Captain America: Civil War was released in May 2016 and celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2026. The Stereo Geeks reminisce about the film and its comic origins, while pondering what this story arc means to them a decade later.

The film ostensibly capped off (haha) the Steve Rogers/ Captain America trilogy, with Steve (Chris Evans) falling out with Tony Stark/ Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) over a newly-legislated act called the Sokovia Accords. In actuality, it’s over the return of Steve’s long-dead friend, Bucky Barnes/ Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan). The film also brought back a host of characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, while introducing new and enduring additions.

Based on the Civil War Marvel comics event, the film didn’t follow the comics arc exactly but it did have a common goal: the dissolution of the Avengers and the coming of a new era. A decade later, how does the film’s message about authority, control, friendship, and choosing sides hold up?

The Civil War comics ran from 2006 to 2007. The primary series was limited to seven issues, written by Mark Millar, with art by Steve McNiven. However, there were a number of tie-in series that expanded the event.

Civil War kicks off with two lesser-known groups of superheroes battling each other, resulting in an explosion that kills most of them, except for Speedball, but also murders 600 schoolchildren and teachers. Public sentiment turns against superheroes, leading the US government to pass the Superhero Registration Act, essentially forcing all superhumans to register their real identities, or be arrested for continuing to use their powers.

Now, for some heroes like Steve Rogers and Tony Stark, that’s not a problem. Their superhero identities are synonymous with their civilian ones. But for heroes such as Spider-Man, actually a student named Peter Parker, hiding his identity ensures his Spider-activities don’t negatively affect his loved ones.

But the Act goes ahead and thus the Avengers and many superheroes choose opposing sides. In the comics run, Captain America becomes a fugitive against the Act, and is joined by other heroes. Sam Wilson/ Falcon, of course, since they’ve been by each other’s side for years, as well as strongman Hercules, and the Heroes for Hire, Luke Cage and Danny Rand.

Iron Man is on the side of the Act, and is joined by Reed Richards/ Mr. Fantastic – to nobody’s surprise because if something bad is going to go down, expect Reed to be in the midst of it. Hank Pym/ Ant-Man, who’s actually a Skrull in disguise in this story. She-Hulk weirdly joins the side of the Act, as well.

As the story continues, Peter Parker is coerced into revealing his identity, and soon enough, a bad guy ends up almost killing Peter’s Aunt May. Reed and Tony create, or access, the Negative Zone, to house super-criminals, aka anybody who disagrees with them. Tony makes a fake Thor robot because the real Thor is away, and then proceeds to unleash fake-Thor in a heated battle, during which it ends up murdering Dr Bill Foster/ Goliath.

Speedball, who was left in a coma after the explosion that set off this chain of events, becomes the hero called Penance in an extremely tragic story arc.

At the end of the comic run, Steve Rogers is killed and Tony sits by his erstwhile friend’s dead body and confesses that everything he did may not have been worth it, after all.

In 2016, Captain America: Civil War made it to the big screen, promising much in-fighting within the Avengers, and perhaps a death or two?

The film was directed by the Russo Brothers, Anthony and Joe, who had had great success with Cap’s second outing, Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The screenplay was written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, and featured the return of Steve and Bucky, Sam Wilson/ Falcon (Anthony Mackie), RDJ as Tony, Scarlet Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/ Black Widow, as well as Don Cheadle as James Rhodes/ War Machine, Paul Bettany as Vision, Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff, Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/ Hawkeye, and Emily Van Camp as Agent Sharon Carter.

New entrants to the MCU included Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa/ Black Panther (Rest in Peace), Tom Holland as Peter Parker/ Spider-Man, Marisa Tomei as Aunt May, Martin Freeman as Agent Everett Ross, and Daniel Brühl as Baron Zemo.

That’s quite a cast, you say. It was, perhaps, a bit too large. With the film closing Cap’s solo trilogy, there was much excitement about where the film would lead, particularly around Steve and Bucky’s reunion following their battle in the second film. But the film ended up being criticised for being Avengers 2.5 instead of a true Captain America film. Truth be told, The Winter Soldier felt at times like Avengers 1.5, but at least the story focused on Steve and his quest to redeem his longlost friend Bucky. In Civil War_i for Stucky fans, the Steve/Bucky of it all seemed to be subsumed by everything else.

Captain America: Civil War takes a slightly different tack than the comics. In the film, it is Wanda who inadvertently ends up killing a few people, including several Wakandans, during a covert operation. As a result, the US government initiates the Sokovia Accords, a fallout of the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron where most of the country of Sokovia was destroyed due to the Avengers’ antics.

Tony is wracked by guilt about Sokovia and Wanda’s actions. He insists the Avengers sign the Accords. Steve disagrees, believing the Avengers are better off as an independent force that can help anyone anywhere when needed, instead of being turned into weapons of the US government.

But ultimately, it comes down to Bucky, who is framed for a number of crimes. T’Challa comes after Bucky, hoping to avenge his father. Steve will not stand for this and protects Bucky at all costs.

And thus, the Avengers choose their sides: Tony’s pro-Accords, anti-Bucky team includes bestie Rhodey; Vision, for some bizarre reason. Black Panther, because he’s against Bucky. Black Widow, but, why? And Spidey, who is too little to know better and admires Tony too much.

Steve’s team includes his besties, Bucky and Sam. Wanda, because she started this, Hawkeye, who has taken on the role of Wanda’s guardian, and Ant-Man, because he and Sam tussled one time.

There’s a lot of fighting in Captain America: Civil War, Rhodey gets badly hurt, by Vision, of all people. The Avengers discover the bad guy is actually Zemo, Brühl in a stunningly understated villain role. T’Challa channels the power of forgiveness, but Tony and Steve can’t. They fight hard, fall out hard, and the Avengers are destroyed. Just in time for one purple nut-sack-faced Thanos to attack Earth. Great timing, guys.

To say I was excited about Captain America: Civil War is an understatement. The viewing experience itself turned out to be quite fun. A colleague had received two free tickets to the premiere and promptly handed them over to us. I wore a Captain America shield necklace, and Mon wore an Iron Man mask. We were the envy of everyone at the screening.

I’d read the comics, thanks to Mon, and I was all set to be in my feels. I was planning Steve’s funeral in my head; I had my bottle of water ready to rehydrate after crying buckets of tears.

And then… nobody died. Aside from King T’Chaka (John Kani), and we really only feel that loss in Black Panther a couple years later.

That really coloured my reading of the film the first time I watched it. I expected Steve to die; my emotional state was building up to that. I was waiting to see RDJ unleash a torrent of emotions as he made Tony’s confession. Instead, we got Steve leaving Tony a letter, promising to be by his side when he was needed (liar). 

I felt let down. But that’s what happens when you expect film adaptations to stick closely to their comic origins.

The second time I watched the film, I was much more engaged. Since I knew the ending, I was able to focus on the character interactions, the emotional beats, and how much Steve was upending Tony’s life by choosing Bucky over him. I still disagreed with the Sokovia Accords to an extent, but the Steve-Tony fight wasn’t about the Accords, it was about Bucky. And I agreed with Tony about Bucky. He was the Winter Soldier; he’d been brainwashed, yes, but he’d killed loads of people, and changed the course of history. He also murdered Tony’s parents. You can’t blame Tony for being a little upset that this is the guy Steve chose over him.

As you can probably tell from my language, there’s a fair amount of homoeroticism implied in this film. Fans really loved the triangle aspect of Steve-Bucky-Tony. But the trio don’t get as much screentime together, and when they do, it’s to beat the ever-loving crap out of each other. And, as mentioned above, Stucky and Stony fans were very displeased that their ships didn’t get the spotlight. Especially because the trailers went out of their way to make it look like the Stucky ship, at least, was sailing.

Since Mon and I have a habit of avoiding all superhero trailers till after we watch the film, we were spared this sleight of hand. But I had to agree with fans when I did watch the trailer – Marvel baited shipping fans with the trailer and kinda lied about the content of the film. That’s not on.

In the intervening 10 years, I’ve watched Captain America: Civil War a few times. And I like a lot of it. I think the Sokovia Accords make more sense now than they did in 2016. Gun violence in the US is ridiculous, but it’s getting bad in Canada, as well. We’ve had weekly shootings in Toronto, resulting in fatalities. It’s terrifying. We need better registration laws to make sure firearms aren’t as easy to access. Guns are made to kill – and they need to be controlled accordingly.

Beyond the core message of the film, Captain America: Civil War gave us two of the best characters in the franchise – Black Panther and Spider-Man. We’d waited 13 films to see T’Challa, and despite only appearing a handful of times before his untimely passing, Chadwick Boseman has left a powerful legacy that outlasts the film his Black Panther debuted in. And Holland’s Spider-Man has brought me more joy than I could have expected. He’s not Miles Morales, who will always be my Spidey, but Holland is a web of joy that I enjoy watching.

As for Steve, Bucky, and Tony, Bucky’s the only one left. And he’s not even with Sam, his last connection to Steve. When we left Bucky’s Thunderbolts, aka the New Avengers, Bucky and Sam were litigating over who could be an Avenger. We’ll see them next in Avengers: Doomsday, but will they even be on the same side? Will they survive? Steve and Tony sure left a mess behind.

Like Ron, I was initially disappointed by the Civil War adaptation. I knew it would be different from the comic run—after all, the majority of the main players in the comics hadn’t even appeared in the MCU yet. But the film still felt like it was missing something. An emotional core that resonated in the comics. 

On subsequent viewings, I’ve warmed to the film a lot more. I enjoy it, and I love the dynamics and interactions of all the characters, most of whom have become my dear favourites. But that emptiness lingers, and it has everything to do with Cap’s relationships. 

Let’s be clear-eyed about who runs these superhero films—Marvel and Disney are major American corporations. They were never going to let their all-American white boy champion superhero, who is literally named Captain America, be anything less than 125% straight. The queerbaiting in the promos was especially uncalled for. But, let’s be honest here, who in their right mind thought that a gay ship would sail in a 2016 Marvel film? 

And yet, all that’s beside the point. What continues to bother me about Civil War is that Steve’s emotions get put on the back burner for an unofficial Avengers reunion, and subsequent break-up. This should have completed Steve’s arc of having a friend like Bucky who always looked out for him and Steve’s journey towards bringing that friend back to himself. That was the underlying driver of the story, but it should have been on the surface. 

With so many characters at play, though, Steve and his trilogy’s characters didn’t have enough screen time to flesh their emotional beats out. And the MCU was never able to right that ship. They haven’t been able to put all the pieces of Steve and his gang’s arcs together despite their many appearances.

We’ve had snippets, especially in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier where Bucky and Sam had more heart-to-hearts, but they’re constantly playing catch-up. And let’s not start with Sharon Carter, who’s been done dirty by the MCU, and has now been forgotten. It often feels like Steve and his group weren’t important enough for Marvel. 

How else can you explain that the same people who adapted Civil War didn’t think Sam was important enough for Steve to say goodbye to him in Infinity War? Or that Bucky is hidden away to heal and grow away from Steve, and doesn’t get to mourn the loss of their years together. It’s like the creative team’s (or rather Marvel Studios and Disney’s) utter fear of queerness meant they had to quash male platonic relationships in favour of a hetero-romance. I wrote about this in WWAC following Avengers: Endgame, because the legacy of Civil War—for a long while—was Marvel hiding behind that fear to the detriment of the MCU characters and their storylines. 

It’s not possible to look past the character arcs, but Civil War also introduced Black Panther, so hauntingly portrayed by the late Chadwick Boseman, it’s no wonder we were at ease and ready to celebrate when Black Panther hit theatres. I, like Ron, really enjoy MCU Peter Parker. Yes, he’s different from his comic book version in many ways, but Tom Holland brings youthful, earnest heart to the comic character that encapsulates why Peter Parker has endured for so long. 

But, good guys be damned. The most outstanding part of this film is Daniel Brühl’s Baron Zemo. He gets to be much more campy in TFATWS, but he is mesmeric in Civil War. Brühl is always an arresting and understated actor, and this initial version of Zemo is exactly up his alley. Zemo’s character works because he is the average joe caught up in a fight among superheroes and villainous robots, and he can do absolutely nothing about it. How can anyone, even with army training? His arc, his determination, the twists in his tale, they are the most memorable and well-constructed part of this film. 

Zemo is also the most successful villain in the MCU. I’d argue that ranking still stands, considering Thanos’ machinations got reversed and he got erased from the timeline. Zemo may still be suffering in life, but he successfully broke up the Avengers, to the point that Earth ended up paying the price for it because its mightiest heroes weren’t together when Thanos invaded.

Is it weird for me to highlight a villain in this Captain America: Civil War anniversary piece? Not really. The MCU has thrived on its charismatic and complex villains, some of whom overshadow their heroes. The MCU also has a habit of creating villains who make a really good point, but then take matters a step too far for us to really champion them. Zemo had a point, but he killed King T’Chaka and others to prove it. He also triggered Bucky into nearly killing all the Avengers. And yet, Zemo’s dogged determination, his ability to play mindgames with the Avengers, is something to behold.

Despite the issues with Captain America: Civil War (it is my third favourite film in Steve’s trilogy), the new characters are captivating, the fight scenes are fun, and for a brief time we got to see Steve hang out with his old friend Bucky and his new friend Sam. And that awkward relationship has endured with fans, even if it didn’t get its due on screen.