Not Candy Corn

The Secret Warriors. Its the prefect idea really. It is Nick Fury's return to the forefront of the marvel universe with all the piss and vinegar that is associated with him. Man Nick Fury is one of the few things I really love about the Marvel Universe. Back in the day he is low brow pulp action at its absolute finest. When written right he is a bastard who gets the job done no matter what the cost. He is athe sort of person who rides a motorcycle through a window, guns in each hand, mowing down the bad guys. He gets laid constantly. He is the ultimate spy.

So now he is back. In his own shiny new book and there I am sitting around reading it. Then it happens. And all the sudden I understand.

See when people talk about the Marvel Civil War they usually fall into two camps. My camp that is primaraly focused on the fact that we are all happy that the marvel universe is no longer a frightfully boring place and now something interesting is on, and the camp that sees charecters they have loved and charished for years being fantastically altered to fit a new world view. These people are still angry. Personally I think they should move with the times.

I still think this way because, you know, why not. Anyway I kinda of get it now. See in the secret warriors all the sudden Nick Fury makes a starteling realization, he has been working for Hydra the whole time. TO put this in perspective it would be like GI JOE secretly working for Cobra, or James Bond secretly working for the russians. Potentially this is a brilliant twist, it brings tension and drama back into the series, and gives the fights some sweet personal touch that is always fun. See and it could work, if say Iron Man found out a lot of his stock was owned by Hydra, or if the Fantastic 4 discovered they have accidently made some tech for them, or even if Hydra had been pulling the strings of the Avengers. However, this isn't the case. Instead Hydra has been pulling Shield's strings. In a way it works. It works if you've never read anything about Nick Fury or Shield before. At that point it works perfectly, he breaks into a data cache, grabs some secret information, and makes a discovery, goes on rampage. It works.

However, Nick made it his buisness to know everything that went on at shield. That is just what he did. So the idea that he has never visited this paticular data core where the information is stored is just bad. It makes him look like an idiot who has been played his whole life instead of one of the greatest soldiers ever to walk the earth.

Like I said a better role for Iron Man.

The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. The thing is that the rest of the comic is fantastic, the action is well done, there is moral ambiguity, and there is Nick Fury taking the low road and still getting the job done no matter who it pisses off. It is a good book and once I get over my silly prejudices I am going to really enjoy it. I guess that's the way of it though.


Backing up to the civil war I gotta say that I still stand behind it being a great event. It made the marvel universe interesting again, and it has shaped events for literally years. YEARS. The whole thing was done with a purpose. Not only that but the books itself took a moral stand against the side that Won. All the pro registration people now have serious egg in their faces now that a fucking super villian is running everything. More to the point, it shows what happens when we give into fear and ignorance. The whole arch is a brilliantly played out satire of what happens when people follow instead of act.

Maybe that last sentence is wrong. So lets start breaking things down. First an accident on par with the Hiddenburg happened. This is divergent from other books that explore the same topic. Sometimes, super heros are banned because they make people uncomfortable (watchmen), sometimes it is because superman goes crazy (powers), but this is just a balls to the wall acident which caused the deaths of a school bus full of children.

The solution is to make all heroes register. Set up a government program, train them up, make them accountable, have heroes in every state the whole deal. The problem was that this really hurt street level heroes like Daredevil, Spiderman, and the Punsiher. Some of these heroes have families, some of them have lost families to super villain attacks. Were something to happen and the information get out they had a lot to loose.

On the other side were people like Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic who have been operating out in the open for years without problems. I mean the frantastic 4 have a giant building in the middle of a city with a big ass 4 on the side of it. Everyone knew where they lived and what they did there.

However, there was a third side. A side that doesn't get talked about very often. This is the side that is to powerful to care. Most of these people showed up either after the war, or in the middle. Thor for example, he kicked Stark's ass when Stark tried to get him to register, the Eternals blew Iron Man off as if he didn't matter (and truely he didn't), Namor doesn't even like dealing with the surface world and on it goes. These people bring a dynamic to the war and its after effects which is most interesting. See super heroes have always been concepts that are above the law. On some sort of level we realize that they shouldn't be doing the whole hero thing, and we watch as they go through the motions of establinshing their reasons for doing so. So when it becomes against the law to be a hero unless you are getting a government check, what do you do when there are people who are above the law? A law enforced by other heroes? It doesn't work.

Captin America didn't give up, rather he realized that Stark would burn down half the damn world if he kept fighting and that is when he realized that this is a war of the heart not of fists. However, before he could convince anyone he was shot.

They almost lost the secret invasion because they had a difficult time getting a unified front going, and now with Norman running things all the sudden registration seems like it is the same bad idea most people made it out to be.

Alright I'm done, I haven't really been into this very much tonight. Sorry. It's been kinda a day. Oh well.