Civil War II #6 Review: A Talky Little Interlude

After the giant brawl last month, this issues slows way down to catch its breath, letting the heroes sort through the latest twist on predictive justice.

Civil War II #5 (of 8)
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by David Marquez
Colors by Justin Ponsor
Published by Marvel Comics

Say what you will about the value of this story as a line-wide summer event, the main miniseries has actually been solid. Brian Michael Bendis’s elegant pacing has made one major story beat each issue and escaped his reputation of time-filling conversation issues. But not this month.

At the end of last month’s hero-on-hero melee, Ulysses showed everyone that the new Spider-Man would stand over Captain America’s body on the steps of the US Capitol. This issue, Captain Marvel tries to detain the kid, Iron Man argues against it, and Captain America himself casts the tie-breaker vote to let Miles go home. Each side of the battle retreats, with Black Panther defecting to the anti-prediction camp.

And that’s pretty much it.

This is the first issue of Civil War II to miss the mark. We used to get punches like Hawkeye Kills The Hulk! and Iron Man Kidnaps An Inhuman! But this time, the most exciting moment might be Captain America comforting a scared kid. It’s not awful. Bendis dialogue always reads well. And it served well in the issue about Hawkeye’s trial. But the book’s almost done, and this issue didn’t feel like a move toward the finale the way each previous one did.

The arguments the heroes make are sound, don’t get me wrong, but they’ve been made with better depth in the tie-in books. Like I said last month, this story would have made a fine Avengers crossover with a  couple of connected books, but as a summer event, it’s just not holding up, and this month, the main title itself suffers.

The Bottom Line:

Civil War II is still a pretty good book, but this isn’t a great chapter in it.