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brevoortformspring:

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Tom, when I’ve said that I don’t like something, you always apologize for it not working for me, and I always appreciate the time you take to do that. Moreover, if I was to have any faith in any process in comics, in any device, it’d be the Marvel Creative Summit. I think it’s gotten us 10 years of solid events, good comics, great line relaunches, thematic unison and managed continuity. I have a lot of faith in it.

But Civil War II #1 is not good, and it’s so not good that my faith is a little bit shaken. How can a comic, a tentpole event, be published on so flimsy a premise? I’m with you guys on the Cap reveal. I worry a little about the execution but your thought experiment story engines have worked out so well over the last few years. I’m with you on that one. Here, though?

I’m just baffled. So the premise is that Tony is upset about Rhodey. I get that. His reaction being the catalyst for this conflict is credulity stretching though. It’d be one thing if it was about the morality issues the issue itself raised, vilifying someone for something they hadn’t done yet, acting based on a POSSIBLE future, etc.

Tony’s mad, however, because they knew Thanos was coming and went to stop him, with more preparation and a better plan than they would have had if they didn’t know. Thanos was coming one way or another. He was going to cause trouble one way or another. They were going to arrive to stop him eventually one way or another. They were going to fight him eventually one way or another. This way, they were able to be MORE prepared. That’s literally the only difference. I mean, sure, it’s also credulity stretching that the one time they’re prepared for Thanos, people die as opposed to the last dozen times they fought him when they weren’t prepared and no one died. Does Tony think that they shouldn’t have been fighting Thanos in the first place? That they should just have let him do whatever he was going to do? The whole moral issue having to do with seeing the future, the thing that makes sense for this entire series to be about? That’s not on the table at all in the actions of issue 1. I mean does Futurist Tony think that Rhodey died because they WENT AGAINST FATE or something? Is it that he thinks they should follow god’s plan? Obviously that’s not it. 

There’s no logical alternative here. It’s not his fault as a character. It’s the writing. Then there’s Jennifer going from arguing in court against what someone MIGHT do being enough to damn them in the FCBD issue to, on her deathbed, making sure that Carol is inspired to make full use of this information here. And why shouldn’t she? An early warning device for Thanos and the Celestials was the only thing on the table here. There was no connection to her defending the Jester in the FCBD issue. No contradiction. Totally different levels of scope and scenario. But then why show that there?

I know this is early going still, but this was bad, Tom. It’s the flimsiest premise. Easily the flimsiest for any event you’ve done. #1s are important, especially for events and this was so big a miss that I am just baffled how it got through the summit phase. I can’t even imagine it, to be honest. I can’t picture a situation where a bunch of great comic writers and editors talk about this and agree that this is the way to start the story, that it makes sense. Yes, there’s an element of “Oh, Tony’s being old Selfish Tony” which certainly played well in the movie version of Civil War, but it really rang false here. 

I’m sorry Tom. “Sorry It didn’t work for you” isn’t going to cut it here. It’s not just me. It just didn’t work. This was flimsy enough to make me doubt the entire system. Good luck on course correcting as this goes. 

> Sorry it didn’t work for you.

I guess I should have seen that coming.