Civil War II #8 Review

Civil War Poo (Zing … got ‘em)

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Art Team: David Marquez, Alan Davis, Adam Kubert, Esad Ribic, Leinil Francis Yu

Marvel Comics

Release Date: 12/28/16

Price: $4.99

After multiple delays, and a mostly spoiled ending, we “the fans” are finally treated to Marvels wrap up issue of their blockbuster summer event Civil War II.  Expecting this comic to suddenly get its act together would be a little much in one issue but maybe, just maybe, it can lead to some interesting jumping on points for the future, which your reading already if interested. So to anyone that remains that’s following a comic book you already know the ending to, feel free to join me as I share a few final thoughts on the series conclusion.

Things ended previously with Captain Marvel and Iron Man duking it out, over the skies of Washington D.C., with the winner apparently awarded the right to decide Miles Morales future. Do you get why this is bad yet?  So of course we must continue the battle here in this issue which happens to take over the majority of the page count. The fight drags on, and on, and on, as Carol continues shouting about bringing people to jail, only directing it at Tony this time for attacking her, instead of Miles. Tony keeps yelling for her to leave Miles be, because he believes Ulysses to be full of nonsense, which to his credit he has proven to be correct several times.    

There is a brief interruption amongst all the fighting which features Ulysses and the Inhuman's, the second most despicable party in this event behind Captain Marvel, as they join the viewing party in Washington D.C. via a Lockjaw teleport. You know, because why not bring Ulysses, the Inhuman hand grenade, along to a gun fight over the nation’s capital?

At this point the entire Marvel Universe decides to take the Inhuman’s lead and they all jockey for position for front row seats to this battle for the century, of this year, and nobody thinks it’s a good idea to break this little fight between “friends” up. Eventually Bendis decides to actually move the script forward at page 20 and the fighting stops when Carol absorbs enough of Tony’s energy blasts to fire a death blow striking the hero flush, knocking his armor to pieces, as he falls unconscious to the ground below.

Now this is where things get wild folks I’ll do my best to sum up a rushed ending here that makes little to no sense. As Tony begins plummeting to Earth, Ulysses decides now is the time to cast his “final” visions (seemingly only to certain people?) which offer up several different possibilities to even more potential futures, 7 splash pages worth to be exact! Despite being involved in these visions, Miles is still able to somehow save Tony from splattering to the ground, even taking the time to strike a religious pose after the rescue, for the “camera”. I’d like to nominate this panel for my own personal, Eye Roll Hall of Fame of Comic Panels, because in no way is anybody a savior in this entire story, so the comparison is completely lost to me, which makes it all the more eye roll worthy.

Everything seemingly wraps up from there (I guess?) as everybody just decides to go home, with no consequence for any actions for this Civil War whatsoever, to anyone, even the president seems pleased with whats happened on his watch. Oh how could I forget, Ulysses is so powerful he gets summoned to the heavens by Eternity, because he’s passed all us peons by. The end, thank you for coming.   

That’s it folks, your big summer events final issue summed up in a nutshell. We do get treated to some more potential teases as the book closes which include a brief montage of all the books currently not selling on your local comic book store shelfs, Captain Marvel being celebrated for having your favorite hero killed off or arrested for no reason, and the president setting up Captain Marvel to take the reins of the oval office. Basically they tried to cram as much stupid as possible into the last five pages of this bad boy.  

If I could physically throw a comic book across the room, have it hit something, and watch it shatter to pieces I would have done so at this point when I closed the back cover to this title.  We just spent 9 issues reading about these “futures”, with a focus on how their mostly bullshit, and part of the wrap up to this event is more potential future (surely event related) teases from a character nobody cared about to begin with? One of these teases still remains exactly what Bendis has teased for three issues now, Miles killing Captain America, and no other resolution is provided to that when it was a specific focus of this entire last half of the event. If that’s not poor storytelling and writing with no pay off I don’t know what is. 

I really don’t understand what the point of this book was at all other than to transition into the Marvel Now line of books. Why is a new cosmic being, Ulysses, needed when the others are never used anyway? Why is Captain Marvel literally being celebrated for organizing lethal assaults on people and being proven wrong for an entire series? To say this feels like a waste of money (around minimum of $45 altogether if collected in single issue format), that things have gone nowhere, and other things have happened for no reason, would be the understatement of the year.

Bits and Pieces:

In summary don’t waste your money. Marvel just charged everyone for a delayed solicit to the line of NOW! Books, which have already released anyway, disguised as a wrap up to an awful event comic. DC’s Convergence, and Marvel’s own Axis, was War and Peace compared to this title.  Chalk up Civil War as an event that shouldn’t even be enjoyed in an ironic way like a bad movie might be because it’s worse than that. If Marvel thinks there getting any money out of me for Monsters Unleashed or any future event title after this stunt they are so wrong I can’t even begin to think of an analogy to compare it to. If you wan to look at the bright side at least the art was good right?

3.0/10