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A review by modernzorker
Civil War Prose Novel by Stuart Moore
3.0
I can't think of many jobs harder than translating a graphic novel, especially one with a story arc as massive as Marvel's "Civil War", into a prose format. Comics rely so solidly on the eye's ability to quickly absorb a mountain of data that trying to describe every aspect of every panel would devolve into a boring list of features before you'd finished the first six pages. That said, Stuart Moore does a good job with his novelization, with a couple of snags that keep this from being a four-star project.
First, what Moore gets right: darn near everything. Dialog is crisp and clear, and while Moore discussed the changes he had to make to the original story in order to make it work as a book, it's impossible to tell for someone who never read the comic where these changes happen.
Where does Moore stumble? Well, if you're not familiar with the Marvel universe, you won't be much more familiar with it after finishing this book. Character descriptions are vague when they exist at all, and while that's OK for truly iconic characters who've gotten their own movies recently like Captain America and Spider-Man, if you've never seen Cloak, Dagger, Hulkling, Namorita or any of the other dozens of bit-players scattered across the Marvel-verse, you won't be any more familiar with what they look like after you're through here.
The other stumbling block I feel comes in places where one character is giving a lengthy speech. Iron Man/Tony Stark delivers a stirring speech over the course of several pages, but it's nothing more than one continuous string of text in quotation marks with nary a descriptor or anything else to break up this monologue. This gives the sensation that Tony's droning on and on, which is the furthest thing from what is actually happening in the scene.
One final issue I had comes from the comic storyline itself, which Moore had no hand in creating, but I feel it bears mention here anyway. The X-Men's neutrality never sat well with me, as Xavier's students have been on the forefront of similar political agendas before involving mutants. To have them sit idly by and say, "Oh, you're not discriminating against mutants specifically? Then we've got no dog in this fight," smacks of a quick way for writers to disregard a group of super-beings whose presence on either side would have quickly and massively tipped the scales of the conflict. Necessary to tell the story? Maybe. Believable in any way, shape, or form given the history of the Marvel-verse? Not on your life.
"Civil War" is a fast, enjoyable read and Moore's translation from the visual medium is more than competent. I could have used about 50 more pages' worth of content to ensure every character at least got a brief description at his/her introduction, and would have dearly loved to know exactly why all the super villains weren't keeping everybody in the US busy with a rampage as soon as the registration act was announced, but these are minor criticisms all told. Fun book, fun story, and a great way to kill a few hours before bed over the course of several consecutive evenings.
First, what Moore gets right: darn near everything. Dialog is crisp and clear, and while Moore discussed the changes he had to make to the original story in order to make it work as a book, it's impossible to tell for someone who never read the comic where these changes happen.
Where does Moore stumble? Well, if you're not familiar with the Marvel universe, you won't be much more familiar with it after finishing this book. Character descriptions are vague when they exist at all, and while that's OK for truly iconic characters who've gotten their own movies recently like Captain America and Spider-Man, if you've never seen Cloak, Dagger, Hulkling, Namorita or any of the other dozens of bit-players scattered across the Marvel-verse, you won't be any more familiar with what they look like after you're through here.
The other stumbling block I feel comes in places where one character is giving a lengthy speech. Iron Man/Tony Stark delivers a stirring speech over the course of several pages, but it's nothing more than one continuous string of text in quotation marks with nary a descriptor or anything else to break up this monologue. This gives the sensation that Tony's droning on and on, which is the furthest thing from what is actually happening in the scene.
One final issue I had comes from the comic storyline itself, which Moore had no hand in creating, but I feel it bears mention here anyway. The X-Men's neutrality never sat well with me, as Xavier's students have been on the forefront of similar political agendas before involving mutants. To have them sit idly by and say, "Oh, you're not discriminating against mutants specifically? Then we've got no dog in this fight," smacks of a quick way for writers to disregard a group of super-beings whose presence on either side would have quickly and massively tipped the scales of the conflict. Necessary to tell the story? Maybe. Believable in any way, shape, or form given the history of the Marvel-verse? Not on your life.
"Civil War" is a fast, enjoyable read and Moore's translation from the visual medium is more than competent. I could have used about 50 more pages' worth of content to ensure every character at least got a brief description at his/her introduction, and would have dearly loved to know exactly why all the super villains weren't keeping everybody in the US busy with a rampage as soon as the registration act was announced, but these are minor criticisms all told. Fun book, fun story, and a great way to kill a few hours before bed over the course of several consecutive evenings.