Another Graphic Audio presentation. This time an adaptation of a famous Marvel Comic’s storyline. With the new Captain America movie coming out next year, it seemed approriate to listen to this, despite the heads of Marvel saying it will be very different from the comics version.

All that said, this starts off strong and gets better as it goes on. The one thing stopping this from getting a perfect rating is due primarily to the ensemble natue of the story. Every major Marvel superhero is included. Spider-Man appears to be our protagonist. Then the attention shifts to Tony Stark/Iron Man. We have viewpoints from Sue Richards of the Fantastic Four and Captain America.

The plot of the story revolves around two avengers–Iron Man and Captain America. After an incident involving super hero’s causing city-wide destruction, the government and the people want super hero’s to sign up for what is reffered to as the super hero registration act. At its core, this bill would completely change the way super hero’s could operate.

When the legistlation is first introduced, the sympathy ball is all the way on Iron’s side of the court. As the story progresses and character’s switch sides, Captain America is shown to have valid points. Ultimately its up to you as a listener to decide which side is right. For me, Iron Man’s argument won out in the end, though I can see the other side as well. That’s one of the story’s greatest strengths. It was like watching a political debate with super hero’s, except the rebuttals turned into an all-out civil war.

Fun fact, the actress who played Vin in the Mistborn Trilogy also voiced Sue Richards. The difference is sudbtle and it took me until the last hour and a half to recognize that it was in fact the same person. Ham–also from Mistborn–played The Punisher. That one was more obvious, but neither one was a distraction.

The denouement takes it’s sweet time to wrap everything up. It’s to be expected as the big climatic battle left a lot of people hurt, both physically and mentally. Each character needs a resolution of some sort.

Even if you’ve read or know the bulk of the stories plot, having it unfold in audio is a great way to prepare for the first movie of Marvel’s phase 3 movies–Captain America: Civil War. Graphic Audio truly does a good job at making a movie for your mind.

4/5 Stars