Civil War #6 - Marvel Comics

CIVIL WAR No. 6, December 2006

The best-selling title of January 2007, at least according to “Diamond Comic Distributors”, Issue Six of “Civil War” must have fairly surprised some of its 259,251 readers with its depiction of both lead antagonists dipping into the dark well of the criminally “insane” in order to achieve their goals. True, Captain America quickly realises his mistake in recruiting the Punisher to his cause once Frank Castle cold-bloodily guns down the Plunderer and Goldbug following the villainous pairs’ attempt to join the rebels. But before this moment of murderous clarity, Steve Rogers seemed fairly content to allow the vigilante to access the Baxter Building’s incredibly complex security system for him and retrieve “the plans on the Negative Zone prison”.

Mercifully though, the Sentinel of Liberty’s lack of judgement doesn’t prove too detrimental to his anti-registration side’s plans to attempt a rescue of their super-friends incarcerated by the American authorities, and even provides Mark Millar with an opportunity to demonstrate just how much in awe Castle apparently is of the living legend when the vicious vigilante refuses to defend himself against Rogers during their distinctly one-sided fist-fight; “Get him out of here! And throw his guns in the incinerator! I must have been out of my mind to give that animal a shot on this team!”

However, the same realisation, and subsequent rejection of ‘dealing with the devil’ cannot be found with the increasingly flawed shenanigans of Tony Stark, who actually appears proud to be leading a group of shadily-sanctioned operatives such as the Taskmaster, Radioactive Man, Bullseye, Elektra and Venom into battle against many of humanity’s most morally-righteous freedom fighters. Indeed, this twenty-two page periodical’s double-splash conclusion provides an abundantly clear difference between the two opposing theologies, with Captain America’s so-called unlawful resistance comprising of some of Stan Lee’s mightiest heroes, whilst Iron Man’s ‘holier than thou’ agents strongly resemble the despicable Masters Of Evil…

Somewhat disconcertingly, this particular instalment to the “Marvel Comics event in seven parts” also arguably shows some signs of the impact its print deadline was having upon Steve McNiven’s artwork. Everything looks great up until the point, towards the end of the book, when the Golden Avenger unleashes his ambush upon the rebels’ prison break, and then, presumably due to the sheer amount of figures suddenly ‘on screen’ the Canadian artist’s pencilling momentarily deteriorates before picking back up again for the magazine’s final few pages.

Writer: Mark Millar, Penciler: Steve McNiven, and Inker: Dexter Vines