Heroes and the Creation of Myth: Captain America: Civil War

Superheroes occupy a nearly-unique position in the history of human character creation. They are creatures of myth, but at the same time people with the concerns of human beings, even when they are themselves alien. This puts them in a position to not only be the subjects of myth, but to interact with and in some cases control the creation of the mythology which surrounds them.

In this series I set out to analyze the different ways heroes participate in the creation of their own mythology. I've decided to begin with the largest single continuity ever attempted in film, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I was going to watch or rewatch the eighteen existing MCU films in order to look at them specifically from this perspective in the time leading up to the release of The Avengers: Infinity War. I totally didn't get there in time, but I'm going to finish anyway. Today we've gotten to a key plot-mover in the series, Captain America: Civil War.

While Captain America is the title character in the movie, this is basically a direct sequel to Age of Ultron. The only thing that keeps it from being an Avengers movie is the absence of Thor and Hulk. And we have plenty of new heroes to fill their places, as Ant-Man teams up with other heroes for the first time, and Black Panther and Spider-Man make their series debuts. This single-titled movie has more heroes in it than any film in the series so far.

It's also like an Avengers movie in that it's Tony Stark who drives the plot. Tony, still haunted by his failures and potential failures, and still completely unable to cooperate with any of the other Avengers, encounters the mother of a casualty of Sokovia, and it once again sets him into unilateral action. This time it's diplomatic rather than technological, but it's no less Tony being a loose cannon. He seeks out government oversight without consulting the rest of the team, and it turns out that his vision of himself as the leader of the Avengers is not quite what everyone else has in mind, even if they've let Tony project that image to the public.

Not that long ago, Steve Rogers was the last person you would have expected to argue against government oversight. But Steve's experiences with the reliability of the government, and of S.H.I.E.L.D., have adjusted him to the modern era very quickly. Steve has always had an incredibly strong moral center, but that center has shifted over the course of the narrative, from one that relied on America to one that sees his own judgement as the ultimate test of proper loyalty. It's not entirely uncalled-for, as we see when the world security apparatus sets out to kill Bucky Barnes untried and on the slimmest of evidence.

Before being framed for mass-murder, Bucky seems to be handling the myth of the Winter Soldier pretty well, all things considered. He's maintaining his own identity, learning more about who Bucky Barnes really is, who Steve Rogers is, and what they mean to the world. And he's doing all that living quietly in Bucharest. He has hope of putting this all behind him.

All that falls apart quickly after King T'Chaka of Wakanda is killed in a bombing at the UN, and Bucky is blamed for it. Captain America wouldn't let the new world security establishment shoot Bucky on sight even if he wasn't his friend, and Falcon backs him up. A long melee ends with both of them arrested, along with Bucky himself and a new friend.

Black Panther's myth in his debut is extremely simple: as the protector of Wakanda, he seeks vengeance for the death of its king. As T'Challa, he seeks vengeance for the death of his father. In a movie full of long-developed, complex motivations, Black Panther offers a nice contrast of simplicity.

Meanwhile, back at the lab, Tony Stark has asked Vision to hold Wanda Maximoff under house arrest. It's unclear why Vision, who was a paragon of calm and rationality in Age of Ultron, has agreed to this. The world may blame Wanda for the disaster in Lagos that started the movie, but the Avengers should know better, and it's Vision I would have expected to make that argument. It should be clear to him, if no one else, that Brock Rumlow alone was to blame for the explosion, and that if Wanda hadn't lifted it as high as she did it would have killed plenty of people at ground level. Throughout this movie Vision has more of Tony Stark's former servant in him than the personality he developed in Age of Ultron. It's hard to imagine this Vision being deemed worthy to wield the Hammer of Thor.

Wanda, of course, is the last person who needs to be the object of distrust. Not only does she not truly feel a part of the Avengers yet, she's willing to take far too much responsibility on her own shoulders, and the way Tony and Vision treat her only reinforces those things.

In Bucky's prison, the true villain of our piece finally reveals himself: Helmut Zemo, who wants to control Bucky and divide the Avengers for his own purposes. Zemo has tracked down the Hydra method for controlling the Winter Soldier, and sends Bucky on a rampaging escape. And that's when it all falls apart. Up until this point, Tony has believed that Steve would sign the Sokovia Accords, and Steve has hoped that somehow he can keep everyone safe without them. But Tony still believes that Bucky was behind the attack on the UN, and Steve knows better. And the Avengers split over who they trust.

It's difficult to avoid picking a side in this conflict, knowing what we know. Iron Man's team all comes down to loyalty. Vision is the personification of his former AI assistant. War Machine is his long-time friend and protege. Spider-Man is in awe of Tony Stark and doesn't know anyone else. Black Widow sticks by Stark only out of commitment to the Accords, and it's not long before she changes sides, a double agent as always. Only Black Panther on this team is truly sympathetic in any way.

Meanwhile those who stand by Captain America are doing it because they believe in his sense of right and wrong. There's no doubt in their minds, even for someone who has been as far away from things as Scott Lang, that Steve Rogers would never stand for a terrorist, even if that terrorist had been his childhood friend. Hawkeye knows better. Falcon knows better. Wanda knows better. Even Natasha eventually understands. This is why Captain America is the title character in this movie.

And why Iron Man is, eventually, the villain. Tony learns of Zemo's existence, he follows Steve and Bucky to Zemo's destination in Siberia, he makes a truce with Captain America to fight the real bad guy. But the moment Zemo shows him evidence of a brainwashed Bucky killing Howard and Maria Stark, he forgets who the mass-murdering, brainwashing terrorist is and goes full-force after Bucky again. Tony Stark again shows us that, no matter how much he talks about needing oversight, he's the one who is most dangerously out of control. He's the one who has made himself an easy target for Zemo's manipulation.

Fortunately, Tony, Steve, and Bucky aren't the only ones there. T'Challa followed Iron Man, and it's Black Panther who stops Zemo. Black Panther who overcomes his vengeance narrative to arrest Zemo instead of killing him, or allowing him to kill himself. Without T'Challa's help, Tony Stark would be responsible for Zemo's escape. But of course that's a debt Tony will never be able to acknowledge.

Previous entries in this series:
Part 1: Iron Man (2008)
Part 2: The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Part 3: Iron Man 2 (2010)
Part 4: Thor (2011)
Part 5: Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Part 6: The Avengers (2012)
Part 7: Iron Man 3 (2013)
Part 8: Thor: The Dark World (2013)
Part 9: Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Part 10: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Part 11: The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
Part 12: Ant-Man (2015)

_{All images in this post are from Captain America: Civil War, copyright 2016 Marvel, used in this post under Fair Use: Criticism. Provided courtesy of Movie-Screencaps.com}