How exactly did the SHRA in Civil War even work?

[Ichijinijisanji]

See my comment about the Negative Zone.

any more inconsistencies?
and was it that the negative zone had the effect of making people depressed, or was it just inhuman conditions?

[capandkirby]

I don't recall Tony ordering Hill to arrest Steve for saying he wouldn't follow a law that wasn't passed yet. In fact, I recall him chastising her for jumping the gun. And as for the rest of your post, this occurred in books where the main agenda was making the SHRA look as bad as possible. Take the issue of the Negative Zone. In JMS' Spider-Man, it's stated that any and all dissenters will be sent there indefinitely. In the main Civil War book, it was a temporary facility until Tony could find a more humane place that was also secure. And again, I'm pretty sure N-Zone making people depressed was something they made up for the Civil War event.

Oh, I didn't say that Tony ordered Maria to shoot at Steve specifically, but I am saying that Maria calling Steve in to order him to arrest folks for a law that hadn't passed yet while Tony talked to the Avengers WAS planned. Divide and conquer, I suppose. Also, can you link me to where Tony chewed Hill out for shooting at Steve? I know Sharon did it in the Cap book, but I don't recall Tony doing it. I'm not doubting you, I'm genuinely curious to see it because I thought I had read all the tie-ins but I might be missing some.

As for making the SHRA look bad, honestly, though admittedly the Civil War Front Line series housed the worst sins committed on behalf of the SHRA, the main Civil War book didn't really need the assist. I mean, this alone did it for me (and that's not even touching on Bill Foster/Clor)...



When you recruit a team of convicted murderers and let them loose on the street against people who's only crime is not signing a piece of paper? You've lost any little smidgen of credibility/moral high-ground you might have had. It's like sending the Zodiac Killer to arrest someone who failed to show up to court for a broken headlight fix-it ticket. So the main point still stands. Tony should have had an open and honest discussion with Steve before ANY of this. Before Hill even. I would have hazard to say the minute he knew about it. He owed him that much as a co-leader of the Avengers, if not as a friend. And Steve/Luke/Jessica being hunted down, before the SHRA had passed, happened in the main Avengers title. So it wasn't as if it happened in some limited edition release just for Civil War. Anyone reading Avengers at the time got a really, super foreboding prelude of the worse atrocities to come.

Let me put it this way: you and a partner open a business where you are equal partners. A new, ethically questionable law is going to come into effect that is going to directly impact your business and directly impact your employees and their privacy information (say maybe someone wants to repeal HIPAA and force everyone to publicly divulge their medical information) but luckily you are given advanced notice of this new law. Not only advanced notice but you are put in-charge of streamlining it. Do you a) discuss this with your business partner and work together to implement the changes in the most humane manner possible, while hiring a legal team to fight the aspects of the law that are unconstitutional or do you b) build torture devices (weapons, prisons, clones) behind your partner's back then wait until the law had already passed and is causing human rights violations and anxiety and only then make the offer to talk it out? After your partner had already been shot at, in hiding, and then shot at again? Because the scene in Civil War #1 was not the only time your partner was shot at before the law went into effect, it was a pattern, i.e. Hill was channeling her inner Kraven and actively hunting Steve and where was Tony this entire time? You mean to tell me that SHIELD could keep finding Steve in his various hideouts but Tony Stark, the best tech guy to ever tech, couldn't in order to talk it out with Steve before Tony started throwing people in the Negative Zone?...



I'm not saying Tony is the most evil character ever. Believe it or not I like Tony. But he completely bumbled how he handled this situation. I'm very firm in this. Or rather, if it makes you feel better, the writers made Tony, a character with no agency and therefore at their whim, bumble the situation.

And if I'm being honest, I don't think anyone was ever supposed to 100% approve of anything the Illuminati did. I think we, as readers, were always meant to question the actions of a group of non-elected, billionaire men (not a single woman in sight) who took it upon themselves to make decisions for everybody. Just like people blame everything wrong with the world on the Illuminati and/or the Freemasons and/or the freakin Knights Templar (lol), in real life. They're supposed to be this shadowy organization with highly questionable ethics and practices. Their actions in Civil War are no exception.

[XPac]

I don't recall Tony ordering Hill to arrest Steve for saying he wouldn't follow a law that wasn't passed yet. In fact, I recall him chastising her for jumping the gun. And as for the rest of your post, this occurred in books where the main agenda was making the SHRA look as bad as possible. Take the issue of the Negative Zone. In JMS' Spider-Man, it's stated that any and all dissenters will be sent there indefinitely. In the main Civil War book, it was a temporary facility until Tony could find a more humane place that was also secure. And again, I'm pretty sure N-Zone making people depressed was something they made up for the Civil War event.

The stories needed to make the SHRA look bad though. If it were a completely legal and reasonable law, we wouldn't have heroes opposing it in the first place. To movitate half the super hero community to fight this thing and their own government, it needed to cross certain lines.

[The Cool Thatguy]

The stories needed to make the SHRA look bad though. If it were a completely legal and reasonable law, we wouldn't have heroes opposing it in the first place. To movitate half the super hero community to fight this thing and their own government, it needed to cross certain lines.

On this I have to disagree. There are enough heroes focused on smaller issues that would have a legit fear of being able to do what they do effectively

[XPac]

On this I have to disagree. There are enough heroes focused on smaller issues that would have a legit fear of being able to do what they do effectively

Not to the degree that you can justify a big company wide event.

As it is, there's like 2 super heroes left with actual secret identities, Spider-Man and Daredevil, and the REAL DD wasn't even available for this event. With so few heroes even having secret identities in the first place, the notion of the government registering their names for accountability purposes is greatly lessened.

If you're doing a small scale story it might have been fine to water down the SHRA to something more reasonable. But if you want literally half the super hero community to stand against the law and literally fight the US government over it, it needed to cross certain lines.

[Ichijinijisanji]

Not to the degree that you can justify a big company wide event.

As it is, there's like 2 super heroes left with actual secret identities, Spider-Man and Daredevil, and the REAL DD wasn't even available for this event. With so few heroes even having secret identities in the first place, the notion of the government registering their names for accountability purposes is greatly lessened.

If you're doing a small scale story it might have been fine to water down the SHRA to something more reasonable. But if you want literally half the super hero community to stand against the law and literally fight the US government over it, it needed to cross certain lines.

it crossed almost all the lines tbh
just arresting actively practicing unregistered heroes should've been enough

[Agent Z]

any more inconsistencies?

There was the issue of whether or not SHRA simply meant you had to register your status as a superhuman (which is no different than registering your date of birth, ethnicity, etc) with the option of undergoing training if you wished to be a superhero or drafted all superhumans as government assets. The aforementioned Cloud 9 was an example of the latter while the former was done in The Loners or Ms Marvel (the Carol Danvers comics not the Kamala one).