A few Civil War trivia tidbits should tide you over before Marvel Studios’ “Phase Three” launcher opens
Two years before the Marvel Cinematic Universe began in Iron Man, Marvel Comics published Civil War, a crossover miniseries by writer Mark Millar (Kingsman: The Secret Service) and artist Steve McNiven (New Avengers) that tore the heroes apart and unintentionally vilified Tony Stark for years.
Marvel’s Civil War also spilled into its regular monthly comics and it was a massive hit with repercussions that played out for years afterwards. The story was even loosely adapted for the Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 video game. For the third Captain America movie, Marvel is once again turning to Civil War as its inspiration, even though the movie won’t be an exact translation of the comic book’s storyline.
Ahead of Captain America: Civil War’s release on May 6, ComingSoon.net has put together a few bits of Civil War trivia from both the comics and the movie. But we promise not to spoil anything about the film in this list!
Captain America: Civil War Trivia and Fun Facts: Reality Show Superheroes
The inciting incident of the Civil War comic book miniseries was the disastrous taping of a superhero reality show staring the New Warriors, a team of some younger heroes in Marvel’s comic book universe. To make a long story short, the New Warriors were too careless when attempting to catch a group of low-level villains including Nitro, who set off an explosion that killed several innocent civilians and school children.
As far as the MCU, the New Warriors don’t exist yet… and they may not ever make it to live action. Instead, Captain America: Civil War’s conflict will grow out of the actions of the Avengers, and the fallout of their previous adventures.
Captain America: Civil War Trivia and Fun Facts: Superhuman Registration Act
For the Civil War comic, Iron Man and Captain America were bitterly divided over the Superhuman Registration Act, which forced all heroes to register with the government and give up their secret identities or else they would be branded outlaws and locked away in a special prison. Iron Man was in favor of this, while Cap rebelled and led a group of Secret Avengers to oppose it.
In the Civil War movie, Cap and Iron Man will once again be on opposite sides of the argument. This time, it’s future of the Avengers that brings these heroes to blows. But it won’t be the only thing that gets in the way of Iron Man and Cap’s friendship.
Captain America: Civil War Trivia and Fun Facts: Clothes Make The Spider
The Civil War movie is bringing in Tom Holland as a teenage Spider-Man who will be a part of the MCU going forward. In the Civil War comic, Spider-Man had recently joined the Avengers and established a rapport with Tony Stark, who was a lot closer to him in age than Holland is to Downey.
Comic book Peter Parker looked at Tony Stark as a mentor, and Stark created the “Iron Spider” armor for Peter in the runup to Civil War. In the movie, it’s rumored that Stark may do something similar for the MCU’s Spider-Man, but it probably won’t be the Iron Spider suit.
Captain America: Civil War Trivia and Fun Facts: Missing in Action
The MCU’s adaptation of Civil War may have the most Marvel heroes on screen to date, but it will pale in comparison to the lineup that appeared in the comic. While the X-Men only appeared briefly in Civil War, the Fantastic Four had a large role, as did Daredevil, Iron Fist, Cloak & Dagger, Hercules, the Punisher, and even a Thor clone!
It’s doubtful that any of those heroes are gonna show up in this movie. And if The Amazing Spider-Man 2 had been a bigger success, then even Spidey would have probably been left out as well.
Captain America: Civil War Trivia and Fun Facts: The Joss Whedon Connection
Before Joss Whedon got the chance to direct the first two Avengers movies, Whedon was best known for his TV work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly. Whedon also wrote a very popular X-Men comic book called Astonishing X-Men, with artist John Cassaday. So, Whedon was in Marvel’s orbit when they were planning the first Civil War story. And according to Millar, it was Whedon who convinced Marvel to change the original ending!
In an interview with Newsarama from 2007, Millar said “We were literally sitting for a day talking about the ending and the one we were uneasily going for was some kind of compromise where the heroes were literally stopped by the crowds they should have been saving, the public yelling at them and telling them to stop. But none of us really dug this, it felt unsatisfying. And so it was a relief when Joss walked into the room for, I s*** you not, about ten minutes, heard the entire plot and nailed a bullseye.”
“He said that after seven months of fighting people would want to see a winner,” recalled Millar. “Breaking up the fight was a draw. And he was right. God bless him, he was so on the money because it was incredibly satisfying to have a clear winner and a clear loser…t was definitive and satisfying and absolutely the right call to make. His work done, Whedon donned his hat, climbed back on his horse and rode off into the sunset to help others. I’m not kidding, the bugger was there ten minutes and he solved everything.”
Captain America: Civil War Trivia and Fun Facts: Red Skull
While the Red Skull wasn’t directly involved in the Civil War comic, he played a major part in determining Captain America’s fate immediately after that story ended. Don’t count on that happening in this film. Hugo Weaving is still under contract to do two more Marvel movies as the Red Skull, but he wasn’t slated to appear in either Captain America sequel.
Given that the MCU’s Red Skull disappeared while holding the Tesseract/Cosmic Cube/Infinity Stone, it’s possible that Weaving could make his return to the role in Avengers: Infinity War. It just doesn’t seem very likely.
Captain America: Civil War Trivia and Fun Facts: Hawkeye Takes Aim
It’s not unusual for comic book movies to feature scenes that directly echo panels from the comics themselves. But we’re marking out to see that Hawkeye and Ant-Man are apparently recreating this classic moment in the Civil War trailers.
Come on, haven’t we all been waiting to see Ant-Man ride on the edge of Hawkeye’s arrow? It’s just too good of a moment to pass up!
Captain America: Civil War Trivia and Fun Facts: Sixth Time’s The Charm
Captain America stars Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson just keep crossing paths on the big screen. Civil War will be the sixth film that they have appeared together, following their MCU turns in both Avengers movies and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Outside of Marvel, Evans and Johansson shared the screen in The Perfect Score and The Nanny Diaries.
Of course, both Evans and Johansson will be back for the next two Avengers movies, so their total will be eight films together by the time that 2019 is over.
