In 2006, Marvel released “Civil War.” While it wasn’t the best event series the company has ever released, it was a huge financial success and paved the way for how comic companies have released event books in the subsequent years. The reason the series was so popular was because it had such a simple premise that everyone loved – what would happen if Captain America and Iron Man, who were teammates for years, suddenly found themselves on opposite sides? The tagline asked the readers, “Whose side are you on?”
Next year, Marvel Studios is adapting this story for the big screen in Captain America: Civil War, and we already know the studio is putting almost every character they have in the film making it more an Avengers 3 than Captain America 3. As if it wasn’t obvious based on the title, these characters are going to choose sides, and fight in the titular war either on the side of Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) or Captain America (Chris Evans).
That said, according to Heroic Hollywood, we now know which side each hero will fight for.
WARNING: POTENTIAL SPOILERS
Fighting with Captain America we’re going to have Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) and the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan). This list of names isn’t terribly shocking.
Falcon is Cap’s best friend. Scarlet Witch revealed her hatred of Tony Stark during Age of Ultron. If you saw Ant-Man and that end credit scene, which actually comes from Civil War, then you know he’s going to side with Falcon as will The Winter Soldier, Cap’s formerly dead sidekick Bucky.
On the other side of the conflict, we have Iron Man. Tony Stark will be fighting alongside The Vision (Paul Bettany), Spider-Man (Tom Holland), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and War Machine (Don Cheadle). Like Cap’s team, this isn’t terribly exciting.
War Machine is Tony’s best friend. The Vision was built off Tony Stark’s AI Jarvis, and so there must be some link still there. Spider-Man is a wild card, of course, but if you read the comic series, you know that Tony was able to bond with Peter Parker over their mutual love of science. Black Widow is the only one that could go with both sides of the conflict. Seeing her choose Tony’s side is interesting, and I’m sure there’s good reason why she would fight against Hawkeye.
Remaining neutral in the conflict is newcomer Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), who, like Spider-Man, will have his MCU debut in this feature.
There you have it. What do you think? Anyone surprised by these teams? Are you guys ready to buy your Team Cap and Team Iron Man shirts like fans of Twilight?
Captain America: Civil War will be released May 6, 2016.
