c7_assassin
3rd Level Black Feather
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As many of you know, the next Captain America movie plans to lift its plot from Marvel’s Civil War storyline of 2006-2007. This was a multi-issue event in which Congress passes a Superhuman Registration Act, forcing America’s superheroes to register their identities with the government. Some heroes rebel against this measure, sparking the ‘civil war.’ The story explores themes of security vs liberty in a post-9/11 age.
This may all sound a bit familiar, since it’s basically the plot of Watchmen, with a strong dose of The Dark Knight thematic flavour. I know if were a Hollywood screenwriter, I’d be a little nervous stepping so directly on the toes of the most critically acclaimed graphic novel and superhero film of all time, respectively. Especially if I was doing so at the helm of a generic Marvel product that’s just meant to make sure nobody develops mature viewing habits before Avengers 2: Avenge Harder.
Fortunately, you’ve probably already realized that this idea makes absolutely no sense in the context of the Marvel movie universe. Not only do the Avengers not have secret identities to register, they all already work for the US government. This means that probably the only way this will resemble Civil War is the ‘superheroes pick teams and fight each other!’ aspect, which is another way of saying there’s an enormous chance this movie will be stupid and suck. Fortunately for all concerned, I know how to turn this probable-clusterfuck into a decent film, and surprise, surprise, it actually involves making intelligent decisions at the story stage.
So the villain has a stick that lets him control minds... Clearly he’ll need to do a lot of grandstanding and threatening to make people do what he wants.
It’s Not a Civil War, It’s World War III… AGAINST the United States.
Instead of an act of Congress, the story opens with the signing of a new international treaty by non-US powers. Russia and China, India and Pakistan, Germany, France, Britain, Canada… they all reach an unprecedented defense agreement specifically to put a stop to unilateral US military actions involving lovesick Norse Gods and missile-launching particle-accelerators. The first act of this new Coalition is to demand America disband and disarm the Avengers. And in order to guarantee American compliance, the international community have assembled their own team of anti-Avengers… led by Iron Man himself.
Turns out, I can be kind of dick.
It Makes Much More Sense than a Civil War
Instead of exploring the incredibly two-sided issue of whether it’s right to obey your own government in matters of public safety and vigilantism (a no-brainer for people who aren’t psychopaths or from Texas), the idea of an anti-US alliance brings up a genuinely divisive political issue: American exceptionalism. Does America have a right to continue doing whatever it wants on a global scale, even when those decisions are getting innocent people killed? Where does our right to defend our interests end? Do we have a right to use force only when lives at stake, or can we also do it to prop up governments that sell us cheap oil? Do other countries have a right to tell us enough is enough, and do we have to listen?
This is an issue that bears on US foreign policy, and would shine a light on something that makes Americans very uncomfortable; the idea that maybe sometimes we’re the Bad Guys. And even worse, maybe that means sometimes the guys shooting at us are the Good Guys. This thought terrifies Americans so badly that movies like American Sniper have to resort to animal metaphors to explain their morality:
There are sheep, see, and there are these wolves who prey on the sheep. But then there are the sheep-dogs, and their job is to take care of the sheep. And yes, it’s true that what a sheep-dog actually does is keep the sheep in line and docile so they can be sheared and slaughtered for reasons neither they nor the sheepdog are able to comprehend, and oh god this metaphor is really stupid, isn’t it?
Everyone’s Motivation Will Suddenly Make Sense
One of the big problems with the Civil War was that characters were forced by story requirements into doing a lot of things that made no sense. Iron Man became leader of the government task force responsible for tracking down and neutralizing rogue superheroes like Captain America. This is Iron Man: a poster-boy for Randian anti-government individualism. Becoming a government stooge. And Captain America rebelling against America? You’d have an easier time selling the concept of a black Norse god in 2011.
Geez, post-racial world, you guys! That's why I'm white and blond, and my sneaky, covetous brother is a hook-nosed Jew!
But if it’s all-out war against the superhero-industrial complex, suddenly everyone’s motivations, and the sides they pick, start to look a lot more logical. Tony Stark has no love for the government; they’re a constant thorn in his side, and he’s spent years watching them fumble about and fuck things up in world-endangering ways. Hell, he almost died single-handedly averting a nuclear strike on New York City by the good guys. It makes perfect sense that such a man would say ‘You know what? These assholes do need to be stopped.’ And I mean, just imagine the look on Nick Fury’s face.
Captain America, on the other hand, is absolutely a my-country-right-or-wrong kind of guy. He may have reservations about some of the things we do, but no way is he going to allow a bunch of dirty foreigners to pass judgment on his baby America. And as a World War II veteran, he’s the only American soldier with experience killing white people.
It Fixes a Gaping Plot Hole in the Avengers Universe
Maybe it’s just me, but has anyone watching a Marvel movie ever thought ‘What the hell is everyone else doing while this crazy shit is going down?’ In nearly every movie, the world comes really, really close to ending. Does everyone just go about their daily lives like normal after this? How about the third or fourth time, though? Is ‘preposterous event insurance’ a thing in this universe? Have doomsday cults become the new yoga? Is there a spike in blackout-pregnancies every time that massive helicarrier passes over a major city and knocks out the power grid?
The idea that other nations would put up with this bullshit for any length of time is insane. It’s why we live in a world with literally thousands of nuclear weapons and haven’t gone Mad Max yet: apocalyptic weapons have no margin for error, so even mortal enemies agree to keep that shit locked down tight. In theory, the Avengers should work the same way; they are our strategic reserve, stupidly overpowered world-enders kept in our back pocket as a theoretical last-resort that isn’t meant to ever actually be deployed. What they cannot be is SEAL Team Six, because even SEAL Team Six occasionally crashes its hero-chopper, and in the Marvel universe this means a continent just became a parking lot.
In a movie like The Dark Knight, the hero is a metaphor for America. Which makes it a little hard to root against him, even if we disagree with his actions; if Batman has to resort to bugging a whole city, that doesn’t mean it’s okay for the Joker to win. But an inter-hero war gives us a way of framing the problem differently; the heroes aren’t ‘America,’ they’re American citizens. They’re the ones who make America what it is, and it’s their decisions which ultimately determine whether America is in the right or not. The idea of betraying your government for the sake of the greater good has been in the news once or twice lately…
And really, wouldn’t be a nice indication these movies are growing up a little if we had to deal with a story where there isn’t a villain who wants to destroy or enslave humanity just because? Even The Dark Knight, which I love so much I masturbate to it, has a villain whose whole motivation boils down to “I kill because tee hee, why not?” You could try to give credit to the last Captain America movie for trying to take issues of freedom vs security semi-seriously, but it’s not a real discussion when you make one side secretly Nazis the whole time.
A global super-war would have the added bonus of acknowledging and dealing with the consequences of how mind-bendingly fucked up the events of the last Captain America were. SHIELD has, all along, been run by a fascist conspiracy, and it’s heavily implied that they have been behind every major war and international crisis in decades. Imagine just going back to work after you heard that. Maybe Nick Fury still wouldn’t disband SHIELD; being a one-eyed badass doesn’t qualify you for many careers beyond piracy. But to the rest of the world, these people would be as welcome as al-Qaida, if al-Qaida had a Hulk.
This has a chance to make a morally-ambiguous story genuinely morally ambiguous. It doesn’t really count as a dilemma when any sane person would agree on the right course of action, even when the choice isn’t pleasant. (Torture when your family is threatened by a ticking bomb? Trick question: your family is already dead from when you refused to steal bread to feed them. Duh.) But in this case, I can see people actually being divided. Even if we sometimes make mistakes, America does not compromise its own sovereignty; it’s the cornerstone of our liberty. And does anyone who’s been living under the blanket of American protection for the last seventy years really have a right to complain about the 5% of the time we’ve gotten things wrong? Besides, what happens the next time the world needs to be saved? Can’t you hear the monologues already?
And whatever the outcome, there would be no magic reset after this. Iron Man is a traitor. Captain America is an internationally wanted terrorist. Nick Fury is SO FUCKING PISSED, YOU GUYS.
Which is probably why none of this has any chance of happening. But hey, them superheroes sure be punching each other!
(FAAAAAAAAAAART)
This may all sound a bit familiar, since it’s basically the plot of Watchmen, with a strong dose of The Dark Knight thematic flavour. I know if were a Hollywood screenwriter, I’d be a little nervous stepping so directly on the toes of the most critically acclaimed graphic novel and superhero film of all time, respectively. Especially if I was doing so at the helm of a generic Marvel product that’s just meant to make sure nobody develops mature viewing habits before Avengers 2: Avenge Harder.
Fortunately, you’ve probably already realized that this idea makes absolutely no sense in the context of the Marvel movie universe. Not only do the Avengers not have secret identities to register, they all already work for the US government. This means that probably the only way this will resemble Civil War is the ‘superheroes pick teams and fight each other!’ aspect, which is another way of saying there’s an enormous chance this movie will be stupid and suck. Fortunately for all concerned, I know how to turn this probable-clusterfuck into a decent film, and surprise, surprise, it actually involves making intelligent decisions at the story stage.
So the villain has a stick that lets him control minds... Clearly he’ll need to do a lot of grandstanding and threatening to make people do what he wants.
It’s Not a Civil War, It’s World War III… AGAINST the United States.
Instead of an act of Congress, the story opens with the signing of a new international treaty by non-US powers. Russia and China, India and Pakistan, Germany, France, Britain, Canada… they all reach an unprecedented defense agreement specifically to put a stop to unilateral US military actions involving lovesick Norse Gods and missile-launching particle-accelerators. The first act of this new Coalition is to demand America disband and disarm the Avengers. And in order to guarantee American compliance, the international community have assembled their own team of anti-Avengers… led by Iron Man himself.
Turns out, I can be kind of dick.
It Makes Much More Sense than a Civil War
Instead of exploring the incredibly two-sided issue of whether it’s right to obey your own government in matters of public safety and vigilantism (a no-brainer for people who aren’t psychopaths or from Texas), the idea of an anti-US alliance brings up a genuinely divisive political issue: American exceptionalism. Does America have a right to continue doing whatever it wants on a global scale, even when those decisions are getting innocent people killed? Where does our right to defend our interests end? Do we have a right to use force only when lives at stake, or can we also do it to prop up governments that sell us cheap oil? Do other countries have a right to tell us enough is enough, and do we have to listen?
This is an issue that bears on US foreign policy, and would shine a light on something that makes Americans very uncomfortable; the idea that maybe sometimes we’re the Bad Guys. And even worse, maybe that means sometimes the guys shooting at us are the Good Guys. This thought terrifies Americans so badly that movies like American Sniper have to resort to animal metaphors to explain their morality:
There are sheep, see, and there are these wolves who prey on the sheep. But then there are the sheep-dogs, and their job is to take care of the sheep. And yes, it’s true that what a sheep-dog actually does is keep the sheep in line and docile so they can be sheared and slaughtered for reasons neither they nor the sheepdog are able to comprehend, and oh god this metaphor is really stupid, isn’t it?
Everyone’s Motivation Will Suddenly Make Sense
One of the big problems with the Civil War was that characters were forced by story requirements into doing a lot of things that made no sense. Iron Man became leader of the government task force responsible for tracking down and neutralizing rogue superheroes like Captain America. This is Iron Man: a poster-boy for Randian anti-government individualism. Becoming a government stooge. And Captain America rebelling against America? You’d have an easier time selling the concept of a black Norse god in 2011.
Geez, post-racial world, you guys! That's why I'm white and blond, and my sneaky, covetous brother is a hook-nosed Jew!
But if it’s all-out war against the superhero-industrial complex, suddenly everyone’s motivations, and the sides they pick, start to look a lot more logical. Tony Stark has no love for the government; they’re a constant thorn in his side, and he’s spent years watching them fumble about and fuck things up in world-endangering ways. Hell, he almost died single-handedly averting a nuclear strike on New York City by the good guys. It makes perfect sense that such a man would say ‘You know what? These assholes do need to be stopped.’ And I mean, just imagine the look on Nick Fury’s face.
Image not found. He has never been this angry.
Captain America, on the other hand, is absolutely a my-country-right-or-wrong kind of guy. He may have reservations about some of the things we do, but no way is he going to allow a bunch of dirty foreigners to pass judgment on his baby America. And as a World War II veteran, he’s the only American soldier with experience killing white people.
It Fixes a Gaping Plot Hole in the Avengers Universe
Maybe it’s just me, but has anyone watching a Marvel movie ever thought ‘What the hell is everyone else doing while this crazy shit is going down?’ In nearly every movie, the world comes really, really close to ending. Does everyone just go about their daily lives like normal after this? How about the third or fourth time, though? Is ‘preposterous event insurance’ a thing in this universe? Have doomsday cults become the new yoga? Is there a spike in blackout-pregnancies every time that massive helicarrier passes over a major city and knocks out the power grid?
The idea that other nations would put up with this bullshit for any length of time is insane. It’s why we live in a world with literally thousands of nuclear weapons and haven’t gone Mad Max yet: apocalyptic weapons have no margin for error, so even mortal enemies agree to keep that shit locked down tight. In theory, the Avengers should work the same way; they are our strategic reserve, stupidly overpowered world-enders kept in our back pocket as a theoretical last-resort that isn’t meant to ever actually be deployed. What they cannot be is SEAL Team Six, because even SEAL Team Six occasionally crashes its hero-chopper, and in the Marvel universe this means a continent just became a parking lot.
In a movie like The Dark Knight, the hero is a metaphor for America. Which makes it a little hard to root against him, even if we disagree with his actions; if Batman has to resort to bugging a whole city, that doesn’t mean it’s okay for the Joker to win. But an inter-hero war gives us a way of framing the problem differently; the heroes aren’t ‘America,’ they’re American citizens. They’re the ones who make America what it is, and it’s their decisions which ultimately determine whether America is in the right or not. The idea of betraying your government for the sake of the greater good has been in the news once or twice lately…
And really, wouldn’t be a nice indication these movies are growing up a little if we had to deal with a story where there isn’t a villain who wants to destroy or enslave humanity just because? Even The Dark Knight, which I love so much I masturbate to it, has a villain whose whole motivation boils down to “I kill because tee hee, why not?” You could try to give credit to the last Captain America movie for trying to take issues of freedom vs security semi-seriously, but it’s not a real discussion when you make one side secretly Nazis the whole time.
A global super-war would have the added bonus of acknowledging and dealing with the consequences of how mind-bendingly fucked up the events of the last Captain America were. SHIELD has, all along, been run by a fascist conspiracy, and it’s heavily implied that they have been behind every major war and international crisis in decades. Imagine just going back to work after you heard that. Maybe Nick Fury still wouldn’t disband SHIELD; being a one-eyed badass doesn’t qualify you for many careers beyond piracy. But to the rest of the world, these people would be as welcome as al-Qaida, if al-Qaida had a Hulk.
This has a chance to make a morally-ambiguous story genuinely morally ambiguous. It doesn’t really count as a dilemma when any sane person would agree on the right course of action, even when the choice isn’t pleasant. (Torture when your family is threatened by a ticking bomb? Trick question: your family is already dead from when you refused to steal bread to feed them. Duh.) But in this case, I can see people actually being divided. Even if we sometimes make mistakes, America does not compromise its own sovereignty; it’s the cornerstone of our liberty. And does anyone who’s been living under the blanket of American protection for the last seventy years really have a right to complain about the 5% of the time we’ve gotten things wrong? Besides, what happens the next time the world needs to be saved? Can’t you hear the monologues already?
And whatever the outcome, there would be no magic reset after this. Iron Man is a traitor. Captain America is an internationally wanted terrorist. Nick Fury is SO FUCKING PISSED, YOU GUYS.
Which is probably why none of this has any chance of happening. But hey, them superheroes sure be punching each other!
(FAAAAAAAAAAART)
