Captain America: Civil War

[Triggerhappy]

No, actually. Black Widow showed up for congressional hearings because she wanted to. We know exactly what would happen if the supers decide to do a fade. They fade. That's what Nick Fury did. The Law only applies to the superhumans if they decide that the law applies to them. Unlike you or me, who have to bow to the monopoly of force, they are the monopoly of force.

Click to shrink...

I think you're drastically overestimating the effective sovereignty of the characters in the MCU.

A grand total of three current or past Avengers can plausibly overcome the world government's monopoly on force.

Thor. Hulk. And Vision.

Thor is a space alien who has no more reason than any of the other alien races to butt into earth's affairs.

Hulk lacks higher direction for the destruction he causes. He's dangerous but not really any more so than a minor natural disaster.

Vision, while possibly able to enforce his will, is fundamentally not inclined to interfere at all.

Tony depends on an immense web of technical support. He is indeed a super human genius but his inventions are significantly less powerful when he doesn't have the sophisticated infrastructure of Stark Industries backing him up.

Even his box of scraps was comprised of a hoard of salvaged cutting edge weaponry full of advanced circuitry, control systems, and refined rare earth elements which he had intimate knowledge of.

Same goes for Warmachine who is, under his armor, simply an excellent soldier.

Falcon was elite para-rescue I don't think he actually developed the jetpack on his own unless MCU has changed that since winter soldier. I also do not believe the pack is Stark Tech although Stark may have enhanced it since he joined the team.

Black Widow, Barnes, Captain America, and Hawkeye are all technically peak human. This is marvel bullshit peak human but they haven't really demonstrated the ability to resist being killed by any of the no sells against traditional infantry either.

For all of the vaunted hiding ability of these super soldiers. Barns was found in a matter of days once people were really on the lookout for him. As they would be if any of these individuals started to try toppling governments.

Wanda is powerful. But she isn't omniscient. Nor does she possess any sort of passive durability. All it takes to end her is one lucky gunman. Or, just to cover for her psychic abilities, long range drone strike.

Ant-Man is probably, to be honest, the most dangerous on a state actor level simply because Pim does not seem to need Stark's infrastructure and the support he relies on (ants) don't really care about national politics.

 

[galahad]

I think fundamental problem is the idea of "authority". In MCU the authority has been shown to be corrupt and ineffective. When you talk about Avengers being supervised who is going to supervise them ? The general who conducts human experimentation, attacks US college campuse and created something far worse than the Hulk ? The president who picked a Hydra sponsor as a Secretary of Defense and whose vice president was an AIM member ? SHIELD and World Security Council tried the as supervisor agency thing too previously. How did that turn out with WSC wanting to nuke NYC. And SHIELD being secretly Hydra.

It's not about how powerful Avengers we or whether governments can police them. But rather fact that the Avengers are only independent check and balance, the last line of defense when government fails or is evil itself. They are the guys who save you when the UN is taken over by super villain. They are the ones who stop military from nuking civilians to stop aliens. They are ones who could stop governments from unethical human experimentation to create superhumans. They are ones who can prevent a supervillain from seizing control of US government. The list goes on.

 

[Triggerhappy]

Vigilantes flourish when government becomes ineffective. Which is case in MCU. Stark and friends have shown better moral decision making than their governments.

Click to shrink...

The Avengers also let Ultron loose on the world on their watch. Brought Banner into a situation where he (quite honestly didn't want to be) resulting in the Hulk wrecking shit. And New York happened while Loki played them like a violin.

And again at the very start of this movie, Captain lead a military operation, apparently without any knowledge by the host country. An operation that, judging by the fact he knew who they'd be fighting, he should have also known was going to boil up into a firefight in a crowded city.

Honestly they do need oversight. Badly. The Sokovia accords may be horribly wrong about how to do that. Or they may not be. We don't know. But it is needed. And it should be possible to make it workable.

 

[galahad]

The Avengers also let Ultron loose on the world on their watch. Brought Banner into a situation where he (quite honestly didn't want to be) resulting in the Hulk wrecking shit. And New York happened while Loki played them like a violin.

And again at the very start of this movie, Captain lead a military operation, apparently without any knowledge by the host country. An operation that, judging by the fact he knew who they'd be fighting, he should have also known was going to boil up into a firefight in a crowded city.

Honestly they do need oversight. Badly. The Sokovia's accords may be horribly wrong about how to do that. But it is needed. And it should be possible to make it workable.

Click to shrink...

Avengers did not release ultron. Stark was mind controlled and coerced into creating Ultron.

And Ultron was Starks answer to another alien invasion.

The governments answer was creating the Insight carriers. You think the government would make a better call with Ultron ? Like I said stark was mind controlled. Most of Avengers team opposed creation of Ultron. If stark went to government instead they would have been omg yes we want Ultron to be ready yesterday. It's kind of government where people like general Ross and Gideon Malick call the shots. And the president chose a supervillain as his VP.

That's crux of problems here. You think someone need to watch the Watchmen. But in MCU earth the watchers are incompetent beyond belief or terrifyingly evil themselves.

 

[Triggerhappy]

Avengers did not release ultron. Stark was mind controlled and coerced into creating Ultron.

And Ultron was Starks answer to another alien invasion.

Click to shrink...

This overstates what Wanda is capable of. She showed Stark a possible future. One which appears to have some basis in reality. But Starks own ego and paranoia did the rest. Ultron was already an initiative between him and Banner long before they went to Sokovia.

He then proceeded to systematically flaunt anything resembling safety. Essentially doing everything that got shield into trouble with the Cube in the first Avengers on a drastically accelerated time scale.

The governments answer was creating the Insight carriers. You think the government would make a better call with Ultron ? Like I said stark was mind controlled. Most of Avengers team opposed creation of Ultron. If stark went to government instead they would have been omg yes we want Ultron to be ready yesterday. It's kind of government where people like general Ross and Gideon Malick call the shots. And the president chose a supervillain as his VP.

Click to shrink...

Insight was ultimately a Hydra project waiting decades for an excuse at legitimacy which came after the events of New York. Winter Soldier also demonstrated that Hydra had to go to incredible lengths to avoid key parts of the project being found out even with the limited oversight of what is, ultimately, an espionage agency.

One dude managed to play the Avengers like a fiddle with a year of prep time in Civil War. Meanwhile it took Hydra forty years and, likely, repeated use of their own pet super soldier to set up insight.

That's crux of problems here. You think someone need to watch the Watchmen. But in MCU earth the watchers are incompetent beyond belief or terrifyingly evil themselves.

Click to shrink...

The problem is. The same goes for the watchmen. While I wouldn't say they are evil, their track record for judgment failures isn't exactly stellar either. They just get out of it by having a phenomenal ass kicking record.

Nor are they above petty hypocrisy.

I think Cap even acknowledges this flaw in his stance at the end when he leaves Tony the Shield. They were both responsible for the fight but Cap's dog in the hunt was that he had knowingly withheld information from Tony, not because it was necessary, but because it was convenient to do so and because his judgment was, in fact, clouded by his relationship with Bucky. Rogers did exactly the sort of thing that higher authorities had done to him in the past.

 

[Strunkriidiisk]

So, avoiding that argument for now...

Anyone else feel like Clint really should've just told Cap to piss off? I seem to recall him promising to retire to his wife, and he frankly had the most to lose.

 

[Triggerhappy]

So, avoiding that argument for now...

Anyone else feel like Clint really should've just told Cap to piss off? I seem to recall him promising to retire to his wife, and he frankly had the most to lose.

Click to shrink...

On the one hand, Clint is a decent guy who would be hard pressed to let his friends down, on the other hand, yeah.

 

[maskedanddanger]

On the third hand, Clint is Natasha's mirror. Thus, while Natasha joined the Accord side because she felt that the Avengers could steer easier from in the boat, Clint probably saw that the Accords was a non-starter.

Not to mention the fact he wasn't there for Cap. He was there for Wanda, who was being held captive against her will in the Avengers complex.

 

[Spartan Altego]

You could argue that perhaps like Tony, normal life simply doesn't jive with Clint anymore after so long being a badass superhero. Clint has a family, sure, but for all we know his wife was again shockingly cool about him risking his life and told him to go help. Or maybe he decided on his own.

Considering that the whole "Clint retires to be with family" plot comes from Age of Ultron, it's not too surprising they're sweeping it under the rug a bit.

The real question I have is why the hell Scott Lang decided to join Team Cap and become a wanted fugitive again literally right after he cleared his name and had everything he wanted in life? You could make the argument that the Cap-crush and idea of "okay this man needs my help and that is more important than my issues" but...it's never really explained in the slightest.

 

[Triggerhappy]

All Pym had to hear was that it was against Stark and he would be badgering Lang to put on the suit.

 

[Fernandel]

A lawyer would actually be expected to get through that in a single day. Assuming standard legal paper it didn't look to be more than a hundred pages. I've gone through that much in a day and I'm not a lawyer. And one of these dudes is the Vision, who probably could read the whole thing in a very brief amount of time.

Click to shrink...

I just grabbed my copy of the common texts of international law, which is about eight hundred and fifty pages.

The Charter of the United Nations is about twenty-five pages long. Not being a lawyer myself, I can reasonably read and understand it in about half an hour.

It's not exactly written in very complicated legalese, especially because it's an international treaty -- those handle more common matters and are generally written as clearly as possible to avoid misunderstandings between states, leaving the more complex implementation to the signatory states themselves.

A hundred pages of legal paper? About two hours of reading for me, give or take.

The idea that the Avengers, who are all acknowledged to be incredibly intelligent and educated people, would be unable to understand the text of an international treaty in about that much time is one that in my opinion quite simply doesn't hold up.

 

[Insufficient Dakka]

Clark Gregg on the nazi issue:

 

[Carrnage]

"In any case, if anybody fits the 'undocumented alien' bill, I think it's Thor. Think we should bring it up when he comes by?"
"Right, Tamir? You're gonna sit all the way in the back when we invite Thor with his hammer that shoots lightning bolts, and you're gonna take notes and pleaseshutthehellup."

Click to shrink...

why do people keep forgetting Thor's a prince of a superpower nation?

 

[Triggerhappy]

why do people keep forgetting Thor's a prince of a superpower nation?

Click to shrink...

Yeah the line about Thor there at the start didn't really make a whole lot of sense to me. Like, technically Thor is an official of a Sovereign Nation. The US may not recognize Asgard's sovereignty but that's a state of affairs that can only last until they question it loudly enough to get an answer. Like by trying to detain a Prince of Asgard.

It also occurred to me while looking at the screenshot of the Sokovia accords that there were places to Clint, Natasha, Wilson, and Rodes to sign.

Well alright, Clint is obviously bullshit even if his abilities are the result of talent and intensive training. And the Red Room can arguably be thought of as a sort of particularly brutal selection/enhancement method. But as far as I can tell the only thing that make Wilson and Rodes enhanced are their equipment and neither of them invented their gear unlike Tony.

So what exactly is the definition of 'enhanced' individual.

 

[Sucal]

So what exactly is the definition of 'enhanced' individual.

Click to shrink...

I'm pretty sure that they were asked to sign as known Avengers.

If Nick Fury hadn't faked his death and hidden where seemingly no-one can find him, he'd likely have to sign as well.

 

[Fernandel]

why do people keep forgetting Thor's a prince of a superpower nation?

Click to shrink...

Yeah the line about Thor there at the start didn't really make a whole lot of sense to me. Like, technically Thor is an official of a Sovereign Nation. The US may not recognize Asgard's sovereignty but that's a state of affairs that can only last until they question it loudly enough to get an answer. Like by trying to detain a Prince of Asgard.

Click to shrink...

Doesn't mean that Thor is not subject to U.S. laws when he comes to the U.S. "Princes" don't automatically get diplomatic immunity, either. You only get diplomatic immunity if you are a sitting head of state or present letters of credence to the host nation that are then accepted. Has he ever done that? And even if he were one, anyone with diplomatic immunity can still be expelled by declaring them persona non grata.

Also, it's a joooooooooke.

 

[Triggerhappy]

Doesn't mean that Thor is not subject to U.S. laws when he comes to the U.S. "Princes" don't automatically get diplomatic immunity, either. You only get diplomatic immunity if you are a sitting head of state or present letters of credence to the host nation that are then accepted. Has he ever done that? And even if he were one, anyone with diplomatic immunity can still be expelled by declaring them persona non grata.

Also, it's a joooooooooke.

Click to shrink...

True. But the point is that it's a little different than 'losing' a couple of nuclear weapons. The analogy sort of makes sense for Hulk since Banner isn't really in control if he's set off. But in the case of Thor it's hilarious to think Earth can or should have any jurisdiction over him when he's not on earth.

 

[Spartan Altego]

True. But the point is that it's a little different than 'losing' a couple of nuclear weapons. The analogy sort of makes sense for Hulk since Banner isn't really in control if he's set off. But in the case of Thor it's hilarious to think Earth can or should have any jurisdiction over him when he's not on earth.

Click to shrink...

The real point of Ross' little analogy is to show to the audience that he doesn't see the Avengers as people with rights, only weapons that should be either used or locked away at the behest of the government. And he's arrogant enough to believe that Thor and other 'alien entities' should bow to that authority or be forced to do so.

In the scene where Tony attempts to offer an olive branch to Steve, what ultimately breaks the deal is when he lets slip that he had Wanda put under house-arrest. When Steve calls him out on his bullshit, Tony's response is:

"She isn't a U.S. citizen and they don't grant visas to weapons of mass destruction."

Click to shrink...

Even he doesn't see people like Wanda as an actual individual, just a time-bomb. Steve refuses to play along at that moment because he realizes that the people in charge of enforcing the Accords are right for the wrong reasons. It's not about the need for oversight or the Avengers' fuck-up with Crossbones, that's simply an excuse they've been looking for to force them under their thumbs. Because they're 'dangerous' and thus need to be controlled, with self-serving memory regarding New York and the Helicarriers to justify it.

Steve is wrong about the Accords for the right reasons, because he's had terrible recent experiences with authoritarian figures and their fallibility. His judgement is compromised and even outright unreasonable, but he has basic human compassion that the opposing side lacks. That lack of empathy taints the good that could be brought by the Sokovia Accords and damages any room for compromise: Tony's aforementioned house-arresting of Wanda, and more important the horrible treatment of the Secret Avengers when they're thrown in the Raft. Hell, even Bucky is denied legal representation on account of being an 'enhanced individual' (though admittedly the actions he's been accused of may allow for that, I'm no legal expert).

That's the point of the film: taking the right action for the wrong reasons is still wrong.

 

[Triggerhappy]

That's the point of the film: taking the right action for the wrong reasons is still wrong.

Click to shrink...

Both are awful. Which is worse is highly circumstantial.

Tony created Ultron for the right reasons but it wound up being the wrong thing, or at least executed the wrong way, and that one almost killed a good chunk of the human race.

And it really can't be denied that, by all indications at the beginning of the movie and with clear advanced warning, the Avengers were acting without the knowledge of the host country in a tightly populated city using weaponry and powers that could cause serious collateral damage.

And most damning. They didn't realize there was a bio-research lab that could be a potential target, this was treated as an unexpected development, despite it clearly not being a secret what the facility was.

Honestly the best way to make the Accords workable would probably be to acknowledge that most of the threats Avengers handle are actually pretty obvious and work from the angle of making the organization as transparent as possible.

It risks certain villains managing to outmaneuver them, but given how secrecy and exploited expedients are exactly what those same villains have used to screw over SHIELD and the Avengers in the past maybe that's a worthwhile risk.

 

[Khoross]

Steve is wrong about the Accords for the right reasons, because he's had terrible recent experiences with authoritarian figures and their fallibility. His judgement is compromised and even outright unreasonable, but he has basic human compassion that the opposing side lacks. That lack of empathy taints the good that could be brought by the Sokovia Accords and damages any room for compromise: Tony's aforementioned house-arresting of Wanda, and more important the horrible treatment of the Secret Avengers when they're thrown in the Raft. Hell, even Bucky is denied legal representation on account of being an 'enhanced individual' (though admittedly the actions he's been accused of may allow for that, I'm no legal expert).

Click to shrink...

I would note that this was an extradition hearing, not a criminal trial. German law (as much as 10 minutes with google knows) states that Bucky may have legal counsel at any point during the proceedings, but will only assign counsel to someone without any in a few situations (if the extradition case is complex and the extradition between EU states, if the defendant can't adequately protect his rights, if the defendant is under 18). It's not unreasonable to assume that the psychiatrist they had meeting him was there to determine if he qualified for automatic counsel; also that him not having any already was due to Ross being Ross.

The purpose of an extradition hearing is mostly to confirm that you are the person that the arrest warrant is for, that the arrest warrant is for crimes which are crimes in Germany, that there's a case against you (not to evaluate if the case is true, just that it exists), and that there's nothing barring you from being extradited. In this case, the fact that the US would be willing to execute Bucky would probably prevent him from being extradited. The EU in general and Germany in specific cares about the death penalty.

That might all go out the window if Germany has decided to add a bunch of 'unless he's a supervillain' exemptions into their laws/policy, but I find that not terribly likely.

(my source on German extradition procedures: ACT ON INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION IN CRIMINAL MATTERS (AICCM); relevant bits here are sections 8 and 40, but this is an English translation rather than the original also law is complex and I'm not even a little bit a lawyer and my German is limited to words that sound about the same as they do in English)

On the accords...the Avengers really desperately need oversight. When facing a threat that only they can deal with they're incredibly useful and a system needs to be in place to help them with that, but against more mundane problems their actions are not justified. If extraordinary measures are not needed to deal with a problem, then there's no reason the Avengers can't go through the same sort of system as is already in place, or even a new one set up to allow for a small group of highly skilled, powerful, and trusted individuals to aid a government more efficiently.

The sort of collateral damage they cause, I'd really not want them deployed more than they have to be myself.

Tony failing to understand how humans work and telling Vision to keep Wanda in the house instead of explaining the situation (I'm worried that we have an awful lot of idiots with no self preservation that might try to hurt you. I'm also worried that aforementioned idiots might record you perfectly justifiably defending yourself from them and use this to generate even more idiots and protests. Would you mind staying out of public until this blows over? Is there anywhere you'd like to go, things to do, that could make a brief reclusion from the public eye more comfortable?) did not make his side look better, nor Ross being Ross, but the fact remains for me at least that they were the one with a reasonable position and idiots. Cap had an unreasonable position and passion, which does not sit with me nearly so well.

 

[Spartan Altego]

Cap had an unreasonable position and passion, which does not sit with me nearly so well.

Click to shrink...

I wouldn't go quite so far as to call it unreasonable, and passion isn't a disqualifier when you consider his opposing figures are Ross (believes meta humans should be locked up or weaponized) and Tony (hot mess of psychological issues).

From Steve's point of view, the authority figures he's dealt with since he woke up have all been incompetent or subverted from within: the WSC tried to nuke a populated city, SHIELD was allowed to make weapons that are Big Brother as hell which were actually the idea of Hydra and would've committed mass global murder. He's been forced to go off the reservation several times for the good of others, and the Sokovia Accords are ultimately just another obstruction to him. Sure it's arrogant to think the Avengers know better, but it's hardly unreasonable to see why he would believe that. And let's not forget that ultimately Steve was willing to bend until he saw how irrational Tony himself was being about the whole thing regarding Wanda.

And when it comes to passion influencing your decisions, we can't leave Tony out. Besides the entire endgame of the film proving both Steve and Tony as hypocrites, the reason Tony is for the Accords in the first place is because he's an easily guilted self-hating mess and takes constant desperate extremes to cope with that. In the original film, his reaction to guilt was to declare a shut down of weapons production and develop a power armored suit to go get rid of the rest. Here, his screw-up with Ultron and the confrontation with the mother (plus his break up with Pepper) are pushing him to a new extreme so that he doesn't have to actually deal with his feelings.

Is he right to believe the Avengers need to be checked? Absolutely. But not because that's what he really believes. When he says "we need to be put in check," he's just trying to put his guilt on the rest of the Avengers when he should be saying "I need to be put in check." It would be more honest than his self-righteousness about trying to keep the team together, and Steve sees right through it. Not to mention Tony blackmailing Peter into being his child soldier.

Black Widow is the only sane person on the team. She thinks they should play along with the Accords and get some control back once the public stops wetting itself, but also lets Steve and Bucky get away because the law is less important than stopping Zemo from getting the other Winter Soldiers. The events of the movie happen because both sides are extremists, with the level-headed people caught in the middle.

 

[Khoross]

I wouldn't go quite so far as to call it unreasonable, and passion isn't a disqualifier when you consider his opposing figures are Ross (believes meta humans should be locked up or weaponized) and Tony (hot mess of psychological issues).

From Steve's point of view, the authority figures he's dealt with since he woke up have all been incompetent or subverted from within: the WSC tried to nuke a populated city, SHIELD was allowed to make weapons that are Big Brother as hell which were actually the idea of Hydra and would've committed mass global murder. He's been forced to go off the reservation several times for the good of others, and the Sokovia Accords are ultimately just another obstruction to him. Sure it's arrogant to think the Avengers know better, but it's hardly unreasonable to see why he would believe that. And let's not forget that ultimately Steve was willing to bend until he saw how irrational Tony himself was being about the whole thing regarding Wanda.

And when it comes to passion influencing your decisions, we can't leave Tony out. Besides the entire endgame of the film proving both Steve and Tony as hypocrites, the reason Tony is for the Accords in the first place is because he's an easily guilted self-hating mess and takes constant desperate extremes to cope with that. In the original film, his reaction to guilt was to declare a shut down of weapons production and develop a power armored suit to go get rid of the rest. Here, his screw-up with Ultron and the confrontation with the mother (plus his break up with Pepper) are pushing him to a new extreme so that he doesn't have to actually deal with his feelings.

Is he right to believe the Avengers need to be checked? Absolutely. But not because that's what he really believes. When he says "we need to be put in check," he's just trying to put his guilt on the rest of the Avengers when he should be saying "I need to be put in check." It would be more honest than his self-righteousness about trying to keep the team together, and Steve sees right through it. Not to mention Tony blackmailing Peter into being his child soldier.

Black Widow is the only sane person on the team. She thinks they should play along with the Accords and get some control back once the public stops wetting itself, but also lets Steve and Bucky get away because the law is less important than stopping Zemo from getting the other Winter Soldiers. The events of the movie happen because both sides are extremists, with the level-headed people caught in the middle.

Click to shrink...

In the interest of clarity, I see Cap's passion as a good thing. He's fighting for something he fully believes in, and while I might disagree with him in this case if the specifics had been different I'd have been alongside him. Between the sides I see one as having poor people but the right idea, and the other as having great people but (in this case) the wrong principles.

Tony is a deeply flawed person and I agree with your reading of his character. Since his stated position is the side I'm on I'll accept his support but, well, I wish the pro-accord faction had someone to fight for it like Cap. They don't feel like they believe that this is right so much as they do that this is regrettable but necessary. Also I'm assuming the only reason the accords let him recruit Spiderman is that they give very broad guidelines on what can be done in the field and a later justification to oversight. I had better hear that Tony got completely reamed by an ethics committee over that. I'm also behind your read on Black Widow. Feels like we're mostly on the same page, apart from the little Accords matter .

Steve certainly has reasons for everything he's doing, the characterization is fully believable and as someone watching from outside, I'd feel the MCU was better protected if Steve Rogers was in charge of an unaligned Avengers than if they were under the command of a UN committee. If I were a citizen in that world, limited to what information was available, the problem changes; the job of the Government is to keep me safe and to see the country prosper, and I believe that most politicians honestly see these things as being the reason they do what they do. Given that, I'd feel much more comfortable hearing that the UN is providing oversight and assistance to the Avengers as they transition into a global force against exceptional threats than I would learning that there's a roving band beholden to no one who do good when they act, but seem to attract disaster. Doubly so if I heard that they refused the UN having a say in things.

 

[Spartan Altego]

Obviously the only solution to this disagreement is to have an epic punch-out that ultimately solves nothing and leaves all the participants miserable. But at least it'll make a bitchin' movie.

 

[Insufficient Dakka]

Obviously the only solution to this disagreement is to have an epic punch-out that ultimately solves nothing and leaves all the participants miserable. But at least it'll make a bitchin' movie.

Click to shrink...

Where's that "worth it" edit...

 

[Insufficient Dakka]

I'm not saying this is foreshadowing Cumberbatch and Downey's cinematic first meeting, but this is totally foreshadowing Cumberbatch and Downey's cinematic first meeting.