A Classic Marvel Hero Dies By Another's Hand, As "Civil War II" Gets Complicated

[jackolover]

Well Barton killing Banner was pretty obvious and I would have been able to live with that if it would have had happened in a fight seeing as he does kill when necessary. The whole New Avengers Team had to kill their opponents back then and he was the one who at least admitted that he really doesn't like that he has to do that.

So yeah, Hawkeye killing the HULK after leaping away from a Smash Attack releasing the Arrow at point blank in the monsters face. That would have been okay, it probably also would have made for some seriously epic art.

But this? I mean I haven't read the issue itself yet so I will refrain judgement for now but it looks like this is the first time even I have problem with Bendis and that is coming from someone who loved the whole Dissassembled, House of M an Secret Invasion Stuff.

Yeah. It's got to be serious enough that when the people of the MU look at that killing, they say it wasn't neccesary, or there shouldn't have been a kill shot involved in the take down, because now we have the Fallen, and the Accused, titles from issue #3.

[Pete26]

Very sad to read this, being 55 and a long time Marvel fan, what Bendis has done to these characters is a complete travesty.

[buckwhizzle]

This sounds like The Minority Report.The Avengers(with their precog Ulysses) go around killing people before they do any harm?Nice.

[Yaniv Avizrats]

the best thing to ever happen to Tony Stark is the original Civil War. His actions were debatably wrong but it actually made comic readers care about this character. Likewise all the gunk that was done to Scarlet Witch galvanized fans into supporting the character as a reaction to her "mistreatment". There's little doubt in my mind she wouldn't have an ongoing right now if not for that.

I disagree. Esp. about Tony. After Civil War, being Iron Man fan was considered to be embarrassing. He was chosen in numerous places to be "Marvel biggest Villain". Even Pro-Reg voices eschewed him and he was jobbing to all comic book characters for months with no one disliking it and many calling for Banner to kill him in World War Hulk.

What saved Tony Stark is just one name - Robert Downey Junior.

And the reason for Scarlet Witch popularity spike is the movies as well, even though she was never unpopular. Not even after AD.

[Overhazard]

Bendis ignoring continuity and doing whatever he wants again, nothing new here. Blah.

[twobit]

God I miss the days of Busiek and Perez's Avengers, Waid's Cap, Bruebaker's Cap, JMS's Thor, Pre OMD Spidey...This makes me sad and just burnt out on comics.

[Jedibanner]

In some sad ways...I almost expected my favorite character to die...just hoped it wouldn't happened. I admit, this new Civil War II is taking shape in a much different way than the first one which is great. Each issues brings a new tone and perspective that is much, much different than the first one. But it does feel as if the ''new'' mentality of this diversity obligation is taking over Marvel right now. Out with the old, In with the new...It is part of every long standing comic character to go through a revision, ret-con, re-start, whatever you want to call it. But this...why in all the hell should I care about a teenager Hulk instead of one of the most heroic man established in the Marvel U, Bruce Banner???? Now that he is dead...this event brings less enthusiasm because I'm no longer intrigued with what Hulk would do in this event...especially since he didn't have a bone to pic in this fight and yet he dies.

Now I always love Bendis and I do support his writting. I think he gets a bad rap for ''not caring'' or ''disregarding'' a character's history...I don't think that's true at all. In fact, I think he always brings back the core of specific characters back to life. There is still more issues left with the story of Civil War II but, now my interest has been cut by 90%. I just hope Mr. Bendis finds a good way to make the story and the impact of Bruce Banner's death important and above all else, interesting.

[SilverSurferUk]

I always dislike it when writers have to resort to killing off a major character in order to create a good story. What happens when they run out of characters to kill? Does anybody doubt that this death is temporary, for no other reason than I'm sure Mark Ruffallo will still be playing the Hulk; he's too good at it to consider replacing him or writing him out. This "death" also says something about the transient nature of today's comics, with reboots and re-starts every six motnhs or so, and to hell with those fans who have invested years in following the development of their favourite characters. Bendis is an effective writer, without a doubt, but he's also very commercially minded. Isn't this the man who brought Spider-Man and Wolverine into the Avengers, despite their obvious unsuitability for membership.

[Leach]

This was so dumb and so obvious sadly. I mean the death happens and I have not had indication the character cousin was even in or mentioned in the issue. #Fail Marvel

I feel terrible for you man. You are entirely too distraught over the status of She-Hulk. You may need to step away for a while and come back in October when this event is finished.

[SeanBansheeCassidy]

Obvious as day Carol and the change the future lot was gunna f shit up. Shame Hawkeye had to actually do the deed.

[Anonymousmc]

Marvel must be doing something right because this event is still selling, however, I am not convinced that Marvel is pushing any kind of real diversity via this event. Look at their staff, the majority of its creators are still white males. They may think making the Hulk Asian or Iron Man a black teenage girl is pushing for diversity but they couldn't be more wrong. If they wanted to push for more "diversity" they should have had a black women writing Iron Man (Tony Stark or otherwise). They are still dollar sign chasing more than anything else by killing off established characters in their cross over events.

[ZephyrSurf]

Also really not feeling this whole divide of things.

You've got tony on one side becoming more and more erratic when he could be rational and this could have been squashed in no time flat.

Then you've got carol who's really done nothing particularly bad, but is placed in situations out of her control that make tony even more erratic and blame being shoveled on her when she doesn't actually do anything.

And then you got people bendis hates getting bendis treatment cause he's bendis and he does these things to those folks.

[MarvelMaster616]

Having just read the issue, I thought the death was handled fairly well. However, I don't think it had the same impact as major deaths in other events, mainly because Banner hasn't been that active as the Hulk lately. His death was kind of muted in that respect, especially since Amadeus Cho has proven to be a pretty solid replacement. But this certainly raises the stakes of Civil War II. It definitely adds the kind of dramatic upheaval that helped make the first one so memorable. So while I know deaths don't stick in comics, I think this one was handled fairly well. I'm sure that's a minority opinion these days, but I like what I'm seeing from Civil War II thus far. If it can finish strong like Secret Wars, then Marvel will officially have a winning streak going in my book.

[WayneLW]

Okay, I have a serious question here –

Can anybody explain to me where, exactly, Hawkeye shot Banner?

Because, to me, the art is completely unclear. On the death page, in the second panel, it isn't clear. There's a lot of "spray" around where Banner's head would be, but the arrow isn't visible. Then, in the fourth panel, the arrow looks like it has pierced Banner's torso. Finally, when the body is on the ground, in the fifth panel, there is blood dripping from Banner's head, and in the sixth panel, there seems to be an arrow protruding from Banner's head. Did Hawkeye use two arrows?

[Cmbmool]

That is not completely unlikely but I'd wager he would hate that. Not feeling at least a bit guilt now would be even more out of character for him than killing Banner?

Now I didn't say that Clint would feel guilty for his actions, but what I'm saying is that the general public and the government maybe throwing a party in his honor for his actions.