Hey, true believers, I have returned after a very long absence, which is quite appropriate, considering the other people who’ve returned to comics as well. However, unlike them, I was not dead, merely frozen in ice – the ice of vacation that is!
That’s right, accompanying me in my return are none other than Thor, Hawkeye and Mahr-Vell of the Marvel (and most supreme) Universe. But how do an alien, an Olympic level archer/ex-villain turned Earth’s mightiest hero and a god of thunder return from the dead, you ask? Well, first let’s explore how these characters “died” in the first place.
It all started with the Avengers (actually it all started when aliens came to Earth millennia ago and tampered with the DNA of early humans, but that’s a different story altogether). Captain Marh-Vell of the Kree Empire once faced off against a villain named Nitro, who – long story short – caused Mahr-Vell to develop cancer which ultimately killed him. That was arguably the most important death in comics until…well you know.
Then there was the Scarlet Witch (aka Wanda Maximoff), married to the robot or synthezoid known as the Vision, who used her reality altering powers to produce twins, created from two imprisoned souls. However, for reasons yet to be properly explained, the souls were more or less confiscated and the Witch’s memories of them suppressed.
Hey, would you want your children to go to school with living breathing manifestations of the black arts?? (j/k, everyone knows she’s the SCARLET Witch).
However, the Witch’s teammate, Wasp (don’t read too deeply into the name) let slip during her own pregnancy scare that Wanda mistakenly thought she could raise children in such a dangerous atmosphere as the Avengers Mansion. While grieving over her lost children, Wanda suffered a nervous breakdown, subsequently losing her mind and ultimately control of her powers. And when your teammate can tamper with the fabric of reality itself, you really don’t want them to be angry….or mentally unstable, because as Clint Barton (Hawkeye) can attest to, she’ll probably kill you. If hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, imagine what a stark raving mad, mutant witch powerhouse can do.
The answer is apparently trigger Ragnarok, seeing as how that’s what happened to Thor and Asgard. Thor, bless his god-awesome heart, was able to end it however. Turns out Ragnarok was existing as a cycle, which Thor discontinued by cutting the threads of fate. Of course, that resulted in Thor and the rest of Asgard being lost in Oblivion…I think.
But what do you do with a wicked witch of the East Coast who no longer has control or limits to her powers? You hold a meeting between the surviving members of the Avengers and the X-Men to decide her fate. You invite Quicksilver, long time Avenger and twin brother of Wanda Maximoff. Quicksilver is also, by the way, the fastest hero on Earth, which means he can run off to Genosha where Magneto is trying to nurse his daughter’s mind, and manipulate his sister in her fragile state to recreate the entire world, where mutants are the majority.
Quicksilver also (get this) uses Wanda to tap into the mind of the most powerful telepath to grant everyone their deepest desires in this new world. In this new world Hawkeye is alive. But Wolverine, who has retained his memories of the original world, rounds up a resistance of heroes that confronts Magneto and Wanda, only to discover Magneto had no hand in remaking the world. In the end, Wanda does put the world back, but not without three final words to her family and former allies: “No more mutants.”
Personally, I couldn’t be happier. Not that I don’t like mutants – I just think there are too many X-men for them to be credible as characters.
Now most people, both in the real world and the comic world, regard Wanda a villain. However, I think she’s the most pivotal and important mutant ever. And an incredible plot device, I regard her as the mother of the modern Marvel machine. Now we have a world (in which Hawkeye has been resurrected by the same women who killed him) where the heroes are faced with the question of what to do when their ultra powers go unchecked, creating a perfect backdrop for what happens next…
…which brings us to the superhero Civil War. A team of reality show superheroes engage a group of villains who are living in a school zone in Connecticut, and the brawl results in the death of five hundred school kids and civilians. As a result, Congress pushes for legislation that requires all active super humans to register, receive government training, and be drafted a team as part of the 50 State Initiative, which would put a super team in every state of the US. In itself not a bad idea….but the methods of achievement are horrible.
S.H.I.E.L.D., the United Nations task force, approaches Captain America to hunt down heroes who won’t register. Cap refuses and beats the crap out of agents, who then resort to brute force in trying to him bring down. The Star Spangled Avenger is declared a fugitive after going AWOL, but he rounds up his old allies, The Falcon, Hercules and Iron Fist (who is posing as Daredevil to clear Matt Murdock’s name).
On the other side, Iron Man, Hank Pym, and Mister Fantastic all pledge to bring the rogues to justice. In doing so, they convince Spider Man to unmask himself publicly to show support for the Registration Act (he later defects to the other side after realizing the extent of Iron Man’s vision). They also employ known mass-murdering super villains, clone a cyborg Thor, plant a spy into Cap’s ranks, blackmail a retired Wonder Man into the fight, etc.
However, Cap and his Secret Avengers are not without their own tricks. Cap is joined by Sue and Johnny of the Fantastic Four, Black Panther, Storm, and The Punisher, who rescues Spiderman from an ambush. The Punisher also breaks into the Baxter Building and steals info about #42 (a prison in the Negative Zone, where Iron Man has been holding apprehended villains and heroes, including a time and space-displaced Captain Marh-Vell serving as warden). Using the team shape shifter, the rogue heroes break into #42 and free all the captives, which results in an epic battle that gets teleported to Manhattan. There Namor, the King of Atlantis, joins the fray along with his Atlantean sleeper cell, which lends a hand to Cap and the anti-registration heroes.
The battle wrecks the city, forcing Cap to surrender “We’re not fighter for justice we’re just fighting” some heroes, give in and register, some reject the amnesty they’re offered and some retire altogether. In the midst of all this, Thor – the real one – returns to Earth and sets up shop in Oklahoma, far from all this mess (that’s what I said). This new landscape of government-sponsored heroes wrecks the Marvel Universe to its core – not even the long standing superhero teams remain intact as they once were.
So what happened to the Avengers, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four and everyone else, you ask? Are the deaths of comic characters a daring move or a lame plot device?
You tell me.
How will these three resurrected heroes (Thor, Hawkeye and Mahr-Vel) react to this new climate? What would you say to Iron Man if he had cloned you while you were incapable of protesting? To what extent does the government have the right to use un-civil means to achieve the safety of a few? Is any world power justified in taking the lives of others or imprisoning them without trial, rights or a definite crime? What do you do when two vigilante parties don’t agree on the definition of justice?
And if it took an act of law to divide the heroes of the Marvel Universe and a series of tragedies to bring back old icons, what will it take in the real world to resurrect old and basic values?
Terry Taplin, Oakland, California
