Worst of 2006: Twist
There’s nothing better than flipping open a page in the latest funny book and seeing a great surprise, a complete shock that’s both fulfilling and opens the door to a whole new realm of possibilities. Below are what we considered to be the exact opposite of that. And, kudos to Marvel, their Mega Event brought the most vitriolic unity we’ve seen since Bruce Jones.
Thor is a clone, Civil War #4
“After two months of waiting on one of the best cliffhangers of the year, it turns out the Thor that returned on the last page of Civil War #3 wasn’t actually Thor, but a clone of Thor programmed by Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic to murder people. Ignoring the logistics of cloning a god and programming a clone (who’s a cyborg now, I believe) and re-creating Mjolnir, that’s just an enormous cop-out. And so the downward spiral of Civil War begins.”
— Fin Fang Doom
Fantastic Four no more, Civil War #4
“This was right up there on the list of my least favorite issues of last year. And while there was lots to hate, I just couldn’t get past the manner in which Sue defected from Reed, her family and her team. It was classlessly handled, and only came about as the result of every character in the Marvel U suddenly and drastically changing in character.”
— Jean-Claude Van Doom
Spider-Man’s big reveal, Civil War #2
“It wasn’t until later that I read the issues of “Amazing Spider-Man” where they tried to justify his de-masking for Civil War, but it made a bit of sense. Not much, but a bit. Anyway, the first time I saw it happen, on the last page of that issue of Civil War, whichever issue it was, I was quite angry. It seemed totally out of character. I still don’t agree with it, at all.”
— Doom DeLuise
I really don’t see why everyone’s so bent out of shape about the Thor thing. As a lame twist, sure, I’ll give you that, but with all the stuff that “scientists” do in the Marvel Universe, is making a really strong cyborg / clone who has a hammer that can shoot lightning really that far outside of the realm of possibility? It’s not like fake Thor beat real Thor in a fight or anything. He’s just big and bad and has a hammer that shoots lightning.
I just took it as a metaphor for the pro-registration side putting total faith in their rigidity and structure (in opposition to the anti-registration side’s relative chaos) and seeing that even that can have unpredictable and damaging results.
My only problem with it was that it seemed like something totally out of character for Tony (sort of) and Reed (completely) to do. I mean, this is pretty much the biggest disgrace ever to the memory of one of their oldest teammates and friends.
They could’ve just as easily created some big tough cyborg with lightning powers that wasn’t made to look like Thor, and saved the disgracing. So, the only reason it was done was to set up a fake twist and sell books. And when the intent behind something inside the story is so obviously tied into marketing, it leaves the actual event feeling hollow.
All that said, I wasn’t terribly mad at that. But the FF thing really, really bugged me.
Well it also had the psychological effect of letting the opposition think that Thor was back and he was on the government’s side. We’ve seen people give up because the odds seemed too stacked against them; that could feasibly be a powerful tool.
As someone who has probably never read a single issue of Fantastic Four, the Sue thing didn’t bother me because I had no idea how she usually acts. So I guess I was saved that disgrace by way of ignorance.
That’s a good point on the Thor thing. It probably mentioned it in the book and I forgot. And I suppose the continuing ethos of Civil War is “desperate times call for desperate measures.”