Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Artist: Olivier Copiel

I honestly need to split this review up into two portions, because Civil War II #0 is a perfectly cromulent zero issue which has enough annoying errors that they need to be addressed.

As a whole, the kickoff for Marvel’s 2016 summer book is a decent read. It’s light on action, but otherwise serves the basic function of what a zero issue is supposed to do. That is, it puts the pieces of the story on the chessboard without really moving the story forward just yet. Wholly unconnected to Free Comic Book Day: Civil War II (which seems to be an excerpt of a later issue), the zero issue introduces the readers to the key players in this limited series and suggests what will motivate them through the story. She-Hulk is concerned with civil liberties when one of her clients is sent to jail on a bunk charge. War Machine is offered the prospect of being the first super-powered President of the United States with the opportunity to get his political career moving. Carol Danvers is concerned about finding a way to to stop threats to Earth before they happen. And on a college campus, a young man named Ulysses is exposed to that Terrigen Mist cloud and experiences his awakening as an Inhuman.

In other words, not much happens, and yet everything happens. Writer Brian Michael Bendis hasn’t established the story’s central conflict yet, but we get hints that it’ll be about civil liberties versus self-preservation with super heroes caught in the middle, much as the previous Civil War was. To that end, Bendis has some fun with the characters and does have a decent sense of their voices (even if they do suffer from the occasional Bendis-isms in their dialogue).

Olivier Copiel’s art is decent here, even though it is a bit dark in tone. It’s likely appropriate for the setting of the story, as things do get both literally and figuratively ominous as the story progresses–well symbolized by the Terrigen cloud. The one oddity here is that Copiel isn’t the artist of the main series–this will all be handled by David Marquez. It’s a curious choice as to why Marvel would flip artists and not have Marquez just draw this lead-in issue as well. Hopefully, the artistic transition won’t be too jarring when the overall series is collected.

That said, while Bendis and Copiel crafted an overall decent opening issue, it does suffer from some annoying minor errors (and one large one) which, unfortunately, can be gotten away with because Bendis. Among them:

• The President offers Rhodey the opportunity to be the Secretary of Defense. However, current continuity still has Rhodey as an active duty Colonel in the Air Force, reflective of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Nevermind that we’re in an election year right now and that a sitting President changing SECDEFs in his final months is ridiculous. The bigger problem is that SECDEF is a civilian position, and in fact, a SECDEF nominee has to have been retired from the military for seven years to be eligible.
• Copiel drew Rhodey wearing his Air Force flight cap indoors during a meeting with the President. Sorry, but that’s way out of regulation. It’s very basic Air Force policy that an Airman doesn’t wear a hat indoors. This is not the first time I’ve seen incorrect portrayals of the military in a Marvel comic, and I wish they’d just make a quick call to, say, the Air Force’s Entertainment Liaison Office to get these things right.
• She-Hulk’s court case goes into a discussion of the legal defense of “entrapment,” which in essence means that the government tricked you into doing a crime you wouldn’t normally have done. In fairness, the story never explores the full scope of what Jen’s client is accused of doing, so this could just be excused as Jen posturing for the jury. But if the speech is indicative of what Bendis thinks entrapment is, then he got it wrong.
• Lastly–and here’s the big one–Bendis includes an appearance by “Doc” Leonard Samson, who died years ago in the Hulk comics. As recently as last year, Samson was still in his grave and depowered by the Hulk. Oh, and when he died, Samson was in the midst of committing treason in an alliance with the Leader and MODOK. Bendis literally handwaves all this with an “I got better” line which is apparently intended to be clever and fails miserably at doing so. Seriously, this is just sloppy storytelling which ignores a major death and tries to be cute in doing so. It’s annoying and I wish Bendis had just found a different psychiatrist for the scene in question.

If these points all seem like annoying nitpicks, then I need to point out that in my day job, I’m an active duty lawyer for the Air Force.* So yeah, to me, these little errors all stuck out very painfully. Civilian non-lawyers might not be bothered by them, but I was.

Look, overall, the comic is promising and enjoyable, and maybe Civil War II as a whole will turn out fine. However, Bendis’ superstar status doesn’t justify getting away with poorly researched law and a cheap resurrection which serves no purpose. In other words, sure, buy this comic, but expect it to suffer from the usual Bendisims which could have been easily fixed.

Rating: Three out of five precognitions.

• Legal disclaimer: Everything I write here is my own opinion and not an officially sanctioned view of the Air Force and the Department of Defense. Particularly my annoyance with Doc Samson’s resurrection.