8 Terrible Comic Book Events Marvel And DC Wish You'd Forget

3. Civil War II

civil war 2
Marvel Comics

Despite forming the skeleton for the stellar Captain America: Civil War, Mark Millar's 2006 comic really wasn't all that special. It was commendable for its dissection of post-9/11 politics, as well as its analysis of the relationship between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, but the book itself felt extremely contrived, and not at all as convincing as its big screen adaptation.

Because Civil War was getting a live action adaption, Marvel saw fit to make a sequel. Civil War II, written by Brian Bendis, explores a Minority Report style premise where a new Inhuman, called Ulysses, possesses precognitive abilities - so much so that he can predict when major earth-ending crimes are about to happen. Carol Danvers believes that the character should be used to stop crime before it happens, whereas Tony urges his allies to exercise caution, seeing as how the guy popped out of nowhere and all.

The logic, however, stops there. Captain Marvel assembles a peewee-sized team to take on Thanos after seeing one of Ulysses' predictions and characters are subsequently killed off as a result, and Iron Man - incensed at how colleagues jumped into the situation - genuinely kidnaps the new Inhuman (who is also a child by the way) and goes to war with his friends.

The conflict feels fabricated and the heroes feel even dumber than their OG Civil War incarnations. Character deaths occur for shock value and little else, and Carol Danvers gets an absolutely woeful part in the book.

The debate's silly, the situation's contrived, and the conflict's pointless. At least the art's pretty, though.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.