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03-11-2008, 02:09 PM
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CIVIL WAR ROOM: ONE LAST TIME
 It’s been a little over a year since we last did one of these – a sit down with Civil War Editor Tom Brevoort to talk about the latest issue, the characters and the larger storyline. So why revisit it now? Simple - Civil War changed the Marvel Universe in a multitude of ways, and now, on the eve of Secret Invasion, those changes will affect how the heroes of the Marvel Universe defend the earth from the Skrull menace. So – dusting off the feature one last time, we sat down with Brevoort to talk about life in the Marvel Universe after Civil War, and just how things look on the verge of Secret Invasion. Newsarama: First off Tom, you’re pretty good at being a man on the fictional street of the Marvel Universe, so what’s life like in New York now, a few months after the SHRA went into full effect and the hero “resistance” went underground? Is it a noticeable difference, just something that, when they think about it, lets them sleep better at night…or something they don’t even notice? After all, the man on the NYC street has seen a New Avengers/Mighty Avengers face off once or twice… Tom Brevoort: I think things have definitely calmed down some since the end of the Civil War and the implementation of the Registration Act across the boards. I think most people sleep a little bit easier—especially those people who live in the heartland of America and who may now have local superhuman champions devoted to their regions, where they may not have had before. In Manhattan, the feeling is probably not far off from that in the real Manhattan—there are still Guardsmen or Police with big guns stationed in and around Penn Station when I come to work in the morning, and that’s still a little bit disquieting, but there’s also the realization that these guys are on the job, keeping the peace and protecting me and mine. So I think that feeling translates very directly to the New York of the Marvel Universe post-Civil War. NRAMA: At this point in time, given what we’ve seen in the Avengers titles – what’re Tony Stark’s feelings about the SHRA? Does he still believe in it as strongly as before? TB: I think Tony’s stance on Registration, about requiring prospective superhumans to be adequately trained and overseen, is as strong as ever, precisely because he’s seen the consequences first hand over and over again. The cost of achieving the Fifty State scenario and creating a bulwark against future threats was perhaps greater than he’d anticipated when he set out on the journey, but having paid those costs, he’s not ready to alter his position.  NRAMA: Compare/contrast Tony’s life before Stamford and now. These days, any given Tony Stark appearance is 50/50 to show him behind a desk and/or in a bureaucratic nightmare as it is to show him as Iron Man…he’s always got one eye on the future – did even he see this coming? TB: I’m sure he saw a lot of this coming, he may just have underestimated how all-consuming the job heading up SHIELD would be. I think he thought, “Well, I’ve run a multi-national corporation before—how much harder can it be?” Turns out it’s a great deal harder. As Dum Dum Dugan pointed out to him in an early issue of the Director of SHIELD book, if Tony makes a miscalculation in the boardroom, he loses money. If he miscalculates in SHIELD, he loses lives. So that’s a pretty dramatic difference right there. NRAMA: Are the heroes being hunted as strictly as before? Obviously, there’s some artifacts of the shared universe involved, but lately, Daredevil (for example) has been operating out in the open, while Black Widow (and SHIELD) knows his identity, and we haven’t seen an arc of him on the run, having to live underground…we’ve seen Ms. Marvel let non-registered Avengers go, and others “look the other way” when they encounter unregistered heroes. Hercules is probably one of the very few unregistereds who’s actively on the run, and that’s more due to a personal grudge from Ares than anything else. What is Tony/SHIELD’s stance on unregistered heroes these days?  TB: SHIELD was brought in during Civil War to help administer the Registration Act until such a time as the U.S. could man their own forces—SHIELD is an international organization, after all. With the conclusion of Civil War, the responsibility for tracking down unregistered superhumans active within the U.S. fell to the Thunderbolts, who continue to do that job. (The delays that series has experienced may be one of the reasons why it seems like unregistered guys aren’t being pursued as relentlessly.) That all said, the goal with Registration was never to lock up all of Tony’s friends who disagreed with him—it was to get the infrastructure of the Registration Plan and the Fifity State Initiative into place so that the nation could be policed along law-enforcement lines. That’s all been achieved, so on occasion we’ve seen one character or another bend the rules a bit, especially when it comes to heroes they know are on the up-and-up. By that same token, Spider-Man was chased all around Manhattan by Cape-Killers, the Blue Shield and cops in Amazing just a couple weeks ago, so there’s still a pressure there. In the case of Daredevil, as I believe Ed Brubaker established, after all the furfural over Matt’s identity, is-he-or-isn’t-he-Daredevil, and the possibility of charges of harassment (not to mention the fact that nobody’s ever seen Daredevil exhibit superhuman powers), most law officials are content to let him go, and be somebody else’s problem to deal with. NRAMA: What would happen to an unregistered hero if one was caught these days? The same deal as before, register or go to 42? TB: I think, as always, you have to define hero in this context. By what criteria is the person you’ve just captured a hero? Just because we know that they’ve got their logo on the cover of a comic book doesn’t mean that they’re perceived as a hero within the world—or even that different from the guys they might fight. But yes, if you’re an unregistered hero caught using your powers in defiance of the Registration Act, you’re likely going to be looking at some jail time. With the War over, however, the “martial law” approach to incarceration and judicial process has largely ended, so there’d be more regular due process in place at this point for guys who were caught (depending on who caught them, of course—the Thunderbolts are very good at bringing supposed heroes to bay in no fit condition.) NRAMA: Speaking of which, is 42 still active? If so, who’s in it? The Raft has been mentioned recently, but 42 seems to have fallen off the map a little… TB: It’s still there, and it’s still active—it’s the hub through which the assorted Initiative Negative Zone gateways connect. And only the biggest and the baddest villains would merit incarceration there. We haven’t seen inside the place for a number of months now, so a precise list of who’s incarcerated there right this second is something I can’t give you. However, we will be seeing the place again during Secret Invasion, and that should give you a better idea for what’s transpiring there these days.  NRAMA: We’re far enough out from the start of The 50 State Initiative here – by your (or Dan Slott & Christos Gage’s) estimate, how many states have government sanctioned teams by now? TB: I keep a running list of everything we’ve established anywhere, so I can tell you that right this second, we’ve established the circumstances for 20 States. Doesn’t mean there isn’t activity in the other 30—simply means that we haven’t seen or mentioned that activity anywhere. I can tell you, for example, that Skyhawk is the only hero we know who’s actively patrolling Washington State, that the Action Pack cover Kentucky and Force Works is in Utah, that the Georgia team isn’t ready to get up-and-running just yet, and that Alaska is about to receive its first dedicated hero. Most of these new teams are still relatively small. In fact, we’ll be seeing one or two more in Avengers: The Initiative as it wraps up its first year in #12. NRAMA: In The Return, you gave us an extremely detailed look at how Mar-Vell could be plucked from time and end up in the Negative Zone. With that intricate of a backstory for his return, how is it even possible that he could be replaced by a Skrull?" Doesn’t that suggest that for a period of time in his history, Mar-Vell was a Skrull? TB: Not necessarily—and for more detail, I would refer you and your readers to the Captain Marvel series currently running. But if the Mar-Vell who came back in The Return was a Skrull, all he really needed to do was to appear at the appropriate time, spin the cover story, and be able to futz whatever tests were done on him to try to prove out his story. But there’s no real tangible evidence that Mar-Vell is who he says he is—there’s not much more than his word and surface appearances to go on. NRAMA: Over on the X-Men side of things - is public opinion of the X-Men any better since they stayed out of the main conflict? People saw the Avengers, etc. beating the hell out of each other in the middle of Manhattan, but the X-Men weren't there. Did their absence make them look better? TB: It didn’t make them look worse, but I don’t know that it made them look better. The average person in the Marvel U doesn’t carry a scorecard—they don’t keep track of which characters are mutants and which aren’t—even if they could tell in the first place! I think for a lot of them, the guys mixing it up with Iron Man and the cops are clearly evil mutants (except for really known quantities like Captain America.) It’s very easy to blame any conflict where super-powers are employed on mutants, in the same way that gang violence or juvenile delinquency can always be pegged on the “usual suspect minorities”. NRAMA: Well, consequently, the X-Men were taken out of the picture in World War Hulk and not in play when the Hulk hit New York. Does that make them look worse? TB: Again, I don’t think the typical man on the street was filling out a scorecard—in the case of World War Hulk, they were running for their lives and evacuating the city. That all having been said, the X-Men are about to go through some gyrations that’ll be changing the way at least a part of the world looks at them in the coming months. NRAMA: Was there a Mutant Registration clause in the Registration Act, or was that unnecessary since M-Day and The 198? TB: The 198 were all defacto registered since they’d all been placed on the Xavier grounds by the O.N.E—O.N.E. had an accurate head count and identification enough to come up with the list of 198 mutants, after all. Any of the 198 could have chosen to petition for licensing to become an accredited super hero, but virtually none of them did this. NRAMA: Back on the Registration side - has Clor been repaired? TB: We last saw him floating in a tube in Avengers: The Initiative, but yes, we’ll be seeing him again—and he’ll have a spanking new name as well, so people can call him something other than Clor. NRAMA: What’s Stamford like these days, and the resultant recovery efforts? Living as we all have post 9/11, we know that it can take years for the final cleanup to wrap-up. Has that been completed?  TB: Somewhat, but not completely. Camp Hammond, the superhuman training grounds, is located in Stamford, and that’s a daily reminder to the citizens of what they went through and what they lost. We see picketers there on a regular basis in Avengers: The Initiative. And just this past week in Penance: Relentless #5, we saw the completion of the Stamford Memorial to honor those fallen. So the obvious debris and detritus has been cleared away—it’s going to take quite a bit longer for the emotional scars to heal.NRAMA: Related to Stamford, has anyone seen Miriam Sharpe since the end of Civil War #7? TB: Yes, she showed up soon afterwards in Iron Man: Director of SHIELD, protesting Tony’s relationship with Maya Hansen, having used his position as head of SHIELD to get her work-release status for the Agency. NRAMA: You know…if you combine those last two questions, and say, have a recovery worker positively id the DNA and we see a bag of human bits of one of the Stamford victims labeled as “Sharpe, Miriam”…whoo-boy, you’ve got a pretty cool story there…just sayin’… Anyway - what’s the Sub-Mariner’s view of the surface world these days? TB: Namor’s not all that happy with the surface world at the moment, though part of that unhappiness really rests on his own shoulders. After one of his rogue Sleeper Cells activated and slaughtered a town, SHIELD was sent to occupy Atlantis as a terrorist state. Rather than let that happen, Namor chose to destroy the underwater city, scattering his people to the four corners of the globe, decentralized under the sea. He himself appears to have made an alliance with Doctor Doom, and was last seen in The Order taking his cause to the political arena. NRAMA: Okay – we’ve danced around this one long enough…what happened at the press conference when Spider-Man unmasked? TB: Just what happened—he unmasked. And then, months later, an event took place that made everybody forget just whose face was under that mask. NRAMA: It’s been implied/hinted that there’s now problems with the footage and no one can quite remember it…Tony and the government is okay with artificial interference showing up on video from the conference? TB: I don’t think they’re at all happy about it, but I also don’t think there’s much they can do about it. At the moment, Spider-Man is still considered to be an unregistered vigilante, one who could easily be dragged off to prison on charges if he was ever caught. But Tony and the government can’t un-destroy those records and footage. NRAMA: As for the rest of Spider-Man’s actions in Civil War – have there been or do there need to be any magic touches or forgetfulness on them, aside from people knowing his identity? TB: No, I don’t believe so. As we get deeper into Amazing Spider-Man, we’ll begin filling in the gap of missing time between where One More Day leaves off and Brand New Day picks up, and understanding more about what happened to cause this blanket amnesia, from the point of view of the characters within the universe, including Peter himself. It’s not a tale you’re likely to see the whole of until 2009, but there’ll be a number of little clues along the way. But in a macro sense, this is no different than the time that Tony Stark made everybody in the world forget that he was Iron Man, Doctor Strange made everybody in the world think that he was Stephen Sanders, the Space Phantom made everybody forget that Steve Rogers was Captain America, or that the Sentry was erased from everybody’s memory for years. It’s not the first time that something like this has happened. NRAMA: Looking at the first large-scale event post Civil War as perhaps something indicative of how the heroes will respond in Secret Invasion…would World War Hulk have gone differently if Civil War and its SHRA hadn’t happened? If the heroes trusted each other, and were working together from the start? TB: There would probably have been a bit more coordination out of the gate—maybe a more concerted initial effort against the Hulk. But the Hulk still would have come down from space looking for revenge on the Illuminati members, and would have threatened Manhattan. It’s anybody’s guess as to whether the Avengers et al would have been more successful in stopping him had there been no Civil War. NRAMA: Just as a catch-up on that – did anyone take Tony up on the offer of amnesty as part of helping out in World War Hulk? TB: I think Paul Jenkins established that Captain Rectitude did. NRAMA: Pulling things up to the point of the now…where’s Tony’s head right now, just prior to Secret Invasion #1, and the revelation of how deep the doo-doo is for the heroes of the Marvel Universe? Is he confident that the heroes will prevail, or…what, guilt-ridden at the idea that he may have inadvertently helped the Skrulls? TB: I think Tony is confused and apprehensive—he’s not certain who he can trust, and not certain of all of the actions of the previous year—how many of them might have been set off by secret Skrulls trying to undermine the defenses of the planet? Was the Registration Act a natural occurrence, or was it pushed through by Skrull legislative means? And who among his closest friends and allies could be a Skrull (and, even if they weren’t yesterday, who’s to say they couldn’t be today?) This is what makes the Skrull threat so difficult to combat—there’s no way to be sure that you’re not sharing your intel, your strategies and defense plans with the very beings you’re trying to stop. In these situations, Tony traditionally tends to take matters into his own hands, so that’s what you’re going to begin to see him do, with varying degrees of success. The threat posed by the Skrulls is too large and globe-spanning to be undone by Iron Man working alone. NRAMA: And finally Tom - any last minute, subtle Skrull drumbeats that we should be watching for as April approaches? TB: As subtle as any drumbeats can be when they’ve got big The Infiltration banners plastered all over them. Outside of the acknowledged lead-up issues, it’s a safe bet that many of the major clues are going to be found within the Bendis canon of the last few years. Last edited by editbot : 03-11-2008 at 11:15 PM. |
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03-11-2008, 02:15 PM
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#2 |
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FIRST POST!!!!!!
The Mighty Avengers had the New Avengers 2 twice in the same week and each time Ms. Marvel let them go...nice nod at answering that. So, the Thunderbots WOULD be going after Spider-Man and the New Avengers, but the delays make it seem like they are going easy on them? Just when you thought it wasn't being enforced anymore... Last edited by Mega Gear X : 03-11-2008 at 02:24 PM. |
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03-11-2008, 02:32 PM
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#3 |
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Bring Back Steve Rogers!!!
That last image of Cap and.....well....Cap. Awesome. Truly Awesome. The current storyline kicks butt, but I think we can all agree, it's getting close to that time. Time to bring back "THE MAN".
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03-11-2008, 02:33 PM
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#4 | |
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Wow, nice rundown. Thanks a bunch Tom.
Personally i wasn't a fan of the end of Civil War (along with most other people) but i really do like where it has taken the Marvel U. And Iron Man has actually become an alright character again, oddly enough. He appears in as many, or dare i say, MORE books than wolverine! Impressive. Since i've been a reader of New Avengers from the beginning and Secret War before that, I'm looking forward to Secret Invasion. And seeing that X-Factor will eventually tie in makes me giddy. Quote:
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03-11-2008, 02:33 PM
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#5 | |
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03-11-2008, 02:34 PM
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#6 |
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GREAT COVERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!
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03-11-2008, 02:37 PM
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#7 |
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i'll be happy as long as its not another house of m
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03-11-2008, 02:39 PM
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#8 |
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SECOND POST!!!!!
Superheroes who don't register are the same as dirty hippies in the 60's. Damn beatnik scum! WHY DON'T YOU RUN OFF AND LISTEN TO YOUR BOB DYLAN RECORDS LUKE CAGE! |
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03-11-2008, 02:39 PM
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#9 | |
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As an Alaskan, I am VERY excited about this news. As long as it's not a lame hero. Like Walrus-Man. |
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03-11-2008, 02:44 PM
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#10 |
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Nice interview, and I really enjoyed Breevort's answer about how BND relates to CIVIL WAR, as well as referencing other similiar, seemingly continuity-altering events throughout Marvel history. He's right, this wasn't the first time such an event has taken place.
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03-11-2008, 02:48 PM
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#11 |
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Hm. When Secret Invasion was first announced, I was concerned about the possibility of stories that had first-person narration being retconned so that the characters were skrulls. For instance, to my mind, given that Logan is supposed to be in-continuity, has narration by Wolverine, and, in it, Wolverine has his memories, it is clearly the case that Wolverine was not a skrull as of House of M.
This is, to my mind, a really important rule. It's one thing to reinterpret Cyclops's actions in Messiah Complex. It's quite another to reinterpret a story that was based in part on a first person narrator. Which is why the hints that Captain Marvel is a skrull are so disheartening to me. He narrated The Return. The story hinged on his narration. If, in fact, he was a skrull, that comic no longer makes any sense. Not just on the "Oh, now we have to reinterpret his actions" level, but on the *the comic doesn't make any sense* level. Hopefully these are idle teases and, in fact, Secret Invasion is not going to be told that sloppily. Because if it is, it's crap storytelling on a level that makes OMD look classy. |
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03-11-2008, 02:49 PM
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#12 | |
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Quote:
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03-11-2008, 02:57 PM
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#13 | |
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Ragnarok I believe |
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03-11-2008, 02:57 PM
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#14 | |
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Bad Writing?
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I'll discount the MA scene somewhat since it was so late it appeared months after the matching NA issues. But Bendis keeps writing the same Ms. Marvel "letting them go scene" over and over. If your read it through, Ms. Marvel let actually Cage go twice in a 24 hour period (NA Annual and the next issue of NA). And this was only a couple of weeks after the MA scene. The redundancy was really off-putting. Given the 2nd scene, the first was a total waste of time. The team could have simply ducked out in the annual and we'd still see MM standing against the "authorities" in the regular issue. That page would have been better spent following up Dr. Strange or the team's reaction to his leaving. After the 3rd time, maybe Bendis will remember he already wrote the MM scene. Last edited by EarthX : 03-11-2008 at 02:59 PM. |
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03-11-2008, 03:01 PM
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Seconded! QFT! |
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03-11-2008, 03:03 PM
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#16 | |
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And the whole time the readers will know it's all bull-____. |
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03-11-2008, 03:03 PM
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#17 | ||||||
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I think this was one of my problems with Civil War. I think the people at Marvel honestly believe this, but this is exactly what the Civil War mini was about: Tony trying to lock up all his friends (while at the same time letting out mass murderers). Quote:
Well, I suppose we should be grateful Tony decided to reinstate basic rights like habeas corpus. Thank Goodness for Tony. Quote:
I don't think that gibes with AI, does it? Quote:
Please let this be true. One less bad retcon. Quote:
Which should last all of one day before the real Thor comes and destroys it. One wonders how Thor Girl (if she's still in play after KIA) will react to Clor. (The Initiative vs. Thor?) Quote:
But none of those involved actually changing history, which OMD did. Afer all, Tony/Strange/etc. just erased memories. People didn't come back to life as a result of what they did. |
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03-11-2008, 03:07 PM
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#18 | |
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Quote:
You make a very good point however it is classic story beat for the impostor to be unaware of what they are and to think they themselves are the real deal. That way you get the whole "no I can't be one of the enemy" reveal before the character in question re-asserts their true nature. |
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03-11-2008, 03:08 PM
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#19 | |
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I'm thinking that whoever is the hero in Alaska, he'd better be a teleporter. If he's in Fairbanks and there's trouble in Juno, that's a 1,000 mile trip. Someone who can fly at mach 2 would still take over 45 minutes to get there. |
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03-11-2008, 03:09 PM
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#20 | |
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Quote:
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03-11-2008, 03:09 PM
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#21 | |
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Didn't the whole Heroes Reborn thing take kid Tony and insect Wasp out of history? Or is it just one of those "we don't talk about it" kinda things? |
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03-11-2008, 03:12 PM
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#22 |
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While I wasn't the biggest fan of Civil War and am not really looking forward to Secret Invasion (as in, I won't be buying Secret Invasion), I gotta admit I love the whole 50 State Initiative deal and want to see much, much more of it. I like seeing characters like Captain Ultra and Frog-Man as parts of these teams and made a bit more legitimate, vs. just flat-out jokey characters (which isn't to say they shouldn't be fun).
Can't wait to see more teams and memberships come to light. |
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03-11-2008, 03:15 PM
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#23 | |
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what, we don't talk about this kind of things here........ or any story with Kang.....   |
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03-11-2008, 03:18 PM
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#24 |
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Kang.. Kang.. Kang..?
Is that the game where you shoot up at bubbles with a harpoon?  |
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03-11-2008, 03:20 PM
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#25 | |
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Quote:
After Civil War Joe Q said that the Thunderbolts was going to deal with the New Avengers. But I guess because of the delays they had to change that plan. |
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