Captain America: Civil War

Given the current political climate, the idea of superheroes battling one another instead of obvious villains makes sense. The country is extraordinarily polarized, and we've seen people who earlier were willing to compromise and moderate their stances veering off to the extreme ends of their political wings (something I contend is happening far more with one side than the other, but that's a discussion for a different day, and probably not on this blog.)

Thankfully, Captain America: Civil War doesn't make it too simple to choose a side. Ultimately the movie seems to land more on the title character's side of things, but there's reasonable arguments to be made for either side, even if there are flaws in execution.

It's also not really analogous to right-wing and left-wing either. Whatever your political persuasion, you might find yourself siding with one side or another. The two central heroes who are in conflict do kind of represent different sides of America - Tony Stark is the Libertarian hero worthy of an Ayn Rand novel while Steve Rogers is a New Deal Brooklyn kid who fights fascists and likes to stick up for the little guy (having been the little guy, he's very much a "lift as we climb" kind of hero.) But their positions, and specifically their actions in this story, complicate the simple political affiliations that also happen to sync up with their costumes' primary colors.

Before I get into spoilers, I'll say that Marvel has pulled off an impressive feat. This is a movie that has nearly every big-screen hero from the MCU (minus Thor and Hulk, and of course the Guardians of the Galaxy) and adds more to the mix, yet manages to avoid becoming unwieldy by grounding it in personal relationships.

While there are some massive fights in the movie, the spectacle really serves the characters. This might be the most character-driven Marvel movie to date, which makes sense given that the main conflict is between Cap and Iron Man. I still might like Winter Soldier better, but this one is definitely a good addition to the MCU.

So let us now go spoilery.


The central figures here are Cap, Iron Man, and Bucky, aka Winter Soldier.

There is a cold-open in which the Avengers try to prevent a short-lived Crossbones from getting his hands on a biological weapon in Nigeria. They manage to do this, but not before Crossbones activates a suicide vest. Quick-thinking, Scarlet Witch tosses him up inside a forcefield to save the people in the marketplace where they have been fighting, but unfortunately allows the blast to go off right next to a building where several Wakandan doctors have been providing aid to the Nigerians.

As just the latest bit of destruction after New York, DC, Sokovia, etc., Thunderbolt Ross (yes, William Hurt, who played the character in The Incredible Hulk way, way back when,) who is now Secretary of State, informs the Avengers of the new UN-backed Sokovia Accords, which will put in place an international set of rules to govern the actions of the Avengers.

While most of the group is willing to go along with it, Steve doesn't like the idea of being unable to act when they need to and potentially being used as the tool of unscrupulous people (remember how Hydra was controlling SHIELD from the inside?)

However, just as it starts to look like things are going smoothly, the UN headquarters in Vienna are bombed, killing King T'chaka of Wakanda. His son, T'challa, aka Black Panther, is ready to take revenge. And it appears that the one behind the bombing is none other than Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier.

For much of the movie, Tony is trying to be the reasonable guy. Steve is convinced that Bucky is innocent (of this crime at least,) and so tries to protect him. It soon becomes apparent that there is actually someone else - a man named Zemo (who is apparently very, very different from the comics) - who is manipulating the Avengers into conflict.

Steve's actions could be considered selfish - he wants to help his oldest friend, even with evidence stacked against him. Yet Tony's seemingly reasonable desire for oversight and control winds up essentially imprisoning Wanda at the Avengers compound and also involves a secret gulag hidden beneath the ocean. This latter part comes as a surprise to him, but it shows how well-intentioned actions can have serious negative consequences.

Ultimately, though, even after some reconciliation is achieved and both sides uncover Zemo's plot, the most raw and brutal conflict erupts when Tony discovers that back in the early 90s, when Bucky was still getting orders from Hydra, he assassinated Tony's parents in what had appeared to be a car crash.

The end result is that, while Steve sends a conciliatory letter to try to start the process of patching things up with Tony, ultimately the Avengers are now divided. Cap, Hawkeye, Ant Man, Scarlet Witch and Falcon are now fugitives. Also War-Machine's spine was shattered after a friendly fire attack from Vision in the middle of the movie's biggest brawl destroys his suit's power source mid-flight.

Still, while there's some rather dramatic clashing of titans here, the movie also has a great sense of humor. While Black Panther plays a far larger role in the proceedings, the other huge new addition to the MCU is Spiderman, who I would consider the biggest superhero Marvel has. (Ain't it great that Sony's own movies have performed so poorly that they agreed to collaborate with Marvel Studios? Too bad Deadpool and the new X-Men movies have been such big hits!) Spiderman's quip-fu fighting style makes an already entertaining grand melee brawl between superheroes that much more fun, along with a few references to how much younger Spiderman is than all the other superheroes.

We also finally get a glimpse of Wakanda (though the only scene actually there is in a post-credits scene,) which looks very cool. It's basically a few hundred years ahead of the rest of the world in terms of technology.

The comics famously had Captain America die at the end of the Civil War plotline. This plot seems to be very different in nature, and in fact, not even the main villain is killed in the end, which is probably appropriate given that while his actions have been reprehensible, he's ultimately doing this because of a horrific trauma these superheroes inflicted on him.

Still, even if no really major characters die (well, actually, Peggy Carter dies, but she does so of old age and this does not rule out future seasons of Agent Carter, and she does so off-screen,) we're definitely looking at a shifting landscape for the MCU.