Civil War #1, July 2006
I took a couple years off from superhero comics in the
mid-2000s. I walked away from the X-books when Grant Morrison did, and for a
while the only thing I was reading was Brian K. Vaughn’s Ex Machina.
Marvel’s Civil War
event got me curious, though. The House of Ideas hadn't really pushed its
crossovers in the mainstream, non-comics media prior to this, so I picked up
the first few issues.
But I’m not writing about Civil War because I think Marvel’s most hyped event of the past
decade is the greatest thing since sliced bread. The reason this book sticks
out to me, personally, is the Steve McNiven splash page in which Captain America
is shown surfing on a jet.
I hadn’t really read much Cap before then, save for
occasional minor appearances in X-Men.
So I was surprised to watch this red-white-and-blue badass beat up a couple
dozen S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, hijack a jet, lecture the pilot about his language and, as
a Cabinet secretary later describes, land the plane on a football field and
take the pilot out for a burger and fries. Mark Millar – who crafted an
alternate-Earth version of the character in The
Ultimates – wrote Cap as the perfect combination of Boy Scout and action
star. As team leaders go, Cyclops
was never this cool.
Before long, I started reading Ed
Brubaker’s run on Cap’s solo title and had collected every trade from the
first hardcover omnibus right up until Fear Itself. Having completed that, I
expanded outward, reading the new stuff by Rick Remender and Jack Kirby’s
stories from the bicentennial.
So thanks, Civil War, for giving me a new favorite
character.
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