The Civil War Machine: Umm… What?

Civil War: Frontline has been one of the bright spots in the mess that was Civil War. The bulk of the series told the events of the crossover through the eyes of the man on the street, namely journalists Ben Urich and Sally Floyd. It also expanded on many ideas brought up by Civil War but not touched upon in the main mini-series or character-specific ongoing series. Frontline featured back-up tales about Speedball going to trial for his part in the Stamford incident, how superheroes operate once they’ve registered with the government, and how and why supervillains were utilized on the pro-registration side.

When Marvel announced The Delay, they also announced a bevy of new crossovers they would be releasing to cushion the blow. And by “cushion the blow,” I mean “milk readers for every penny we can while we wait another three months for McNiven to get done.” Among the new books was an eleventh issue of Frontline, which was originally solicited as a ten-issue mini-series. And I was glad, because I had thoroughly enjoyed writer Paul Jenkins’ work so far and didn’t want to see it end.

As it turns out though, that eleventh issue (which shipped Wednesday) seems like it wasn’t added to let Jenkins continue his story, but to help fix some of the problems they weren’t going to have time to fix in the Civil War series. Like that whole “Tony Stark is an evil bastard” thing.

Here’s the gist of the issue: Ben Urich and Sally Floyd interview Captain America after he surrenders and goes to jail, then confront Tony Stark about the “real” reason behind Civil War. There’s also some character development stuff, which is presumably thrown in there help bring readers to World War Hulk: Frontline, and a little more info on the aftermath of the final battle (53 casualties, including 6 supers…sorry Typeface fans). The Cap/Stark stuff is the reason this eleventh issue exists, though.

In the first part Captain America section, Cap explains why he took a stand against the Superhuman Registration Act in the first place and why he surrendered when he did. It does a good job of clarifying why Cap made that decision in Civil War #7, although it’s a shame it needed to be clarified in a different book.

The second part of the Cap section, Sally Floyd rips on Cap for not supporting the SRA from the get-go. Sally’s sick and tired of superheroes not being held accountable for their actions because–wait for it–her tax money is going to pay the damages caused by superhero fights. Not because, say, under-trained superheroes endanger innocent lives. Nope, it’s all about the Benjamins, apparently. If she pays for the clean up, Sally wants someone to manage those dangerous superheroes. Because if superheroes didn’t pick on those poor villains all the time, then the villains wouldn’t be put in a situation to cause so much property damage all the time.

Shame on you superheroes! You should have just let the Vulture steal millions of dollars from that bank. They have insurance! You should have let Bullseye assassinate that innocent man. He probably did something to deserve it! You should have let that giant underground monster continue on his destructive rampage. It probably would have tired itself out eventually!

I really like Sally Floyd up until that point. But that’s just an idiotic reason to support superhero registration. I can understand why someone would support registration. I can understand why someone would be angry at Cap over his opposition to registration. But for that reason? Gimme a breaksville.

In the Stark section, Sally and Ben confront Tony with the “real” reason behind Civil War, which they each figured out simultaneously but through different means. It’s a really long, convoluted explanation that I’ve read twice but still don’t understand. It involves igniting a war with Atlantis so the two sides would unite over a common enemy (somebody’s read Watchmen!), manipulating the stock market to set up a pension plan for firemen and superheroes and hiring supervillains to do the real dirty work. But here it is in a nutshell:

Tony Stark is Jesus.

Except instead of dying for our sins, he made people hate him so they’d agree to let him protect them. Or something. So actually he’s nothing like Jesus. But Tony probably thinks he is.

See, everything that happened was apparently all a plan by Tony to convince people that the Superhuman Registration Act was the right thing for the future of the country. Everything that was done was done on purpose. Even the way it was done was purposeful. Tony made things go worse than they needed to in order to make the SRA seem like the right choice. He purposely made things look bad so that he could scare people that disagreed with him into agreeing with him. Because Tony Stark knew what was best for America’s future, godammit, and if other people didn’t see it that way, he was going to make them see it that way.

Tony Stark knew that there was no way he could make his vision of the future a reality without sacrificing some things. Most notably, his own likeability. To a lesser extent, the lives of Goliath and 53 people in New York. But thanks to all that sacrifice, the United States is a safer place. With the Superhuman Registration Act and the 50 States Initiative in place, America would be safer. So that’s good, right? Sure, some of the country’s greatest heroes are now imprisoned, on the lamb or dead, but at least Colorado has Bullseye and Venom to look out for them now.

So Tony’s not such a bad guy after all, I guess. He’s not an evil bastard. A ruthless, self-important bastard, yes, but at least he’s doing it for the right reasons.

Unless, you know, you’re one of those people who don’t think the ends justify the means. Or one of those people that didn’t read Civil War: Frontline. To those people, he’s still an evil bastard.