As the Marvel Universe reels from the events of the first issue, Tony Stark decides to take matters (and the law) into his own hands and declares war on the Inhumans. But not everyone agrees with Tony’s perspective and they are willing to die trying to stop him.

My criticism of the first issue of Civil War II was writer Brian Michael Bendis‘ muddling of the interesting philosophical debate at the center of this new event with the death of a major character.

This issue doesn’t help with that as Tony Stark flies off the handle driven by his grief in what amounts to an act of war. While discussions of his actions being exactly that happen, much like the concept of stopping bad from happening based on visions, the debate concerning that aspect is thin. It’s an emotional fight at the core of what could be a very interesting statement and debate within a comic.

That’s not to say the issue isn’t interesting, but again my issue is it doesn’t commit that what really makes it interesting. Things might change as a new vision is presented that should get everyone to debate the use of precognition to fight crime. We’ll see if the third issue actually pay offs on the series’ promise.

David Marquez does solid work in the art department with some cool action sequences that especially takes advantage of Medussa’s hair. Marquez has to balance and cover a hell of a lot of characters in the issue and he pulls it off leaving readers to play spot the superhero at times.

Two issues in and the series is focused too much on emotion when it’d have been much better off putting that off to focus on the debate of how to stop crime that’s the core of the series. While it covers a lot, in the end, the second issue continues to leave the event series’ debate shallow at its core.

Story: Brian Michael Bendis Art: David Marquez
Story: 7 Art: 8 Overall: 7 Recommendation: Read

Marvel Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review