X-Men: Civil War #1 (of 4)

Written by David Hine

Pencils by Yanick Paquette

Cover by Juan Doe

 

Mark Millar has made it known that he purposefully left the X-Men out of the main fight in Civil War because they’d dominate the series, even with their ranks ‘decimated’. So why we have an X-Men mini-series is beyond me. The story smacks of being a top-down affair forced upon the creative team in hopes of getting more money out of the franchise. The biggest clue is the fact that the actions of Cyclops contradict the tone of neutrality that was set in X-Factor and Civil War itself this week. Read all three issues and this one stands out as feeling odd.

 

Domino and Shatterstar decide to bust out the 198 and then flee. A major problem that I’ve had with the 198 is the fact that a lot of these guys are known criminals & super-villains. Why weren’t they put in jail? Why do the X-Men treat Fever Pitch and Caliban like they’re not bad people?

 

Bishop sides with the government’s registration with the explanation that a MORE centralized authority is what will prevent his future from happening. I understand his sentiment to police his own (and could understand his character being Pro-Registration), but didn’t an authoritative dictatorship enslave all the mutants in his future timeline, not a lack of one? His dialogue here about anarchy causing the branding and enslavement of mutants is poppycock.

 

The antagonist of the series is marked out as General Lazer who’s not too happy with Bishop leading the team to take back the 198. The general is an obviously evil man whose position and power within the U.S. isn’t really made clear. He seems to be in charge of large swaths of the armed forces without much oversight, and he’s racist against mutants, of course. He’s hardly original or deep.

 

The speaking of misrepresenting the armed forces, Colonel Reyes calls Domino and Shatterstar terrorists for blowing up a prison wall. I’d label them criminals maybe, but calling them terrorists here is absurd. Even if Hine is trying to show Reyes as an evil authoritarian then it’s even more absurd. The character was written at times to be the most leveled headed of the people in charge of O.N.E. Now he’s a right-wing stereotype.

 

The original X-Men, minus Jean of course, go after the 198 in secret with the hint that they’ll have to fight Iron Man and the registered heroes plus Bishop and the Sentinels (obviously changing Millar’s intent to leave them out of it). Why aren’t they just fighting alongside Bishop to do the exact same thing when they’ve sided with O.N.E. time and again? Everything up to now points to Cyclops siding with O.N.E. and the Registration Act. Why that isn’t the story here is a bit perplexing.

 

Rating - 3