Captain America: Civil War

Captain America: Civil War (May 2016)

Primary Characters

• Steve Rogers/Captain America
• Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier
• Tony Stark/Iron Man
• Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow
• T'Challa/Black Panther
• Sam Wilson/Falcon
• Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch
• James Rhodes/War Machine
• Vision
• Peter Parker/Spider-Man
• Scott Lang/Ant-Man
• Clint Barton/Hawkeye
• Colonel Helmut Zemo

Secondary Characters

• Secretary of State Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross
• Sharon Carter/Agent 13
• Deputy Everett Ross
• Brock Rumlow/Crossbones
• T'Chaka

Notable Story Elements

• Wakanda
• Sokovia Accords
• Hydra
• F.R.I.D.A.Y.
• B.A.R.F. (Bionically Augmented Retro-Framing)
• The Raft

Times viewed: Around 10

• Original theatrical release
• Many viewings at home on BluRay - more to come in the weeks away from normal routines
• Friday Family Movie Night sometime in the past year
• 23 Days of Marvel - March 31st, 2020

Easter Eggs

• The leather-bound book in which the Winter Soldier's commands are kept has a deep crimson cover, which could simply be reflecting the "red state" of Communist Russia, or a reference to Bucky's brainwashed crimes superimposed with Black Widow's statement in The Avengers that, "I've got red on my ledger"
• Falcon is assisted by the Redwing drone; in the comics, he has telepathic and empathic connection to and control over birds, and Redwing an actual falcon
• At the Avengers compound, Vision is dressed similarly to how he appears in Tom King and Gabriel Hernandez Walta's critically acclaimed limited series

• Scott Lang enlarges himself in the battle between the heroes; in the comics, Hank Pym was Ant-Man for only a short time after the Avengers formed, instead using the guise Giant-Man and later Goliath
• Lang is seen drumming with his hands in his cell on The Raft, foreshadowing his house arrest pastime in Ant-Man and the Wasp
• The cell phone that Steve sends to Tony is the same one he will use to contact him in Infinity War

Yesterday, the governor of Michigan announced an executive order that will close school buildings for the remainder of the school year due to our state's escalating number of cases of and deaths from COVID-19. Like many teachers, I support this decision but am still hurting from the finality of it.

There were many irreplaceable experiences in our IMAGE program for academically talented kids scheduled for these past weeks and the next couple months, and it's knowing how much excellent learning and growing they are missing that stings so much.

Our daughter will miss 6th grade camp, the capstone of her elementary years.

With all this, my enthusiasm for reflecting on and writing about the MCU movies as our family rewatches them together has waned. I'm still numb. This will likely be my last post for awhile. We have only 6 of the 23 left to go as of this writing, and I'll take notes as we do so. At some point soon, I will get back to blogging.

For the moment, Captain America: Civil War is my favorite MCU movie. As I wrote at length in the post on Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Civil War was one of the last well-conceived and consequential modern-era Marvel comics events, and I loved its portrayal of Steve Rogers as the type of person Sharon Carter describes in Civil War through her aunt Peggy's words: principled, unflappable, a leader by example.

While the Avengers are a huge component, Cap is definitely the centerpiece here, at the fore of the new team seen at the end of Age of Ultron - minus highly conspicuous members War Machine and Vision - on a covert mission in Lagos. Hydra sleeper agent Brock Rumlow returns at Crossbones, a central figure from my favorite stretch of Captain America comics.

Instead of the character Miriam Sharpe publicly calling for the registration of superpowered individuals after the Stamford tragedy cost her son Damian his life, here it is the mother of Charles Spencer confronting Tony Stark individually about the high price paid for the escalating collateral damage done in the conflicts of him and his teammates, specifically in Sokovia. I like this decision by the screenwriters. Given all the media noise today, it could have come off as Tony being guilted into a course of action; instead, he sees the personal loss of a grieved mother and makes a conscious decision to pursue a safer course.

That's the crux challenge: whose safety must be assured, and who makes those decisions? Steve argues that the Avengers could devolve into a military strike force steered by governments, and that they'd be more heavies than peacekeepers. Tony and - in a return from The Incredible Hulk - now-Secretary of State Ross point out in chilling sequence the trail of destruction left in their wakes. Another of my long-time favorites, the Vision would rather see logic and control prevail than a superpowered arms race.

The fate of the Winter Soldier is an additional point of contention, given his apparent role in one of the tragedies that prompted the Sokovia Accords (standing in for the Superhuman Registration Act). There are dozens of top-notch chase sequences in the MCU, but the one in Bucharest introducing Black Panther is the best.

On Black Panther, and revisiting Michael Douglas as Hank Pym from the previous post - what's becoming clear to me now as we enjoy all these movies again is that the casting department for the MCU may be the real MVPs. Chadwick Boseman and Tom Holland sing here, but how about Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans? My wife is not nearly the fan of the latter as she is the former, but to me, I cannot imagine anyone else as Steve Rogers. He's perfect. The voice and mannerisms I extrapolated out of comics decades ago are his. It's uncanny.

They both play their roles with confidence and make their arguments with conviction. Whose Side Are You On?

"He's my friend."

"So was I."

Damn. Those words carry weight, and almost a decade of excellent, carefully interwoven movies bear the emotional load. The fall of the shield that "doesn't belong" to Captain America strikes with a haunting finality, but we're lifted again by the close. It's not shawarma shop fuzziness, but a hell yeah nod.

Civil War has the perfect pacing of The Avengers with a much more involved plot and challenges its viewers like few other Marvel films. It's going to be tough to sort out if I still like this one more than the Endgame finale.

Ranking

1. Captain America: Civil War
2. The Avengers
3. Guardians of the Galaxy
4. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
5. Iron Man
6. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
7. Ant-Man
8. Avengers: Age of Ultron
9. Iron Man 3
10. Iron Man 2
11. Captain Marvel
12. Captain America: The First Avenger
13. Thor
14. Thor: The Dark World
15. The Incredible Hulk

The Winter Soldier

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (April 2014)

Primary Characters

• Steve Rogers/Captain America
• Natasha Romanov/Black Widow
• Sam Wilson/Falcon
• Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier
• Director Nick Fury
• Secretary Alexander Pierce

Secondary Characters

• Deputy Director Maria Hill
• Peggy Carter
• Sharon Carter/Agent 13
• Brock Rumlow
• Arnim Zola
• Jasper Sitwell
• Batroc
• Senator Stern

Notable Story Elements

• SHIELD
• STRIKE
• Hydra
• Triskelion
• Project Insight Helicarriers
• World Security Council

Times viewed: A dozen or more

• Original theatrical release
• Multiple full viewings, and partial viewings on TV
• Friday Family Movie Night sometime in the past year
• 23 Days of Marvel - March 26th, 2020

Easter Eggs

• "On your left" is repeated not only in a key scene this movie, but also in one of the best fanservice moments of Endgame
• The name of the ship in the opening action sequence, the Lumurian Star, may be a reference to the Atlantis-like lost land that appears in a great deal of fiction, including Marvel comics
• The support group led by Sam is later echoed by the one led by Steve following the events of Infinity War
• It's Been a Long, Long Time plays in Steve's apartment when Fury retreats there; it's heard again in his home with Peggy in Endgame

In the low-stakes game of comic book deaths, there were only two truisms:

1. Bucky is dead;
2. Uncle Ben is dead.

When Bucky returned in 2005 during Ed Brubaker's tenure on Captain America, it drew mixed and emotional reactions. I rolled with it and was rewarded with some of the best Cap stories that have ever been told.

Not long into that run, through 2006 and 2007, the Civil War event shook up the Marvel Universe. Its themes, if not its precise narrative, are revisited in the third Captain America movie, and both were hugely successful for Marvel Comics and the MCU.

I loathed and loved the comic book stories.

Just yesterday, I was boarding and bagging my New Warriors collection, and this morning, an ad in my Facebook feed for Marvel Unlimited included the Civil War-era image of Steve Rogers and Tony Stark, both in costume but unmasked, repulsors violently meeting shield.  Its caption:

Relive the epic Marvel moments that changed everything. Start your Marvel Unlimited journey now!

The setup for Civil War involved the blundering death of the New Warriors - and over 600 civilians, prompting public outcry and a renewed push for a Superhuman Registration Act, something that'd been explored in Avengers and X-Men comics years earlier.

That sucked. The Warriors were some of my favorites, and I had followed them for almost a decade. They had been relegated to reality show punchlines, but were by no means throwaways.

The Civil War stories that followed did not suck. Cap and his underground resistance to the SRA were badass. Mark Millar has his faults, but he was in top form here.

At Civil War's conclusion, Steve Rogers "died" and Bucky Barnes inherited the mantle of Captain America. What followed truly was a major shake-up of the Marvel Universe. One Avengers title followed the anti-establishment heroes, and another the "corporate" heroes. Carol Danvers was elevated during this time. The teen heroes of Avengers: The Initiative had much the same vibe as early New Warriors comics. Some of the consequences of Civil War even carried over into the next big event, the Secret Invasion of the Skrulls.

Now, about a decade later, and after Civil War II in 2016 (this one pitting Tony Stark against Carol Danvers), it's all irrelevant. None of the characters whose relationships were tested during Civil War seem marred by grudges or suspicions. Some of the once-deceased New Warriors are being advertised on the cover of the group's new series as mentors to new youths.

That's the problem with Marvel Comics; there are epic moments, but they change nothing in the end. Years of character development, like Jane Foster as Thor and Sam Wilson as Captain America, are wiped away in broad editorial strokes. Maybe this was exacerbated by Bucky returning, with nothing truly sacred after that. (Bucky "died" again in another Marvel event, 2011's Fear Itself. Last week, I bought a comic teaming him and Sam Wilson - just in time for their upcoming Disney+ show.)

I'd planned to pen a separate post on my problems with Marvel Comics, but this seemed as appropriate a space as any for them.

The Winter Soldier isn't a superhero movie. It's an espionage thriller with spandex. I enjoy the latter (espionage thrillers, not spandex), and my wife Melanie does not. I also have a long history with Captain America and the guilt he carried for years at the loss of Bucky, and read and loved Brubaker's Winter Soldier stories. So, while this one is middle of the pack of the MCU movies for her, it's among my favorites.

I first saw it in a small theater in the U.P. with my childhood friend Scott during a breather from the busiest time in my life. I'd just finished years of work on my Masters degree and would graduate in a few weeks. At the same time, our family of four - including a 6-year old and 2-year old - was preparing for the move from our home of over 10 years. That would be enough, but also in the back of my mind was packing up the 3rd grade classroom I'd taught in for 8 years, and moving to another school and different grade level.

For those 2 hours of spring break at the Willow Creek Cinema, I left all the stress behind and was absolutely blown away. All stunt doubles deserved bonus pay.

Most of my all-time favorite comic characters (minus Hulk and Hawkeye) are front-and-center. If Black Widow never had her own, this could effectively be "THE Black Widow movie."

Steve has a slicker militaristic uniform, but also less pathos over his lost years than in The Avengers. His list of things on which to catch up, glimpsed when Sam pitches Marvin Gaye's Trouble Man (and heard during the denouement), is both startling and humorous.

"Rocky (Rocky II?)"

One of the treats of multiple viewings over many years has been catching more of the list each time.

That's not to say this is a lighthearted affair. We watched Guardians of the Galaxy the night after this one, and while it has the laughs, this is clearly one of the more serious and consequential MCU outings.

The Winter Soldier's action is intense and frequent but more exhilarating than exhausting. Fury finally gets to cut loose. Black Widow is at her best. Falcon is sure and smooth, and this was the perfect time to bring him into the circle. In the '70s comics when Steve Rogers uncovered deep corruption in the U.S. government (by the Secret Empire, not Hydra) and abandoned the stars, stripes and shield to become the Nomad, his comic was actually titled Captain America and the Falcon, a branding change that lasted over 7 years.

The Winter Soldier is perfectly portrayed here as a Keyzer Soze-esqe menace... and then a very real, visceral one.

Cap's iconic shield is used better here than anywhere else, and his prowess, too, gets plenty of flex. "Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?" Bad. Ass. Sitwell's reaction to his improbable escape fuels fist-pumps.

There are quieter poignant moments. Steve's bedside visit with Peggy was heart-wrenching at this time, and even more touching on another viewing now that their full story has been told. "I couldn't leave my best girl, not when she owes me a dance." Whew. Steve and Natasha's conversation about kissing is light and sweet.

There's so much polish here, from the use of Arnim Zola, a classic Captain America villian, right down to his camera-head and digitized face, to Captain America: The First Avenger actor Dominic Cooper being pictured in the bunker as Howard Stark, even when he'd since been portrayed by John Slattery in Iron Man 2.

Just as significantly, SHIELD was truly shook up by what transpires. The stakes are high, and the consequences are real. I have not watched the TV series, but know that it was deeply impacted, and we never see SHIELD quite the same way in the MCU.

It's a fantastic movie made even better by what preceded and what follows, as well as the numerous nods to its source material.

Ranking

1. The Avengers
2. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
3. Iron Man
4. Iron Man 3
5. Iron Man 2
6. Captain Marvel
7. Captain America: The First Avenger
8. Thor
9. Thor: The Dark World
10. The Incredible Hulk

Oh Captains, My Captains

Captain America: The First Avenger (July 2011) 

Primary Characters

• Steve Rogers/Captain America
• Bucky Barnes
• Peggy Carter
• Howard Stark
• Johann Schmidt/The Red Skull

Secondary Characters

• Dr. Abraham Erskine
• Colonel Chester Phillips
• The Howling Commandos
• Arnim Zola
• Director Nick Fury

Notable Story Elements

• Hydra
• Vibranium
• The Tesseract/Space Stone

Times viewed: 2+

• Sick at home and alone on Christmas 2011
• Multiple partial viewings on TV
• 23 Days of Marvel - March 17th, 2020

Easter Eggs

• Multiple Captain America costumes

1. Classic costume while selling war bonds
2. Costume with bomber jacket and helmet, seen in recent retellings of World War II
3. Final costume with helmet, similar to its design in The Ultimates

• The android Human Torch appears at the Expo in a sealed chamber
• Howard Stark's propulsive technology, perhaps later be appropriated by his son for the Iron Man armor
• Captain America Comics #1 
• Steve's talent as an artist

Captain America and Steve Rogers have long been my favorite comic book characters. 

Though the two are inextricably linked, many others have taken on the mantle over the years.  

My favorite run of the series was Mark Gruenwald's unmatched137-issue stretch that spanned many of my elementary schooling all the way through the start of my college years. His time with the character is most known for Steve's loss of the title of Captain America in the face of government pressure to serve at their whims. Gruenwald's story was intended to reveal Steve Rogers as the heart of Captain America, rather than Captain America being an alter ego of Steve Rogers. He did so by putting his version of a Rambo-esque character, Super-Patriot John Walker, in the stars-and-stripes costume.

Steve, in the meantime, adopted the guise of The Captain, continuing the good fight with an eclectic group of supporting characters at his side.  Dennis Dunphy (Demolition Man/D-Man) was a past member of the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation; like many kids, I loved WWF during the 1980s. Jack Monroe (Nomad - assuming an identity that Steve once used following the Secret Empire disillusionment in the '70s) had been a part of Gruenwald's earliest Cap comics. My first saw them going up against Madcap. I also became a huge fan of Sam Wilson, The Falcon, around that time. Many of my Marvel Super Heroes RPG characters had avian elements.  Decades later, when Sam inherited the mantle of Captain America, I was thrilled. Reformed supervillain Rachel Leighton (Diamondback of the memorable Serpent Society) was Steve's love interest and crime-fighting partner through most of these years, too.

Some of the elements from Mark Gruenwald's stories would eventually make their way into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Following Civil War, he adopts a darker costume, seen when he breaks his allies out of lock-up, and later in his memorable return in Infinity War. Both scenes flooded me with nostalgia and inspired cheers. Most recently, when he bequeathed the shield to Sam Wilson, I was breathless. Yes, The Mandalorian was exceptional, but it's really The Falcon and The Winter Soldier that has me juiced.

On Captain America: The First Avenger - I somehow missed its original theatrical premiere, the first and only time that would happen with an MCU film. Hope was only three years old, and I made a big push on my graduate studies that summer. That next school year was a beast, probably the most challenging I've had in almost two decades of working with students, and following sinus surgery that fall, I ended up sick during Christmas.

While Melanie, Hope, and my mom spent the day with the in-laws, I queued up Captain America on digital streaming. I liked it, but did not love it as I had Iron Man and its sequel.  Bucky had already re-emerged as The Winter Solider and even become Captain America in the comics by this point, so it was no surprise that he was a big part of the movie. Their relationship was, and remains, my favorite feature of the movie.

As much as I loved the G.I. Joe cartoons, the laser-like weapons of Hydra contrasted too sharply with the other wartime grittiness. Hugo Weaving doesn't lean into the sneering villainy of The Red Skull enough for my taste, though the nod to the time (also in Mark Gruenwald's run) Arnim Zola placed his consciousness in a cloned body of Steve Rogers and he benefited from the Super Soldier Serum was appreciated. The Howling Commandos are not even named, and just aren't the same without Nick Fury leading them. 

My feelings are mostly the same now as they were on the first full viewing about a decade ago. It's a serviceable MCU movie and does well introducing both Steve Rogers as a heroic figure, with or without Serum and a shield, and his relationship with Bucky Barnes. Now that we know the conclusions to his story, the scenes with Peggy Carter are especially poignant.

Captain Marvel (March 2019) 

Primary Characters

• Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel
• Agent Nick Fury
• Yon-Rogg
• Talos
• Mar-Vell/Wendy Lawson

Secondary Characters

• Maria Rambeau
• Monica Rambeau
• Agent Phil Coulson
• Korath
• Ronan the Accuser

Notable Story Elements

• Kree
• Skrulls
• SHIELD
• The Tesseract/Space Stone

Times viewed: 3

• Original theatrical release
• Friday Family Movie Night sometime in the past year
• 23 Days of Marvel - March 18th, 2020

Easter Eggs

• Korath's inclusion as a Kree, a heritage that's not given in Guardians of the Galaxy but explains his loyalty to Ronan (though I knew he was Kree in the '90s Fantastic Four comics)
• Maria Rambeau's pilot handle of "Photon"
• Retroactive origin of The Avengers Initiative

I'm hesitant to even mention it for fear of directing clicks their way, but Matt McGloin of Cosmic Book News perhaps overstated it "best" by responding to the directorial and production decisions related to Captain Marvel as, "RIP MCU."

Brie Larson has been described as "wooden" in her portrayal of Carol Danvers. I'm not nearly as connected to her character as I am to most others in the MCU, knowing her best as Binary in The Uncanny X-Men and later Warbird in Kurt Busiek's Avengers re-launch. Still, she's always struck me as serious, if not stiff. The Washington Post published an excellent retrospective of her comic book history around the time of the movie's theatrical release.

The importance of this as the first MCU movie headlined by a female character cannot be overstated, nor can the online vitriol that  accompanied it be ignored. As the father of a then-11-year-old daughter, I saw Captain Marvel as a touchstone moment. Wonder Woman preceded it by almost two years and was itself a cultural milestone. I am sure essays exist on why one was "good" and the other was not, but I haven't read them and don't plan to seek them out.

The kids and I enjoyed the film; I believe we saw it opening night. Hope loved the deadly alien cat more than anything, but I still think she enjoyed the lead character, too. When we played Disney Infinity 2.0, her go-to character was always Black Widow, but paradoxically, I don't think she related to the superspy bombshell in the films as much as she did Carol as a young woman seeking and asserting her identity. 

What struck me then was how neatly it connected certain dots - Korath's connection to Ronan, both of whom had already appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy; Ronan's unexplored reluctance to seek the Infinity Stones on Earth in Guardians; the relationship between Nick Fury and Phil Coulson; and the origin of Fury's eye patch ("WHAT THE FLERKEN?!").

What strikes me now: dang, that's a killer soundtrack. 1995 was the year I graduated high school and began some of the best years of my life so far, at Western Michigan University, and I listened to the radio more at that time than any other period in my life. Blockbuster, flip phones, and plenty more evoke that era, too.

Even with such a long history with Captain America and very little with Captain Marvel, I now feel I enjoyed the latter's movie more than the former's first MCU entry. That's saying something, as Steve Rogers is far and away my favorite cinematic character.

Ranking

1. Captain Marvel
2. Captain America: The First Avenger