Whose side is Justin Trudeau on in Civil War II? Is the Prime Minister of Canada, making his comic book debut today in Civil War II: Choosing Sides #5, Team Tony or Team Carol? Turns out, he’s neither. He’s Team Justin Trudeau Doesn’t Give a Shit About Your Superhero Infighting Nonsense.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that the Alpha Flight side of today’s issue of Civil War II: Choosing Sides #5, written by Chip Zdarsky and with art by Ramón Pérez, was meant to be about the Canadian superteam that now closely works with Carol Danvers as Earth’s first line of defene against cosmic threats.
But you don’t get Justin Trudeau, currently one of the most popular politicians around, to guest star in your comic and not turn him into the star. So really, instead of being titled “Alpha Flight” this story should be called “Justin Trudeau Could Probably End This Civil War Single-Handedly If He Wants To, Good God.”
The tale opens with Trudeau calling Alpha Flight into his office after Carol tasks the team with bringing in a suspect divined through Ulysses’ Inhuman powers of foresight—and Prime Minister Trudeau is not happy that his Canadian team is being called in on American soil, or at Carol Danvers’ terrible reasoning for using Ulysses to fight crime:
Yes, even Justin Trudeau thinks that Carol is being ludicrous. If Marvel won’t listen to the Prime Minister of Canada about how they’re ruining one of their flagship characters in this event, who will they listen to?
But don’t take Trudeau’s strong stance against Captain Marvel as him secretly stanning for Iron Man. Even though, apparently, the Marvel Comics version of Justin Trudeau boxes with Tony Stark every week, because of course he does:
During Tony and Trudeau’s sparring match—which, by the way, features Trudeau easily trouncing Stark and apologizing with every solid hit he lands, because once again of course he does—Tony probes the Prime Minister about his meeting with Alpha Flight, desperate for insider intel on Carol’s plans. And then this happens:
Justin Trudeau floors Tony Stark. Pierre Trudeau would be proud. On top of that, he then basically tells Tony that he’s just as wrong as Carol is, and that there’s a middle ground that no one has even bothered to try fighting for it.
And Trudeau is right. The forced conflict that kicked off Civil War II aside, neither Carol or Tony have done a great job trying to find common ground with each other. They’ve just divided into ridiculous factions and then gone at it, at great cost to the people around them. As Trudeau ends the story: “You all fight too much, with the wrong opponents.”
It only took the Prime Minister of Canada to realize that, amazingly.