luke Cage, Deathlok, Nova and god willing Howard The Duck!

 

By the way if you are still reading this, they brought back Captain Marvell. Yes, you heard me, Captain Marvell.

 

Dam you Marvel....dam you!

 

Love that cover! Almost spent the extra money (since it was the variant) to buy it, but I ended up buying the regular issue.

 

Flipped through it before buying. Was mystified as to why the Sentry took up half the book. And like others I thought it was more of a teaser for the upcoming series. Why not price it at a quarter? Was that Waid issue of FF the last quarter issue Marvel did?

 

I own the Death of Captain Marvel graphic novel. It does suck that they had to bring him back after such a landmark story, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't just a little excited at the chance to read more stories about the original captain.

 

That being said; the "teaser" book was not a great start. Which means I'll be proceeding with caution.