The Spark
In the comics, the impetus for the Super-Human Registration act was a disaster in Stamford, Connecticut that occurred when a group of young heroes with their own reality show, The New Warriors, confronted a group of super villains who ended up being dangerously out of the Warriors league. Nitro, an old Captain Marvel villain, unleashed his explosive powers under pressure and levelled a number of city blocks, resulting in the deaths of over 600 civilians including children.
In response the US government passed the Super-Human Registration Act, requiring all superheroes to identify themselves to the authorities, and essentially become government employees. They could continue to fight villains but now with government oversight, proper training, a pay check and the possible loss of any secret identity.
From what we’ve seen of Captain America: Civil War so far, the driver for more regulation seems to be the actions of The Avengers themselves. As William Hurt’s Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross appears to outline to Cap, (you can never trust Marvel’s marketing team they are trickier than Loki) “people are scared” after the massive destruction wrought in New York (The Avengers), Washington DC (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) and Sokovia (Avengers: Age of Ultron). Even if the Avengers were trying to save lives , the fact that such a small group of people can wield so much power must have people spooked.
Using The Avengers past acts against them makes much more sense in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe as there simply isn’t the same proliferation of heroes as there is in the comics. There’s no time to introduce young inexperienced heroes just to kill them off and in the slightly more grounded cinematic universe a villain like Nitro would stick out like a sore thumb.
At this point it’s unclear what form the “Sokovia Accords” will take but as most of “Team Cap” (Captain America, Falcon, Ant-Man, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch) have no secret identities to speak of it’s difficult to see Tony and Steve coming to blows over this.
It seems far more likely that it’s not the Sokovia Accords themselves that cause Civil War, rather what those accords mean for one man.
