Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. As the Civil War crossover rages on, this week we’re looking at more of what’s been happening in the Marvel Universe during the event.

You’d think that the crossover would want to build up to a big confrontation between Iron Man and Captain America, but instead they face off in person quite often during the event. Case in point, the one-shot Civil War: Casualties of War. Shortly after the death of Bill Foster, a.k.a. Giant-Man, Iron Man and Cap meet for a conversation in the dilapidated Avengers Mansion, still trashed after the events of Avengers: Disassembled. (The New Avengers operate out of Stark Tower.)

They bicker a bit about Foster’s death and whether it could have been prevented. Then they reminisce about old times, good and bad. This isn’t the first they fought, as they once squared off during the Armor Wars storyline. They disagree about Spider-Man revealing his secret identity to the world, with Iron Man saying that if Spidey had been registered with the government back in the day, it might have saved Gwen Stacy from dying (!). Tony’s alcoholism comes up, with Cap revealing his own father was alcoholic.

The conversation goes on and on, referencing more and more of their shared experiences, and morally tough decisions they’ve both made in the past. Eventually, Iron Man sheds his armor so he’s only wearing that yellow jumpsuit thing he has on underneath, and Cap throws aside his shield. They go at it hand-to-hand, except Iron Man was taught to fight by Cap himself, and he keeps up with Cap’s blows. Cap eventually gets the upper hand, but stops himself from delivering the final blow. He leaves Tony there, saying “We should have talked sooner.”

Then there’s the X-Men. After a crossover called The 198, the mutant population was reduced by a huge amount. The US government assigned giant Sentinel robots to surround the Xavier School. This was meant to be for the mutants’ safety, but many mutants felt imprisoned by the Sentinels. That brings us to the Civil War: X-Men miniseries. Here we see that Domino has formed a new version of X-Force. Her team storms the school and “liberates” a bunch of young mutants out from under Sentinel control. This when we catch up with Bishop, and his asking for a meeting with Iron Man in Civil War #3.

Although the X-Men initially declared neutrality in the Civil War, the New X-Men and the New Avengers travel to X-Force’s desert hideout and evacuate the place before it explodes. The mutants are saved, and it’s a victory for Iron Man’s side, while Bishop is left to question his place as unofficial “mutant sheriff.”

Civil War happened just before Carol Danvers changed her name from Ms. Marvel to the catchier Captain Marvel, so in the Ms. Marvel issues, Carol is aligned with S.H.I.E.L.D. and therefore on the pro-reg side. She takes on the Jennifer Carpenter Spider-Woman, much to the worries of Carpenter’s young daughter. (Note that this is a different character from the Jessica Drew Spider-Woman of the New Avengers, who is secretly a Skrull during Civil War.)

Later, Carol confronted figures from her past, including Rogue of the X-Men and an alternate-universe of her previous identity as Warbird. This doesn’t seem to relate to Civil War except for the basic question of, “What if the superheroes fought each other?”

Civil War as an excuse to launch a brand-new Heroes for Hire series. The new team line-up was Shang-Chi, Black Cat, Misty Knight, Colleen Wing, Paladin, Humbug, and a new female Tarantula. The group found themselves reluctantly pro-reg when Iron Man hired them to bring in Captain America. The team pulled a switcharoo by swapping Captain America with Paladin at the last minute.

Along the way, the Heroes for Hire meet with Reed from our own Fantastic Four to investigate further instances of milk and now hamburger leftover from Skrulls turned into cows from way back in Fantastic Four #2, and how more and more shape-shifters walk among them. This is meant to increase tension among the pro-reg superheroes, but it looks to me like another sneaky prequel to the upcoming Secret Invasion.

In Captain America #22-24, S.H.I.E.L.D. assigns Agent 13 (a.k.a. Sharon Carter) to hunt down and capture Cap. What they don’t know is that she and Cap are having a secret romance. They’re the original Romeo and Juliet! After a psych eval, Agent 13 is then reassigned to find Nick Fury, who went deep underground just before the Civil War started. But, Agent 13 is secretly already in contact with Fury, and working with him.

At this point, Captain America takes a break from the resistance to continue searching for the Red Skull. Just before Civil War started, the Red Skull made a TV broadcast (!) announcing his presence in the US. Cap sneaks into a Hydra base in hopes of deducing who’s running it. He fights a bunch of Hydra henchmen, followed by a bunch of Iron Man’s so-called “cape killers.” He’s rescued by Agent 13, who officially declares she’s on Cap’s anti-reg side. We learn the Hydra base is run by Arnim Zola, who’s working with Red Skull. Cap knows that Iron Man is recruiting villains for a new Thunderbolts team, and he wonders if Iron Man is working with Hydra as well.

The Captain America issues also follow Winter Soldier, who comes out of hiding and is shocked to learn the Civil War is happening. Like Agent 13, he’s also secretly in contact with Nick Fury. Winter Soldier wants to go after Lukin, a mass murderer last seen at the Latverian embassy, but instead Fury has him fight some cape killers and steal their tech for analysis. Later, in the Civil War: Winter Kills one-shot, Winter Soldier and the anti-reg members of the Young Avengers team up to destroy a Hydra base. (Is it the same one?) Then he and Namor visit the graves of the WWII heroes the Invaders and reminisce about old times, despite Namor threatening war against the surface world during Civil War.

In Civil War: Choosing Sides, we get the story of how Venom joined the new Thunderbolts. This Venom is Mac Gargan, formerly the Scorpion. After fighting some cape killers, he joins Iron Man’s side in hopes of selling his life story to Hollywood for a big budget movie. Also in Choosing Sides, there’s a short story about Iron Fist masquerading as Daredevil, while promising not to lose sight of who he really is.

In a backup story in Civil War: The Return, which apparently takes place before the main story, the Sentry fights Absorbing Man. After seeing all the damage their battle caused, Sentry visits the local police station and says he’d like to register. We’ll see him aligned with the New Avengers throughout the rest of the crossover.

Not even Howard the Duck could escape the enormity of Civil War. As an alien living on Earth, Howard is technically superhuman. So, in his Choosing Sides story, he goes down to City Hall to register. After waiting in line and dealing with mismanaged bureaucracy, he concludes that the real Civil War is people not being civil to one another. In the end, he learns that S.H.I.E.L.D.’s official stance on him is to deny the existence of a “duck man of Cleveland.” Although angry at first, Howard is okay with the idea of being a non-person, because now he doesn’t have to worry about things like jury duty or unpaid parking tickets.

Unstable molecule: Reed promises to work on a device to help the Heroes for Hire scan for humans who’ve developed Skrull shape-shifting powers. Then the new Tarantula reveals herself to be a science genius on his level by creating the device based on Reed’s suggestions.

Reed is mentioned several times in these issues in relation to the construction of a prison in the Negative Zone, and yet the main Civil War miniseries keeps teasing this as if it’s going to be a surprise reveal.

Trivia time: Lots of obscure Marvel characters made appearances throughout the crossover. Outlaw, a cowgirl-themed vigilante from the short-lived Agent X series, joins X-Force in the desert even though she’s not a mutant (that I know of). D-Man, a homeless superhero was briefly an Avenger, gets arrested during the Winter Soldier story.

Fantastic or frightful? Ed Brubaker’s Captain America run is beloved, but I found these issues hard to follow. Maybe I could have gotten into them more if I’d been reading from the beginning. The Cap/Iron Man fight in Casualties of War doesn’t add anything new to their ongoing tensions, and this feels like one fight too many between them. The rest of these stories are more or less on the periphery of the event, which is how these big crossovers work. They’re not without their high points, but not essential reading for fans who want the Civil War experience.

Next: Guess who’s coming to punish dinner?

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