civilwarspiderman

Picking sides is a life-long tradition that starts for many of us in early childhood; whether you got to choose who you sat with in the lunchroom or you were picked to be on a team on the playground, our developmental years started a trend that continues for almost everyone to this day.  In high school, especially, being on a team or a side for a cause is important; one of the few things better than choosing your own side is when someone sees something in you to the point where they invite you to join their side.  Imagine, then, how high-schooler Peter Parker must feel in ‘Captain America: Civil War’ when billionaire-genius-playboy-philanthropist Tony Stark comes calling to recruit the young lad to Team Iron Man!

In the big summer blockbuster coming to theaters soon – and already receiving lots of praise from its initial advance screenings – even though the movie is chock-full of superheroes, the addition of Spider-Man has been one of the most intriguing pieces of the Marvel Cinematic Universe puzzle.  Marvel Entertainment, who has spear-headed the greater MCU over the last decade or so, struck a deal with Sony, who holds the film rights to the web-slinger, to allow Peter Parker and company to join in the team-up shenanigans.  ‘Civil War’ will be Spidey’s first big-screen outing under the new agreement; the character is portrayed by Tom Holland in the film, and he gets his own solo film next year, ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming,’ in which Robert Downey, Jr.’s Iron Man will be guest-starring.

It’s very clear, then, that ‘Civil War’ will give us a mentor-mentee relationship for the two characters.  How this relationship comes to fruition, however, is a story that we expect to take up a decent-sized chunk of Captain America’s film.  The directors of the film, Joe and Anthony Russo, recently elaborated on the whys and the hows behind Tony Stark’s desire to include Spider-Man as part of his team.  From Joe Russo:

“Look, there’s a certain narcissism to the character and Tony doesn’t want to lose this fight, and at the same time I think he also sees Spider-Man as the greatest living non-lethal weapon. If you’re going out to capture a bunch of people who you don’t necessarily want to hurt, you couldn’t ask for a better character than Spider-Man to take with you.

“He does show up and illustrate that Spider-Man, he knows how powerful he is. In a video we see Spider-Man stopping a car moving 40 miles an hour, where he catches it and puts it back on the ground, so I think he believes that he’s taking with him perhaps one of the most powerful characters in the Marvel universe, and I think he feels like the kid will be well-protected under his tutelage. You also find out in that sequence, when things go wrong the kid says, ‘What do I do?’ and Tony says, ‘Keep your distance, web ’em up.’ So he’s obviously mentored the kid for what’s about to go down.”

This sheds some light on an aspect of ‘Civil War’ that may be the most interesting aspect of what plays out on the screen: the fact that this fight isn’t like The Avengers’ previous tussles, where they could go all-out against an alien threat like The Chitauri or a cybernetic menace like Ultron; everyone is fighting their friends, and they don’t necessarily want to hurt each other – just stop one another.

‘Captain America: Civil War’ opens in US theaters on May 5, 2016.

Source: ScreenRant

If Tony Schaab could be the captain of any Federation vessel, it would almost assuredly be the Enterprise-C, because who doesn’t love a good recumbent time loop?  A lover of most things sci-fi and horror, Tony is an author by day and a DJ by night. Come hang out with Tony on Facebook and Twitter to hear him spew semi-funny nonsense and get your opportunity to finally put him in his place.