After seeing the much-anticipated installment in the Marvel Movie saga, Captain America: Civil War, I recently had the opportunity to sit down with resident comic book fan and Marketing Director for Chicago Street Theater, Eric Brant.
For those who don't know or doubt his comic prowess, Brant has been a fan of comic books since the age of four, born at a time when it was the heyday of Marvel of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, making him a diehard Marvel fan for life with personal stories of sneaking into Marvel Comics Studios during his teenage years and fears of being an X-Men from a young age.
So in an epic discussion worthy of the most epic comic crossover events, we sat down with this resident Marvel superfan to talk about his afterthoughts on Marvel's latest in their Captain America trilogy.
Kyle: "So before we begin, you have an interesting comic book-related memory from your childhood correct?"
Eric: "I was six years old and was in the hospital with mononucleosis and remembered being terrified reading X-Men with the villain Sauron who drained everyone's powers. I thought that was what was wrong with me, I was going to drain everyone's' life force."
Kyle: "That is a memorable story. So, what are some of your favorite Marvel stories? Is Civil War one of them?"
Eric: "I'm pretty privy to events such as Civil War and Secret War. The 80's was a great era for comics and Civil War was more of a reflection of modern times."
Kyle: "So what did you think of the big screen version of Civil War overall? Good, bad, or indifferent?"
Eric: "I thought Civil War did a great job at telling a cohesive story. If I was someone who didn't understand the 50 years of comics and continuity, coming into Civil War was a great experience they will get a lot of references. In the beginning, it's a little slow starting and brings up the great issue of if there were superheroes who caused all this collateral damage, who would be responsible?"
Kyle: "It does a great job setting it up, right?"
Eric: "Yeah, it does have a big action set piece in the beginning and does a great job showing how it sets everything into place. The pacing is really good. The main villain's motives were a bit foggy, but they did a good job of showing that he is who caused the need to tear the Avengers apart."
Kyle: "I think it's even referenced too that no one is strong enough to defeat them but the only way to defeat them is from within."
Eric: "It becomes a family kind of struggle. It's family against family. Your family can love you the most, but they can also hurt you the most. Friends and even enemies can't hurt you or get in your heads like family can."
Kyle: "How do you feel that it wasn't exactly like the Civil War comic arc?"
Eric: "It couldn't happen due to the massive amount of characters and it couldn't showcase their powers and gives them great matches together. It's what Civil War did so well by showing how well the characters can combine the use of their powers and showing them working together."
Kyle: "It really does show them off well as a team."
Eric: "Right, it doesn't show one guy being so unstoppable that no one can beat them."
Kyle: "What I also like is that now we're in Phase Three of the Marvel Universe is that they're setting up the universe and making sure things continue to connect. I like the feeling of connections and consequence. For example, what happens in Age of Ultron has consequences in Civil war."
Kyle: "Did you like how they handled the new heroes like Spider-Man and Black Panther?"
Eric: "I really did. I thought Tom Holland really caught the spirit of Spider-Man and didn't go through the process of how he got his powers and his origin story since we already know that. Seeing the Avengers and Stark pop up in his life is interesting. The banter was great and since the Ruso brothers had a lot to do with the show Community they knew when it was right to insert comedy bits. They just get it and get the spirit of it."
Kyle: So what do you think of Civil War and it's overall rank among the other Marvel films?
Eric: "Overall the Marvel Cinematic universe pairing with Disney has done such a great job capturing the spirit of the comics for people who have been fans of these books as well as taking a collection of characters such as the Guardians of the Galaxy and making them popular. Everyone gets it and everyone wins in the end."