MasterWhedon wrote:It's like you've thought about this or something...
Personally, I can't stand multiple montlies around one character. Why does Superman, Batman or Spider-Man NEED three, four, five books a month? The honest answer is they don't. They should have a focused, centralized story for each of these characters so there can actually be some growth and change. Instead, it's like they're hegding their bets on a handful of half-assed stories that never get anywhere. At times, I've liked the way the X-Men have done it, with separate teams going off on separate missions. I even really like the purpose of the two new Avengers teams. But, in the end, it's just a fucking headache to figure out all the continuity.
Fewer projects, higher quality--that's the mantra.
could not agree more.
Ok, after taking a half year break after books 1 and 2 in the series, I went to the comic shop today and bought 3-7, just read them back to back. I'd been reading New Avengers and Spiderman and Iron Man this whole time so I knew roughly what was going on.
SPOILERS!!!!!! I wont be bothered with tiny print so stop reading now if you haven't read Civil War 7...
Firstly, a personal aside:
Iron Man has always been my favorite comic character, even since I was a calf. Damn if I don't hate smug Tony Stark right now. IRON MAN: DIRECTOR OF SHIELD...

I genuinely think Tony felt like he was doing the right thing, but enlisting Venom and other supervillians?! Making a Thor-bot? I know Tony just sees tech as tech, neither good nor evil, but the Thor-bot was fucking creepy. I think Tony's soul was lost when he "died" back in Iron Man #whatever 10 years ago.
Secondly, the ending:
It was...abrupt. Which is kinda unavoidable I guess unless they give us the old "ending without an ending" routine, which is kinda what happened anyway, with the New Avengers still going on...
In a weird way I wish the series were going on for another 10 months so it didn't feel like "Oh shit, it's book 7...we better get this done!" But I don't think I could deal with another 10 months of this.
In another way, the ending was perfect. As much as Iron Man rubbed me the wrong way in this series, so did Cap. He said the right things, but at the end of the day a lot of his motivations seemed selfish and very un-Cap-like to me. When he realized he was being held back by regular citizens, the same people he'd been fighting his entire life to protect, he FINALLY had a moment of pause. It's hokey, sure, but let's face it, so is Cap. If there was going to be one man to end this without widespread death and destruction, it HAD to be him, and he finally realized it.
Finally: general thoughts:
I dunno, it was an interesting ride, it certainly helped to re-invigorate me with regard to Marvel books, quite honestly, so from a business perspective: mission accomplished. I know books 3-6 didn't sell as well as books 1 and 2, but that's to be expected, unfortunately they weren't quite as good, either....but overall I thought the series accomplished a lot of the things it set out to do: 1) sell more books; 2) generate readership in "second tier" books; 3) shake things up...again. Now it will be interesting to see if it goes anywhere...