Civil War: Can it be saved?

After reading Civil War #6, the answer is definitely no. In my opinion, this is the worst event comic DC or Marvel has put out in the three years since I jumped back into comics. Civil War makes Identity & Infinite Crisis look like f#&k!ng Shakespeare. House of M, is the next great American novel compared to Civil War.

No matter how this ends, it cannot overcome the crap in the previous 6 issues.

If it wasn’t for the amazing artwork by Steve McNiven and the star power of Mark Millar, this series wouldn’t be a hit; people would have dropped it halfway through if it was done by some B-listers. Marvel really dropped the ball by breaking the story up into the various tie-ins. If some of those stories would have been incorporated into Civil War proper, it would’ve been a much better mini-series.

Just take a look at the following comparisons and ponder what could have been:

I took a look at the page count for Civil War issues 1-6. It started off with a bang at 33 pages for issue 1. Since then, issues 2-6 have each come in at an astounding 22 pages. That is a total of 143 pages over six issues. I read earlier today that #7, the final issue, is on track for 28 pages. That would bring the grand total to 171 pages for a :blockbuster” seven-issue mini-series.

I then had a great idea and thought about how this stacks up to some all-time, truly great mini-series, so I pulled out my trades for Kingdom Come and Watchmen. Kingdom Come was originally published as a four-issue Prestige Format mini-series and came in at 212 pages. Watchmen was a 12-issue maxi-series, so I only counted the first six issues, which came in at 166 pages.

In comparison to Watchmen, Civil War is down 23 pages when looking at the first six issues of each. Just to clarify, I’m not counting the excerpts of “Under The Hood” at the end of every Watchmen issue. When Civil War goes against Kingdom Come it gets even worse. To keep the fight fair, I factored in the entire run of Kingdom Come (four issues) and the projected total page count for Civil War and in that case, Civil War is down 41 pages.

Using the comparisons above, Civil War is obviously lacking in the story department. Let’s not even consider the effects of all the single and two-panel splash pages that are a staple in every issue of Civil War.

I don’t think there is much more to say. My opinion of the series is pretty obvious, and the numbers don’t lie. In all likelihood Civil War will go down as the series that could have been, but never was.

About Guy LeCharles Gonzalez

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez works in publishing by day, world domination by night. Over the years he’s lived in Staten Island and South Beach Miami; served in the Jehovah’s Witnesses, US Army, and Dennis Kucinich’s ‘04 Presidential Campaign; won poetry slams, founded a reading series, co-authored a book of poetry, and self-published another; prefers Pumpkin and India Pale Ales, Buffalo Trace and Four Roses Bourbons, and Dona Paula Shiraz Malbec. He’s a devout Mets fan from the Bronx now living in New Jersey, and has a beautiful wife and two amazing kids.

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