If you subscribe to Marvel Unlimited and look up the Civil War event on the app it tells you that there are 103 individual comics involved. 103! 
 This collection consists of the 7 core issues that tell the main part of the story. A group a C-list superheroes botch the capture of some bad guys and essentially nuke a school full of kids. That's the last straw for the American public who has had enough of costumed crusaders running around with no accountability. A law is passed that states anyone with superhuman abilities is required to register with the government, and if they want to fight crime or help people they have to become trained agents on the SHIELD payroll. 
 Some prominent figures like Tony Stark and Reed Richards support the Superhero Registration Act and urge their comrades to sign up. Steve Rogers thinks that trusting the government with control of the powered community is a recipe for disaster and starts an underground movement to keep fighting the good fight without submitting to oversight. All the Marvel superheroes find themselves choosing to side with either Iron Man or Captain America, and while Spider-Man is at first willing to become the public face of compliance he soon finds himself questioning the side he's chosen. 
 There's definately a compelling story in the set-up for the this, and I like that both sides have very valid points of view. I especially found it interesting that intellectually I side more with Team Iron Man because you shouldn't have a bunch of walking weapons of mass destruction running around doing whatever they feel like, but I found myself rooting for Team Captain America more. A big part of this is because of how Tony Stark starts acting like the Pope of Chili Town. Tony is convinced he's right and that the ends justify the means so while his intentions are good he uses increasingly questionable tactics. 
 However, since this is trying to boil down an insane amount of side stories into one coherent narrative thread it often feels rushed and as if things come out of left field. For example, the way that Captain America gets branded as uncooperative seems to happen extremely fast for a guy who is generally the most beloved and respected superhero of them all. Essentially it goes like this: 
 SHIELD Director Maria Hill: Captian America, are you going to support the Superhero Registration Act and lead our new government sanctioned Avengers? 
 Captain America: Well, I'm not sure. I have a lot of concerns so I'd like to take a moment to talk about what this course of action might... 
 SDMH: Agents, arrest this man. 
 CA: What the hell? I just said I need a minute here. 
 SDMH: Oh, you're resisting? SHOOT HIM! 
 Perhaps the biggest problem I have with Civil War is that it doesn't have the courage of its convictions. This was marketed as an event that would change everything in the Marvel universe. (Yeah, yeah. I know. We hear that one for every crossover.) But this actually did seem to profoundly alter the status quo. (view spoiler)[Like Iron Man as the director of SHIELD in charge of the superhuman community, Spider-Man revealing his true identity of Peter Parker, and Steve Rogers being killed although that doesn't happen in this collection. (hide spoiler)] 
 To be fair, the fallout from portions of this story did linger for quite some time, but as usual the biggest things were eventually reverted back to baseline with the most egregious example being what was done to get Spider-Man back to 'normal'. 
 There was a pretty intriguing idea at the heart of all this, and that does make it a bit better than most of the epic comic crossover events. However, it still couldn't shake off the inherent problem of making the whole thing too huge to be readable for the average person except in this Cliff Notes version which feels like you're only getting a small piece of a story that ultimately doesn't matter that much anyway.