Civil War #4.

This was far worse than anything that happened in Infinite Crisis. Worse than Max Lord suddenly revealed as a sinister shadow puppetmaster. Worse than Superboy-Prime's bloody swathe through the C-leaguers. Even worse than Identity Crisis' no-balls finale. It's so bad, that I want to think that it's a fastball set-up for an eleventh-hour switcheroo. You know, bad on purpose.

Part of the problem with Civil War - aside from Marvel delaying the series just so they can squeeze in more crossovers for you to buy - is that it has proven that Marvel can't do big events in this DC style. DC knows how to tell a core story but leave "danglers" that draw you into other books, if you choose. If you don't, you still get the core story. You just miss out on sidebar stuff. Marvel turns the danglers into absolute necessities. There is nothing in issues 2 through 4 that explains why Wasp joins with Iron Man, after her voice being one of dissent in issue 1. And the only hint as to why Spider-Man changes sides - in the series biggest surprise ending so far - is a single panel where he refers to "having a long talk" with MJ and Aunt May. Huh? In #1, he's right there talking about how he doesn't want to see his wife impaled on a metal octopus arm. Had I read three months worth of Spider-Man titles recently, maybe I would have some idea as to why he changed his view. Civil War itself makes no effort to reconcile this.

For all its bluster, Civil War is, fundamentally, a far less complicated story than Infinite Crisis. Where IC was jumping between multiple POVs all over the DCU, Civil War is pretty much just an Avengers story. Iron Man vs. Captain America. Even the usual darlings of Marvel's sales team - the X-Men - have had just about nothing to do in these first four issues. You won't hear any complaints about Civil War being inaccessible to new readers, like we had to hear over and over and over again about Infinite Crisis.

And I like complicated, so Civil War has barely registered as a true mega-event in my eyes. Most of the storyline's true depth has been found in the companion series, Civil War: Front Line, which has been the major force holding the ship upright at this point. Although Front Line has developed an irritatingly sophomoric habit of ending each issue with a pretentious adaptation of real-world wartime poetry and prose, juxtaposing scenes from WWII or Vietnam or wherever alongside shots of the two Avengers teams fighting. Please.

Civil War has exactly five different voices (again, thus far): Captain America's injured patriotism, Spider-Man's usual wise-cracking, Mr. Fantastic's super-genius drone, Iron Man's careworn stubbornness... and the fifth voice is everyone else. Entirely interchangeable except for half like Cap and half like Iron Man. There is no one else in this series, linguistically speaking.

So, about issue 4.

The Thor appearance from issue 3 was a great reveal. Thor has been "dead" for a while, so this was a perfect time to spring him on us. He's usually depicted as a major power player, so his choreographed return on Iron Man's side just as the two teams square off (again! Isn't this way too soon for the storyline? Oh, right, Civil War seems to take place over the course of about four days) was really cool.

A few pages in to #3, you have Thor acting without mercy and talking like a bad action movie star. So, something's up. Then he kills Goliath... and if you're crying about that, I have a Baxter Building to sell you. And that's only if you've actually heard of him. The only question with Goliath's appearance in Civil War from the beginning was "When is this guy going to get cacked?" Because, you know, you can't actually kill anybody important in stories like this.

But Thor was a total macguffin. Because Mr. Fantastic and Iron Man somehow cloned Thor, but found the clone uncontrollable in battle. Let's lay out what happened in the lab, one crazy weekend.

- Iron Man presents Mr. Fantastic with a strand of Thor's hair.
- Mr. Fantastic uses the DNA to create a clone, and ages that clone to maturity and physical perfection. (Oh, Rocky.)
- The clone retains Thor's abilities, which implies that the vaunted powers of the Asgardians actually comes down to genetics, not the supernatural.
- Mr. Fantastic creates a not-unreasonable facsimile of Mjolnir. This replica is powered by science, however, not magic. (Or does Thor's DNA grant power to his ancient weapon, as well?)
- Mr. Fantastic, presumably, sews up a duplicate of Thor's costume, then orders the clone to dress himself.

What a nasty, misleading bait-and-switch. At this point, as a reader, I just feel ripped off. That's how we sidestep a true return of Thor? With a barely-thought-out cloning plan? Resurrecting the body of an old friend (never mind that he's a freaking god) is just plain creepy, and does not fit with the characters of Iron Man or Mr. Fantastic. Yes, I can see Tony becoming consumed with the idea of legitimacy and public support. Yes, I can see Reed lost in the theory and science and missing the human factor. But I don't see either of them manipulating the petrie-dish double of a dead teammate. Jesus, they could have dressed up an old Doombot with a viking costume rental and it would have felt smarter than this.

You know, characters-acting-out-of-character is all over this series. Captain America shoves a largely innocent soldier out of a moving truck directly into oncoming traffic. Invisible Woman goes underground and leaves her kids. Spider-Man gives up on years of his belief in the importance of a secret identity. It's like Civil War was written specifically for people with only a passing familiarity with the Marvel Universe, at the expense of those of us who have been reading comics for decades. And yet, there are so many cool scenes that are obviously directed at fans... like Emma Frost explainng the X-Men's non-involvement.

Oh, and the idea to draft a bunch of super-villains to hunt down Captain America? Sheer fucking idiocy. You cannot trust guys like Bullseye and Venom, for crying out loud. You mean to tell me that Mr. Fantastic and Iron Man approved that?! Or are these more clones? Just when you thought it couldn't get any stupider.

I just don't see how this is all going to come together, and that's why I'm reading. That's unfortunate; I'm getting the book because I want to see if/how the utter derailment is resolved, rather than caring about the characters themselves. At the end of issue 1, I was excited. Now I no longer feel like I'm reading about the "real" heroes. It's more like an extended fan-fic with really gorgeous art.