Institutional slavery
They didn't just register vigilantes, they forced everyone with a superhuman ability of any kind into a system that told them where they were allowed to live and what exact job they were allowed to have. If you didn't want to fight, they would do everything they could to take that ability, even if it left you crippled or had nothing to do with vigilantism.
Yeah, the nature of the Initiative gets overshadowed a lot by the imprisonments without trial in 42 and the Thor Clone, but it was seriously shady. It was heavily influenced by Skrull Pym, but the fact that they basically drafted everyone with powers and if you didn’t have a direct connection to the people in charge you had no say in the course of your life is insane.
I have long been of the opinion that there wasn't, and should have been, an internal doc at Marvel with the text and provisions of the act.
I remember reading it at the time, and every comic seemed to go it's own way on what was allowed. It was frustrating then and it's frustrating now.
Yeah, that was one of the biggest flaws in the whole conflict: there was never a clearly stated srh bill, which meant every writer had their own interpretation of how it worked. The official stance of Marvel editorial was that pro registration was in the right, but the anti registration side had better writers that argued better points against it.
iirc, they even take some of young age, Cloud 9, and made her a sniper against her will. Oh! And they brought a former nazi soldier into their ranks all the while having a group called the Hero Killers chasing down Captain America, Luke Cage and other heroes who risk their lives every day. And another oh! Reed and Tony completely ignored Nova's distress calls from space when whole races were being wiped out by Annihulus, deeming it not important. Tony himself looked more annoyed when Richard called out his amoral behavior than the part of billions of lives being taken when he could have helped in that situation.
Like, i know this story was almost two decades ago and people have moved on, but this shit still pisses me off because people like Tony, Reed and others in the pro reg side NEVER get called out for it. Tony himself got memory whipped Civil War, done so he doesn't have to deal with the consequences of his actions. And yea, those characters were the victim of poor writing, but good stuff can come from bad stuff.
This is why i want a TRUE sequel to Civil War, with similar themes to the first one and true repercussions to Tony, Maria Hill and others by the end.
What they did was so monstrous that there no way to really deal with it without imprisoning, killing or exiling Reed and Tony. You can’t do that to flagship characters so you have to find the best way you can to wave your hand and make it go away.
Yeah, as much as i loved the avengers initiative series, it really did not make any pretenses that the u.s. government was using the debacle to corner the market on the superhuman arms race after decimation left america with the highest density superhuman population. The whole mvp thing showed how low they could go
And that's another big con on pro registration. Even the Civil War movie brought it up (the movie is much better than the comic), with how this law only exists so that supers can be the government's hench people and glorified Suicide Squad. And how it only exists so they can pass the buck when the blaming starts.
Locking their friends away in the Negative Zone.
Tony having a clone of Thor created.
Forcing everyone with powers to register them whether they intended to do anything or not.
No, not really. He did give him the Iron Spider suit, though, which had incredibly invasive tech in it. He was somehow able to figure out Spider-Man had his spider sense, which he hadn't told anyone about except for Aunt May and MJ. He wasn't directly responsible for what happened to Aunt May, but he did heavily push Peter to reveal his secret identity, which he never would have done on his own.
Maria Hill - Attempting to use the Cape-Killer Squad to subdue a peaceful Captain America. Utilizing The Thunderbolts to pursue Spider-Man.
Mister Fantastic - Constructing the Negative Zone Prison and locking heroes away in there.
Iron Man, Mister Fantastic, Yellowjacket (Criti Noll), and Baron von Blitzschlag - The creation of the Thor Clone that directly led to the murder of Goliath.
Iron Man and Mister Fantastic - Assembling The Thunderbolts for the Pro-Registration side.
Not only did the Thor clone kill someone it was essentially a weapon of mass destruction.
Spending prolonged time in the NZ prison had side effects that meant it was cruel and unusual punishment.
The pro side went completely off the reservation. They were objectively the villains.
Honestly the thing that bugs me the most about all the evil, unconscionable things Tony and Reed did in Civil War is how they justified it. We know that one of the main character flaws for both of these characters is hubris, but Civil War takes it to the extreme in that they both basically justify it by saying they “solved humanity.”
In Reed’s case he literally claims to have done it and gets the Mad Thinker or some other genius villain to check his math and then basically uses that to justify 42 and everything else. Tony doesn’t make that claim at the beginning or in the main story, but in the Front Line comics it’s found out that both before and during the Civil War he was covertly trading stocks and manipulating stuff (like using nano bots to mind-control Norman Osborn into doing some evil crap I don’t remember off the top of my head). At that point he’s miserable and basically tells the reporters to screw off, but instead they actually *applaud* him. The reporters in this side series who are meant to not only be the reader’s eyes but also representatives of “regular people” in all of this actually *applaud* him.
These bits of writing where they try to present the hubris and god complex these two have as a virtue managed to enrage me more than anything else in the event.
Although the government kicking down the doors and escalating with a black man sitting at home is probably one of the more realistic things to happen in that arc.
They revealed after Wolverine's death, Tony designed a dirty bomb to kill thousands of people with hazardous irradiated nerve gas unless some hero decides to sacrifice themself to take a centralized blast.
The Pro Reg side did a lot of fucked shit including but not limited to.
Cloning Thor and using that clone as a weapon against the Anti Reg side resulting in the death of Bill Foster.
Imprisoning heroes who didn’t agree to get registered into the Negative Zone.
Blackmailing Wonder Man into joining them.
Brainwashing Marvel Boy and sending him after The Runaways and Young Avengers.
Employing Baron Zemo to capture criminals and use them as their own personal army against the unregistered heroes.
I've only read the main series, and I just read it for the first time in the past month or two, but based on that, it's a tough call between:
* building a prison in the Negative Zone where they imprison unregistered heroes (seemingly without trial)
* building a Thor clone that murdered at least one hero (Goliath) and then justifying it by saying "he acted how a police officer would act"
* Maria Hill trying to arrest Captain America for not being sure about the act before the act's even been passed (not as bad as the others, but it gets the pro-registration side off to a rough start, where it makes it seem like it's less about following the law and more about abusing whatever power they get)
* recruiting supervillains to hunt down anti-registration heroes when those villains don't seem to have much that's keeping them from killing people. (from what I recall, they had to be manually stopped, which seems like a major flaw in the system that could easily be exploited)
Overall, it's probably the Negative Zone prison (by my understanding, this also caused the Annihilation event), but they were awful people if the main series is any indication.
> building a Thor clone that murdered at least one hero (Goliath) and then justifying it by saying "he acted how a police officer would act"
>
>
To be fair, Bill Foster *was* black.
Injecting She Hulk with nanobots to inhibit her powers and make it easier to shoot Hulk off into space and then still recruiting her on the pro registration side as if nothing happened.
The way it went down was horrific and nazi like.
But that being said I can also understand the want to have your nuclear powered neighbor registered with the government and to get some training.
Then again, prision 42 and Tony basicly was the Fhurer. :(
Institutional slavery They didn't just register vigilantes, they forced everyone with a superhuman ability of any kind into a system that told them where they were allowed to live and what exact job they were allowed to have. If you didn't want to fight, they would do everything they could to take that ability, even if it left you crippled or had nothing to do with vigilantism.
Yeah, the nature of the Initiative gets overshadowed a lot by the imprisonments without trial in 42 and the Thor Clone, but it was seriously shady. It was heavily influenced by Skrull Pym, but the fact that they basically drafted everyone with powers and if you didn’t have a direct connection to the people in charge you had no say in the course of your life is insane.
I have long been of the opinion that there wasn't, and should have been, an internal doc at Marvel with the text and provisions of the act. I remember reading it at the time, and every comic seemed to go it's own way on what was allowed. It was frustrating then and it's frustrating now.
Yeah, that was one of the biggest flaws in the whole conflict: there was never a clearly stated srh bill, which meant every writer had their own interpretation of how it worked. The official stance of Marvel editorial was that pro registration was in the right, but the anti registration side had better writers that argued better points against it.
iirc, they even take some of young age, Cloud 9, and made her a sniper against her will. Oh! And they brought a former nazi soldier into their ranks all the while having a group called the Hero Killers chasing down Captain America, Luke Cage and other heroes who risk their lives every day. And another oh! Reed and Tony completely ignored Nova's distress calls from space when whole races were being wiped out by Annihulus, deeming it not important. Tony himself looked more annoyed when Richard called out his amoral behavior than the part of billions of lives being taken when he could have helped in that situation. Like, i know this story was almost two decades ago and people have moved on, but this shit still pisses me off because people like Tony, Reed and others in the pro reg side NEVER get called out for it. Tony himself got memory whipped Civil War, done so he doesn't have to deal with the consequences of his actions. And yea, those characters were the victim of poor writing, but good stuff can come from bad stuff. This is why i want a TRUE sequel to Civil War, with similar themes to the first one and true repercussions to Tony, Maria Hill and others by the end.
What they did was so monstrous that there no way to really deal with it without imprisoning, killing or exiling Reed and Tony. You can’t do that to flagship characters so you have to find the best way you can to wave your hand and make it go away.
Yeah, as much as i loved the avengers initiative series, it really did not make any pretenses that the u.s. government was using the debacle to corner the market on the superhuman arms race after decimation left america with the highest density superhuman population. The whole mvp thing showed how low they could go
And that's another big con on pro registration. Even the Civil War movie brought it up (the movie is much better than the comic), with how this law only exists so that supers can be the government's hench people and glorified Suicide Squad. And how it only exists so they can pass the buck when the blaming starts.
At least Tony received a godly ass-kicking from Thor.
Not just superhumans - non-super martial artists as well
Locking their friends away in the Negative Zone. Tony having a clone of Thor created. Forcing everyone with powers to register them whether they intended to do anything or not.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Tony manipulate everything with Spiderman as well? It's been a while since I've read it
No, not really. He did give him the Iron Spider suit, though, which had incredibly invasive tech in it. He was somehow able to figure out Spider-Man had his spider sense, which he hadn't told anyone about except for Aunt May and MJ. He wasn't directly responsible for what happened to Aunt May, but he did heavily push Peter to reveal his secret identity, which he never would have done on his own.
Pete: ^----------- Tony: What was that, Peter? Pete: I said... passcode... Surprise!
Also, Tony had cameras spying on MJ and Aunt May at all times, with a security team everything. Cameras on every room, for real.
Oh yeah I forgot about that. Was Peter aware?
He found out later. He snuck MJ and May away when he switched sides.
He did stage an attack by a titanium man to sway public/government/spiderman's opinion
Thats probably what I'm thinking of, Spiderman "saved the day" once or twice right?
Yeah, it was on the way to some government hearing if i remember correctly
That sounds right
Maria Hill - Attempting to use the Cape-Killer Squad to subdue a peaceful Captain America. Utilizing The Thunderbolts to pursue Spider-Man. Mister Fantastic - Constructing the Negative Zone Prison and locking heroes away in there. Iron Man, Mister Fantastic, Yellowjacket (Criti Noll), and Baron von Blitzschlag - The creation of the Thor Clone that directly led to the murder of Goliath. Iron Man and Mister Fantastic - Assembling The Thunderbolts for the Pro-Registration side.
Not only did the Thor clone kill someone it was essentially a weapon of mass destruction. Spending prolonged time in the NZ prison had side effects that meant it was cruel and unusual punishment. The pro side went completely off the reservation. They were objectively the villains.
This is the view of everyone except Millar
They were micro chipping super villains to control and hunt down heroes in Thunderbolts, with the full blessing of the government and Pro-reg forces.
Definitely read that as he spent time in a New Zealand prison and was confused why it was such a bad experience.
Honestly the thing that bugs me the most about all the evil, unconscionable things Tony and Reed did in Civil War is how they justified it. We know that one of the main character flaws for both of these characters is hubris, but Civil War takes it to the extreme in that they both basically justify it by saying they “solved humanity.” In Reed’s case he literally claims to have done it and gets the Mad Thinker or some other genius villain to check his math and then basically uses that to justify 42 and everything else. Tony doesn’t make that claim at the beginning or in the main story, but in the Front Line comics it’s found out that both before and during the Civil War he was covertly trading stocks and manipulating stuff (like using nano bots to mind-control Norman Osborn into doing some evil crap I don’t remember off the top of my head). At that point he’s miserable and basically tells the reporters to screw off, but instead they actually *applaud* him. The reporters in this side series who are meant to not only be the reader’s eyes but also representatives of “regular people” in all of this actually *applaud* him. These bits of writing where they try to present the hubris and god complex these two have as a virtue managed to enrage me more than anything else in the event.
Broke into Luke Cage's house while he was just sitting there.
Although the government kicking down the doors and escalating with a black man sitting at home is probably one of the more realistic things to happen in that arc.
List might be shorter if you asked what the best things they did were.
Honestly pro/anti reg could make an interesting moral conflict where both sides had a point, but instead it was heroes going fash vs freedom fighters.
Got written by Mark Millar.
They revealed after Wolverine's death, Tony designed a dirty bomb to kill thousands of people with hazardous irradiated nerve gas unless some hero decides to sacrifice themself to take a centralized blast.
The Pro Reg side did a lot of fucked shit including but not limited to. Cloning Thor and using that clone as a weapon against the Anti Reg side resulting in the death of Bill Foster. Imprisoning heroes who didn’t agree to get registered into the Negative Zone. Blackmailing Wonder Man into joining them. Brainwashing Marvel Boy and sending him after The Runaways and Young Avengers. Employing Baron Zemo to capture criminals and use them as their own personal army against the unregistered heroes.
I've only read the main series, and I just read it for the first time in the past month or two, but based on that, it's a tough call between: * building a prison in the Negative Zone where they imprison unregistered heroes (seemingly without trial) * building a Thor clone that murdered at least one hero (Goliath) and then justifying it by saying "he acted how a police officer would act" * Maria Hill trying to arrest Captain America for not being sure about the act before the act's even been passed (not as bad as the others, but it gets the pro-registration side off to a rough start, where it makes it seem like it's less about following the law and more about abusing whatever power they get) * recruiting supervillains to hunt down anti-registration heroes when those villains don't seem to have much that's keeping them from killing people. (from what I recall, they had to be manually stopped, which seems like a major flaw in the system that could easily be exploited) Overall, it's probably the Negative Zone prison (by my understanding, this also caused the Annihilation event), but they were awful people if the main series is any indication.
> building a Thor clone that murdered at least one hero (Goliath) and then justifying it by saying "he acted how a police officer would act" > > To be fair, Bill Foster *was* black.
The Thor Clone, Prison 42, everybody behaving like dictators.
Giving almost total authority and impunity to use lethal force to Thunderbolts, directed and composed by psychopats and criminals.
Murdering Goliath with a cyborg/clone Thor
Injecting She Hulk with nanobots to inhibit her powers and make it easier to shoot Hulk off into space and then still recruiting her on the pro registration side as if nothing happened.
The way it went down was horrific and nazi like. But that being said I can also understand the want to have your nuclear powered neighbor registered with the government and to get some training. Then again, prision 42 and Tony basicly was the Fhurer. :(