Marvel’s Civil War: The Death of the Superhero and Rise of Comic Book Collectivism

Article by: Mark.A Pritchard (aka Rorshach1004/SwindonPoet)
Date: 11th September 2015



‘The Iron has spent the last six years isolating us from the rest of the world. They have embargoed our trading partners. Threatened those who help us. Spread lies.’ (Captain America in Civil War #4-2015)

Do American (and western) comic book ‘geek’ readers see the irony in that statement?

The words come from the mouth of Captain America, the ultimate American comic book hero, and what he is describing (and decrying) is US foreign policy since the end of WW2. He is outlining a deliberate strategy of economic isolation/suffocation deliberately designed to achieve hegemony and domination over an entire planet. It is a policy that has led to the deaths of millions of innocent people who never had a chance, people who died because of the deliberate policies coming from western democracies.

The original Civil War, by Mark Millar.

That is the policy of the west. That is the policy of the ‘heroes.’

Will readers see the statement as a critique of what America actually is? Will they see the reality behind the statement, or will it just be another piece of comic book story-telling that is read, forgotten, and seen as play-time fun and games that has nothing whatsoever to do with the real world?

My guess, and it’s just a guess, is that readers will read it as part of the story in Civil War #4, and will leave it at that. Captain America has given a speech that could easily have come out of the mouth of Saddam Hussain, or Muammar Gaddafi, or Bashar al-Assad, or Vladimir Putin. It’s a speech that could have been given by any leader that has seen his country targeted for destruction by western ‘democratic’ neo-liberal corporate hegemony.

What would happen if readers carefully analysed the statement made by Captain America, and looked at what has happened in the real world over the past few decades? How would they see the US as a force for good in the world? They would be forced to re-evaluate, and to re-consider what they personally are doing in the world, how they, through paying their taxes, and supporting the state, are complicit in what has happened, what is happening and what it going to happen next.

What is going to happen next is war, a big war waged against Iran and Russia, the last two holdouts against western imperialism. It will be called World War 3, and it will be the last war. The end result will be a nuclear holocaust, a tiny population of world-controllers, and a slave population of five hundred million people.

Comic book readers need to put down the comic books, look at recent world history, and decide whether or not they want to go along with the unfolding agenda. They do have a choice; they don’t have to go along with it. They have a voice, and they can use it, if they want to.

The new 'Civil War' by Charles Soule.

This is not silly conspiracy stuff, it’s recent world history, and it’s happening right now as I type these words. Writer Charles Soule puts his words of truth into the mouth of Captain America at the beginning of Civil War #4, but then the book unfolds in a convoluted, contradictory fashion that makes pretty much no sense whatsoever, thus diminishing the impact of the opening statement. However, the statement is made, and it cannot be unmade. It’s truth in a genre that sees very little truth at all, and now it’s up to us to decide whether or not we want to face that truth, or just go back to reading comic books as usual.

US superhero comic books don’t do heroes anymore. Tony Stark won the original Marvel Comics Civil war, and the superheroes became agents of the state. Captain America, the symbol of individualism, of freedom from state control (Yes, I know it’s ironic, but perhaps he’s just represented the old America?), surrendered, and was murdered. Mark Millar wrote that ending in 2007. It was the correct ending to write.

Contemporary comic book heroes are collectivists, controlled by the state, working for the state. The era of individualism died with the death of Captain America in the original Civil War. What has followed since has been painful to watch, with Marvel and DC comics celebrating collectivised, order following, ‘heroes’ and the death of individualism and true heroism. The independent, moral, liberty minded heroes have become unthinking soldiers. I'm sorry, but soldiers are not heroes, no matter what the propaganda coming out of the state tries to tell you. Soldiers follow orders. Right and wrong does not figure in their actions, morality does not figure in their actions, they do what they are told to do, no questions asked, see Bradley Manning for more details.

Marvel’s original Civil War story-arc and this new extension of the original story (by Charles Soule) reveals a brutal truth about the death of individualism in post 9/11 America. That truth might be clouded and hidden within a jumble of plot twists, super-powered personality issues and contradictions, but the truth is there, and is something that we all need to understand.

Art from Yu, on the new Civil War #4

As the US Empire continues to crumble and morph into a one-world government, at least we all know how it happened, and who was responsible. The coming New World Order was made possible by the economic strangulation of sovereign states, a siege policy that ends in war or capitulation. All countries that have refused to be dictated to by US led corporate, neo-liberal hegemony have been under economic siege for decades, and those still holding out are being targeted by western intelligence agencies, NGO’s, mercenaries and the western backed lunatic army known as the Islamic state.

The policy of total, global domination is at the centre of western, neo-liberal political consensus. When you vote, you vote for war. All parties belong to the cult of neo-liberalism; your only choice is between personalities, not policy differences. Corporate lebensraum has made the world what it is today. Do you like it?

I personally am not a fan.

So who is to blame? It’s not the politicians or the liars on the television. They are there because we allow them to be there. We built their houses. We bred children to be used as their slaves, and now our children have guns, and the guns are turned at us.

We are to blame.

We built neo-liberalism.

We built it, brick by brick, vote by vote, order followed, after order followed. We refused to look as we slaved away at its construction, but we built it. It is our fault. The world is the way it is today because we had free choice, and we decided to give away our freedoms to the illusion of authority, because men and women calling themselves ‘Government’ ordered, and we chose to obey them.

Iron Man, a symbol of collectivism over individualism.

We shout and scream at the individual pawns, yet we play their game, we vote, we get what we deserve, we are willing dupes, and we have allowed ourselves to be used, abused, divided and killed. The world could be a beautiful place of free choice, free association, individualism and self-determination, but we didn’t want that. Instead, we chose collectivism, and if we continue to be spectators in our own lives then what happens next will be exactly what we all deserve.

Hoping for change will not change a thing, action is what is needed.

Real life heroes are individuals, people who do things not for ideology, reward or status, but because it’s the right thing to do. Change comes from action, from doing something, not hoping for somebody else to do it for you. Government kills all ideals of action and individualism and replaces it with the all-encompassing collective merged prison identity of the state.

We are living during a time of neo-liberal, cross-party consensus tyranny. We can change it, if we want to, but here’s my opinion on the matter. I think that some people would rather read comic books and go along with it, and some people would rather join it, than fight it.

A lot of people have become lazy, immoral, complacent, greedy and selfish. A lot of people are scared, or apathetic, or perhaps they are just confused? Learnt helplessness is a powerful weapon of the neoliberal corporate elites, and it’s pumped out 24/7 from their mainstream media indoctrination centres masquerading as ‘news.’  The message is to comply and that all resistance to neo-liberalism is futile. You are small, you cannot do anything, stand-down, comply, do what you are told.

Complicity, fear, apathy and confusion together with learnt helplessness imprison the programmed, collectivised masses and the end result is millions of people complying with their own enslavement and serving the system that imprisons them all.

Choose Cap, choose individualism over collectivism.

Individualism has become a bad word. It is being discouraged, because it is the individual that will destroy the collectivised state. We need to stand up, as individuals, not as a group. We need to re-learn how to say NO, and to do things for ourselves. That’s what I think. That’s what I think about the world today.

Comic books reflect reality, and the reality is that we have become collectivised slaves to state authority. Tony won, collectivism won. Cap lost, individualism lost. The world we live in today, the western world, the comic book world, it’s a defeated world. But is it over? Oh no, not yet.

I’m a scrappy bloke, and I’m up for a comeback fight. Cap died, but death is temporary in comic books, and here’s a truth, it’s temporary in the real world as well.

We die, sure, but the soul cannot die. The soul is immortal. The body dies, but we return, the fight does not end, it goes on, we live, learn, balls things up, but it’s never over.

Neo-liberal collectivist ideology might be in the ascendant right now, but that doesn’t mean that you have to go along with it.  I’m up for a fight. I’m up for saying no, and I’m ready to kick neo-liberal collectivist slave ideology in the balls. I’m not a superhero, but I’m not a slave either. I’m an individual, and individualism is the silver bullet that will kill the murderous ideology of neo-liberal state collectivism.

My blog is small, and it might only be read by a handful of people, but that won’t stop me from saying what needs to be said, and from talking about what is happening in the world today. Comic books reflect cultural consensus, but cultural consensus changes. We are living during a time of rising state collectivism, a time of war, lies and propaganda, but it doesn’t always have to be like that.  We can turn things around, but the only way that we are going to get out of our self-dug pit of collectivism is to realise that we are standing in a hole in the first place.

Comic review: Civil War #2- Anarchy Versus Democratic Collectivism

Writer: Charles Soule
Artist: Leinil Francis Yu
Inker: Gerry Alanguilan
Colours: Sunny Gho
Publisher: Marvel
Released: 5th August 2015



I’m not too sure if anybody is reading this book, as the buzz on it has been non-existent, but I’m reading it, and I’m enjoying it as well.

I’m enjoying it for two reasons. Firstly, it’s taking the unsatisfactory ending to the original Mark Millar Civil War arc, continuing it, and making it better.

Secondly, it’s throwing in a lot of real world issues, issues that you don’t usually see being discussed within the overly corporate and neo-liberal ‘progressive’ world of Marvel comics.

In Civil War #2 there are two sides. One side (Iron Man’s Red) is about safety, control, totalitarianism really, but wrapped up in the need for order, for safety, to put the people in a giant spy drone, surveillance state prison for their own good. On the other side (Captain America’s Blue) there are two rules: 1- Hurt no one. 2- Help when you can.

Here’s the scary thing about it. The Red side looks a lot like collectivist, centralised government, neo-liberal western democracy as it stands today, and the Blue looks a lot like anarchy, or a society structured around individualism, morality and mutual self respect.

That makes Captain America an anarchist, and Iron Man a contemporary political leader, pick a party it doesn’t matter, they are all pretty much the same in the west today.

Is that not a fascinating concept to explore in a contemporary comic book coming out of a declining western civilisation that is falling into governmental tyranny and lawlessness, with perpetual wars for resources and control, whilst encroaching on the civil liberties of it’s own people?

Civil War is a comic book that is actually saying something about the state of the world as it is today. Do you know how rare that is in a mainstream comic book? It’s like finding a nugget of gold in an ocean of s***.

Added to that is a plot twist that suggests that the two warring sides are being manipulated by an outside force, and you have the ‘conspiracy’ aspect that people talk about today when they discuss groups like the illuminati.

These ideas are coming from the (obviously far more switched on than I’d previously thought) mind of writer Charles Soule, and are brought to life by the gritty, grainy pencils of Leinil Francis Yu.

The art also features washed out colouring, and deep, heavy black inking, adding drab, dusty realism to the narrative, and a sense of dry, dirty realism that forces the reader to take the narrative seriously, and not just treat it as another bit of comic book puns and powers fluff.

It’s only two issues in, but this book really has me hooked now. It has Spiderman in it, and he’s talking like an adult. There are no quips, puns and self-aware ‘cool’ moments either. I’m not going to go over the top on it as of yet, as mainstream comic books have burned me so many times in the past, hinting at a bit of truth telling then going back into their corporate, careerist shell, but this book really does stand out as something a bit better than the usual mainstream superhero fare.

I don’t know why people aren’t talking about it, but Civil War is a very intriguing book, there’s a lot going on, it’s touching real world concerns and it’s the only mainstream superhero comic book that is really exciting me at the moment. If you haven’t read it, give it a go. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. I was, and I’m already looking forward to next month’s instalment. Me looking forward to a mainstream comic book coming out??? Do you know how rare that is these days? Thank you Charles Soule, top work here mate, top work.



Rating: 9/10 (Far better than I ever thought that it could be.)