This means war

Art by Steve McNiven
Art by Steve McNiven

Whose side are you on?

By Brittney MacDonald, Life & Style Editor

4/5

With all the hype surrounding the new movie, I thought it was about time that I pick up Mark Millar’s Civil War. Before I begin, keep in mind that the Civil War storyline—the division of the Avengers into two separate warring factions—is actually a plot that’s been redone quite frequently, so this particular one may not act as a word for word script preview of the movie.

Civil War examines how an attempted registration of people with superhuman powers or abilities would work. On one end, heroes like Iron Man believe that the government needs to keep account of and monitor these people to maintain public safety. On the other hand, heroes like Captain America believe in maintaining personal freedom. This leads to a conflict within the super human community itself, and the two sides begin fighting each other.

The narrative is very well done. Each character’s motivations for picking the side they do are believable. However, it lacks a little in terms of creating an emotional connection between the characters themselves, as well as between the events of the book and the reader—something that other Avengers works such as The Children’s Crusade did much better.

It’s kind of hard to go wrong art-wise with somebody like Steve McNiven at the helm. The man is a genius. He specializes in highly stylized, hyper realistic, detailed aesthetics, and he’s behind some of the top-tier titles out today. Works like Inhumans, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Death of Wolverine are all great examples of his work. Civil War is no different.

Overall, I really liked this book and I would definitely recommend it.