Spoilers Captain America: Civil War - Grading & Discussion

[Star Wolf]

Which he offered to drop in favor of officially bringing SHIELD back if Coulson went by the Accords.

Which in real effect meant the SHIELD decal returns to the black SUVs and Agent Johnson would introduce herself as SHIELD rather than ATCU when out in public

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Perhaps, but consider this: if you were a government and you have that degree of power at your disposal...what the hell do you need the will of the people for? I'd say governments with access to mind control and the ability to flatten buildings at will is a much bigger threat to democracy than criminals with access to mind control and the ability to flatten buildings at will.

Rogue groups are a problem but somewhat countered by the existence of groups like the Avengers, the Secret Warriors and sooner or later, the Defenders.

As has been pointed out, the Avengers themselves are a rogue group. It seems that Captain America is asking the nations of the world to trust him to make unilateral decisions. But if he can't trust the governments of the world, why should the governments of the world trust him? It can't just be a matter of "There but for the grace of Captain America go I." World security is too important to be left in the hands of one man. Just because WE know that Captain America is a good guy doesn't mean that any one else can assume that.

Yep. Key word being "was." SHIELD had a right to engage in law enforcement activities because permission to exercise executive authority had been delegated to it by the democratically-elected governments that supported SHIELD and allowed it to operate within their borders.

Then SHIELD was legally dissolved, and therefore the Avengers lost their democratic mandate to exercise executive authority.

Exactly. And has been pointed out, the Avengers may have never been an entirely legal organization. In The Avengers, Nick Fury was assembling the Avengers seemingly against the wishes of the World Security Council. And at the end of the movie, the Avengers disbanded again. They didn't come into being again until sometime between The Winter Soldier & Age of Ultron; and at that point SHIELD was already gone. They were a private organization funded by Tony Stark and seemingly answerable to no one.

Part of the irony of Civil War is that Captain America is against oversight despite the fact that he willingly worked for the U.S. military in The First Avenger and for SHIELD in The Avengers & The Winter Soldier. Meanwhile, Iron Man was pointedly against sharing his technology with the U.S. military in Iron Man 2 (although Col. Rhodes did recommend folding him into the existing command structure, something that Tony Stark might have considered were he not committed to behaving like such a self-destructive, showboating ass at the time).

But, this brings us to the truck question. Why couldn't the truck move the hammer if mechanical objects need not be worthy? If the worthiness extends through any connecting objects to the person trying to do the moving, would this mean the elevator would operate unless there was an unworthy person inside the elevator with it?

Perhaps it only applies to surfaces that the hammer is currently resting on? Question: If you put the hammer on an unsteady table, would it be possible for an unworthy person to tip over the table? Or even carry the table to a different location?

Not exactly the brain trust, hence the reason it was always brilliant individuals (Erskine)--not the U.S. government that created the super soldier formula, while Hydra's scientists and Banner reached their own versions, but it was not the guns 'n' ammo government creating anything.

I always thought it was weird that the U.S. government would invest in Dr. Erskine's formula without requiring him to keep detailed notes so that they could recreate it in case of, say, his untimely demise. Or that they didn't have other scientists vetting his work, which would mean that they would need detailed information about what he was doing.

Meanwhile, SHIELD should have known pretty early on that Dr. Zola was not on the up & up. He was able to utilize the power of the Tesseract to make weapons for Hydra back in the 1940s. And yet he wasn't able to do the same thing for SHIELD when they possessed the Tesseract in the 20+ years that he was working for them? Didn't this raise any red flags? (Or maybe SHIELD didn't have the Tesseract during that time period. Perhaps Howard Stark kept it himself and was using it for his own secret experiments developing the Arc Reactor. It wasn't until he died in 1991 that he left it to SHIELD in his will.)

 

[Xerxes82]

The agenda being not allowing the Avengers to do as they damned well please while answering to nobody, trample on sovereignty, ignore due process rights, and probably not bother to tell people of impending world ending events until they're happening.

This is true enough. I would argue that it's pretty clearly not the only intent of the Accords, and that control was also desired (I've argued such already in this thread), but what you say is true.

However, this seems to be where you and I come to loggerheads. I agree that this stated Agenda of the Sokovia Accords is both righteous and appropriate. But I don't believe for a second that the Sokovia Accords ACHIEVE this goal in a way that also respects the rights of the individuals to which it is meant to apply. The evidence of the film speaks to this, with the treatment of Wanda, and I think you could make a compelling argument that the eagerness of the world's law enforcement to see the Winter Soldier dead on meager evidence also speaks to the problems. Thus, while the Accords may be law, they're bad law.

The issue isn't nearly as black and white as you want to make it.

I could make an argument for why the characters on Cap's side of the argument feel their continued service, in spite of the Accords and in defiance of them, remains morally justifiable as well. But that argument is relative to their viewpoint. We, as the audience, can see the conflicts in a way that many in universe wouldn't, so I'm not going to try and counter argue some straw man "right of the vigilante to exist" argument.

Governments already have the ability to flatten buildings at will. It's called having a military.

Nobody's saying that there should not be limits on the use of the Avengers' powers. In fact, putting them under United Nations authority instead of the authority of any one government is a good way to prevent their powers from being abused.

No, it really isn't. Plenty of nations abuse their power in defiance of, or with the nominal acquiescence of the UN. Adding super-powers to the mix changes nothing. It changes the PERCEPTION of abuse, perhaps. Really, as Steve Rogers points out, all it does is shift the blame.

Meanwhile, SHIELD should have known pretty early on that Dr. Zola was not on the up & up. He was able to utilize the power of the Tesseract to make weapons for Hydra back in the 1940s. And yet he wasn't able to do the same thing for SHIELD when they possessed the Tesseract in the 20+ years that he was working for them? Didn't this raise any red flags? (Or maybe SHIELD didn't have the Tesseract during that time period. Perhaps Howard Stark kept it himself and was using it for his own secret experiments developing the Arc Reactor. It wasn't until he died in 1991 that he left it to SHIELD in his will.)

It seems likely to me that SHIELD actively turned away from researching the Tesseract intentionally. Likely because two of it's most important founders, Howard Stark and Peggy Carter know exactly how dangerous the thing can be, and wouldn't want ANYBODY to use it's power.

I also suspect Zola's involvement in SHIELD at all was in defiance of Peggy's wishes, or was kept from her altogether. Those less personally invested than she wouldn't care that he was HYDRA, any more than the actual people behind the very real Operation Paperclip cared that the scientists they were recruiting were former Nazis. All he had to be was useful.

It seems likely that research into the Tesseract technology didn't restart until after their influence had waned (they left the organization or died, perhaps). And when SHIELD-really HYDRA did begin again, they immediately picked up where Zola left off.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Sovereign states do not answer to anybody. That's what makes them sovereign. It's why, for instance, the United States does not get to tell the people of Mexico who they may elect as president.

You are completely missing the issue: the CA: CW governments--through the Accords seek to control the actions of individuals, when they (the signatory governments) do not practice what they preach. No free individual would ever support, much less respect any government attempting to leg-iron others when they certainly do not do the same to themselves, and with no justification for even dreaming up such a hypocritical order.

Yes, there are sovereign states that have trampled on other states' sovereignty, such as the United States when it invaded the Republic of Iraq in 2003. No one is saying that is acceptable.

But this does not mean that what amounts to a private militia should get away with it.

If by "private militia" you mean the Avengers, then one must admit and accept that they saved humanity....only for those who--in CA: CW--to turn around and attempt to handcuff the one and only reason they are alive...to betray their saviors.

Every time the Avengers enter a country without obtaining permission from that country's government, they are invading that country.

What do the people want? What do they need? When they need help that their own government cannot handle, should help wait from wisdom from "on high" or receive help? Again, there's no getting around a world where an increasing number of super-powered threats exist, no boots and bullets army is going to stop anything, and handcuffing the only true defense will lead to disaster beyond belief. That was Batman's error in Dawn of Justice: his upended ego and fear of power had him attacking the one being who serves a greater purpose beyond the limits of traditional government, and more importantly, his vision and desire for revenge/control. It took the full-on destruction caused by an unimaginable threat that he realized that the only possible way of even thinking about dealing with it was with the help of two super beings.

At the film's end, he's beginning to form the Justice League for the same reasons the MCU needs the Avengers and other super beings: dealing with threats beyond the abilities of ordinary humans.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

No, it really isn't. Plenty of nations abuse their power in defiance of, or with the nominal acquiescence of the UN. Adding super-powers to the mix changes nothing. It changes the PERCEPTION of abuse, perhaps. Really, as Steve Rogers points out, all it does is shift the blame.

True.

 

[Sci]

I disagree. As I see it, Ellis's administration is merely projecting a false chain of command to the public.

Nope. SHIELD was legally dissolved; restoring it as a legal entity would require the passage of an Act of Congress. Absent that, subordinating a legitimate agency of the United States government to an underground cabal (which is what Coulson!SHIELD is) constitutes a violation of law.

As has been pointed out, the Avengers themselves are a rogue group. It seems that Captain America is asking the nations of the world to trust him to make unilateral decisions. But if he can't trust the governments of the world, why should the governments of the world trust him? It can't just be a matter of "There but for the grace of Captain America go I." World security is too important to be left in the hands of one man. Just because WE know that Captain America is a good guy doesn't mean that any one else can assume that.

This, this, this.

I always thought it was weird that the U.S. government would invest in Dr. Erskine's formula without requiring him to keep detailed notes so that they could recreate it in case of, say, his untimely demise. Or that they didn't have other scientists vetting his work, which would mean that they would need detailed information about what he was doing.

I assume that Dr. Erskine was already universally recognized as a brilliance without peer in real history, and that he made a refusal to provide written records of the process for creating the Super-Soldier Serum a condition of his willingness to re-create it for the Allies after he had been coerced into creating it for and administering it to Schmidt.

Meanwhile, SHIELD should have known pretty early on that Dr. Zola was not on the up & up. He was able to utilize the power of the Tesseract to make weapons for Hydra back in the 1940s. And yet he wasn't able to do the same thing for SHIELD when they possessed the Tesseract in the 20+ years that he was working for them? Didn't this raise any red flags? (Or maybe SHIELD didn't have the Tesseract during that time period. Perhaps Howard Stark kept it himself and was using it for his own secret experiments developing the Arc Reactor. It wasn't until he died in 1991 that he left it to SHIELD in his will.)

That would be one way to reconcile this apparent inconsistency!

Or, maybe the early founders of SHIELD had the same reaction to Tesseract weapons technology that Cap did in The Avengers -- they saw it as something too dangerous, too destructive, that made small numbers of people too powerful, and should therefore be forbidden.

However, this seems to be where you and I come to loggerheads. I agree that this stated Agenda of the Sokovia Accords is both righteous and appropriate. But I don't believe for a second that the Sokovia Accords ACHIEVE this goal in a way that also respects the rights of the individuals to which it is meant to apply. The evidence of the film speaks to this, with the treatment of Wanda, and I think you could make a compelling argument that the eagerness of the world's law enforcement to see the Winter Soldier dead on meager evidence also speaks to the problems. Thus, while the Accords may be law, they're bad law.

This is completely fair and accurate. The stated intent of the Accords, to bring the Avengers under democratic control, is completely reasonable. But the first thing the U.N. Task Force did was put a hit out on Bucky without charge or trial. Captain America has already demonstrated his hostility to pre-emptive assassinations in The Winter Soldier even before it turned out Hydra was hijacking that program for world domination. So, yeah, I can get where Cap would rebel.

I also think that we need to bear in mind the retcon that Agents of SHIELD introduces -- that the Accords do not just place the Avengers under U.N. control, but also require superpowered individuals to register with their national governments. That requirement is a great deal more ominous and a clear violation of people's civil rights and liberties. Cap would have had a much stronger -- and, dare I say it, more patriotic -- argument against the Accords if that had been a part of the movie.

Governments already have the ability to flatten buildings at will. It's called having a military.

Nobody's saying that there should not be limits on the use of the Avengers' powers. In fact, putting them under United Nations authority instead of the authority of any one government is a good way to prevent their powers from being abused.

No, it really isn't.

Sure it is. Because every single U.N. Member State is going to be eyeing every other U.N. Member State for signs that they're trying to use the Avengers in a way that favors them and/or harms others. In particular, the historical hostility between the U.S./U.K./French bloc and the Russia/China bloc on the Security Council will guarantee that neither side is able to use the U.N. to deploy the Avengers in a way that will likely be abusive; their enemies will keep them in check.

Remember, the U.N. is not some monolithic government entity. It is a collection of governments, many of whom are hostile to one-another.

It seems likely to me that SHIELD actively turned away from researching the Tesseract intentionally. Likely because two of it's most important founders, Howard Stark and Peggy Carter know exactly how dangerous the thing can be, and wouldn't want ANYBODY to use it's power.

Yeah, I can see that.

I also suspect Zola's involvement in SHIELD at all was in defiance of Peggy's wishes, or was kept from her altogether. Those less personally invested than she wouldn't care that he was HYDRA, any more than the actual people behind the very real Operation Paperclip cared that the scientists they were recruiting were former Nazis. All he had to be was useful.

It seems likely that research into the Tesseract technology didn't restart until after their influence had waned (they left the organization or died, perhaps). And when SHIELD-really HYDRA did begin again, they immediately picked up where Zola left off.

Well, we should bear in mind that apparently research into the Tesseract -- and into using the Tesseract to create weapons -- did not re-start until 2011, after first contact with the Asgardians. And it appears to have started on Director Fury's orders.

The agenda being not allowing the Avengers to do as they damned well please whileanswering to nobody, trample on sovereignty, ignore due process rights,

Sounds like many U.N. member nations, which are in no position to point fingers,

You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the conception of national sovereignty.

To wit: Sovereign states do not answer to anybody. That's what makes them sovereign. It's why, for instance, the United States does not get to tell the people of Mexico who they may elect as president.

You are completely missing the issue: the CA: CW governments--through the Accords seek to control the actions of individuals, when they (the signatory governments) do not practice what they preach.

No, I understood your point just fine. I am asserting that their hypocrisy does not matter because they are still right when it comes to the Avengers. To wit: The Avengers engage in state-level interventions without being themselves sovereign states. They must therefore be made to answer to the governments of the world, because otherwise they act as though they are sovereign without actually possessing legal sovereignty.

No free individual would ever support, much less respect any government attempting to leg-iron others when they certainly do not do the same to themselves, and with no justification for even dreaming up such a hypocritical order.

Don't be absurd. People support hypocritical governments all the time. There's been no popular revolt against the United States government in spite of its clear human rights violations in Guantanamo or at Abu Graib -- or, hell, in spite of its constituent states' clear human rights violations vis a vis the epidemic of police brutality against and the unjust mass incarceration of black people. And this even when the United States State Department puts out an annual report tisk-tisking other nations for their human rights violations.

And, really, demanding that the Avengers be made to answer to the governments of the world after they kill innocent people is no different from, say, demanding that the NYPD answer to the people of New York after they choke a man to death for selling untaxed cigarettes. (I could not help but notice that the innocent people whose deaths Cap do not think warrant accountability for himself were black.)

If by "private militia" you mean the Avengers,

Of course I mean the Avengers. They're a private militia by any reasonable definition of the term.

then one must admit and accept that they saved humanity....only for those who--in CA: CW--to turn around and attempt to handcuff the one and only reason they are alive...to betray their saviors.

So what? The fact that they committed a virtuous act means they should get to be above the law?

Captain America noted in The Avengers that when he was in Germany and saw a man putting himself above everyone else, he came to a disagreement. Yet here he is in CA:CW, and here you are, essentially saying that Cap himself should be put above everyone else. No need for the rule of law or democratic accountability, because you know that trustworthy and virtuous is your leader... Or, should I say, your führer?

The rule of law has to apply to everybody. You can't make an exception just because you think one man is extra-virtuous.

Every time the Avengers enter a country without obtaining permission from that country's government, they are invading that country.

What do the people want?

The only way to know the will of the people is for them to hold an election and delegate legislative, executive, and judicial authority to a democratically-elected government.

117 nations did this. And hey, what do you know? Those democratically-elected governments whose job it is to reflect the will of their peoples? They want the Avengers to answer to them and their neighbors through the U.N.

Hell, we saw what the people want. At the beginning of Avengers: Age of Ultron, the people of Novi Grad weren't happy the Avengers had come to Sokovia to defeat a Hydra base in their country. They were upset the Avengers had violated their sovereign territory and were doing whatever they wanted.

And that was before one of the Avengers' weapons malfunctioned and destroyed their city!

What do they need?

Who the hell is Steve Rogers to decide what they need?

When they need help that their own government cannot handle, should help wait from wisdom from "on high" or receive help?

It is Steve who thinks that his wisdom from on high should overrule those of democratically-elected governments. No one elected him. No one gave him a democratic mandate to enter the Federal Republic of Nigeria and attempt to apprehend Rumlow instead of alerting the Nigerian State Security Service.

Steve Rogers is the one who thinks he should be operating from on high.

Again, there's no getting around a world where an increasing number of super-powered threats exist, no boots and bullets army is going to stop anything, and handcuffing the only true defense will lead to disaster beyond belief.

"We know better than you, we are more powerful and might makes right, so don't make us answerable to you."

the one being who serves a greater purpose beyond the limits of traditional government

Jesus Christ that is some fascistic rhetoric right there.

At the film's end, he's beginning to form the Justice League for the same reasons the MCU needs the Avengers and other super beings: dealing with threats beyond the abilities of ordinary humans.

No one's saying the Avengers shouldn't exist or should not stop legitimate threats that are beyond the ability of national governments to thwart. But that doesn't mean they should be above the law.

Again:

Executive authority belongs by right to the people. The people create governments and delegate executive authority to those governments. Nobody has a right to exercise executive authority without being part of a government and thereby being answerable for their exercise of executive authority to the people.

ETA:

Ezra Klein at Vox argues here that Captain America's stance is actually un-American.

Money quotes:

What's striking about this position is how fundamentally un-American it is, on two levels.

The first is that America is a country that rejects placing unlimited faith in extraordinary individuals as opposed to (often cumbersome!) institutions and processes. We broke away from a monarchy, and we revere George Washington for stepping back from the presidency. We've created a political system so pockmarked with checks, balances, and veto points that even our most powerful, skilled, popular leaders can only expect to accomplish a fraction of their agenda. We built, by world standards, an unusually weak presidency, and then we further amended the Constitution to limit presidents to two terms.

Then, as we grew into the greatest superpower the world has ever known, we decided that the best way to legitimize our might would be to voluntarily constrain ourselves within a web of multilateral institutions. Yes, there are examples of unilateralism in our history, but even George W. Bush's "coalition of the willing" was a coalition, and involved extensive UN consultation, in an effort to legitimize our actions. Far from seeing the limits and compromises of institutions like NATO and the UN as corrupting, strengthening those institutions has been the core of America's post–World War II foreign policy....

<SNIP>

What Iron Man is advocating is a system based on America's traditions: our skepticism of imbuing individuals with unrestrained authority, our belief that great strength needs to be legitimized through process and restraint, and our faith that a cumbersome political process is preferable to the mistakes made when passion meets power.

 

[Marsden]

Something I forgot to mention that no one else has yet, did you catch that Ant-Man called Hawkeye, "Arrow Guy" I thought that was good one!

 

[Hartzilla2007]

This is completely fair and accurate. The stated intent of the Accords, to bring the Avengers under democratic control, is completely reasonable. But the first thing the U.N. Task Force did was put a hit out on Bucky without charge or trial.

Actually they were going after him for a crime they believe he committed.

They were on shoot on sight orders becuase they were going after a guy who took out several quinjets by throwing SHIELD agents into their turbines, tossed a guy into a truck, and who scares the crap out of other assassins, out of a desire not to fucking die.

Plus they stoped trying to kill Bucky the moment he was surrounded and they could take him into custody, and team Stark wasn't sent after him with kill orders.

So, yeah, I can get where Cap would rebel.

Actually I think he stated it was out of a desire to keep Bucky from slaughtering the cops sent after him.

Cap would have had a much stronger -- and, dare I say it, more patriotic -- argument against the Accords if that had been a part of the movie.

Yeah, well seeing as the current infighting between the tv and movie branches is a thing, that argument was never getting made.

 

[Noname Given]

Actually I think he stated it was out of a desire to keep Bucky from slaughtering the cops sent after him.

^^^
Yeah, that's the way I saw it too - Cap was essentially saying: "Okay, if Bucky has to be taken out - I need/want to be the one to do it."(And he was more concerned about how many police/military might die if they alone attempted to take out the Winter Soldier.)

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

No, I understood your point just fine. I am asserting that their hypocrisy does not matter because they are still right when it comes to the Avengers. To wit: The Avengers engage in state-level interventions without being themselves sovereign states. They must therefore be made to answer to the governments of the world, because otherwise they act as though they are sovereign without actually possessing legal sovereignty.

"Made to answer?" If the MCU's governments bear any resemblance to real world counterparts, then their so-called moral authority and judgement leaves much to be desired. Further, whether you will ever understand this or not, the first priority and recognition of anyone is the duty to others, which is not on a meter, leash or subject to the whims of masters. Remove that, and to the point, hand over the individual right to exercise free will (particularity when that will cannot be argued to be anything other than the result of genuine altruism) to some morally and ideologically questionable body of governments, and chaos follows.

Don't be absurd. People support hypocritical governments all the time. There's been no popular revolt against the United States government in spite of its clear human rights violations in Guantanamo or at Abu Graib

Revolution has many faces and forms. In this case, the "revolt" came in the form of anti-Gitmo, etc. Obama's winning the presidency, instead of another Republican (McCain) who supported much of the actions/policies of the previous administration.

(I could not help but notice that the innocent people whose deaths Cap do not think warrant accountability for himself were black.)

Now, we're getting down to it--you seem to have some bug up your rear about the Cap character, since I will not pretend you were being facetious with that ridiculous line.

So what? The fact that they committed a virtuous act means they should get to be above the law?

Note how you attempt to reduce the magnitude of their acts, which saved the hypocritical, manipulative governments to live another day to--you guessed it--turn on those who exemplify selfless service to the planet...unlike most world governments.

Captain America noted in The Avengers that when he was in Germany and saw a man putting himself above everyone else, he came to a disagreement. Yet here he is in CA:CW, and here you are, essentially saying that Cap himself should be put above everyone else.

Absolute nonsense, but we already know how much an argument is in its death throes when people make astoundingly false Hitler references to the polar opposite of his life/beliefs/actions.

The only way to know the will of the people is for them to hold an election and delegate legislative, executive, and judicial authority to a democratically-elected government.

Sigh. Many significant movements made it supporters' desires known long before any legislation, vote or formal acknowledgement from those sitting on their pearly thrones in gover.

It is Steve who thinks that his wisdom from on high should overrule those of democratically-elected governments.

I'll let you sit on that blanket idea of "democratically elected governments" you (in the totality of your arguments) seem to sell as the universal good well equipped to know when, where and how to trot out aid sans internal and often self-serving motivations.

"We know better than you, we are more powerful and might makes right, so don't make us answerable to you."

You have no idea how much that applies to innumerable real world governments.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

To return for a moment to the discussion about S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Department of Defense, I just rewatched the first Iron Man movie last night (still one of the best) and found I had totally and rather glaringly forgotten the very first thing that was ever established about Coulson's organization in the MCU...

COULSON: I'm Agent Phil Coulson, with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.
PEPPER: That's quite a mouthful.
COULSON: I know. We're working on it.
PEPPER: You know, we've been approached already by the DOD, the FBI, the CIA...
COULSON: We're a separate division with a more specific focus.

So, there that is. Mea culpa on that one.

(Though again, it is a Defense hearing that Black Widow is called to answer before at the conclusion of Winter Soldier after S.H.I.E.L.D. collapses.)

 

[DEWLine]

I wonder what the odds are that Zola's involvement - and Howard's as well - was part of the price to be exacted by Congress and/or the White House of the day in return for tolerating Peggy as a founder of SHIELD.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

The following from a Daily Beast article summarizes the message of the film, and why Cap was correct in rejecting the accords:

While Iron Man’s attitude seems practical, it’s also ultimately demarcated as wrong. The outside-the-law Captain America is this film’s unqualified hero from the start, when he’s presented as the righteous alternative to Iron Man’s collaborative cowardice. And it’s solidified by its conclusion, when his conspiracy theory hunches are proven correct—thereby proving he’s more trustworthy than Iron Man, Thunderbolt Ross, the U.N., or any other administrative body. Furthermore, Bucky, the friend he’s driven to protect, is a case study in what happens to superbeings when they’re controlled by governments: they’re transformed into murderous, amoral assassin-slaves.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Sorry, I couldn't get any further than "A Conservative Manifesto".

 

[Marsden]

Do you want to know what I think is very pointless about this debate?
(Not that it isn't good fun to argue about pretend things. I don't know how much fun I've had doing that, more than is good for a healthy mind, probably. )

We don't have a copy of the Accords to read. What are they saying, really?

Are they setting up the situation that is similar to The Avengers comic from about the late 60s to the 80s, that the Avengers were a government approved independent agency with a liaison for communication but not too much interference (unless the plot called for it).

or

Are they basically drafted and have to stay in their compound until they are told where to go and what to do?

or maybe something in between?

Whatever the actual text of the Accords, Ross is a man who will try to take the most aggressive interpretation and employ it and I thought it was a good reuse of a previous character.

 

[Rowan Sjet]

That's the biggest issue with the Accords. None of our heroes had time to read it. Ross comes in mere days before the signing, when to get 117 countries to agree to it would have taken months, maybe years, to write. How can you expect everyone to sign on the dotted line when they don't know what's in it?

 

[The Nth Doctor]

That's politics for you. Happens every day in Congress (when they actually do their job).

 

[DimesDan]

We don't have a copy of the Accords to read. What are they saying, really?

Yeah, also, it's all fictional, so saying it means this and that because that's what happens in the real world is just silly as things could be radically different, hell, the UN might not be as inept as it is in the Marvel Universe as it is in our world.

 

[The Old Mixer]

It's a fairly thick book...plenty of room for it to cover registering metahumans in general and micromanaging the Avengers specifically.

 

[ATimson]

We don't have a copy of the Accords to read. What are they saying, really?

Are they setting up the situation that is similar to The Avengers comic from about the late 60s to the 80s, that the Avengers were a government approved independent agency with a liaison for communication but not too much interference (unless the plot called for it).

or

Are they basically drafted and have to stay in their compound until they are told where to go and what to do?

Cap, who was reading it in the movie, described it as the latter.