Panel Vision - Captain America: Civil War Review

Edited by Robert Beach

Something that’s been on my mind a lot lately in the endless build-up to Captain America: Civil War is how much Captain America has become the embodying ideal of the superhero. This happens sometimes when a specific superhero property explodes into the popular consciousness, transforming its title character from well-known hero to universally recognized heroic ideal. Superman in 1978, Batman in 1989, Spider-Man in 2002, and now Captain America, they all stand as the best example of the superhero in their moment in time. 

The hows and whys of that phenomenon vary from character to character, but the essential unifying factor is each of these characters embodied some necessary conflict or fantasy that spoke innately to the concerns and ideas of their time. In the case of Captain America, I think what’s elevated him to nationalistic ideal and ambassador of an entire genre to the masses is his sense of loyalty, his commitment to ideals and to people. The quiet genius of Captain America: Civil War is it takes Cap’s great strength and turns into the fracture that shatters the entire Marvel status quo. 

Static Thoughts - Animated Secret Wars

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With Ant Man hitting theaters this Friday and Marvel’s Secret Wars event still going strong across all titles I thought now would be a good time to take a look at a very strange collision of those two popular trends.  It turns out that the recent films aren’t actually Marvel’s first attempt at a shared universe of material.  The first time Marvel tried the idea was in their massive stable of animated shows that ran across the 1990s.  The universe started with X-Men in 1992 and found another major success with 1994’s Spider-man.  From there it branched out to include animated version of Iron Man, Hulk, The Fantastic Four, and Silver Surfer.