He'd been planning Secret Invasion since the beginning of his New Avengers run. That at least was obvious given all the conspiracy stuff that was going on early in the book before it got set aside for Civil War. He'd always planned for Spider-Woman to be a skrull and has said that he often reconsidered when he saw how appreciative Jessica Drew fans were that he'd properly brought her back after years in the wilderness. It's also worth noting he only planned Secret Invasion to be an arc in the New Avengers after a while Marvel loved the idea and made him do it as a line wide event. That in itself might have affected who was a a Skrull during that time.
As for Secret Empire, I don't think it was a factor when he first planned Civil War II (originally it was supposed to be Iron Man vs Sam-Captain America event) but I think definitely was factored in to the writing once that story was underway.
Back on subject of the event, Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo was necessary in some regards. It was necessary for Marvel to have something tie into the then Civil War movie, it was necessary in setting up future books, and necessary for pushing the universe in the direction they wanted for then future.
However, that doesn't make it any good. While beautiful (RIP colorist), it's a poorly thoughtout book that makes all of its characters jerks and morons, makes little sense from a continuity perspective, is padded to hell at times, and the ending is just embarrassing where they shuffle off their plot device out of the blue for no good reason.
Probably what hurts most is two factors:
1. Its not much of a war, is it? Like two clashes between heroes, one that is incredibly poorly written and the other that's only 2 people
2. The book barely is able to stand on it's own. If you notice, the book has a lot of its plot points resolved or dropped for other books to pick up. Jessica Jones, Immortal Hulk, She-Hulk, Captain America, Inhumans, Iron Man, Occupy Avengers, and more. The book feels too much like a launch board for other titles that the main feature feels hollow since it only ever resolves one or two points to its story. I get event comics launching books but never to the point where the damn event is weaker and worse because of it.
So yeah, the event was necessary for it's time because it was a device to make money and push things in a direction Marvel wanted. Beyond that, it was garbage. Its why I always give this comic a stupid subtitle, because Civil War 2: The Quickening is just bad and does the bare minimum of what the company wants.
Opinions may vary in quality.
My big article on Mariko Tamaki's Hulk & She-Hulk runs, discussing the good, bad, and its creation.
My second big article on She-Hulk, discussing Jason Aaron's focus on her in Avengers #20.
Waht I think would have been a decent 'Civil War' premise is one group of heroes deciding to use a plot devise to make a literal, 'better world'.
Say, trying to combine a cosmic cube and the time stone to make the world better
Interesting.
Marvel really has a tendency for over-inflating a storyline that was intended to just be an arc into a whole event. Has that ever ended well?
I think it definitely effected some of the scenes with Carol.As for Secret Empire, I don't think it was a factor when he first planned Civil War II (originally it was supposed to be Iron Man vs Sam-Captain America event) but I think definitely was factored in to the writing once that story was underway.
There were also no real consequences to the actual fight beyond the Miles/Tony/Carol thing. Tony's side got to take someone from government custody and fight government officials (Carol's side) with no comeuppance whatsoever even though they were technically committing several crimes as a result.
I think the parody comic (which is absolutely glorious and should be ready by everyone) even pointed this out.
I still call b/s. The being had not been self aware long enough to truly know what life is. At most he had the equivalent of rote knowledge, with very little contributed by subjective experiences. The only thing he was "worthy" of was the favorable writer's pen. If that's the case, Bill Foster was worthy of Mjolnir, but you don't see them bending over backwards narratively to make that happen, do you?
Tony got beaten into a coma and taken out of play for several months in-universe, almost two years in real life, and depending on how you interpret the leadup to Iron Man 2020 . . . he might never have actually woken up from that coma. I think that's plenty comeuppance.
The spider is always on the hunt.
I don’t know. Death of Hulk, death of Tony Stark, death of Rhody. Maybe those were necessary, but in one form or another they are all 3 back. The only thing I think was necessary was the origin of Ulysses, a new Cosmic Being, like Kobik, Phantom Mask, and Singularity. If these characters turn out to flush the 616 characters out of the ANAD, then CWII becomes an important event.
No, the story sucked and turned Captain Marvel into a hate magnet unnecessarily. Female characters typically don't get away with the same boneheaded mistakes male characters do so having her be "The Tony" of this story was a misfire anyone could've seen coming.
Even when it was first announced pretty much everyone predicted how off the rails it was going to end up being.
I mean, it had so much going against it:
1) The stigma of the original Civil War storyline.
2) Bendis' issues writing event stories.
3) The fact that Carol was facing off against Tony who Marvel was, at the time, touting as their new flagship hero written by Bendis himself. Not to mention she was put in charge of the obvious "wrong" side.
4) The promotional and marketing basically revealed the shock value deaths.
5) People being tired of Hero vs Hero events.
6) Forced movie synergy.
Point.
This, especially the first part of your second sentence.
All of this, especially number 3. It's almost like someone in a position of influence or power over how the story was executed wanted to set Carol up for a big fall.
The spider is always on the hunt.
How have we managed to go seven pages without mentioning the Champions, whose origin was a result of Civil War II. Kamala wasn't pleased to see Iron Man vs Captain Marvel, she described it as like watching her parents divorce, as those two were her mentors.Yeah, the Champions' origin appeared to be straight after Secret Wars instead.
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