Civil Wardrobe: 1 Shot

This one shot attempts to skewer the comic book industry during Marvel’s Civil War storyline. That controversial storyline resulted in publishing delays that angered fans,  heroes fighting heroes and more culturally noted, the death of Captain America. While this book tries to reflect the angst of fans, super heroes, and pop culture, it wasn’t a very cohesive effort.

The book starts off when some geeky friends rallying together to show their disgust at Marvel’s epic publishing delays. Then a literal bomb goes off and no more nerds. The book then shifts to the White House and a presidential edict to make super heroes and comic books more cohesive and fan friendly.

Called the “Decompression Act” the industry, notably Marvel, and is forced to publish all story arcs in 6 issue bites making for easier collection in trade paperbacks. Crossovers between titles is also forbidden. While deep down I like this idea, what happens next is completely out of left field.

Marvel is forced to retool all of their heroes in order to meet the demands of this new law of the land. For about 25 pages, we get a variety of one page spreads that both reshape and parody some of Marvel’s most popular characters. Thor, Hulk, Spider-man, even fan favorite Wolverine and the X-Men are not safe from these “changes.” Each redesign is supposed to parody the creations of the House of Ideas. Some are very funny, but most are lame. The most impressive part of this section of the book is the variety of artists used. A different artist is used for each reboot. So at least there is some variety instead of a flat leveled attempt by one single artist or group of artists looking to stick it to the man that is Marvel Comics.

I really liked the variety of art. I like the first segment of the book. I approve of some of the ideas tossed around in order to fix comics. Some of the gags are funny- most are lame. But it’s the sweeping lack of cohesion from plot point to plot point that makes this an amusing comic parody but not an instant classic like “Not Brand Ecch” or “Fred Hembreck Destroys the Marvel Universe.”

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars.