Excitement for Marvel’s Civil War

Jared Krause, Editor

The long awaited trailer for Marvel Studio’s latest film, Captain America: Civil War, was revealed on Jimmy Kimmel Live and was posted on YouTube on November 24th. The video broke a Marvel record, becoming the first movie trailer to garner 61 million global views in just 24 hours, beating last year’s Avengers: Age of Ultron which had 34 million views.

The trailer was met with praise by fans, many of them finding details that the average moviegoer would not find. General Ross has finally made his reappearance from The Incredible Hulk; Bucky Barnes, or the Winter Soldier, has appeared from Captain America: The Winter Soldier; and Black Panther has made his first on-screen appearance and will appear in 2017’s Black Panther.

Robert Downey Jr. has made his return as well and has made his presence as Captain America’s adversary in this film clear. The Civil War storyline is one of the most famous comic book stories of all time: it tells the story of Captain America vs. Iron Man along with the many other superheroes in Marvel’s collection.

The overall story of why there is conflict remains generally the same. The government isn’t happy about the Avengers and other superheroes going around and helping the world outside the law and causing damage via fending off alien invaders and defeating evil robot armies. The government wants to instate a law that requires all superheroes, affiliated with the Avengers and otherwise, to take off their masks, reveal their true identities, and work for S.H.I.E.L.D. as paid agents.

Though this doesn’t have as large of an effect as it would in the comics with hundreds of fleshed out superheroes, this still creates conflict for characters such as Spiderman and Hawkeye who are not rich and famous like Tony Stark and are not comfortable with having their identities revealed and their loved ones exposed.

This creates much conflict for Steve Rogers because the government also wants to hunt down the Winter Soldier, who just so happens to be Captain America’s best friend before he was frozen in ice. This conflict drives a wedge in between the heroes as they do not all share the same mindset and must fight for what they believe in. On the side against the act to reveal all superhero identities is Captain America as the leader, the Winter Soldier, the Falcon, Hawkeye, Ant-Man, and Sharon Carter.

On the side of those for the act we have Iron Man as the leader, War Machine, Vision, Black Widow, and the mysterious Black Panther. The Hulk and Thor are not scheduled to make any official appearances but knowing Marvel, that could change in seconds. The trailer has many fans on the edge of their seats. The heroes have had their arguments and even physical confrontations before but now there is a war, someone has to win and someone has to lose.

The only hero who we don’t have anything on is Spiderman. The Marvel poster boy has yet to make any appearance in trailers or on official posters. We don’t even have pictures of the costume yet. We may have seen more of Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer than Marvel’s officially licensed Spiderman. All we truly know is that he will be played by Tom Holland.

The character was a key player in the comic storyline and everyone knows that is how he will be treated in the film. Who will Spiderman side with? Who will ultimately win the war? Fans will have to wait until May 6 2016 to find out.