BATTLEWORLDBATTLEWORLD

ROUND 4, BATTLE 3

Follow the bracket here!

SIEGE (#1-4)

VS

CIVIL WAR (#1-4)

Ladies and gentlemen, we have officially separated the wheat from the chaff! We are well on our to selecting a Battlefield Battlefield champ and we have weeded out the one shots and the gimmicks and we are down to the good stuff. Most people would be ecstatic – they’d be all “hey, that’s great! Let’s make some bread!” But not us. We’re pitting the wheat against the other wheat, putting them through every possible test of strength and endurance until only the best, most pure grain of wheat remains. Then, and only then, will be begin to bake.

This week we’re gonna take a look at Siege, which has bested countless competition already. The series has been suckering us in with a doomsday countdown for a few issues now and the charm has not worn off. A great sense of chaos couple with some tight storytelling have given Siege an edge over its competition every time.

Not just chaos, but crafted chaos, is what has kept me coming back to Siege. The drama of the wall, the use of Battleworld as a pretext to remix familiar characters in interesting ways, the near existential tone of everlasting, unwinnable war…the series has consistently found ways to make the giant cuisinart that is battleworld spit out something with a familiar taste and an exotic edge.

 

And I really will hate to see it go. But this is the final 8 of Battleworld Battleworld, and we’re gonna have to make some tough decisions. As great as Siege has been, Civil War has captivated me in a way that no other Battleworld offering has matched. It shares a lot with Siege, most notably the sense of looming disaster that hangs over both narratives. It also embraces the chaos of Battleworld adeptly, not to the same extent as its current competition, but enough to give familiar or worn-out tropes a pleasant little boost.

 

What puts Civil War over the edge for me, and where it just murders any other Battleworld series, is the way it plays within the Civil War mythology. It takes one of Marvel’s most famous “big event” series and rehashes it in a way that really makes it feel like the writer has something worth saying. I love the way it uses the tropes of battleworld – divided zones, espionage, broken worlds – and perfectly folds in the themes civil war to create this blown out version of the original where avoidable conflict and unbending morals drive the story forward. I can safely say that it’s the one Battleworld series I’ll be continuing on its own. I love you Siege, and you’ve had a good run, but you can’t win them all.