Since 2016, the Marvel franchise has created one of the largest debates of all time. Whether Captain America or Iron Man was right during the events of Captain America: Civil War. Even now, as I have read the comic and seen the movie, I have always found it difficult to figure out which side I think is right. There are so many factors that influenced both Steve’s and Tony’s behaviors throughout the movie and comic, but both are widely different with opposite outcomes.
The only reason I could never choose a side was that I understood why Tony and Steve made the choices they did. Steve did not want the Avengers to be controlled and not allowed to be put in certain situations where they would be needed, but Tony was also dealing with the guilt of them murdering a mother’s son by himself. He started realizing that there were innocent people who were facing the aftermath of their decisions, and he thought they deserved to be put in check. He eventually tells the others about the boy (Charlie Spencer), but it does not really sway anyone, or Steve. Both characters made decisions that they felt were right and leaned into any opportunity that supported them.
There are several moments throughout the movie where both Tony and Steve try to get the other to understand their motives and see the situation differently; however, the sides stay the same, and they are still opposing one another.
Iron Man’s team consists of Black Widow, Vision, Spider-Man, Black Panther, and War Machine, while Cap has Hawkeye, Falcon, the Scarlet Witch, Ant-Man, and Bucky Barnes. However, Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow) ended up switching sides about halfway into the movie to help Steve get Bucky out of the fight and handle T’Challa, who is trying to stop them.
After a while, Steve and Bucky leave the airport and make their way to Siberia and the Hydra base. The two of them search for the other super soldiers that Bucky knew of to try to protect those around them. While most of the movie was half of the Avengers fighting the other half, around 1:57:30, Tony shows up at the base, which leads to the event of Steve, Bucky, and Tony fighting. Even though Tony and Steve have been on opposite sides because of their view of the Sokovia Accords, this fight honestly has nothing to do with that issue. Instead, it has everything to do with who killed Tony’s parents, which was a mystery to him for a lot of his life. Tony only finds out who it was (Bucky under the influence of Hydra) because of Zemo, who is the main villain throughout the movie and whose sole purpose is to tear the Avengers apart because of the death of his family. A screen plays the same scene of the Starks’ deaths, and Tony begins to realize that the very person Steve has been protecting is the one who murdered his parents.
This is what breaks apart the Avengers. Not the Accords, or being on different sides. The fact that their two main leaders really did end up fighting one another. They fought at the airport before this, but Tony and Steve did not fight one another.
Their fight at the base probably lasts around thirty or so minutes, and it is one of the more brutal fights against superheroes that is seen in the movies. Steve and Bucky team up on Tony until they fight one-on-one later, and because Tony does not have the same super soldier strength as them, their fight is not equal. Tony flies up in his suit to fire at Bucky, who is trying to outrun him, until Tony redirects his focus onto Steve. The two have an extremely physical fight, Tony getting a few punches in on Steve and Steve being able to knock Tony down with his shield, but their arguing does not settle any issues between them. They never truly speak about what is going on, what effect their choices had on them and the team, and how their reactions will influence the rest of the world. The only sentimental bit we get from these characters is “he’s my best friend” (Steve regarding how he wants to protect Bucky from the government) and Tony’s “so was I.” The part that makes this exchange hurt is the fact that Tony says “was,” implying that because of this, he no longer is.
There was always a lot of bickering and arguing between these characters, but they always had one another’s backs in a fight. Yes, they did not see eye to eye most times, but they both saw each other as what they wanted, not who they truly were. Steve expected Tony to act like his father, who was one of Steve’s closest friends during WWII, but Tony had expected Steve to act like the image of self-righteousness that he created. All his father talked about was Steve and how great he was. That is why they did not like one another. That leads to several arguments, and the fact that Steve’s best friend is the one who killed Tony’s parents just pushes him past his limits. At the end of the fight, Steve delivers his final blow to Tony (into the arc reactor), which separates them and the Avengers until the later movies.
Their fight also ended up becoming the world’s fight as well. There have been thousands of arguments over who was in the right. Some people believe Steve’s choice to go against the Accords was the right one, while others understand why Tony thought they should be put in check.
In the Civil War comic by Mark Millar, a similar situation happens. Our heroes are fighting against a band of villains, but the heroes, villains, and settings are completely different from the movie. Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Bucky are not in the comics, while the Fantastic Four, Cloak and Dagger, and the Punisher (who were not in the movie) are in the comics. In addition to that, instead of there being about five people on each side, there is a wide range of different heroes on both teams.
In this comic, Steve and Tony take similar stances as they do in the movie, Steve going against showing the hero’s faces when Tony wants them to be held accountable. The only difference in how they picked their sides is that, even though a child still died, Tony Stark showed up to his funeral to give his apologies to the mother when she yelled at him in front of everyone there. It is a similar situation to what happened in the movie, but this interaction fuels the entirety of his choices.
Spider-Man is a lot older in this comic as well, and is the first superhero to unmask himself on TV. He joins Tony’s team for a decent amount of the comic until a core event causes him to switch sides. The same goes for Sue Storm, since she and Reed Richards were on Tony’s side because of the engineering and science they were doing. This switch happens because Tony made an android version of Thor (only a few people knew), and he ended up being a lot more powerful and skilled than the real Thor. During a battle against Cap’s team, Tony’s Thor kills Goliath. His death causes Spider-Man and Sue to switch and team up with Captain America.
Since Tony is on the government’s side throughout the entire book, there are a lot of situations where the police arrest younger heroes (like Hulk’s son) and older heroes, such as Daredevil. Besides arresting any hero on Cap’s team, the government also makes the decision to place a group of five heroes to manage crime in each of the fifty states. There is a huge moment where Tony says they should use the Thunderbolts (who are definitely the opposite of the group in the movie), even though they are some of the worst villains that the Avengers and other heroes have imprisoned. The main reason he wants to use them is to fight back against Cap, since they do not have a moral compass or care about who dies or what happens.
The Thunderbolts consist of Venom, Jack O’Lantern, Taskmaster, The Punisher (until switching to Steve’s side), Songbird, and a few other villains. This team’s goal was to hunt and find Captain America’s base and the other “rogue” heroes. They are also placed as one of the fifty teams in one of the states. A few of these villains end up finding Spider-Man, who is on a mission for Team Cap, and attack him before he can even notice. They do exactly what they were assigned: find and destroy any hero who is supporting Captain America. This is also when Punisher delivers Peter to Cap’s base and ends up choosing his side.
In the end, the final fight takes place because of Sue Storm being able to break into the Baxter building to take down Tony and the others, as well as to get the plans for the Negative Zone, which is a parallel universe Reed discovered. They also use this in order to free the imprisoned heroes until Tony and his team ambush them in the building. Their fight ends up in the center of New York in front of thousands of their citizens.
Unlike the ending of the movie, instead of delivering the final blow, Captain America realizes that their citizens (who they swore to protect) are fearful of the heroes on his team. This is the very thing that he wanted to prevent. Even though Steve and Tony go their separate ways in Captain America: Civil War, Steve ends up joining Tony’s side in this comic. It is a completely different ending that does not deal with the Avengers staying broken up for a few years.
I did like both of these, and I think comparing their different viewpoints is important to understand them both as characters. I do think that, in the comics, Steve’s side is the better choice, mainly because Tony was a hundred times more reckless than in the movie. Movie Tony would never think of bringing in the world’s worst villains to fight his friends, but he does not have an issue with it in the comics. I also think that Cap’s side makes more sense because he wants to protect the identities of New York’s heroes (in the movie, the stance is that the Avengers should be independent, which is totally different), so that they are not hunted down and killed by their enemies. I understand that the mother was grieving in the comic, but Tony’s choices to use the Thunderbolts and create a clone to kill other heroes were uncalled for and a little out of character.
There are certain aspects of both the movie and the comic that play a vital role in how fights and conflicts happen, but I do think that it is possible to pick different sides for the movie and the comic. There are specific situations that impact what decisions both characters make, and it really influences the dynamic. I do think both are worth reading/watching because it gives a deeper meaning to them.
