Damn you, Marvel.Follow

I can't stand Captain America, so Tony Stark it is.

I'm not nearly nerdy enough to be able to vote on this particular subject.

When in doubt - go with Cap.

I have heard much about the "Civil War" storyline. Is it something that will be (or already has been) compiled into a single "graphic novel" format book?

I assume you mean which side I'd be on politically and not which side I think would win in a giant bar brawl.

From my very basic understanding of this plotline (I'm not a comics person by any means), I'd go with the Capt. Many super powers are usable as weapons but they are an innate part of who the person is, either by birth or accident. Registering people based on the circumstances of their birth seems a bit more facist than I'm ready to be comfortable with.

If someone wants to actually create a weapon, as Stark did, then sure let him register it. If someone breaks the law and is convicted of the crime, then sure let their powers be registered just as they would for some "villain". But registering people for merely being born with it is like registering all men because they were born with a ***** and might become rapists.

You could also make the argument that for large scale destructive systems legitimacy can and will become moot. You better be bringing some pretty large guns to the table if your goal is to rein in something with military strength equivalent to than of a small-mid size nation. That; or competent diplomacy.

Of course it's an infringment. You're trying to say that it's a worthwhile infringement upon their rights but that doesn't make it stop being an infringement.

You're correct, I spoke incorrectly. What I had intended and failed to get at was not that it was a worthwhile infringement, but that it was not longer worthwhile to pretend people had these rights. It's not that these rights are real and extreme circumstances prove an acceptable exemption, but that they never were there in the first place and in a universe significantly different than our own they are not longer useful to imagine.

That is why I think it is fairly ridiculous to make an argument that registering superhumans is an infringement on their rights.

The whole issue is over a team of good guys going in to stop a bunch of bad guys, who at the time weren't really doing anything other than being on the lamb, for their reality TV show to get ratings, and said bad guy used his power to get away and destroyed a school full of young children.

The 14th Amendment exists, along with the rest. Its basically everything we have, but with explosions. So congress, along with supporters of the change from the super hero community (IE: Tony Stark / Iron Man and others) created a bill to have everyone register and have them train so an incident like that wouldn't happen again.

Edited, Mar 8th 2010 7:57pm by lolgaxe

Whom do they register to? Who makes them register? What is the penalty for non registration? Is that registration valuable enough to risk defection of parties which one would assume are of national interest?

Yeah, I don't know if I could side with someone that locks people up in a secret prison in the Negative Zone. You know, it's interesting that Annihilus invaded the universe because the marvel universe was expanding into his, but it isn't like anyone on Earth 616 had exactly respected the boundaries of his domain.

Talk about shades of gray, Reed Richards is pretty creepy in Civil War.

Edited, Mar 9th 2010 12:37am by Paskil

If I recall correctly, registration "is" (in the fictional Marvel World) only mandatory if you want to be a super hero. You had the option to retire if you have powers, or register if you wanted to use them. If you were not registered & used them in a public capacity, you were in violation of the Registration Act & the Tony Stark lead S.H.I.E.L.D (And now currently the Norman Osbourne run H.A.M.M.E.R.) would Party Van you. If you further refused to register, you got sent to prison.

It's kinda like registering a gun. If you use one in public it needs to be registered. If you simply own one & don't use it in public, it's kinda hard for the authorities to arrest you for an unregistered one.

Mutants weren't really factored in as the government had, at the time, tabs on the 198 that were left.

Cap had a real issue with this mostly because, back in his Nomad days, he had a real problem following the orders of some corrupt people. Government run Super Heroes post registration wasn't something he wanted to see abused again. Well, until their battle made a mess & hurt some folks causing Cap to surrender.

Then be "assassinated."

Which didn't actually happen. He was shot & put into suspended animation while being simultaneously unstuck in time, like Desmond on Lost, by the Red Skull who himself was "dead" but in the head of some other dude looking to transfer his consciousness into Cap's body.

Or something.

Oh and Bucky's not dead, he's the New Captain America.

So there's two.

Edited, Mar 9th 2010 1:20pm by Omegavegeta

I don't read comics although I sometimes enjoy reading threads about them and this is exactly why. I'm amused at the soap opera nature of the whole thing but I couldn't convince myself to actually spend money that that sort of silliness.