Problem Topics

[jynx.livejournal.com]

I was given permission for this post! I was! I HAVE PROOF. Stating that now~!

This is where I'm going to request a dialogue with you guys. Because I am horribly curious and in serious need of an intelligent discussion. I've got two topics, one that might not quite fit HERE since we're all about Steve and Tony, but it relates to Steve. And Steve is very important to all of us.

PROBLEM TOPIC ONE!
(please, please, PLEASE comment with your opinions. all of them! even if you have no interest in opening your mind to someone else's opinion and thought on the topic)

Civil. War. Oh yes, that was the feeling of the bottom of your stomach dropping down to your shoes. Except, I'm not looking for this to turn into a cry in the corner, call Tony a douche for XYZ or anything like that. I am looking for a well thought discussion on who's fault it is. I am not looking at legal responsibility, but more moral. In a philosophical sense. Who started the war? Who pushed that first domino that caused the rest to fall and for all these nasty events to happen. It can be traced back to that single falling domino, just like World War 2 can be traced back how World War 1 ended and that can be traced back to the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. You cannot have one without the other. That's pretty much where I'm coming from. I want it mostly feelings free, but that's not going to happen. So, I want opinions and reasons. Why do you think ... Tony is guilty? Why Steve? I personally think they've got equal blame (yes, equal. 100% equal) because (a) if Tony had told Steve about the SHRA and everything, like he had with Peter, they might have been able to prevent the CW from happening (unless he was under a gag order. Then you know, he couldn't. But ah, then what about Peter~? See? It's sticky! I LOVE IT!) and (b) if Steve hadn't flown off the handle a la Ultimates!Captain American and not 616!Cap, then would the government have put Tony in charge of the SHRA?

See? It's lovely how these things just fall. It's perfect! Now, discuss and let it be wonderful. I will not poke you if you are nothing but hostile. Except maybe to laugh. Because, really. I'm not attacking anyone, I am just asking for a dialogue on the opinions of everyone here. Who do you think knocked that first domino down? Why?

PROBLEM TOPIC TWO!

Steve. Sharon. Sharon was brainwashed. YET we can see them being all sugar and sweet and d'aw. I know that I'm not the only one who sees this as sick and creepy and yet. (I know this cuz I posted about it in my LJ. And had a lovely discussion.) Also, we don't know that she's completely brainwash free. I mean, c'mon. Villain? Does that to a character? You can't just wipe it away and move on. The seed is there, you have to use it. So, that's part of the topic I want to discuss. Why are Steve and Sharon still together when it's so amazingly disgusting and creepy and on so many levels, possibly a consent issue. (Credit for at least half of these ideas go to the people on the discussion post in my LJ). And, because I'm getting ideas as I type this - Tony deleted his brain. All memories of at least two years (from between Breakout in New Avg. to the start of the Sentry arc is where I pinpoint Extremis) has been erased. Like Sharon, who was brainwashed and not in her right mind, can we argue (as some fic authors have, actually) that Extremis put Tony in not his right mind? That means that if we hold Tony accountable, that Sharon is too. This one is more a sticky topic than the previous one because this is more ... feeling and opinion centric than fact and opinion centric.

But go! Discuss!! :D Because I want to know. Me and my twisted little mind are interested in justifications and where the blame goes, and also just on the complex problem of Steve-Sharon-Tony and justification.

And yes, this post is so allowed. I was told to make a post, so I did. Let's discuss~

Comments

[arysteia.livejournal.com]

I don't have time for the main discussion because I'm already late for work. I will be back, though.

This, however, cannot stand:

it can be traced back to that single falling domino, just like World War 2 can be traced back how World War 1 ended and that can be traced back to the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.

This statement shows no understanding of historical process whatsoever. I teach both WWI and WWII and neither of these events are the causal nexuses they are popularly claimed to be. Franz Ferdinand's assassination was an excuse, a pretext, but it caused nothing. Claimed cause and actual cause differing is pointed out for the first time in Thucydides' discussion on the causes of the Peloponnesian War, for god's sake, namely Athenian imperialism versus Spartan fear. Likewise Versailles traditionally got a lot of blame, but inter-war diplomacy had moved well past it before racial ideology met mass unemployment and started to tango.

A discussion of Civil War that looks for arbitrary hinge points like this will achieve nothing.

[melisus.livejournal.com]

The former history major in me just cheered at this comment. Thank you.

[muccamukk]

If you apply this logic, Gavrilo Princip is directly and solely responsible for Auschwitz, and the Nazis weren't at all.

erm...*taps microphone* hello.

[jazzypom.livejournal.com]

As Steve Rogers says, straight up, he's a soldier, first and foremost and doesn't make policy (see: Secret Wars). So, yeah, I can imagine him and the others that be, behind SHRA looking at Steve and not wanting him to be a part of the SHRA, because well, it can be argued that the law was anti - liberty. There's a reason why it was under the table, so to speak, and Tony only got a whiff of the law because of Fury who was in the know. The law wasn't debated publically (iirc it was in closed hearing) and the powers that be weren't even trying to hear Spiderman's considered remarks because they had an agenda.

To Tony's credit, he did try to steer the actions of the committee (with the Titianium Man bit) and then tried to spin and spin like Rumplestiltskin, but he was too... well, beyond it to ask for help.

In terms of portioning blame - like I said, as much as I'm sympathetic to Tony's reasons, what he did was a series of dick moves. A perpetual symphony which is gobsmacking obnoxious, and he didn't have the sense of mind to step away or take stock when everything was escalating. All his actions, and then getting the money (the stocks that he made squillions from, and getting the government contracts to build the prisons) was a dick move. I think my thing with people who tend to be defenders of Tony, is the fact that they seem to cling to the man and have him as someone who's more sinned against than sinned, and that's not true.

I've always said that if I had been a hero in the MU and the SHRA was law, I'd have been on Steve's side. I know that someone on my flist tends to snort at my response, but for real, the USA and its record with dealing with minorities (and in this case, superheroes are minorities), there's no way I'd be throwing in my towel with Tony Stark. Not at all. I'm with Luke Cage here (another character whom people don't seem to like) that Tony backed and used his full weight of his name and money for a law that's oppressive.

I can still love Tony Stark, and not like the man's actions. I don't think people hate Tony on this comm (because it is a comm celebrating Tony/Steve), as much as they are disappointed by his actions, and are turned off by the fact that Marvel seems to want to beat one about the head and shoulders re: Tony being right, you know? I'm like Mrs Tony Blair when she sees the Queen on this one; my knees will stiffen instead of defaulting to a curtsey.

With regards to Tony and Sharon: one of this is not like the other, mate. Tony made a choice to embrace Extremis, although he didn't know the side effects, etc. etc. That's pretty much me signing a contract and not reading the fine print, and then crying wolf when it's my time to pay. Tony did it all in his right mind, and then erased extremis only when Osborn came into power, so all his actions up to that time were taken with his own agency in hand, to boot. Re: Sharon, she was captured and brainwashed against her will. She didn't sign on to be brainwashed and used, so from the jump all her actions were against her consent.

Now, don't get me wrong, there are things that Tony shouldn't have to apologise for, but in the same breath, there are loads of things that he should hold up his hands for and say I'm sorry. But with Fraction and Quesada in his corner, I can't see how Tony will be the penitent anytime soon.

Re: erm...*taps microphone* hello.

[strzyga.livejournal.com]

Tony did it all in his right mind
i have to disagree with this point, because tony had just been crushed in several places and was in the process of dying. he was not in his 'right mind', he was desperate, and he took the first thing that came his way to make sure he could survive.

[tsukinofaerii.livejournal.com]

Hooboy, I hope this does not go badly.
[$0.02]
PROBLEM TOPIC ONE: I will state right now that I think Civil War was sloppy writing and editing. It wasn't coherent at all, every writer did their own thing, the "message" was all over the place, and generally everyone was made to act OOC at times in order to bend the plot into shape. I cannot explain Peter, for example, because I cannot actually imagine that it was Tony behind that. Logically, I know he was. It is canon. But that was not Tony Stark as I know him, and trying to fit that into his characterization makes my brain ooze out my ears. For that reason, I'm not at all touching the individual events of Civil War, because then I will turn into a frothing, incoherent monster of Rage At The Editors, and that is not at all on topic.

If we're looking at who pushed the very, very first domino for Civil War (not SHRA, for that is a legal matter, and therefore reaches much farther than Tony and Steve), then I'm thinking it's Maria Hill. (Preemptive Disclaimer: I do not actually dislike Maria Hill. I think she is awesome and badass and willing to be an asshole, and I do not dislike her.) If she hadn't given Cap an illegal order and sent him running before SHRA was signed into law, things would have been heavily different. It closed down dialog before it even started. From there, both Cap and Tony reacted predictably. Well, on the "not talking to each other" angle. Personally, I think they were both carrying idiot balls, and Tony specifically was handed the Villain Of The Day hat by more writers than I'm going to bother counting. If Maria hadn't pushed that button, everything would have played out very differently.

PROBLEM TOPIC TWO: Why are Steve and Sharon still together when it's so amazingly disgusting and creepy and on so many levels, possibly a consent issue.

This, I can't actually lay anywhere except the Team On Board (writer/editor/etc). There's been absolutely no indication that they realize how creepy and dubious Steve/Sharon is at the moment. If they mean to use this as a plot point, and are aware of the Creepy, then they're doing a piss-poor job of showing it.
[/$0.02]

[valtyr]

I'm going to defend Maria a little bit (just a little). We were shown from day one of Maria that the President was leaning on her, hard. She pushed back and disobeyed for the benefit of the Avengers. I really don't think she would have tried to arrest Cap without specific authorization from the President, and I believe this interpretation is backed up by Steve going underground immediately; he felt Maria would not have acted on her own, and that meant the weight of the Government behind her.

Was still a wrong thing for her do to. But I don't think it was her acting alone.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

I will state right now that I think Civil War was sloppy writing and editing. It wasn't coherent at all, every writer did their own thing, the "message" was all over the place, and generally everyone was made to act OOC at times in order to bend the plot into shape.... Personally, I think they were both carrying idiot balls, and Tony specifically was handed the Villain Of The Day hat by more writers than I'm going to bother counting.

This is my take, as well. When it comes to some of the more wildly OOC bits of canon (like the beat-down Peter got), the Iron Man title and main Civil War title and Amazing Spiderman title all presented different versions (one where Tony let Peter go and did nothing further, one where supervillains show up afterward and beat Peter all to snot but it's never revealed who sent them - given that, my pet interpretation is that the government people pulling Tony & Maria's strings who chose to hire the supervillains in the first place were the ones who sent them - and one where everyone ascribes the blame to Tony), and I go with the less OTT mustache-twirling, cacklingly evil Tony behavior, because it reconciles better with the rest of canon.

If I were explaining it now, post-Secret Invasion, I'd blame an awful lot of the criminal/unethical stuff on skrull!Hank. After all, it's canon that removing skrull!Hank from the picture in the Steve-and-Tony-get-married verse kept most of that from happening (and Steve and Tony's wedding presumably did the rest).

IMO, whenever Mark Millar is writing, you often need to automatically deduct at least 50% of all horrible behavior from a character's storyline before it makes narrative sense.

[jynx.livejournal.com]

because then I will turn into a frothing, incoherent monster of Rage At The Editors, and that is not at all on topic

I've been toying with doing CW as my English honors thesis paper, hence some of my poking at it. And this I agree. The "critical" scene with Steve and Hill? Feel like 2 halves of different conversations. Which is mostly what started my going "....wait, what?" at the whole thing. I've kind of just tried to make sense of it by saying that 616!Avengers were replaced, temporarily, with Ult!Avengers.

AND! By the by, I don't think it was an illegal order. No one actually knows if Steve was discharged by the military. If Steve wasn't discharged by the military, he could technically be on loan to them via SHIELD. If that's the case, Hill was totally within rights to make the order. Except, there's no actual explicit order. The closest thing to an order she gives is "Nobody you can't handle?" and well. And then something about asking Cap to obey the will of the people and blahblah. And then the guns and so on. She never actually orders him to do anything. Mostly just implies and Cap goes off the handle. Which isn't understandable. His reaction was off. Instead of running underground, I would have expected him to fight it open. But, that's me. I wasn't the writer. I would have been a little better and maybe a little worse to canon overall. But it would have been better organized.

I like the idea of shifting off some of the blame off Steve and onto Maria. I mean, so far, the blame needs to be equally (and I really do stress the equal thing) among Tony, Steve, Maria, and then the government people. I just kind of want to figure out who started it. It also doesn't help that, as Ani pointed out once, that the SHRA was never actually decided on before the CW was written. It kept evolving. I think we should look at CW and say this is how NOT to write an event.

As for Sharon and Steve? God. I just...want someone to say what's going on. Like, no she's no longer brainwashed and no, there is no chance she'll go nutso again. Or even something about the kid. Because really. There's all these things that they could draw on and make it awesome, but I'm getting the feeling that Marvel is going to do the same thing they've done with the rest of movie-type comics. Peggy Carter is in the Cap movie, and yeah... It's kind of annoying to see things like this (movies dictating what route the comics take - ie: tony's villains). But besides that, it's just so creepy and wrong and makes me feel a little unclean reading the stories.

[ouri.livejournal.com]

I will state right now that I think Civil War was sloppy writing and editing. It wasn't coherent at all, every writer did their own thing, the "message" was all over the place, and generally everyone was made to act OOC at times in order to bend the plot into shape.

^ THIS. The contradictions and extreme differences in characterization between titles make the overall story read like it was crapped out by those proverbial random monkeys with typewriters.

[valtyr]

(b) if Steve hadn't flown off the handle a la Ultimates!Captain American and not 616!Cap, then would the government have put Tony in charge of the SHRA?

Gonna need you to explain what you mean by 'flying off the handle'. (also, please to be pointing me to events where Ult Cap flies off the handle, I have not read that book. He's usually very controlled.)

Who started the war? Who pushed that first domino that caused the rest to fall and for all these nasty events to happen.

That's not how it works. I can pin down a huge divergence in my life to a particular book. That doesn't mean all the events since are my mother's fault because she said "That one's got dragon in the name, dear, you like dragons."

[melisus.livejournal.com]

Problem Topic #1: There were many causes leading up to the Civil War, hence the whole "Road to Civil War" trade. If you want to talk about the "excuse" or "final ignition" in that sense then it was the accident in Stamford.

I know a lot of comics readers put down Civil War as a mess, and looking back on it now yes it rather was and it ended up leading to a conclusion/status quo that can't really be fixed properly or coherently. But considering the trades of the event given to me by a friend were what got me to regularly reading comics in the first place... I rather enjoyed it. I think as its own mini it's great... but as a part of continuity not so much. Also, Reed Richards came across to me as being so much worse than anyone else was.

Problem Topic #2: Yeah, they're relationship leaves me kind of unsettled a bit too. The writers just never really explored or concluded how much of an effect being mind-controlled by someone would or should have had on Sharon. But I thought pretty much all of what went on in Captain America Reborn was pretty rushed and craptastic, so I'm not all that surprised that Steve and Sharon have just gone right back to how they were before everything happened.

[jynx.livejournal.com]

But considering the trades of the event given to me by a friend were what got me to regularly reading comics in the first place...

This too. CW got me out of XMen, which was where I was quite happy, humming and D: over some of Rogue and Gambit stuff. And then my friend shoved CW at me and that made me fall for Tony. And Steve was a good accessory. XD But yeah. Ugh. As a mini it is great, and shouldn't count toward continuity because of all the massive issues that SHRA brought to the table. It makes me a little D:

Also, Reed Richards came across to me as being so much worse than anyone else was.

Has Reed EVER had anyone point at him and nail him for his part in this? In any of it? Because I don't really keep up with F4. And it seems like a massive oversight to not have Reed get nailed BADLY for everything. Esp with the Illuminati thing.

As for Cap Reborn, I haven't read it. I refuse to read it. It's a recycled storyline that makes me fume at the stupidity of writers. But jeez. Sharon and Steve are just so creepy D:

[garrideb.livejournal.com]

This doesn't answer your question in Problem Topic #1, but it is my two cents regarding Civil War. It is a hot mess. Neither man started it; indeed, neither 'side' started it. And I hesitate to define two sides to the civil war, as clearly a lot of the characters don't fit neatly into Steve or Tony's camp, despite those nifty Who's Side Are You On? posters. Now, in theory I agree with registration, as any first response team or individual should be trained to standards set by a qualified organization.

But Marvel, in order to rev up the drama, I suppose, made it canon that the pro-registration side was batshit insane. Imprisoning people who weren't using their powers? Employing villains to do the dirty work? Forgoing any sort of due process when they claimed that what they were doing was for the sake of public trust and safety?

So whose fault was the whole mess? the writers and editors Each time a person did something immoral and caused escalation, it was that person's fault. And there was no single immoral act, as far as I can see, that started everything. Even the stanford kaboom wasn't a black & white starting point; had public opinion been pro-hero at the time, it might not have sparked off the SHRA. And who shaped public opinion? Hundreds of heroes and villains throughout Marvel.

Although dominos can be a fun metaphor for tracing cause-and-effect, they aren't too useful for assigning blame, as it takes away agency from every event except for the first. It doesn't really work that way unless you want to say the Big Bang caused WWII.

Not touching Problem Topic #2.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

I think that one of the problems was that the Marvel creative staff as a whole could never decide whether the SHRA was the Keene Act from Watchmen (a crackdown on uncontrolled costumed vigilante activity that sucked if you were a superhero but probably looked pretty good from the standpoint of an average non-costumed citizen, even the powered ones) or the Mutant Registration of a thousand dystopic X-Men futures, some of which were intentional parallels to the Holocaust and all of which were intended to be hideously oppressive acts of bigotry against minority groups.

I.e. Sometimes, it's portrayed as "Superhero Registration" (ex: as when Firestar opts out of the whole thing by taking off her costume and retiring, which apparently is enough to get the SHRA to leave her alone) and sometimes it's portrayed as Superhuman Registration, where the government is going to put the names of everyone with any kind of super-power on a list, presumably to make it easier for the Sentinels to find them when they reimplement Project Wideawake.

[arileo.livejournal.com]

On number 1:
Most of what I would say on this has already been covered, but I will say this. There were two Civil War What If?s. One covered what would have happened if Steve and Tony had actually sat down, talked, and came to a compromise on the SHRA, with happy endings for everyone but the supervillians. In the other Tony had died during Extremis, and was not there to try and grab hold of things, and in the end everybody was killed.

Take it as you will.

[valtyr]

Actually, the 'happy endings for all' one was only a happy ending as long as Steve was alive, and they didn't touch on Sharon's brainwashing. So that happy ending lasted until Sharon gunned down Steve, I guess.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to get into Civil War because that will just end up in me picking fights with people. I've had that argument already (several times, while CW was still ongoing) and it never ended well, and in fact usually ended in me shrieking at people.

Plus, talking about the brain-delete thing and the amnesia puts me in a bad emotional place that I prefer to avoid.

But I'll totally discuss the case of Steve/Sharon and the unacknowledged dub-con some more.

I'm agree with tsukinofaerii that:

There's been absolutely no indication that they realize how creepy and dubious Steve/Sharon is at the moment.

Brubaker has a well-demonstrated love of brainwashing plots and an equally well demonstrated degree of tone-deafness when it comes to Things That Look Really Bad When You Do Them To Female Characters (see: crazifying or killing or having villains attack almost every single woman in the Daredevil title over the course of two nearly back-to-back storylines). I suspect he honestly has no clue that there might be some repercussions from "she was brainwashed into being in love with him" that ought to be dealt with before a reasonably aware person can enjoy Steve and Sharon being romantic and shippy.

The worst part is, it would not be that difficult to at least make a token effort at dealing with them (like stating definitively that the brainwashing is over for good and her current feelings are entirely her own) that would vastly decrease the creepiness. Hell, just acknowledging that the brainwashed sex in CA #21 was dub-con/might not have been entirely consensual on Sharon's part would go a long way towards making it less icky, because a lot of the ick comes from the fact that Brubaker himself doesn't seem to realize there's anything potentially problematic in the situation. If it were presented as kind of fucked up, it would be way less disturbing than happy fluffy romance-land is. It would also be more interesting and a better story.

[muccamukk]

I survived Brubaker through Vannessa Fisk going evil and dying; Milla Murdock going crazy; Angela del Toro getting murdered and brainwashed by the Hand; Lady Bullseye; Sharon being pretty useless, then essentially getting raped, knocked up, having the foetus aborted, then everyone being fine with that, and you know what did me in? The Marvel Project.

Brubaker retconned OUT every female superhero and woman involved in WWII. It was then that I said that I was done with him forever.

[glasgowsmiles.livejournal.com]

Oh, definitely I think if wiped!Tony is still held accountable, then post-brainwash!Sharon should still be held accountable.

[muccamukk]

Really?

Sharon was not in control of her actions when she shot Steve. She could see what she was doing, but her body had no control over it.

Tony had complete control over his actions throughout Civil War. He was under pressure yes, but every move he took was his own. Not remembering that doesn't change that.

[booster-blue.livejournal.com]

Ultimates would do much in helping you figure out CW....

[red-savage.livejournal.com]

First, please know that I adore both Tony and Steve.

Okay I feel I have to chime in with my little two bits ... not entirely on topic directly, but Civil War is such a touchy subject in general for many of us because it shakes up the universe.

Hmmm... Civil War ... Marvel's quite successful effort to get more of us to buy titles we wouldn't normally buy. They did it in 1984 with Secret Wars ... which I had thought would drive me entirely away from buying/reading comics forever. It didn't, but it pissed me off for reasons I won't rant about here; other than to say it changed my view on comics and shook up my little corner of the Marvel universe for my generation as Civil War seems to have done for the present one.

But beyond this, I think they used it (Civil War) as a method to get rid of Extremis. In short I think Extremis makes Tony as a character far too powerful for the universe -- i.e. writing challenges for this kind of power is difficult because at times Tony almost seems to be omniscience. Saying in terms of something like game design ... the disadvantages one would have to take in order to take something like Extremis is such that eventually it renders the character unplayable. Anyway in the process trying to "fix" his powerfulness the writers took Tony's character to some really dark places.

Civil War I think was also Marvel's attempt at social commentary on what can happen when people succumb to knee-jerk reactions in an effort to make their world "safer". Yes, I think people can go temporally bat-shit crazy, usually when they're scared and dealing with a new or unfamiliar situation. (Note to Marvel: This still does not excuse some of the crappy writing and execution of plot during CW.)

Topic one: I don't believe there's such a thing as a well thought out discussion when it comes to assigning fault/blame. People usually have a definitive sense of who caused the problem and in most cases it is someone other than themselves. (Thus we have Steve and Tony each assigning blame to the other during Civil War.) In my experience, it is a waste of time assigning blame and it generally is unproductive unless you can actually get to --"oh gee, that was a bad idea -- let's not do it next time. How about we try this instead?" If we are to believe Marvel ... it was fear that was to blame for CW.

Topic two: I don't think any rational person (however during CW there was a shortage of those) who knew Tony wasn't in his "right mind", would hold him accountable; however it hasn't been portrayed that way. He appeared to make choices of his own free will including self-induced amnesia (and thus we have dark fic and creepiness - because I know I'd feel *oogie* if I were in Tony's shoes). Sharon did not make her choices ...(and thus more canon creepiness).

*points up*

[jazzypom.livejournal.com]

What she said. Especially with Extremis.

[chaosakita.livejournal.com]

The really easy solution to this "problem" is that comic books are written by real life human beings, who have varying levels of intelligence and put varying levels of thought into their books. They also have preferences for what they like to write about. So they're incompetent or don't want to write about it. There's no use putting in more thought into it than they have.

And uhhh, totally off subject, but the correct grammar isn't "Me and my twisted little mind are interested." It's "My twisted little mind and I." Sorry, but it just kind of bothered me. -_-;;

[jynx.livejournal.com]

...pfft. I'm a bad English major. Shame on me. And usually that's a twitch of mine. Can I use the excuse I was running out the door? No? Durnit. ^^;;

There's no use putting in more thought into it than they have.

But that's not fun. One of my biggest things as a writer, for anything, is finding out what makes who tick. I like figuring people out. Civil War is a puzzle to me and I want to crack it. The more impossible something is to figure out, the more I want to. It's a quirk of mine.

IMO, Wanda makes a better comparison than Sharon - mindcontrol's a legit get out of jail free card

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

But amnesia or "maybe they were crazy" isn't, or we'd all automatically forgive Hank Pym for that time he hit Jan. Which even I, adoring Hank apologist, am not gonna do.

So, even though I know thinking/talking this much about the amnesia plot thing or Civil War in general leads to wank and madness and I really ought to just let it go already...

I was talking with seanchai last night (okay, ranting at her, really) and I don't think Sharon Carter is a good parallel for Tony's canon situation right now. I think the character we ought to be comparing him to in terms of craziness and horrible or perceived as horrible canonical actions and mind-control/amnesia is the Scarlet Witch.

I think Wanda Maximoff is a much better comparison for Tony's canon situation than Sharon is (Sharon's more of a victim in CA than a potential villain - like I said to glasgowsmiles above, blaming her for the things she did while under mind control would involve blaming her for her own maybe-rape, what with the whole brainwashed sex thing). Whereas with the Scarlet Witch, it's a much closer parallel. Both Tony and Wanda were shafted and savaged as characters in order to suit a writer's plot agenda (Bendis has actually said that he "wanted to destroy the Avengers" and Wanda was "convenient," and I think it's pretty obvious that Tony was being used as a moustache-twirling villainous strawman by some writers during Civil War), and both now have been given amnesia, presumably so the same writers can now avoid dealing with the repercussions of screwing the characters over in the service of plot. Except the amnesia doesn't actually help, because it doesn't restore all those mutants' stolen powers and resurrect the Vision and Scott Lang, and it doesn't bring Steve and Bill Foster and Happy Hogan back from the dead (Steve did come back, of course, but not because of anything Tony did).

In both cases, in order to salvage the character, the writers have to find some way to either justify what they've done, or make it not their fault (especially Wanda, whose actions on M-Day can't be justified -- trying to erase an entire race of people off the planet? -- and therefore have to be retconned into something like possession or mind control in order to avoid the "fuck, she's gone so far beyond the moral event horizon that we have to either turn her into a villain or kill her" situation that Clairemont got himself into with DarkPhoenix!Jean).

The problem is, they don't seem to realize that Tony's actions during CW need to be either justified or retconned, so they haven't done it. They've just slapped amnesia onto him because it's a hack writer's favorite Get Out Of the Corner I've Written Myself Into Free card, and presumed that readers will be so relieved to have Dark Reign go the hell away that we'll put up with or handwave or ignore all the major inconsistencies in Tony's past few years of characterization for the sake of having canon be happy and entertaining again (which isn't an entirely unjustified expectation on their parts - after all, I'm willing to handwave/ignore the utter WTF that was Brubaker's "Reborn" for the sake of having Steve back, and people put up with the original, Liefeldian "Reborn" as the price for making the early 90s go away).

[marinarusalka.livejournal.com]

The closest thing I can think of to a defining event in CW was the Stamford disaster, and even that can't be viewed as the single cause, since SHRA was already in progress by then (with the president behind it) and the shady government types would've pushed it through one way or another. But it did shape public opinion, so that when SHRA did go through, it seemed to have universal backing among everyone who wasn't a superhero. And that pretty much affected how the war and the aftermath went from then on.

Steve couldn't rally popular support to his cause, and it seems to have really demoralized him. Normally when the country appears to turn against him, he just quits being Captain America for a while and goes off to brood in an alternate costume, but this time it wasn't an option, because, well there was a war on, and he was stuck leading one side of it. So he was off his game throughout, and then got browbeat into surrendering by an incompetent reporter making totally idiotic arguments. (Seriously, the guy who made the "no, you move" speech, suddenly giving in to "nyah, nyah, you're a loser because you don't understand the internet?" WTF?)

Without the widespread public support caused by Stamford, I suspect the execution of the SHRA would've been much less draconian, and maybe Tony's side might've found a way to make it work.

Not that this helps much in apportioning blame, since AFAIK, neither Tony nor Steve nor Maria nor any of the usual major players in CW were responsible for Stamford, and yet they're all still responsible for the decisions they made in the aftermath. So I don't know how much this helps. :-P

[muccamukk]

This whole conversation is reminding me why I write AUs.