COMIC BOOK REVIEW - Captain Marvel: Civil War II
By The Masked Medic
The comic book reviews have been coming in slowly. It’s a little tough to write lots when you have your mind being pulled in several directions. That being said, I’m still committed to getting good reviews out there. So without further ado. I thought it was time to return to some of the Marvel series that I had started and enjoyed and one stuck out in particular. I’m talking about Captain Marvel!
‘Civil War II’ is a way more serious title than needed and it also isn’t technically a sequel to the original Civil War in Marvel Comics. The novel starts with Carol Danvers, aka, Captain Marvel, celebrating a team success with Alpha Flight and her current boyfriend, James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes, aka, War Machine. What’s on her mind though is the difficult decision to tell the board of directors of Alpha Flight about Ulysses, an Inhuman who has precognitive abilities that allow him to sense events before they happen and thus stop the loss of life. Carol believes that he could be used to help Alpha Flight and the world from preventing catastrophe. The issue is that there are a number of superheroes who oppose this and believe that by relying on these visions they may inadvertently accuse innocent people of crimes they weren’t going to commit. Initially, Carol stays put on the issue, but when she runs into an old enemy, Dr Minerva, she decides to bring Ulysses on board. The novel then jumps in time, after a serious event in which War Machine dies. There is a clear disharmony amongst the superhero community but Carol continues as planned. During one mission the team learn of a huge power spike and break into the home of Stewart Cadwell, an ordinary man who once harnessed unimaginable power through a TV award he won. He’s reprimanded into custody and it appears that he had no intentions of carrying out any heinous acts. The lines between right and wrong start to get blurred, but when Carol finds out that there may be a mole on the team who has been feeding intel to Tony Stark, she starts accusing and finds that she’s about to lose more friends than ever before. But just who is pulling the strings behind the scenes? Can Carol work it out before it’s too late?
This novel is definitely a step up from the previous one and although there’s no doubt that the original Civil War Storyline was something special, this novel does a decent job at giving you an insight into why the issue for Civil War 2 was just as important. That being said the story of this novel is not very complex, nor is it particularly memorable. Carol is clearly a charismatic and badass character, however, due to the OP nature of her powers, I sometimes find that characters like her can have poor character development. That’s not the case here, however, as the development was one of the highlights of the novel. The small amount of cameos from other Marvel characters has been decent, but I’d have liked to see more team-ups!
The artwork for the most part was good and some of the fight scenes were drawn quite well. The covers however were quite basic and I’d have liked some more layering. Overall, although this novel doesn’t score very highly, it’s a satisfactory step in the right direction for the series. I’d be interested in reading more of Captain Marvel’s antics going forward!
Favourite Panel:
I love it when comics reference pop culture. You know they all hated Season 8 too!
Favourite Character:
I don’t understand. I don’t care much for MCU Captain Marvel, but I like her comic book counterpart. Should I give Captain Marvel a chance?
Rating:
Story Arc: ★★½
Character Development: ★★★
Artwork: ★★★½
Enjoyability: ★★★
Re-readability: ★★
Level: Intermediate