In this series we spotlight comic book stories that are likely best left forgotten. Here is an archive of past installments.

Today, we take a look at another odd plot development during Marvel's Civil War...

Our story begins in Civil War: Frontline #1 (by Paul Jenkins, Ramon Bachs and John Lucas - who do all the stories featured here), when reporter friends Sally Floyd and Ben Urich, one representing a progressive independent newspaper and one representing, well, you know, the Daily Bugle, discuss the Superhuman Registration Act...





Sally and Ben are our narrators for this series.

Naturally, Sally is against the Superhuman Registration Act as a violation of civil liberties. In the third issue, she sees a battle between a Pro-Registration hero and an Anti-Registration hero that ended with the Pro-Registration hero killed. In the next issue, she and Ben discuss the incident...





A couple of things to note here.

1. Sally is not good at turning a blind eye at things.

and

2. She thinks that there is a conspiracy involving the Civil War.

In issue #5, Sally and Ben both get arrested for interviewing anti-Registration heroes and not revealing their location to the government.

Let's see Sally in custody in #6...





Gotta love Reed's evil mastermind pose.

So a Congressman visits Sally in custody the next issue and gives her a sealed envelope and debates the issue with her...







A few things here.

1. How in the world did that convince her she was wrong?

2. As we'll see later on, there's a real pattern here for "gothcha" moments where they really aren't "gotcha" moments. Oh, you can predict that she'll think that your offer, which totally sounds like a trick, is a trick? You're really blowing my mind here. How can you possibly stand up to such brilliant rhetoric?

3. Sally now realizes that there are no conspiracies here. This is an important point for later.

At the end of #8, Sally is offered a chance to talk to Captain America.

In #9, she basically blows him off...







What the what? As we saw with the Civil War Frontline back-up story about the Japanese Internment Camps, Jenkins seems to have this odd inclination to want to reframe historical events to such an absurd degree that they're basically meaningless. Forgetting whether you necessarily even buy into the argument (perhaps made most famous by Christopher Browning) that your typical Nazi soldier was just an ordinary guy forced to serve the Nazis due to obedience to authority and peer pressure, the key point is that they were fighting for a objectively "bad" moral cause. So this whole argument here really doesn't fly (if she wants to argue that Cap could be morally wrong, then whatever, fair enough, but don't do it through talking about Nazi Germany). By the way, as an aside, if you're Cap, why would you ever talk to this lady ever again? Lady's looking at her watch WHILE YOU'RE giving her an exclusive interview? What the heck?

So anyhow, here is where Sally is now. She's basically reversed her position, especially on the whole "there is no conspiracy involved" angle.

Now here's the kicker. SHE THEN DISCOVERS A CONSPIRACY BEHIND CIVIL WAR!!! I talked about it last week. She then decides to cover it up, for the greater good. Because, you know, she's apparently quite good at turning a blind eye to things.

So keep that in mind when you go to the next page when Captain America, who surrendered at the end of Civil War due to his fight with Iron Man causing too much collateral damage and the average citizen seemingly supporting Iron Man's side of the issue, inexplicably gives Sally ANOTHER exclusive interview...

So here's their "interview"....









Now, is there certainly something to be said for the American people being out of touch? Sure. Is there something to be said for people not caring about what Cap was fighting for? Sure. Heck, there's even something to be said for how hard it is to fight a revolution in a modern society, because what people in modern societies want the most is not freedom, necessarily, but the illusion of freedom - the ability to go on their social media sites, watch their TV shows, etc. It's sort of the point of Alan Moore and David Lloyd's V for Vendetta - is fascism preferable for most people to anarchy?

But that's not what Sally says here. It essentially comes down to Cap being wrong for fighting for nobler American ideals while typical Americans don't have such ideals. And that just doesn't work. "The American people are morons, so you're wrong to stand up for civil liberties!" What the what?

Plus, of course, her specific examples are ridiculous. You wouldn't go up to President Obama and berate him for not being active on SnapChat. Or tell Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg that she isn't suited to represent this country because she doesn't have a Facebook profile or know who last won the World Series (by the way, it seems highly unlikely that Cap doesn't know who won the last World Series).

Sally's sad because she has to hide in subway tunnels during battles? Is that seriously all that much of a price to pay when Captain America and other heroes keep her from DYING instead? Who ELSE is supposed to protect people from supervillains? She should be thrilled that enough superpowered people WANT to help the people!

Her position at the end really boils down to "America sucks, but at least I know about what Americans are into, so that means something for some reason."

But whatever, lets say you agree with Sally for some odd reason, it's still a bad scene because Cap just accepts her position without any disagreement. "Yep, Americans don't care about civil liberties. I guess you're right that I was wrong to stand up for them." Seriously, NO counter to her? It's just balderdash.

When you combine this with the fact that Sally just discovered that Iron Man provoked a war with Atlantis to turn public sentiment against the anti-Registration forces and profiteer from fears over Atlantean invasions to make money so that he can fund his Initiative program, and Sally is going to just ignore this (even APPLAUD Tony for being willing to "do what needed to be done"), then it really makes it clear that Sally is just a terrible, terrible person.

There's still one more Frontline plot (Speeball becoming Penance) that I'll get to some day, so please avoid discussing that plot point in the comments.

If you have a suggestion for another comic book plot that is probably best forgotten, drop me a line at bcronin@comicbookresources.com