Here’s the first trailer for Captain America: Civil War. Here, we get to see first hand what happens when Captain America and Iron Man have a serious disagreement. We got to see what were likely some of the seeds of this argument in Avengers: Age of Ultron. The Avengers films have leaped way ahead (about 50 years) to catch up with storylines in the comics; the Age of Ultron stories to place in the comics circa 2013, while the Civil War stories (which spanned several comics titles) took place in the comics during 2006-2007.

In the original comic storylines, one of the key disagreements between the heroes involves whether they should follow the government or use their own judgement. This is a similar conflict to what we expect to see in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. In many DC Comics storylines, Batman and Superman face this same argument, and typically Superman pledges to use his power to help and serve people, and trusts the government to do so. Batman, while following a moral and practical compass, does not share Superman’s trust in the people of the government to do what’s right. In the original Civil War plotline, several heroes ultimately agree to reveal their secret identities, and most notably Spider-Man reveals himself to be Peter Parker. Speaking of the wall-crawler, we’re as excited as anyone to see Spidey in action in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but alas, that time has not come yet. Not even a tease, not that we can see anyway. Realistically, we don’t expect to see much of Peter in Captain America: Civil War, which is too bad, as he played a significant role in the comics. It’ll be interesting to see how Peter will fit into this telling as well, because while in the original Civil War story Peter is a full-grown man of perhaps thirty-something, in these films we expect him to be 15 or 16. Hopefully the filmmakers won’t rush the story too quickly – hopefully we’ll be able to see Tom Holland as Peter in his own element, dealing with some typical Spider-Man problems (you know, I’m out of web fluid, I have to get Aunt May a hat for her birthday and keep it from getting crushed while I fight the Vulture, etc.) before Tony Stark shows up with web-shooter upgrades and the Iron Spider suit. Sure, we want to see all of those things. But when filmmakers try to do too much too soon, we end up with what happened with Venom in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3. And we don’t mean to bash that movie, but I think we can all agree that the whole alien suit / Venom storyline deserved to be told in its own film, not as a sub-plot to a Sandman story.

First Poster from Captain America: Civil War

We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that we get to see our first look at Black Panther here as well. One wonders why Marvel decided to introduce him in a film with such a large cast of characters, and not in his own film. We were surprised when the original Captain America and Iron Man films were such big successes – not because they weren’t good or anything like that, just because, let’s be honest, those guys were always second-tier heroes in terms of popularity compared to household names like Batman, Superman, or Spider-Man. But now, if Thor and Ant-Man films get made and do decently well, why not Black Panther?

Anyway, take a look or two at the trailer, and stay tuned for more about the Avengers and Civil War.