Captain America: Civil War - May 1

And so, Captain America: Civil War has finally became available to the masses. What can be said about it?

Great movie, great action sequences, the actors themselves pushed each other to the limit in order to depict their characters’ inner struggles. What else?

Per se, there are no ‘bad guys’ (something that lately has been played out in Marvel TV shows, especially AoS and AC). Well, no, there is Brock Rumlow/Crossbones from Winter Soldier film, but he is killed fairly early in the film, he is less of a character and more of a plot device, in the overall film. This is not a problem; Brian Jacques did this with his villains on a regular basis, but-

However, who is Brian Jacques? He was, during his life, a fairly popular author for children, writing faux-medieval novels about anthropomorphic animals: ‘Redwall’ and the like. As far as books went, Brian Jacques’ were straightforward: there were ‘good’ animals, such as badgers, mice, squirrels and hares, and ‘bad’ animals – rats, foxes, mustelids, etc. In any given Brian Jacques’ novel, all ‘bad’ characters would die by the end, and almost all ‘good’ characters, would survive, save for one or two, who would die for greater drama… Right. Any coincidences with AoS, especially the current season, are just that – coincidental, which is good, for nowadays, with Brian Jacques being, sadly, gone, so are his books: they had no staying power and were quickly forgotten once he was no longer around to write them; hopefully, this won’t happen to AoS (though every hiatus, at the end of the season, or the middle of the season, of AoS results in the decrease of viewers, cough).

However, AoS aside, what about the current movie? Not unlike the comics, Civil War film was about superheroes fighting each other, over the UN decision of registry and the issue of Barns: is he redeemable or not? Of course, there is also the thorny issue of what is redemption and how does one ‘eat’ it, but anyhow. The point is that the Avengers did not need any bad people/villains to have problems, and neither did the rest of the world, not when it had to wonder did it need the Avengers in the first place, and how do they fit in? Even Baron Zemo (he is called Helmut here; his name has changed over the ages) is not exactly a villain: he is just obsessed with revenge for what Hydra did in Sokovia back in Avengers: Age of Ultron movie.

This is actually a fairly notable deviation: in the comics, Baron Zemo is Hydra/Nazi, something that is not really depicted in MCU, and-

Last week’s episode of AoS had Hydra destroyed, perhaps for good, by the heroic U.S. military, cough. Between this, and Crossbones’ own demise in Civil War, Hydra is not likely to appear in any future MCU features. 

On one hand, this is to be expected. Hydra is causing quite a bit of controversy on the Web these days: whether or not it is Nazi or just fascist? In the comics, Hydra is depicted as predominantly Nazi, ((just as Leviathan is implied to be communist), but to be honest? It is the same type of argument as whether or not Adam and Eve (the book of Genesis), had bellybuttons, or not. To those who do not care, the entire issue is uninteresting, or worse, but to those who DO care, they care. A lot. In addition, they argue. Even more so. Creating arguments, controversies, etc. Moreover, odds are that neither Marvel nor Disney want it.

Few years back, back when MLP: FIM cartoon was in its second/third season, a background character was given a role and a voice: Ditzy/Derpy Hooves. Immediately, her debut produced many arguments between the fans – whether or not the character had a mental disability, whether or not the show was depicting her ‘correctly’, whether or not the show was depicting mentally disabled characters properly or not, etc. The result? Ditzy/Derpy vanished back into background – no speaking roles, no nothing, and has re-emerged only recently. Hasbro did not need the controversial hassle, and neither do Marvel and Disney in regards to Hydra, one supposes: they are moving MCU into a next phase, anyhow, so they can leave Hydra behind, only-

Only Hydra is a major part of the Marvel comic universe. Getting rid of it will cause problems at least for some people – not even because they were fans of it, but because it was a part of Hydra: ‘I hate you, but I will defend your right for freedom of speech because it is the right thing to do,’ cough. Odds are, this will hit the AoS show the hardest, because most other Marvel TV series do not deal with Hydra as much: AC is more concerned about Leviathan, ‘Daredevil’ and ‘Jessica Jones’ are more concerned with more down-to-Earth threats, (relatively, since the Hand would certainly try to take over the world if given an opportunity), and ‘Power Man’, as well as ‘Punisher’ haven’t really been unveiled yet (‘Marvel’s Most Wanted’ isn’t likely to be dealing with Hydra too, but this is a separate topic), so who knows what they will be about?

But then again, stepping away from Hydra for a moment, there is also the matter of Captain America himself: in the movie, he does not die, and actually takes his share of the ex-Avengers to Wakanda. Make no mistake, this is a good thing, (at least in the short term), but the death of Captain America was a landmark, a milestone in Marvel comics; a feature that was a key element in Marvel for issues and months to come. Captain America isn’t dead; there is no Hydra or Red Skull (and WTF with that?), where will MCU go from here?

In the comics, the death of Captain America caused Tony Stark to take over S.H.I.E.L.D., which then, eventually, enabled Norman Osborn (the Green Goblin) to take over – and in the process, there was the attempt of the aliens named Skrulls to take over Earth, but the Earthlings defeated them, with Deadpool, (yes, the same bloke, whose film also appeared ins still not distant past) killed the Skrulls’ Queen – and then Osborn stole the glory for himself, founded HAMMER, and initiated a stage in Marvel comics called ‘The Dark Age’. Here, the Captain is alive; Norman Osborn…ok, Spider-Man was also in Civil War, and he is getting his own film too, so Green Goblin, (his archnemesis), may not be far behind; and instead of Skrulls we got Kree and InHumans. Only InHumans’ movie was cancelled, (for now at least), so who knows what happens next?

The same thing goes for Spider-Man, at least to a point. Yes, both Captain America and Iron Man will appear in his film, but he had been ‘reset’ at least twice now in the Marvel-related films, so with him anything can go too – but this is beyond THIS particular film, eh?

So. Captain America: Civil War, is a very impressive and marvelous movie, (pun intended), which, however, still raises more questions than answers, and shows a further divide between MCU and Marvel comics. What will be next? No one knows.