Losing Your Identity: The Repression of Liberties in 21st Century America in Marvel’s Civil War series

ABSTRACT: The early 21st century witnessed the beginning of a turbulent period in the United States as the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 resulted in the passing of a series of restrictive legislative measures as the only way to guarantee Americans’ protection from possible future attacks. These new policies, however, allowed authorities to violate people’s rights and liberties in the name of national security. Soon after the attacks, these matters reached the pages of literary works—including comic books—as spaces in which to actively engage in a critique of the new U.S. Prominent among these works is Marvel’s Civil War (2006–2007) by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven, in which an event mirroring the 9/11 attacks prompts the government to pass an act that cuts the superheroes’ liberties to guarantee the nation’s security. The series presents a world mirroring the present American reality by way of portraying U.S. superheroes as an oppressed minority in order to call Americans to question the course their country is taking after 9/11.