Civil War in the DCU

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Imagine all would-be superheroes/vigilantes/crimefighters/metahumans in the U.S. who intend to have a public career involving their abilities were required to register for training and/or monitoring under Checkmate, with the intent to use them as official government operatives...

Which characters would be pro-registration? Which ones would oppose it?

My initial guesses:

PRO
Batman
Wonder Woman
Green Lanterns (Jordan, Stewart)
The Flash
Robin
The Force of July
Firestorm
Blue Beetle
Lois Lane
Lex Luthor

ANTI
Superman
Green Arrow
Birds of Prey
The Question
Hawkman
Zatanna
The Outsiders

NEUTRAL
Shadowpact
 
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Batman would definitely be Anti-Registration.

Just because he's a Billionaire doesn't mean he'll act like Tony Stark. And he has too much to lose.

Superman and Wonder Woman would be Pro-Registration, and would come out to the Government.

Batman, Green Arrow, The Question, and all the more questionable vigilantes would be anti-registration.
 
Imagine all would-be superheroes/vigilantes/crimefighters/metahumans in the U.S. who intend to have a public career involving their abilities were required to register for training and/or monitoring under Checkmate, with the intent to use them as official government operatives...

Which characters would be pro-registration? Which ones would oppose it?

My initial guesses:

PRO
Batman
Wonder Woman
Green Lanterns (Jordan, Stewart)
The Flash
Robin
The Force of July
Firestorm
Blue Beetle
Lois Lane
Lex Luthor

ANTI
Superman
Green Arrow
Birds of Prey
The Question
Hawkman
Zatanna
The Outsiders

NEUTRAL
Shadowpact
DC already sorta did this. The explination for why there were superheros in the 30s and 40s and then there weren't any till more recent times was that in the 50s congress called for them to reveal themselves. They either quit (most of teh JSA) or were working so far outside normal channels it didn't matter (The Specter, Dr. Fate).

Anyway, Batman would most deffinatly be against regulation. Anything that puts limits on what he does he's fight tooth and nail. I can't see the current Firestorm or Blue Beetle going along with it either, but Firestorm would be a great book to explore both sides in since regular cast member Loraine Reily is a US Senator.

Superman on the other hand is allways the first to line up in AU stories where this happens. New Frontier, Dark Knight Returns, Liberty Files... They've really done this idea over at DC a lot now that I think about it.
 
And in the Backstory of Dark Knight Returns, they bring in all the superheroes to try to regulate them...

Batman retires, and Green Arrow gets his arm burned off by Clark.
 
Yeah, I agree with DSF and Baxter. I see Batman and Superman switching sides on your list.
 
I'm not too sharp on DC continuity (or anything else DC for that matter) so I could be completely talking off my arse when I say that the Green Lanterns wouldn't necessarily align themselves with Checkmate. I think it would depend on how the Guardians of the Universe react to that development.

However, if it were me I'd put them in a pro-registration situation since it's a given that Green Arrow would instantly lump himself in an anti-registration camp and that would create some interesting character conflict between him and his old buddy Hal Jordan.

Also, the way it would unfold is that while the Guardians initially start out as trying to bring their ideals in line with Earth government, what actually happens is that they start to discover how their ideals of (intergalactic) law & order can conflict with those of the government.
 
The Guardians don't get involved with politics.

Sinestro was kicked out of the Corps for imposing his own law and order on his homeworld.
 
The Guardians of the Universe would definitely steer clear of the conflict, if only because they don't believe that a puny planet like Earth has the sanction to force registration on members of an intergalactic peace keeping squad.

To be honest, I don't think an attempt at registration would turn out well for the governments of the DCU at all. The Marvel and DC universes are completely different places. For the most part, people believe in their heroes and look up to them. The big guys are huge marketing icons within the universe, and the bad guys are generaly more obsessive about their nemeses than the villains of the Marvel U. There would be way too much opposition, both among the public and among the super-hero community, for this kind of thing to take place.

I don't even think Superman, in his current iteration, would sign up pro-registration. While in the hypothetical stories, he's always gung-ho to sign up, I think the current version of the character is complex enough to recognize the risks of registration. The Flash is the same way (and I'm talking about Barry Allen. I don't know too much about the new kid). He's got too much invested in his family to ever take that kind of risk. Robin certainly wouldn't be pro-registration. The only heroes I could see siding with the registration camp would be the guys who are already aligned strongly with the government to begin with. Everyone else would keep on fighting the fight despite it being wrong, or hang up their hats (a la, the original JSA in the 1950's). I don't even see Checkmate agreeing with registration.

Either way, I don't see the idea of Civil War (in the sense of how it's playing in the Marvel U) working within the mainstream DCU.
 
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The Guardians don't get involved with politics.
I was about to comment that this sounds like an oddly ineffective ethos for cosmic peace-keeping, until I realized that it's rather similar to the way the United Nations runs things (for better or worse), i.e. it's still a "domestic issue", and not to be interfered with.
 

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