Next up in the series is a closer look at a much less known hero, Firestar, then compare her to an even more esoteric Marvel character, Captain America!

Some reverse imagery of Starfire from DC, no?

Despite the picture, his power is not telekinetic jet-posing for epic pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Firestar, aka Angelica Jones, is a mutant whose powers are turning electro-magnetic energy into microwaves. Her heroics include fighting off a bad Emma Frost back when she was an evil headmistress, being an Avenger, and as a founding member of the New Warriors, so she is personally invested in the event that sparked the war. There isn’t much about her, honestly, though she had a great one-off in 2010 that’s worth the pick up. Even so, she does have one note worthy part in the Civil War: she is the only hero mentioned that just gave up heroing.

Captain America or “Cap” to those people short on time, started life as lil’ Steve Rogers. After a hearty Super Solider shake, he grew like 11 feet tall and 500 pounds of pure muscle, and developed extended ricochet sight (never said directly, but come on, would anyone play pool against him after watching him throw that shield around?). Used in World War 2, Captain notably led the Howling Commandos with his buddy Bucky. After landing his plane in an ice cube, he was thawed a few decades later, and picked up where he left off. Now he fights as our greatest soldier. Once the Civil War breaks out, he doesn’t just side with the rebellion, he IS the rebellion. Well, he leads it. There are several other people, but he’s the leader. You know what I mean!

Firestar is talking with reporter Sally Floyd in a bar when her side of the story opens. They converse while watching a late night show trivialize the war pitting former allies and current friends against each other. Jones runs down the problem, bare-bones style. The act endangers her loved ones who never chose this life for her, it puts the government itself square in the middle of her life, and she would have to direct herself away from college which would leave her rather deeply in debt. Art history major, huh? Psssh. She should get a real major, like philosophy. That’s where the money is. No horrifying student loan worries here, I’ll tell ya’ that. … Woah, did the room just spin for everyone else? What the? A blog? Is that what I’m doing now?

Cap is used to fighting for his country. It is an odd turn that makes him fight against it. Even odder that, in doing so, he is fighting for it, still, too. Does that sentence feel clunky to you? A-ha, writing! Cap has a near knee-jerk reaction to fight back when hearing that a country has started to put its private citizens names on a list. There are several things to note about our star spangled hero. As a solider, super solider, agent of S.H.I.E.L.D, and original Avenger, I can assure you, there is a paper or two on Steven “Steve” Rogers that the government has stashed away in a manila folder bearing his name, rank, social security number (if he has one (he was, like, 15 when it was signed into law)), height, weight, family, friends, hang outs, likes and dislikes, allergies, handedness, GPA, quest and favorite color, and any other thing that has ever had his name or any alias ever tied to it ever. I mean, he’s a solider and a spy (sometimes). All that to say this: Captain America has placed a value on the rights of the private citizen. He believes the superhero community has a right to that world. Sure, Big Brother knows every time he strays from his normal route home to pick up some TCBY. Shoot, he fought like a maniac to get it to them to take that info from him. But he also knows that he volunteered to give up that privacy.

Angelica Jones takes the most rational step the rebel can take here. She literally drops her mask and walks away. This is the difference, by the way, between the SHRA and Nazi Germany. Firestar has the option to just quit. It sucks. I would even say it isn’t fair. But it is a choice. She stays out of the super hero game, she stays private. Out of everyone the Civil War books followed, she is the only one who ever took option B. Sure, Scott Lang didn’t choose a side, but that’s more because he just didn’t concern himself with the war and was going to pick the winning side afterward. Ben “The Thing” Grimm was similar, except he went to France. I already wrote about Dr. Strange’s decision to not decide. Those were different. What the government had told everyone to choose between was “be a hero or be a private citizen”. In a way, she was choosing registration by agreeing to its terms, just accepting to take privacy over power. Yet, it felt like a spit in the eye of the program. Just think, if Cap and crew had decided to just hang it up, there would not have been nearly enough heroes left to contend with the villains. By agreeing to their terms, the terms would have to change if what Cap believed was true.

Cap believed that fighting evil was a more than a good, it is a calling. What if those called refused to answer? One of two things would happen. First, no one would really notice the difference. Despite all the anti-registers choosing to sit at home and work on their résumés, all the rest of the good guys would have things under control. Fewer people in the mix really would translate to fewer good people killed, just from a numbers stand point, which accomplishes first the goal that the SHRA sets out to accomplish. The other thing they want to accomplish is to shut down the show boaters out there like the what became of the New Warriors. There is a glaring problem with Cap and this reality, but we’ll double back in a minute. The second option, and really I feel the more likely, is that the country would be quickly overwhelmed by super villains without everyone who rebels. Really, take out Captain America, Luke Cage, 3 out of 4 Fantastic Four, Spider Man, Spider Woman, Spider Kid (sort of, I’m not sure what she calls herself), Black Panther, Daredevil, and so forth, and you’ve got Tony back to hittin’ the bottle harder than a new cowboy in a training montage. You know, like, when they start shooting the bottles on a fence for target practice. With bullets. From their guns, you see. I imagine they hit really hard, those bullets. Look, once in a while, the metaphor, she has great pictures in my brain, not so great wordy-words.

Now, the “glaring problem” is that, even when Steven Rogers was a tiny little boy and the whole world was already at war, he felt called to go personally. It meant trying time and time and time again, getting rejected and rejected and rejected until he finally found a way to just creep in. His heart is a fighter. Steve is not the kind of guy who can just let someone else take the burden for him. He is the kind of guy who has to pick up his and any others he finds lying around. If he was alone or if the population was 90% super hero, Cap would be on the front lines, sorting good from bad and stepping up. So here’s the rub: is this a problem that fists can solve?

I mean, when in American history has this government went and retracted a major act, law, or whatever just because people refused to follow it? I mean, other than Prohibition. Or marijuana usage. Or maybe censorship in a lot of ways. Especially comic books. Okay, let me rephrase: when has direct violence ever worked?

Historically, and it seems like people are studying this more in depth now, direct violence and warring rarely accomplishes the end the resistance is fighting for. The reasons seem fairly straight forward: if you give people what they want because they start hitting you really hard, you can be sure that any time anyone wants something from you, that is the path they will take. This is why most countries have a “Don’t negotiate with…” policy. Also, and this is something that I had to learn over my many months of life, if you disagree with someone and turn to hitting, you are basing your authority on physical dominance. He was turning that physicality toward a group of people who are so well prepared physically, mentally, and morally that facing a stronger force is absolutely meaningless to them. These people have stopped Galactus, Apocalypse, the Void, a shape-shifting alien army, Thanos, gods… The only advantage that the resistance has is that they are known to be good guys. In fact, that is nearly their battle cry: “You are saying Captain America is a terrorist! Doesn’t that raise some red flags to you?!”.  As they would imply after every cartoon in the 80’s and 90’s, you don’t need super strength to be a hero. Out of costume, shieldless, weaponless, and handcuffed Steven Rogers has all the strength possible to end the SHRA the right way. He doesn’t cease being a good guy just because he puts his fists down. But that isn’t Captain America. Captain America has to fight.

Yes, I spent waaay more time on Cap, but this is still a compare and contrast post. The comparison goes like this: both seem to think the act is unjust and unfair, which is a real problem for a law. Cap hated the idea of people being forcibly registered, so he fought back by puttin’ up his dukes and punching ol’ Stark in the jaw. Jones hated the idea of personally being forced to register, so she quit her superhero life. Cap directly defied the SHRA by finding a literal face to punch. Firestar indirectly defied the SHRA by depriving it of a face to count. Captain America acted illegally. Firestar acted legally.

One person walking away doesn’t say much. One person fighting can do a lot, if they are a good fighter. A huge group of people walking away says a lot. A huge group of people fighting does the same as one. Now, we can speculate whether Firestar walking away was only made possible because men like Captain America agreed to stay and fight, but honestly, the results stay the same. If the anti-registers chose to go on strike instead of striking, their voice would have been louder and more articulate. It may be that they weren’t needed. In that case, if they continued to want to fight, they would have to sign up. Like a person who needs to be a part of a cause no matter what. Like a soldier.

This continues my theme that being a Proper Rebel is different and harder than just being a contrarian. It takes actual thought to push back in an effective way. In this case, the most reasonable thing to do is let the absurdity shine. Back off. The government wants to create a world free from the threat of superpowers, so their answer is to diminish the number of superheroes. To paraphrase the old gun rights adage, “If you outlaw using powers, only outlaws will use powers”. There’s a better answer out there, sure. I don’t know what it might be, but it does seem like forcing the point from this angle is not perfectly thought out. If your point is that you want to uphold the laws of America, it seems inconsistent that you are ignoring them to pursue your own goals.