My last blog post on here detailed my anticipations and fears for Captain America: Civil War. While the movie did not stick to the Civil War plot as I understood it in that post, there was a superhero civil war in it and I was satisfied with the movie overall. It had a good action:plot ratio and the introduction of the newest Superheroes to our Marvel-verse, Black Panther and Spider-man, were spot on and make me excited for their standalone movies. (Though Spiderman: Homecoming may already be part of the Marvel Studios white-washing problem [ addressed in more detail: here, here, and here). P.S. Spoilers follow
Rather than revolve around a superhero registration act, requiring super heroes to “unmask” and work for the government in their crime-fightin’ capacity, it revolved around how and when the Avengers should be deployed. According to accords as we know them, which is not as well explained in the movie as I would like in order to choose “a side”, basically if you are part of the “Avengers,” as we have seen them in previous movies and if you sign the accords you are deployed as needed as defined by a UN subcommittee. If you do not sign, you are a global vigilante whenever you decide to step in and stop crises. Interesting discussion. How would we delegate power to control super-humans? And how would we deal with the fact that the majority of this team are US citizens that believe they are acting in the world’s interests.
This would all be fine if that ice-blast from the past, the Winter Soldier, hadn’t stepped in. (P.S. I <3 Stucky) Captain America politely refused to sign the accords and could fight crime within the US. That was until Bucky Barnes had to be involved and as we saw early in the movie, you so much as mention Benjamin Barnes and it’s kryptonite to Cap’s focus. Because of this, the specifics of the accords take a back seat to a discussion about love and friendship, the ties we create in life and how those endure into the future. The movie revolves around the fact that Cap makes bad decisions because he’s still in love with the past, which is slowly dying with each minute. The passing of Peggy Carter in the film demonstrates how the world that Cap grew up in no longer exists outside his mind and while we feel like he’s been around for a long time it’s been a few years since he’s thawed. He’s still a 1940s man in a 2010s world, with as much as he can learn about the present, his life experiences are still rooted in an age that no one on the current Earth understands, except of course, Benjamin Barnes. His dedication to saving Bucky is a way for Cap to preserve parts of the world that he grew up in even though he knows that that’s impossible. If Bucky hadn’t been implicated in the plot it’s unlikely that the Civil War would have erupted.
On the other side, we also see that the legislation that spurs the accords and our villain is motivated by love. Our villain is interested in destroying the Avenger because without superhumans, we have fewer superhuman-scale disasters. While his actions are extreme, since the accords don’t want to destroy the Avengers, his works expressed the feelings that many other people had towards the Avengers. A woman approaches Tony Stark after a speech to show him her son that died because of their actions, Black Panther’s father is killed because of a bomb, planted by the villain, aimed at destroying the Avengers, and Rhodie is seriously injured because Cap is trying to protect Bucky. Not all of these actions are linked specifically to Cap’s, they demonstrate how superhumans have changed the lives of people in serious ways. “Saving the world” has serious collateral damage and sometimes individual biases/friendships/loves cloud people’s judgement.
These reactions and actions feelings circle us back to the reason for the accords. Why does one super-powered American get to decide what is best for the world? Why does their judgement get more weight than others? Why does one individual’s friendship(s) matter more than the lives of others?
