Civil War II sucks because of a severe misunderstanding of it's own central conflict

Which is why so few hero vs. hero conflicts feel like the characters are written in-character, or that the conflict is logical. It's a major problem with this type of plot, but not always an insurmountable one. If the conflict can be avoided by a reasonable discussion, there has to be a good reason -- and preferably not "character A spontaneously decides to be a hot-head" -- for why that discussion can't happen.

One (very small-scale) example where I think this was actually done well was in an issue of Amazing Spider-Man, shortly after the death of George Stacy. A few issues before, when Peter had the few, he deliriously confessed his identity to Captain Stacy and to Gwen. In order to restore it, he needed to explain he was delirious from the flu, and to have Spider-Man show up while he was around, to re-establish the notion of them being two separate people. In order to pull this off, he went as Spider-Man to ask Hobie Brown (Prowler) to impersonate him, since Prowler's equipment allows him to do Spidey's wall-crawling bit.

After Captain Stacy's death, in the midst of a battle between Doc Ock and Spider-Man, it looks to the public like Spider-Man was culpable in the death. Prowler is one of the people who comes after Spidey, and because of the preceding events, he actually has a valid (if incorrect) reason for mistrusting Spider-Man. After all, just a few weeks before Spidey had Prowler impersonate him, for unexplained reasons (since he couldn't explain the identity issues), in front of the man who would become Spidey's alleged murder victim. From Prowler's perspective, this would look incredibly suspicious.

Unfortunately most hero vs. hero conflicts seem to spring from the spur-of-the-moment disagreement, which is questionable for most characters and outright baffling for others.

/r/comicbooks Thread Parent