Continuing our look back at the making of CIVIL WAR.
A couple of weeks and a few drafts of issue #1 later, as well as revisions to the overview, and we were ready to reach out to the rest of the editors, in order to work out the various tie-in books.
As you can see from the planning document below, at this stage, we were working off of the idea of doing assorted stand-alone tie-ins as well as connected issues of regular titles. It was after this point that we decided to fold a lot of these ideas into CIVIL WAR: FRONT LINE.
CIVIL WAR
Planning Sheet
WHAT IT IS:
CIVIL WAR is Marvel’s major crossover event for 2006. The build-up begins in March, the actual series itself starts in May, and runs for seven issues, ending in November.
THE PREMISE:
After a televised New Warriors mission goes horribly wrong, resulting in the destruction of a suburban town and all its inhabitants, the proposed Super Hero Registration Act which would require anybody possessing superhuman abilities to register with a new government agency gains momentum. Some characters, symbolized by Captain America, refuse to divulge their identities, and go underground, even adopting new civilian identities in the manner of the Witness protection Program. Others get on board with the new program, symbolized by Iron Man. New heroes are born. And some choose to walk away from their lives as super heroes. As tensions mount and the act becomes the law of the land, former comrades must now hunt down one another. By the end, the Marvel Universe is in a very different shape, with any masked super heroes functioning from that point on as outlaws, with new teams of characters established and set up across the world.
HOW YOUR TIE-IN WORKS:
We’re planning for there to be three kinds of tie-ins to CIVIL WAR at the moment. They are:
1) INDIVIDUAL ISSUES OF MONTHLY BOOKS: These will be the most prevalent of the crossovers, and will be the toughest to coordinate. Because the events of CIVIL WAR are so sweeping, they’re going to impact on most every monthly title we publish at some point. However, we want to be careful not to have so many crossovers and tie-ins that it becomes ridiculous. As Bendis pointed out for House of M, we’re only as strong as our weakest link. Therefore, we want to encourage people to find places for their monthly titles to tie in, but only where there’s some meaty component of the story to tell. We’d rather have two really strong CIVIL WAR issues of, say, IRON MAN than five tie-in issues that aren’t what they should be—the short-term gain will look attractive, but we’ve got to keep the quality high and the continuity strong. We’d like to build a checklist over the next week or so of which issues of which monthly titles will be direct CIVIL WAR tie-ins.
2) SELF-CONTAINED TIE-IN BOOKS: In addition to the monthly books, we want to produce a number of self-contained tie-in titles, to illuminate or explore elements of CIVIL WAR that there isn’t room enough for in the main book. Right this minute, we’re talking about doing all of these as double-sized one-shots, each with a title that includes CIVIL WAR. So CIVIL WAR: THE FUGITIVE is about the manhunt for Nitro, the villain who caused the disaster in the first place. CIVIL WAR: THE ACCUSED is about the surviving New Warriors characters, and how they individually react to being associated with the deaths of hundreds. CIVIL WAR: THE AGENCY will be about the formation and mandate of the new agency that’ll be in charge of super hero registration. And so forth. We’re open to doing a whole bunch of these, so if you or your creators have ideas, feel free to throw them out there.
3) NEW UPCOMING IDEAS OR CHARACTERS THAT CAN DEBUT IN CIVIL WAR ITSELF: We want to debut as much new stuff in CIVIL WAR as we can, to leverage the strength of promotion towards their spin-outs or launches. So if you have any titles in the planning stages that you think would be helped by including in CIVIL WAR, we want to know about that as well. For example, we were going to launch Robert Kirkman’s new ANT-MAN series in March initially, but now we’re going to push it back, debut the character in CIVIL WAR, and then launch the ANT-MAN ongoing while CIVIL WAR is still going on, to reveal his backstory. Anything similar that can be done for other such books should be explored. Additionally, if there are any characters you’d like to see revamped, we want to assemble a list of them as well.
THE MONTHLY BEATS AS WE KNOW THEM NOW:
So that you and your creators can plan, here is a brief outline of the basic beats of CIVIL WAR as they now stand. Much of this stuff is subject to change as we develop better ideas, but this will at least give you a general road map towards planning
PRE-MARCH
Wherever possible, we’d like to have mentions of the proposed Super Hero Registration Act
MARCH
NEW AVENGERS ILLUMINATI SPECIAL: the Illuminati grouping of Marvel heavy hitters meet to discuss the lay of the land. We seed the Super Hero Registration Act here. As a pre-emptive strike to help dampen down public sentiment, the Illuminati vote to exile the Hulk into space (in HULK #92). By the end of the special, the Iluminati have fragmented, each with their own views on what needs to be done
APRIL
CIVIL WAR PROLOGUE: THE AGENCY: details the formation of the organization, working name H.A.M.M.E.R., who’ll be responsible for Super Hero Registration
MAY
CIVIL WAR #1
--New Warriors mission goes awry, suburban town destroyed
--Public calls for Super Hero Registration
--At a meeting of heroes at the Baxter Building, the super-people are split, nervous about giving up their secret identities
-- Cap in particular is horrified at what he sees as the beginning of s slippery slope that erodes 250 years of American Civil Liberties
--When Cap refuses to play ball and hunt down his pals he becomes hunted himself, and goes underground.
--Back at the White House, Tony, Reed Richards and Hank Pym agree to spearhead this search for super-people who refuse to obey the law
CIVIL WAR: THE FUGITIVE: Details the hunt for Nitro, the villain the New Warriors were attempting to apprehend when the town was destroyed
JUNE
CIVIL WAR #2
-- Super heroes are told to unmask and the midnight deadline for heroes to get licensed comes and goes.
--Tony Stark gives a press conference where he says he knows the real names of 137 unregistered super heroes, and implores them to come forward, or they’ll be hunted down.
-- Only licensed super heroes are legal in America and anyone out there in a mask who doesn’t have HAMMER permission is officially breaking the law.
-- Tony Stark has become the figurehead of the Registration movement
--The X-Men promise Tony that they won’t fight against him. Bishop actively supports Tony’s position and joins Iron Man’s group.
-- Sue Richards hates this legislation against the heroes and is saying she wants the FF all to go underground with Cap. Schism between her and Reed.
-- Doctor Strange and the Black Panther want to remain neutral in all of this just like the X-Men
-- Assorted heroes engage in soul-searching as to what they should do, how they should react.
--Cap has formed the covert Secret Avengers, who continue to try to do their job as heroes while avoiding the Registration
--The covert heroes adopt new secret identities, essentially going into witness protection
--Issue ends with the Secret Avengers having walked into a trap set by Tony’s guys. A huge battle between forces is about to occur.
CIVIL WAR: THE ACCUSED: Deals specifically with the surviving New Warriors, and what they choose to do individually, as they’ve been branded the poster children for irresponsible, unlicensed super heroes.
JULY
CIVIL WAR #3
--Cap’s Secret Avengers manage to make their escape from Iron Man’s Avengers. Both men have huge respect for each other, but utterly believe they’re right.
--A couple of Cap’s guys just leave, feeling this is all wrong. However, at the same time, a couple of the people on Tony’s side also don’t like the idea of fighting their old friends and come into the fold of the Secret Avengers
-- Ordinary people are really pissed off with the Secret Avengers because they’re wasting the time of the legalized superheroes. They should be out there saving lives, not breaking the law.
-- In order to bolster his forces, Tony offers a deal to all of the captured villains of the Marvel Universe, electronically tagging them and sending them out after the heroes.
--The main incarcerated character Tony releases is Marvel Boy, who is all messed up, and who we set up to seem like the new Captain Marvel.
BLACK PANTHER WEDDING: Heroes from both sides attend, including Cap and Iron Man. It’s an uneasy détente.
AUGUST
CIVIL WAR #4
-- Unlicensed super-people are being arrested and locked up in a secret location awaiting trial.
-- Tony unveils his grand plan to He and his braintrust of Reed and Hank Pym have developed individuals and super-teams for all across the USA.
- One of the villain gangs have snared one of the unlicensed heroes and are ready to unmask him when there’s a shot out of nowhere and one of their heads explode. A fury of machine-gun fire and more villains are taken down before we’re shocked to discover that the Punisher is the rescuer, taking the battered hero back to his base and explaining that, although he didn’t give a rat’s ass before, he sure as Hell cares now they’re actually enlisting bad guys.
SEPTEMBER
CIVIL WAR #5
--Happy Hogan gets badly beaten and hospitalized because of his association with Iron Man. This is the downside of the public ID
-- Some of his team-mates see this as everything they feared for their own families, but Tony remains resolute.
--Cap tries to recruit Namor as an ally, but Namor wants no part of what’s going on in the surface world.
-- In the Negative Zone and we see this colossal prison with all the super-people locked up in here beside the various bad guys who’ve been taken down. Cap’s crew plan to break their allies out.
OCTOBER
CIVIL WAR #6
-- Cap’s group is approached by a couple of villains who want to throw in with them. But the Punisher kills them—No Deals.
-- Cap goes absolutely apeshit and we get a great, big superhero smackdown as Cap just kicks the shit out of him. What’s interesting, though, is that Punisher won’t fight back. He just takes it and Cap stops, confused. Punisher picks himself up and Cap tells him to get the Hell out. They might be down to a handful of men, but they don’t need lunatics on their side.
-- Big raid. Superheroes freed. Huge fight in the Negative Zone and all Hell breaks loose as the fight smashes back through the main entrance and spills out into the desert where the military base was
-- Namor, who swears he wouldn’t help, ends up arriving with his crew in a glorious double page spread. This means that the other neutrals, with sympathy for the other side, appear and we have another spread as all the X-men show up to balance things out.
--The actual new Captain Marvel appears, to take on and take down Marvel Boy
NOVEMBER
CIVIL WAR #7
-- SPECTACULAR fight. One by one, the guys go down until we’re left with just Cap and Tony
-- Cap, exhausted, finally puts Tony down in the cleverest way possible. It’s over.
-- He looks around at the crowds assembled on the edge of town and he sees something he’s never seen before: Fear. Cap inspires hope and yet here he is terrifying the locals. They start to yell at him, voicing everything we’ve seen in the background throughout the series about how they WANT a register and need to be protected from lunatics in masks doing whatever they want; completely unaccountable vigilantes.
-- Cap realizes he was wrong. He realizes he’s been fighting for masks when he should have been fighting for America
-- Cap concedes that the people do want superheroes to go legit. His big problem is liberties being taken away by people he doesn’t know and can’t trust and so he says to Tony that he and his guys will ACCEPT the registration on one simple condition: That it isn’t the government that holds all the secrets. Sure, the person in charge can be accountable to the government, but he wants a super hero to be in charge of this. The person he wants, the person he trusts most, is Tony.
-- Cut to a series of epilogues where we get the new Marvel Universe being constructed here. Tony Stark now heads up HAMMER as well as supervising the new hero teams.
-- Cap himself gives up the mask and gets on a motor-bike, getting out there to find himself and reconnect with America.
This version of the War. Thanks for posting these inside looks, Tom. It's truly fascinating.
You know, there are some things from this version I am really very sad to have lost. The ending, however, is not one of them. I can't say I was entirely satisfied by the ending that actually came to pass in Civil War, but at least Captain America didn't completely give up. Yes, he turned himself in, but he didn't just accept Tony's 'vision'. He was going to keep fighting as it all went into the courts and the court of public opinion.
In this version... well, to be honest, it feels like whoever wrote this memo though that it was a no-brainer that Tony was right. This quote "Cap realizes he was wrong. He realizes he’s been fighting for masks when he should have been fighting for America" seems to take the whole anti-registration side and call it misguided and selfish.
Also, on the bias towards the Pro-Reg side notes is this quote from this memo: "Namor, who swears he wouldn’t help, ends up arriving with his crew in a glorious double page spread. This means that the other neutrals, with sympathy for the other side, appear and we have another spread as all the X-men show up to balance things out." Now... the other neutrals have sympathy towards the other side? So, originally, Doctor Strange and Black Panther were Pro-Reg? And the X-Men 'balance things out'? The X-Men were going to be Pro-reg, too? I must say, I find that very surprising. This is another change I am glad they made.
Some people suggested that Civil War was far too slanted towards the Anti-Reg being good and the Pro-Reg being bad. Could it be that it was actually overcompensation, because they were worried the Pro-Reg was too obviously right? Like I said, I have no idea, I'm just getting a very Pro-Reg vibe from this memo.
One thing I find interesting is what DID make it through to the final version, and it's surprisingly little. The general outcome and the bits with the Punisher seem to be the big things that made it through from onset to end. Many of what became the "top moments of Civil War" seem to have been added in later. There is no mention of Spider-Man's unmasking, no Thor clone, no death of Goliath, no Cap being arrested, and no final battle in the New York Streets. Of course, no Death of Captain America either... and yes, I know that was not in Civil War, but it was the number one moment "in Civil War", according to the Marvel Spotlight book. I hope we can get a look into the addition of these elements as the week goes on.
Posted by cracksh0t on 2007-07-20 00:37:13
Oh. I meant to sign my post, since I'm not a fan of the anonymity of the internet.
Jordan D. White
Posted by cracksh0t on 2007-07-20 00:39:36
I agree with Big Daddy, The Civil War as we know it, had been written for the best of all others possibilities.Althought it's very interesting to see how things had been orchestrated
(the wish to maintain the quality of the story from his beginning until his end remainded me Lars Von Trier 's plot-writing lesson in "Epidemic ", a giant blank-page on the wall where he puts his time-line, with the beginnings, middles and ends and in between what he was not sure about, and the transitions ), it's sometimes painful to read primary versions ( the HappylookslikeJFK incident ) and we could just be glad regarding what had been spared to us.
Posted by notapotatoe on 2007-07-20 05:26:57
what is offensive ? " time-line " ?
Posted by notapotatoe on 2007-07-20 08:33:01
Agree with Cracksh0t From reading this: it seems that they overcompensated for the anti-reg side in the actual event, because of the view that the pro-reg side would be more dominately supported by readers (revealed somewhat in this memo).
We really only saw two events (one minor in the middle and one major at the end) that made the anti reg look bad (when Cap took a cheap shot on Tony with the electric thing on his hand, and when the people grabbed Cap to stop him).
Conversely, the pro-reg side was demonized far to much if the goal was to create equal sides. First off, they are seen with the Bush Administration which is highly unpopular with Americans and the world (whether you support or oppose their actions, this is a fact, although this event took place before the Democratic Congress took over which is now also receiving toilet poll numbers). Second you have them cheaply setting a trap, the attack of Thor clone, and the killing of Bill Foster all within a few moments. That was definately the moment in which fans would never support the pro-reg side. Talk about overload. Not to mention implementing a team of criminal mercenaries (the Thunderbolts)! Than you had several other revelations throughout like Tony spying on Spider-man through his suit and hiring the Kingpin!
Talk about group think! Over all though Civil War was still executed really good in my opinion, but not the aspect of creating an atmosphere where fans must "choose sides".
Posted by IronMan296 on 2007-07-20 11:16:05
The book went anti-reg so that in the last few pages it could twist pro-reg. Twist ending, Future Shocks style.
Posted by RichJohnston on 2007-07-21 07:35:20
What I find odd What I find odd is Quesada telling the CBG the notion of killing Captain America started "at the first big creative summit we had to discuss all the events in Civil War... a year and half ago." Did this version of CW where Steve Rogers retires and survives get written before or after that summit?
Posted by cslepage on 2007-08-04 19:40:16
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About this blog: Ramblings and musings from the mind of Tom Brevoort. "It won’t be clean. It won’t be fun. It mostly won’t be coherent."
About the author: Tom Brevoort is Executive Editor for Marvel Comics, and oversees such titles as New Avengers, Civil War, and Fantastic Four.
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