Marvel's Civil War II # 8

 By Mark Rodriguez

A new Inhuman was discovered named Ulysses that can predict the future. Carol wants to use him to stop disasters before they happen while Tony has doubts the visions are always accurate and it's wrong to go after someone before they even did anything. Several events have happened as a result to responding to these visions, such as a battle against Thanos which led to the death of War Machine and She-Hulk being put in a coma, and Hawkeye killing Banner before he could turn into the Hulk with a specialized arrow. Ulysses' next vision shows Miles Morales killing Captain America and Carol goes after Miles. Tony arrives to stop her. The fight between Captain Marvel and Iron Man comes to a head as she blasts right through Tony's suit, much to the shock of Captain America and Miles.

The issue with a politician driving through the streets of Washington DC as a small chunk of metal hits the hood of his car. A larger chunk soon follows, leaving a dent. As the man angrily steps out of his car, he stares in the sky in shock and horror as Captain Marvel is blasting the hell out of Iron Man in his giant-sized armor. 

Meanwhile Maria Hill tells the Ultimates and Alpha Flight to stand down, she doesn't want a massive superhero battle in front of the Capitol. The Inhumans reach out to SHIELD from New Attilan and Medusa tells Maria to stop the fight. She says that Ulysses is telling them that they have to stop the fight now. Maria asks what will happen but Medusa can't get Ulysses to answer since he seems to be in some sort of trance.

Miles is in a force field set up by Stark as he yells for both of them to stop. Carol tells Tony that she warned him if he came after her, she wouldn't hold back Tony said he won't let her arrest a kid. Steve tries to tell Carol to stop. Iron Man fires some missiles that Captain Marvel dodges and Captain America gets caught in the explosion. Tony checks to make sure that Steve is alright and blames Carol for this. 

Carol punches the Iron Mech saying Tony is under arrest. Tony says she lost her mind and he's saving Miles from her. Mile punches the force field and tells at them to stop fighting. 

Elsewhere the Inhumans see Ulysses floating with wings made of energy forming on his back. Medusa says they have to take him to the others so he can tell them about the vision he's seeing. Beast says he's not sure he's currently in their plane of existence. Regardless, the Inhumans grab Ulysses and tell Lockjaw to teleport them.

Carol punches Iron Man and tells him to stand down. Tony tells her to let Miles go. Maria Hill orders the Ultimates and Alpha Flight to stop the fight. Nova and Miss Marvel locate Miles. Carol fires another blast at Tony.

The Inhumans arrives and Medusa calls out to Carol but she is too high in the sky for her to hear. Miles tells them that he's stuck in a force field created by Stark. Karnak works on deactivating the force field and Medusa says she needs a way to get to Carol. Tony sock Carol across the jaw, knocking her back. His armor tells him his systems are failing. The Ultimates and Alpha Flight arrives on the scene as Karnak frees Miles from the force field.

Carol goes insane and starts punching the hell out of Iron Man's armor without holding back. Medusa, Miles, The Human Torch, Nova and others try to get to the battle in time but Carol delivers one final devastating blow that causes a huge explosion that knocks everyone back. Tony falls out of the sky, his armor completely destroyed as Blue Marvel holds Carol back.

Just then Ulysses sees a magical glowing void, but this time everybody else around him can see it too. Carol asks what he's showing them and Ulysses says it's the futures. Ulysses sees several futures including one with the X-Men fighting against Sentinels, one where Miles kills Captain America and one where Ultron has killed all the Avengers. He asks what's happening to him and he hears a voice say 'You're one of us now'.

Ulysses sees a celestial being telling him that he has shown Earth that he can but he is part of the greater universe now. He says there is more than one Earth is he chooses to join them. Ulysses smiles as he finally sees himself at peace and turns to the others as he leaves. With Ulysses gone along with the shared vision, the heroes look upon the aftermath of their battle as Miles holds onto an unconscious Tony Stark. 

Later on Beast says Ulysses' powers were evolving the whole time, he evolved past humanity and he would have liked to have seen that. Carol says he really doesn't and she hasn't been able to sleep since. She asks if Tony is going to die, and Beast says he will eventually. She cuts past the sarcasm and asks if he's going to live. Beast says she won't like the answer as he's uncomfortable continuing with the examination. Beast tells Carol and Maria that Tony did something to himself that he's never seen before. Maria asks if Tony has been experimenting on himself, and Beast says whatever he did, it's the only thing keeping him alive right now. He tells Carol at least she won't go down as 'the woman that killed Tony Stark'.

Carol looked down and say she didn't start this. Beast says he wasn't fighting her and he actually trusted her. Carol asks if he was fighting himself. Beast says Carol opened a dangerous door. Deep down Tony trusted Carol but with the concept of profiling people and the future, he was worried about what would come next. Tony is a futurist, he knows if profiling became the norm someone would eventually use it for evil purposes, to profile mutants, inhumans or anyone else. Tony knew what would come next if he didn't stop her now, he just never expected her to fight this hard. Carol didn't start it, but she ended it. 

Carol looks down, stricken by grief as Tony is sealed away. Hawkeye arrives and Carol asks where he's been. Hawkeye says he's been setting up shop. He says he's becoming the most popular Avenger over what will forever haunt him and will no do something she can't. He tells Carol to trust him, no matter what happens next. 

At the White House, Carol reports to the president and tells him that Ulysses is gone. He says it's a shame since he's gotten used to knowing the future before it happens. Carol tells him it's a possible future, one of many. The president says they're still breathing American air so he doesn't care about the 'hows and whys', just like most Americans don't care about the 'hows and whys' as long as they wake up to see another day. He asks Carol what is the fallout in the superhero community. 

Carols says there's been a bit of everything. Some have been left overwhelmed, some find themselves starting over. Some know exactly what to do and others are doing the opposite. She says she will look towards whatever good could have come from all of this. The President says in the meantime the winner gets her prize and asks what he can do for her. Carol is confused and the president explains he once thought that Colonel James Rhodes was the future, but now he thinks it's her. He is ready to help her out in any way he can and his piggy bank is open to her. He says this is her golden ticket and her chance to cash in. Carol says she actually has some ideas about the future. 

My Thoughts-

What a crazy and insane ending here. Obviously we wouldn't have had much of a comic book if Carol and Tony just talked it out and parted ways, but man Carol really went off the rails at the end, completely losing her temper. The overall story did raise some questions regarding taking advantage of knowing future events or whether or not it's right to go after people before they even did anything. Tony and Carol were driving each other nuts and I guess an all-out battle was inevitable, but like Beast said, Tony wasn't expecting her to flat out lose her shit.

This event would have long-lasting effects, some that still affect the Marvel Universe to this day. Tony is in a coma for a good while, which paved the way for Riri Williams to become Ironheart in his absence. James Rhodes would eventually come back to life, as heroes tend to do, with the same experiments done to him by Stark beforehand that he has done to himself. The Hulk's body was taken and revived by The Hand. 

She-Hulk would become an enraged savage version of herself that looked closer to her cousin once she got out of her coma. She eventually regained her senses but she remained in this new larger form for several years, making this the longest-lasting consequence of this story. She only just returned to her classic form a few month ago.

Overall pretty entertaining story, the art and action was incredible. This issue alone was full of a lot of 2-page spreads and huge panels and Tony and Carol just tore into each other. Throughout the whole story there were so many pages that were pin-up worthy, it was difficult to decide which pics to showcase. I was still new to some of these newer characters, and I enjoyed seeing Miles have a big part of it as he's now co-existing with the regular 616 heroes. 

Ulysses was kind of a weird character, more like a plot device. Maybe we could have had a bit more time with him dealing with all these powers. He was regular kid a week or so ago until he was exposed to the Terrigen Mist and discovered that he was an Inhuman. Now he's become some sort of cosmic entity and disappeared off to who knows where? How exactly does a once-regular human deal with this? What strife did he go through that he preferred to leave everything he knew behind? I would have liked to have seen things more from his point of view. For most of the story he was pretty much pulled back and forth between Tony, Carol and the Inhumans. 

Either way, it was a fun read and I'm glad I was able to obtain all 8 parts. I also loved how the Free Comic Book Day issue was a good part of it, since we see the big fight with Thanos that we only just saw it being referred to in actual story.