Civil War: Front Line #1

Review: Excellent tie-in miniseries to what (in retrospect) was one of Marvel’s finest mega-events. Paul Jenkins is to be commended for adding both depth and poetry to a story that could have been just a series of fight scenes (like A VS X and many of the FEAR ITSELF tie-ins). And the artists are uniformly good, making the whole thing realistic and believable. “Embedded” is the meat of the miniseries, if not the entire event: both the pro (Iron Man) and anti (Captain America) are allowed to defend their positions, with Sally and Ben to point out the serious flaws in both viewpoints. Ending on such a grim note, that everyone’s motives were suspect, was a stroke of genius. Jenkins also showed us the effect of the Act on “The Accused,” using the usually cheerful and fun-loving Speedball as the subject, though transforming him into the bitter and self-punishing Penance may have taken things too far into the grim ‘n’ gritty. Here we see the erosion of civil liberties Cap was so worried about, in close-up. “Sleeper Cell,” while well-done, is a bit of an anomaly as it turns out that this storyline existed just so Norman Osborn could shoot the Atlantean ambassador, making it an overlong bit of background fluff. And the most surprising is those final glimpses of the civil war, showing how it echoes the lives, voices, and concerns of those in similar dark situations in the past. This segment brings poetry to the series, closing off each issue with something to ponder. So whatever happened to Front Line? They returned for World War Hulk and Secret Invasion and that was it. It’s a shame, they could have given us more perspective on some later events in the MU.