DC's New Frontiers vs. Marvel's Civil War

I'm putting a spoiler warning right here, and in bold letters so if you don't want anything spoiled about either New Frontiers or Civil War you should stop reading now.

It's kind of hard not to see DC's mini-series New Frontiers as being anything other than a response to Marvel's Civil War. I know that the two big comic book companies have been sorta having a strange conversation for a long time, but in recent years I believe that the conversation has grown in intensity.

For those who don't know, and to recap in my own unique style, Marvel's Civil War was this fairly contrived mega-event where, in order to promote a professionalization of superheroing after a tragedy, a Superhuman Registration Act was passed in the United States. The prime mover for the SHRA was Iron Man, under the hypothesis that as a "futurist" he knew that unless superheroes were professionalized immediately that horrible things would happen to them all. Opposing this position was Captain America, who felt the act was tyrannical.

Well, maybe the act wasn't tyrannical, but it's enforcement was. If you didn't register, you were declared an "enemy combatant" and sent off to a prison in the Negative Zone where Iron Man bragged about how people didn't have civil rights so it was perfectly fine to incarcerate them indefinitely.

In the end of Marvel's Civil War, Iron Man's faction won. Most comics ended up treating this like an advance. Whether or not registration was a good idea, it's implementation was downright evil. If you don't register, y'know, indefinite imprisonment in another dimension where you don't have civil rights, and that dimension eats people's souls. Ouch. If you do register, well, you get enslaved. I mean, drafted to perform involuntary and indefinite service in US government approved superhero teams. One of these government teams, the Thunderbolts, is lead by the Green Goblin, and innumerable people have been crippled or killed by the Green Goblin and his equally psychopathic charges, including something like fifteen federal agents who were killed with the Goblin freaked out and started slaughtering people. I actually find the denouement baffling because of the indefinite imprisonment without civil rights, the indefinite involuntary servitude of those who do register combined with employing mass murderers as the first government sanctioned team. Bear in mind, this has been going on for about two years, now. It's not like it's like where some supervillain turns New York City into fantasy New York City for three issues before Morgan le Fey or Kulan Gath or whomever else is doing it this time gets their ass kicked. It's been two years in almost all titles to some extent or another. It feels like editorial policy that the Civil War is a good thing.

In New Frontiers, which takes iconic DCU characters an imagines them in a post-WWII environment. There, Hourman - a member of the WWII era Justice Society of America - while chasing a crook messes up and some cops die, causing legislation similar to Marvel's SHRA to be published. Many, even most, of the "masked mystery men" go into retirement to avoid having to register with the House Un-American Activites Commission. Some, like Superman and Wonder Woman, register with the government. Obviously, Batman doesn't. Illegal superhero activity is classed as treason.

By the end of New Frontiers, the iconic DCU characters have decided to fight against the criminalization of superhero activities. Superman monologues about how it is their obligation to fight injustice everywhere, whether official or government.

To me, it strongly came off as commentary on Marvel's Civil War. The tyrannical enforcement of New Frontier's laws equating superheroing with treason were initially embraced but subsequently and forcefully rejected. The message was clear: equating citizens from helping other citizens with treason is both stupid and immoral.

I find it fascinating the way that DC and Marvel are trading talking points about these sorts of things. It really makes me wonder what's going on over there. I know that, y'know, most writers and artists of superhero comics work pretty much interchangeably between the two companies. So I'm wondering where this is coming from and if my perceived increase in the intensity of the exchanges is real and if real what underlies it.