Marvel Fans Prep For 2016’s Civil War

The July 17th release of Marvel’s “Ant Man” closes the “Phase 2” chapter of the comic book giant’s tie-ins with several of their character series and “The Avengers”.

Next year, Marvel enters “Phase 3” of their plan as they continue — as they have done in print — to weave individual characters into united story lines.

Captain America: Civil War

The first installment of the next chapter takes place on May 6, 2016 with the release of “Captain America: Civil War”. This is based on the comic book series that pitted hero against hero and Avenger vs. Avenger. The theme has been slowly building even through Marvel’s “Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D” television show and X-Men. The government feels compelled to create a database of all “gifted” persons residing on planet Earth. Tony Stark, still shaken by the events in Avengers 2, supports the idea. Captain America, who has grown skeptical of S.H.E.I.L.D and the government based on the events in “Captain America: Winter Soldier” opposes more big-government oversight.

The two sides go to absolute war with Spider-Man trying to play the role of neutral. If the movie follows the comic book, there’s a good chance things will not end well for Captain America.

What’s new? The Black Panther will make his debut and Spider-Man, who has always played a lone wolf in both the comics and on the big screen will be introduced into The Avengers world. This is big because Spider-Man is a Marvel character, but the movie rights to the character are leased to Sony Pictures.

How is this lining up with the Comics? Over the years The Avengers developed into an amorphous group of heroes. Captain America served as a consistent leader as Tony Stark exited. But Avengers: Age of Ultron introduced long-time Avenger staples such as The Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver (who was killed in the film) and The Vision. The release of Ant-Man, another Avengers regular, opens the door for him to join the group along with the Black Panther. The Falcon made his first appearance in “Winter Solider” as well as Cap’s former sidekick Bucky (just hold that thought for future reference after Civil War).

Any other tie-ins? Movieplot.com lists a huge cast indicating Civil War could engulf The Fantastic Four — licensed to 20th Century Fox — while debuting She-Hulk and The Wasp (an Ant Man/Giant Man sidekick). It would also re-introduce Daredevil, which was released in amazing fashion on Netflix.

More on other titles coming up. In the meantime, enjoy some bootlegging from Comic-Con!