Chrononauts, Civil War II

Chrononauts 1-4

Mark Millar churns out another movie pitch.  Two scientist bros crack the secret of time travel and proceed to break all the rules with abandon.  The butterfly effect and damage to the time-space continuum are given only the briefest of mentions, and then promptly ignored.  It’s a refreshing take on the usually strict rules that most time travellers need to follow, and allows for some glorious anachronisms.  Nothing on the order of the finest temporal mashup ever, but still tons of fun.

An instant classic in high school, an actual classic now.

This must have been an homage by Murphy.

Blissful insanity.

Which the characters completely recognize.

It’s also got a laugh out loud page-turning twist that I didn’t see coming, but often wonder about:

There are so many moments in media entertainment where the hero barely escapes death.  There’s always a part of me that wonders how the story would unfold if the bullet didn’t miss by an inch, or the hero couldn’t outrace the explosion/crumbling floor/velociraptor chasing them.  Sure, there’d be no story, but it’d be neat to see a How It Should Have Ended flash forward of how things would be different.

(Also, the best out-of-nowhere death ever:)

Getting back to the comic.  Sean Murphy has such a distinctive style, and he’s been such a good fit for everything I’ve seen him do.  I’m a fan.

The story, on the other hand, suffers from two unlikable protagonists.  Quinn and Reilly are completely unsympathetic, and while their cavalier attitudes towards the time stream are what enable such amazing imagery for us to see, they’re also what make them such douchebags.  I was rooting for them to die.

Still, I’d watch this movie.  The spectacle would be spectacular.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good

Civil War II 0-8

I’ve generally shied away from any event series that Marvel or DC put out.  They’re horrible at staying self-contained, requiring you to read a ton of tie-in issues in order to get the whole picture.  (See Civil War, Secret Invasion, etc.)  Civil War II had the extra strike of sounding stupid - heroes fighting over the morality of the Minority Report.  But I jumped at the opportunity to buy the trade at half price, especially with Brian Michael Bendis and David Marquez’s names on the cover.  (Discounted due to some minor damage on one of the corners.)

Totally worth it.  In hindsight, I would have bought this at full price.  Bendis has plenty of opportunities to flash his dialog-writing strengths, and he knows exactly how to use Marquez.  The fight scenes and emotions both explode off the page.

Bendis and Marquez are so good at Miles.

This fight was way more one-sided than it felt when I first read it.

The ethical debate shook out as I expected - Captain Marvel is terrified of the potential world-ending cataclysm that she’ll be unable to prevent, and desperately claws at the solution Ulysses bring her with his apparent precognitive abilities.  Tony Stark is understandably skeptical of arresting anyone for something they haven’t done yet, and fights back. As with the original Civil War, I found myself understanding the side that I felt was completely in the wrong.  Captain Marvel’s successful track record with Ulysses - stopping the Celestials, intercepting Thanos - spoke to how well the system could work.  It’s when she got into the sticker situations with Hulk and Miles Morales that things started going sideways. (I never bought into Tony’s argument that Carol caused the death of Rhodey.  Did he think that they wouldn’t have fought Thanos eventually?)

It ends up very much like the first Civil War - the person on the established, wrong (in my eyes) side finishes in a greater position of power, rewarded by a government less concerned about the individual than the big picture.  It’s a bit anti-climactic, but easy to look past considering how much fun everything before it was.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Good

One last time.