If nothing else, Civil War has done wonders for sales on some of Marvel's less privileged titles.  Cable & Deadpool has seen its sales more than double during its three-part contribution to the storyline, and it's hard to argue with numbers like that.

But writer Fabian Nicieza has approached the crossover in typically confrontational fashion.  This is not a conventional superhero book at the best of times - it's the story of a semi-retired soldier who's trying to change the course of human history, and a moron in a jumpsuit who insists on hanging around with him.  Since Nicieza has been quite happy to run with that, instead of hammering the "heroes" into a more typical story, this can be a very unpredictable book.

On one level, Nicieza jumps in wholeheartedly and uses Civil War as an excuse to have Cable fight Deadpool.  But although Deadpool cheerfully signs up to get work from the government, and Cable hangs around with the anti-registration heroes, neither character is truly that bothered about Civil War itself.  Cable thinks the whole crossover is an infuriating waste of time that's distracting people from doing what's really important - namely, obeying him.  Deadpool, in contrast, is too stupid to understand or care about the issues, and just wants to beat up some superheroes while the opportunity presents itself.

However, the story does finally provide Deadpool with the trigger that causes him to lose patience with Cable's lecturing.  For a couple of years now, this book has basically consisted of Cable sternly telling people that he knows what's important for the future of humanity, because he comes from the future.  He never really justifies any of his actions beyond that.  Deadpool finally calls him on it in this issue, which is a great turning point for the series.

Meanwhile, President Bush shows up, to be a git.  Cable complains that the Superhuman Registration Act is a terrible idea; Bush replies that he doesn't care about the long term because all that matters is the election in November.  Not what you'd call a sympathetic presentation.  In fact, it's come to something when Cable can spend an issue arguing with the President of the USA and Deadpool, and it's the maniac in the red costume who comes out of it as the voice of reason.

Right-wing readers often complain that comics - and indeed pretty much every form of storytelling - displays a liberal bias.  To be honest, they've got a point; on the whole, writers and creative types tend to be liberals, and it shows.  But even allowing for that, Marvel's insistence that Civil War is balanced and nuanced beggars belief.  With very scattered exceptions, the overwhelming tone of the thing has been that the anti-registration guys are right, and Iron Man is a total bastard.  While this arguably makes for a much more interesting story, since Iron Man has been dull as ditchwater for years, it certainly isn't balanced.

But then again, I try to imagine what a balanced version of Civil War would look like, bearing in mind that it's supposed to be a metaphor for the current debate in America about the trade-off between security and civil liberties.  And this presents some inherent difficulties, because if the metaphor is to work, the pro-registration heroes are going to end up arguing for something legitimately comparable to current US government policy.  Trouble is, official US government policy involves the exclusion of fair trials and the use of interrogation techniques considered to be torture by every other civilised nation on the planet.  Now, whatever you think of such a policy, it's incredibly hard to imagine most Marvel Universe heroes arguing in favour of such a thing without acting wildly out of character.  I suppose the Punisher might approve - he's never been big on legal technicalities.  Or Wolverine, at a push.  But that's about it.

Perhaps this is a central problem with Civil War - Millar really does consider the pro-registration side to be a fair moral representation of the Bush administration, and god help us, he might be right.  But when you start trying to ascribe those attitudes to pre-existing characters, you've got a problem.

All of this is a bit of a digression in the context of Cable & Deadpool, where no character is prepared to actually argue in favour of the Act except for the President himself (who mouths some platitudes).  Still, it's yet another story where the central dilemma of Civil War fails to work because everyone on the pro-registration side looks like an idiot or a maniac - and Deadpool literally qualifies as both.  That's not entirely Nicieza's problem, since he's sidestepped Millar's agenda and made it a backdrop for his own.  The best way of dealing with a crossover like this, perhaps.

In the meantime, the series has been able to have fun with the crossover and avoid getting sidetracked too badly from its own stories.  Staz Johnson's fill-in art tells the story solidly enough, and really seems to be hitting its stride with this concluding part.  Considering that it's a commercially-driven crossover, the story fits remarkably well into this oddball title.

Rating: B+

back | continue