The Road to Civil War

For some reason, the university bookstore has begun carrying some Marvel trades, so I picked up The Road to Civil War since they're charging something close to the exchange rate. The US price is $14.99 and the Canadian cover price is $24. You know what the price SHOULD be? $17.65. The bookstore was charging a buck more than that. I really hate comic and book publishers for that mark-up. It's not like shipping costs should be relatively similar considering NAFTA or anything. And, I mean, living in Windsor, Ontario, which is right next to Detroit, you can't exactly say that trucks have to travel further to reach me than other parts of the US. It just pisses me off. DC is better, usually, but still not quite as good. Marvel, though, is fucking horrible about Canadian prices.

Anyway, I also figured I'd get it since I'll end up getting the Civil War trade when it comes out. And I wanted to give New Avengers: Illuminati a read.

Illuminati was decent. I really like the idea of the group. The discussions were a little too Namor/Iron Man centric. And I never really got a sense as to why it's THESE people involved. Hell, it seems like Namor is thrown in just so you can have the resident asshole--what, was Quicksilver busy?

I felt it was a little rushed, as well. Too much crammed in. It would have benefitted from more pages or more issues. I guess that's what the current mini-series is for, but even here--it seemed too much like a lead-in to Civil War then it should have been.

The other issues included, two from Fantastic Four and three from Amazing Spider-Man all bothered me for nit-picky reasons. Like a conversation featuring a couple dozen words between Reed and Ben taking a minute and a half. Or the blatant lines/speeches ripped from The West Wing in the Spider-Man issues. That could be purposeful given the nature of the story, but it just made me roll my eyes.

And, I'm sorry, but the inclusion of the FF issues IS just a cheap fake-out on Marvel's part, okay? It gets everyone thinking Thor is coming back and then it's a clone/cyborg/robot/clusterfuck.

But, you know what? I realised Civil War did its job with me: I'm buying more Marvel titles now than ever before, mostly titles relating to Civil War in some way: New Avengers, Mighty Avengers, Punisher War Journal, Thunderbolts and Immortal Iron Fist. To be fair, three of those books I'm buying because of the writers (Fraction and Ellis), but the two Avengers books?

Let's be honest, the only reason why I didn't buy Civil War itself is because I think Millar's writing is ass most of the time. But, I'll get the trade for the same reason why I'll get Infinite Crisis' trade. Because, in my heart of hearts, I'm a fanboy who wants to see the big stuff happen. Huh.