Posted in: Comics | Tagged: adam warlock, avengers, captain america, civil war, Comics, entertainment, films, infinity war, jim starlin, Mark Millar, marvel, Marvel Studios, ron lim, steve mcniven

What Is Civil War? And What Is Infinity War?

Okay, so most readers of Bleeding Cool will be au fait with these names. Because we're all comic book geeks. But this is a total click bait article intended to pick up the more curious tapping the names into Google! Hello! Feel free to look around the place.

But for now, Marvel have announced Captain America: Civil War and The Avengers; Infinity War, both that already exist as comic books.

Civil War was a comic book series by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven that featured a bunch of Marvel comics characters.

After a superhero reality TV show went horribly wrong, civilians died. On camera, live, in their hundreds. The public reaction led to the Superhero Registration Act going through government. Where those with super powers were required to sign up with the government, and reveal their secret identities. The superhero community split down the middle and went to war with each other. Thor and Hulk were away, off planet, so the split divided between Captain America and Iron Man, with every other hero lining up on one side or the other. There were fights. Heroes died. Thor got cloned. The villains were recruited. Spider-Man revealed his identity (until it got magicked away). And in the end, Captain America surrenders to stop the fighting, and then got shot and died, replaced in the role by the Winter Soldier. For a bit.

Um, spoilers, I guess.

It was a huge success, putting on sales numbers that hadn't been seen for some time (and wouldn't again) and crossing over with every other Marvel comic book lifted their numbers to extraordinary levels as well. It was also very late and that lateness also delayed all the other Marvel comics it crossed over with.

But that's the comic. As for the Marvel Cinematic Universe? We've been told Captain America: Civil War is less about secret identities, more about government regulation. It comes down to big government and care for society vs. small government and individual responsibility. Throw in an allegory for gun rights, data protection and liberty and you will have a more political superhero film than even Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

And looks like Thor will be away for this one as well. Ragnarokking and rolling. So we will have Iron Man Vs. Captain America, no holds barred.

And what about Infinity War? Well, basically that's Thanos. The guy you saw at the very very end of Avengers, and who was behind all the shenanigans in Guardians Of The Galaxy. Big purple cosmic badass. In Thor: The Dark World and Guardians Of The Galaxy we have seen Infinity Gems, these sources of ultimate power that fit into Thanos' Infinity Gauntlet and he does bad things to the entire universe.

The comic Infinity War was published in 1992, a sequel to The Infinity Gauntlet, and created by Jim Starlin and Ron Lim. In the previous series, he used the Gauntlet to kill one in every two living beings. In War, the cosmic character Adam Warlock (whose cocoon we may have seen in Guardians) gets the Infinity Gauntlet , is tried for his worthiness while his evil self the Magus gets all power obsessed. The Fantastic Four get involved, and there's a big cosmic tussle with various  involved entities, with everyone getting doubles as well. It gets a little confusing. Magus gets the Gauntlet, Doctor Doom and Kang go it, Thanos gets his own double to fight, Warlock gets the Gauntlet back, turns it into its own entity which defeats the Magus, and ends up putting Warlock in a coma. And it all turns out to have been a Thanos trick and the comic beings declare the Infinity Gems will never be used together again.

It is unlikely that the film will follow this plot. But Thanos getting the Gauntlet together and doing big bad things with it, as a god, is pretty much a must. Maybe have Thanos get the Gauntlet together at the end of the first film and then have the Avengers somehow divest him of it in the second?

And maybe, just maybe, Adam Warlock will turn up…

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