Comic: Age of Ultron 1

[SpacePaladin]

I was listening to this in the background, but when I overheard Amazons fighting Latveria, Hippolyta is a major character and Ares being a major antagonist, I was wondering "wait, did they have a DC crossover when I wasn't paying attention?"

[JM24]

"It's okay to take a book by its merits, but with Age of Ultron it's so dam hard to find any" .
I'm happy to see this, "event" finally get the frank analysis that it deserves instead of more undeserved nonsensical praise, (who'd of thought he'd beat Linkara too it?). At least in the .M.C.U. film, (say what you like about it) we got to see him.

Hearing that he's trying to get back into Marvel comics again, ([sarcasm] Great timing there sir, you have sooo much to look forward to[/sarcasm]) momentarily made me tempted to patreon request either: Invincible Ironman No.8 or .J.J.'s current Spiderman run, (especially as something tells me hat man won't be covering them).

[Deledrius]

Chuck, I don't want to be pendatic, but since your butcher the name of one my favorite Marvel character: It Taskmaster not Targetmaster.

Thank you. Glad I'm not the only one who was finding that annoying.

Being completely in the dark, I had no idea. They both sound like equally likely names for a C/D-List hero.

If there’s any more comics reviews, could we get some dates, please? Especially here with references to old issues, I’ve no idea when this story appeared, or when Avengers issue 56 was published, that sort of thing.

Yes, please. I was thinking this too, just a cursory mention for the tentpoles would be enough. Sometimes even the wikipedia pages leave this out; often the thing I'm trying to find out is when a character first appeared but it only mentions titles and no dates and I have to manually look that up (and hope I got the right one, even though comics are notorious for recycling titles and issue numbers). It's got to be one of those expert blindspots, because as an outsider it's consistently the thing I'm most looking for and least often am able to find at a glance.

P.s. is the url tag broken?

Sadly, yes.

"It's okay to take a book by its merits, but with Age of Ultron it's so dam hard to find any" .
I'm happy to see this, "event" finally get the frank analysis that it deserves instead of more undeserved nonsensical praise, (who'd of thought he'd beat Linkara too it?). At least in the .M.C.U. film, (say what you like about it) we got to see him.

Very true, although it does somewhat amuse me to find out that the movie only barely managed to be more coherent. Now that I see what the source material was, I guess the film was almost entirely made up from whole cloth. At least the one-shots here tried to find the emotional center of the story, which is more than I can say for the lifeless events of the movie.

[clearspira]

So speaking of "leotard up her buttcrack" Carol Danvers and "mans haircut" Carol Danvers, which is your favourite?

Personally I am with the former but not for the obvious reasons because, frankly, I have the internet. I don't need comics to look at butts anymore. But my main introduction to "man hair" Carol Danvers was Civil War 2, and her personality stank. Was I meant to be on her side and not Tony's? Because I wasn't. Where was the chirpy, cool, compassionate Carol that I used to read about?

PS Can anyone tell me if they ever gave an in-universe reason for this character change?

[Deledrius]

So speaking of "leotard up her buttcrack" Carol Danvers and "mans haircut" Carol Danvers, which is your favourite?

I haven't read any of the original, but I read the Captain Marvel (2014) first story last year and it was quite good. Issues #1-6, I think? She's an interesting character, and played an unusual role in that story.

[Coyote's Own]

So speaking of "leotard up her buttcrack" Carol Danvers and "mans haircut" Carol Danvers, which is your favourite?

Definitely "mans haircut" Carol.
The Captain Marvel costume design is awesome, though I prefer the mohawk effect that longer hair give her when the helmet is up.

PS Can anyone tell me if they ever gave an in-universe reason for this character change?

The Leotard costume was the Warbird costume that she still used when she went back to Ms. Marvel.
She started going by Capt. Marvel (guess Genis-Vell wasn't around. He gets touchy about it. Just ask Monica Rambeau. she had to change her superhero name twice because of him), and changed her costume to a much better one.

[Yvonmukluk]

I thought that was weird. I thought maybe it was another character I never heard of.
So what I am getting the movie was better?

The movie had even less to do with the comic the Civil War (adn both were better for it).
AoU is generally a remarkable event comic about how Sue and Logan screwed and has very little to do with Ultron (as you might have discovered by know).

[spoiler]The only really notable thing about it was that started Logan's death march, as it turns out all the time-traveling screwed up his healing factor (which means he's start suffering for Adamantium poisoning). And in the end, he dies of unrelated causes (being encased in Adamantium).
He's better now, but it did give us two-three years of All-New Wolverine staring Laura/X-23, which were very good comics.[/sblock]

I kind of hope Chuck might brake his Spider-Man aversion, for at least Spider-verse and Spider-geddon, because he's missing some very good comics and very good character (like Earth-65 Gwen).

Frankly, I think Spider-Verse and Spider-Geddon were both kinda garbage. The villains were just boring invulnerable bad guys until the writer decided they weren't, a bunch of actually interesting characters got murked for cheap drama and to shill aforementioned villains, a bunch of his pet characters were shoved into the forefront (along with Gwen, but that was him basically latching onto something that was actually good to bask in its reflected glory) and she turned out great because her creators basically ignored Slott's ideas for what she should be (he was thinking her in a red-blue-and-webs version of her ASM#122 outfit, for Pete's sake). Same with the tie-ins. Hell, the premise had been done before in the 90s cartoon and in a video game Slott wrote. Now Into The Spider-Verse shows that premise can be amazing (no pun intended) when executed well, but how it was done in the comics...wasn't. Honestly, ITSV feels like it borrows far more from Bendis' Spider-Men than Spider-Verse, and it's better for it.

Ironically when it comes to skipping Superior Spider-Man (although I see why - that's absolutely a plotline that wouldn't work if Peter was married) in Age of Ultron, that's perhaps his best appearance. I'd love to see his take on Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows by Gerry Conway & later Jody Houser. Or Silk by Robbie Thompson. Seems like a lot of Slott's ideas and characters work great if you let somebody else take the wheel. Or Black Cat by Jed MacKay.

I believe there's more comics reviews on the horizon after this. I'd kind of love to see his take on Chaos War, one of the best comics events nobody has ever heard of.

[Rodan56]

But my main introduction to "man hair" Carol Danvers was Civil War 2, and her personality stank. Was I meant to be on her side and not Tony's? Because I wasn't. Where was the chirpy, cool, compassionate Carol that I used to read about?

So what? You were on the side of the petty rich white boy who decided to enter a grudgematch with a fellow superhero because his friend died stopping an intergalactic tyrant from destroying the Earth? A grudgematch he started over the pretense of only trying people for crimes they had already committed... while committing several crimes himself and never once facing up to the consequences of those actions? Said crimes being violation of a sovereign nation's soil, assaulting a foreign leader, kidnapping, conducting scientific experiments on human subjects without consent, torture as defined by the Geneva Convention, libel against said fellow hero, claiming she ordered a murder that she did not, interfering in an ongoing criminal investigation, terrorism against a government agency's headquarters and attempted murder on both a fellow Superhero and an active United States Air Force Officer.

Screw Tony Stark, he deserved to be put into a coma. He brought all that shit on himself and has paid for exactly NONE of it. I was on Carol Danvers' side the whole way through the story, despite its repeated attempts to make me hate her despite her doing nothing wrong. In fact, if these idiots had listened to her they could've stopped Secret Empire and HydraCap easily. They should be on their knees, begging for forgiveness from her for years on end for being such short-sighted, fearful morons who know less about what profiling even is than they do about temporal physics.

So no, Civil War 2 wasn't trying to make you side with Carol. It was trying to blame her for shit she wasn't responsible for, repeatedly excused Stark for his blatant hypocrisy and bullshit, and was stupid story about blaming a powerful woman for wanting to save lives because a rich white piece of shit had a stick up his ass about it. Everyone tries to blame Carol and ignores that Tony Stark was FAR worse in that event. She did NOTHING wrong and I am adamant about this issue. If you want to even talk to me about why you didn't like CW2 because of Carol, you need to at least admit that Tony was a shitheel and the fact anyone listened to his raving pedantic bullshit hypocrisy was far worse than anything Carol did. If someone can't even admit to that, I have no interest in continuing because they are just trying to shit on Danvers for shit that wasn't her fault.

CW2 is a shit event because it is badly written, both in terms of failing to understand its subject matter and giving both sides of the argument equal weight in terms of discussion. It clearly favors Tony Stark's bullshit interpretation of Futurism in an effort to railroad Carol Danvers. And I will never forgive it for that or Bendis. The day Marvel admits to the simple fact that Carol did nothing wrong and at least writes a story that confesses to the simple fact she could've stopped HydraCap had people listened to her is a day I look forward to.

[Thebestoftherest]

But my main introduction to "man hair" Carol Danvers was Civil War 2, and her personality stank. Was I meant to be on her side and not Tony's? Because I wasn't. Where was the chirpy, cool, compassionate Carol that I used to read about?

So what? You were on the side of the petty rich white boy who decided to enter a grudgematch with a fellow superhero because his friend died stopping an intergalactic tyrant from destroying the Earth? A grudgematch he started over the pretense of only trying people for crimes they had already committed... while committing several crimes himself and never once facing up to the consequences of those actions? Said crimes being violation of a sovereign nation's soil, assaulting a foreign leader, kidnapping, conducting scientific experiments on human subjects without consent, torture as defined by the Geneva Convention, libel against said fellow hero, claiming she ordered a murder that she did not, interfering in an ongoing criminal investigation, terrorism against a government agency's headquarters and attempted murder on both a fellow Superhero and an active United States Air Force Officer.

Screw Tony Stark, he deserved to be put into a coma. He brought all that shit on himself and has paid for exactly NONE of it. I was on Carol Danvers' side the whole way through the story, despite its repeated attempts to make me hate her despite her doing nothing wrong. In fact, if these idiots had listened to her they could've stopped Secret Empire and HydraCap easily. They should be on their knees, begging for forgiveness from her for years on end for being such short-sighted, fearful morons who know less about what profiling even is than they do about temporal physics.

So no, Civil War 2 wasn't trying to make you side with Carol. It was trying to blame her for shit she wasn't responsible for, repeatedly excused Stark for his blatant hypocrisy and bullshit, and was stupid story about blaming a powerful woman for wanting to save lives because a rich white piece of shit had a stick up his ass about it. Everyone tries to blame Carol and ignores that Tony Stark was FAR worse in that event. She did NOTHING wrong and I am adamant about this issue. If you want to even talk to me about why you didn't like CW2 because of Carol, you need to at least admit that Tony was a shitheel and the fact anyone listened to his raving pedantic bullshit hypocrisy was far worse than anything Carol did. If someone can't even admit to that, I have no interest in continuing because they are just trying to shit on Danvers for shit that wasn't her fault.

CW2 is a shit event because it is badly written, both in terms of failing to understand its subject matter and giving both sides of the argument equal weight in terms of discussion. It clearly favors Tony Stark's bullshit interpretation of Futurism in an effort to railroad Carol Danvers. And I will never forgive it for that or Bendis. The day Marvel admits to the simple fact that Carol did nothing wrong and at least writes a story that confesses to the simple fact she could've stopped HydraCap had people listened to her is a day I look forward to.

Wait, I thought the plot of CW2 was Carol wanted to make the Marvel universe like minority report, and Stark didn't want people to be arrested for crimes they didn't do yet?

[Rodan56]

Wait, I thought the plot of CW2 was Carol wanted to make the Marvel universe like minority report, and Stark didn't want people to be arrested for crimes they didn't do yet?

That's the simple version everyone uses to demonize Carol and legitimize Tony's stance despite everything that happens.

The real plot is there's an Inhuman that can predict the future very accurately, every possible terrible thing that could happen. Carol decides this is an asset given how often and how frequent world ending events occur on this planet. Tony doesn't like it because he believes to future is akin to God and they should mess with it, as if there's some divine plan we can't discern and we should just react instead of prevent bad things.

The Inhuman predicts Thanos is going to steal a cosmic cube. Carol calls up as many of her friends as she can to help her stop Thanos from getting it. They succeed, but She-Hulk is badly hurt and War Machine is killed by Thanos. Naturally, Tony blames the person who volunteered to help save the planet from Thanos and not the actual mad titan who killed him. He chews out Carol over this ridiculous notion that this proves him right, despite never offering an alternative to what they should've done when they heard Thanos was coming.

He then races off to kidnap the Inhuman, tortures him under threat of physical harm in an experiment he has not consented to, all in an effort to prove himself right. Ignoring that Carol was going to perform these very tests without all the various ethical violations that basically taint whatever his results are going to be.

Another vision occurs when the heroes SAVE the Inhuman from his KIDNAPPER Tony Stark who will never be charged with the crime of kidnapping. It shows Hulk destroying New York and killing everyone. Banner has supposedly been cured of the Hulk, nothing new honestly, so they head to his secret lab thousands of miles away, specifically because since the vision takes place in New York, being on the other side of the country when they confront means they can prevent it. They find evidence that suggests he could've brought the Hulk back by accident in his fear to keep it contained. As they are detaining him, Hawkeye kills him with an arrow.

This was NOT Carol's plan and actually went against her plan. Tony accuses her anyway and does so repeatedly, even at the trial, where Carol is a witness for the Prosecution. You know, cause she arrested Clint to try to hold him accountable. Everyone blames Carol, despite the fact she had no knowledge about what is actually a plan Banner set it motion. He asked Hawkeye to use a special arrow he created to kill him if the Hulk came back. Clint was just following Banner's request. He's acquited because the civilians of the Marvel Universe hate Hulk enough to decide Barton gets a pass.

Tony's stupid bullshit experiment results come in and suggest the Inhuman's predictive abilities are only fifty percent accurate, despite all evidence to the contrary concerning that, as every prediction we see in the tie-ins is accurate to a T and always seems to come true or will come true if not prevented. So the comic's claims do not match the evidence of the overall event.

However it looks like Tony might be right when a woman accused of being a Hydra Terrorist does not have a bomb she's supposed to have. She later turns out to be an active superhero hater, just not Hydra, and commits several murders. (Both this and that story are written by Bendis by the by.) She is able to do this because Tony breaks her out and assaults the Triskelion. The goal of this terrorist attack being... I guess he wants to kidnap the Inhuman again. We never really learn what his goal is, only that it makes everyone he tricks into coming with him into a damn terrorist by proxy.

A fight ensues, the only major one in this Civil War, and another vision hits, revealing Miles Morales is going to kill Captain America. A shocking impossible prediction that couldn't possibly be true! Except all the readers who know what the fuck is up know that it is highly likely because Steve Rogers is currently a Hydra Double Agent. If Carol was allowed to investigate this vision, like she does all of these visions, to the full extent, it's likely she would've discovered this. But HydraCap gaslights everyone into letting Miles go for his own twisted agenda, basically to prevent them from digging too deep and figuring out who he is. (Spoiers this vision nearly comes to pass too, it is only changed because HydraCap prepares for it.)

This culminates in a faceoff at the Capitol Building, where Miles is trying to prove that he's not a criminal by standing at the place his future crime is going to occur. It is not a good plan. Carol manages to call off the police, but then Tony shows up wearing a suit of armor that lookes like a beefed up War Machine. I should mention Carol was in a relationship with Rhodey, so this is fucking low, even by Stark's standards. It is designed to trigger and piss her off. It is even called "The Carolbuster" because fuck Tony. This is the point I lost all sympathy for the asshole.

He then tries to kill her... and I mean tries. Missiles, electrofist punches, laser beams designed to damage her despite her energy absorbtion powers. It is literally a weapon built to KILL Carol, and despite this she keeps asking him to stand down, he refuses. Her only option is to defend herself and put the dumb rich fuck into a coma.

Everyone blames her for this... despite the fact HE attacked HER! And had been the aggressor in every aspect of this stupid war. The comics blame Carol for starting the fight, despite never throwing the first punch. In fact, she let Stark punch her several times before she even retaliated in full! She had grounds to arrest him on kidnapping charges and never did!

It is a shameless railroading of Carol by the comic. She does nothing wrong... but she's portrayed as the bad guy because Minority Report told us her position is the bad guy and we can't have a nuanced discussion about the nature of predictive justice. No, just repeat what the dumb Cruise movie that dumbed the original story's plot down said!

And that's what CW2 is! A shameless attempt by Marvel to portray Carol Danvers as a villain while claiming to do her a favor! And all the while, despite being the bad guy of this event, she never once does anything wrong! It is infuriating! Not a single person I know, besides me, bothers to talk about this issue! That Tony Stark is worse in this event... and yet Carol is in the wrong and gets called a Fascist! For what? Wanting to prevent Thanos from murdering everyone? Oh wow! So evil! She stopped an intergalactic mass murderer! But someone died during the mission! What a monster! Lock her up! Lock her up!

Marvel often calls itself the world outside our window. And in 2016 that was no more true than Civil War 2! It perfectly encapsulated a political climate where a powerful woman was decried as an inhuman monster by a rich asshole who was doing far worse in the open, but everyone ignored his crimes and focused on hers! Bravo, Marvel!