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Marvel Comics Number of pages: 208 Language: English (Original Language) Language: English (Unknown) Language: English (Published)

RRP: £10.99
Frontline: the scribes of Civil War
Review date: 2008-11-30 Rating: 6 out of 10

There's a saying along the lines of history belonging to the victors. In this imagining, what with various reporters on the ground (Ben Ulrich, Sally Flynn, et al), that isn't necessarily the case. The reporters are on the front-line, literally capturing everything that's going on, and having some bad moments along the way. In addition, this comic attempts to ground Marvel's civil war alongside various civil wars in history, and doesn't flinch from actually 'going there' in terms of government ideas that seemed brilliant in its first flush, only to be damned in the annals of history. Like, the prison camps for Japanese Americans in World War II, or showing how Superheroes going against each other is like the Blue and the Grey of the American Civil War, when brother was against brother.

There's also some sort of over stretching the metaphor, when they compare Tony Stark's plan of attack and relentless battles against his fellow superheroes to that of Julius Caesar. There's the bit of Latin, to give the book a weighting, the notion that Stark has put in motion forces bigger than even he- extremis logic fed - can comprehend.

I'd only recommend this work if you've read the main version of civil war, because it doesn't stand on its own that much.