Marvel Comics' Civil War vs. DC Comics' 52

These days Marvel and DC Comics' big events are a big part of the comic book world. Any time one of the big two companies has a big event it immediately becomes the top story. I don't normally buy into the big events because they almost always force you to buy more comics than you normally would buy. But I was in the midst of a comic craze when Marvel and DC released their most recent big events and decided to follow them. So which one is better Marvel Comics' Civil War or DC Comics' 52?

Normally comparing one book to another would have a lot to do with the writers and artists involved but that isn't the case with these two books. Both companies brought out the big guns for these events and you can't really go wrong with Marvel's Mark Millar and Steve McNiven or DC's Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka, Mark Waid, and Keith Giffen. Both events look very good and are well written. If you take any issue of both series and sit down and read it like a normal comic then they are both enjoyable.

But this isn't just any comic; these are huge events that have endlessly been hyped for a long time now. In order for these comics to be worth the hype they have to seem very important, something major has to go down in order for it to seem like the big event that they are supposed to be. That is why in this fan boy's eyes Marvel Comics' Civil War was a success and so far DC Comics' 52 has been a failure. In order to explain my thoughts there may be some spoilers so don't read on if you don't want anything spoiled.

In Marvel's Civil War there is something major happening. A Superhuman Registration Act has been passed and superheroes must register their secret identities to the government. Due to the new registration act every hero is forced to decide which side they are on. Are they for the registration act or against it? The story literally affects every single super hero in the Marvel Universe. That's a pretty big deal.

Meanwhile in DC's 52 nothing earth shattering is going on. So far 52 is made up of a bunch of individual stories about different characters. A lot of these stories are not related to the other stories in any way and while the stories are good there is nothing major really happening, it just seems like another comic.

In Civil War we also get some shocking moments when we see lifetime friends Captain American and Iron Man face off with each other, when Thor seemingly returns and kills Goliath (though we later find it's just a clone) and when the pro-registration side enlists villains on their side. Another shocking moment in Civil War is also a pretty historic moment when Spiderman reveals to the world that his secret identity is Peter Parker. Nothing going on in 52 is anywhere close to as important as any of these events. Ok so a couple of minor characters were killed and I was interested in Supernova's secret identity for a while but really nothing shocking has happened at all.

Civil War is also helped by the fact that their A list characters are front and center. Don't get me wrong, I like that 52 includes more minor characters than Civil War. I'd rather read a comic book about Deadpool than read the 37th book that month about Wolverine. Give me Booster Gold and Blue Beetle over Batman and Superman any day, but if you're going to have a big event that is truly big it's very difficult to make it seem that way without your heavy hitters. In Civil War the story pretty much centers on Captain America, Iron Man and Spiderman. Sure I'd love it if Civil War centered on some of my favorite characters like Deadpool, Havok and Multiple Man but would Civil War be a big deal if it was centered on those guys? No.

In 52 Superman, Batman, Flash and Wonder Woman are nowhere to be seen, Green Lantern only makes a few brief appearances, even characters like Green Arrow, Nightwing and Robin have been in 52 for only a few brief scenes so far. I love some of the characters in 52, especially Booster Gold and Steel, but it just doesn't seem like a big deal without the A list characters. Maybe 52 is an attempt to make these minor characters more major but I don't think the way to make them major is to have them on their own. The way to make these characters seem like bigger characters is to have them play off of characters that are already the top dogs.

So for me Civil War has easily been the better of two events. I know a lot of people complain about Civil War coming out late but I liked it so I don't really care if it's late. 52 has been on time every week and that's impressive, but I kind of feel like I've wasted my time reading it. Instead of taking all these stories and combining them into a big event I don't know why they didn't just tell Booster Gold's story in a Booster Gold comic, Steel's story in a Steel comic and so on.

52 still has eleven weeks to go and maybe it will get better. Maybe the stories will tie together more, maybe something shocking will happen, and maybe one of the big guns will show up but even if the last eleven weeks are great I don't think it will make up for the fact that the first forty-one weeks nothing really happened.