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The Britannica Dictionary defines collateral damage as "forms of damage including deaths and injuries that are a result of the fighting in a war but happen to people who are not in the military" (Britannica.com). A supplanted understanding of the term extends to all other forms of collision, beyond the military. However, it does not take long to understand that such damages would be paramount in any form of physical combat, especially one involving people (or armies) with superpowers. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), initiated by the film Iron Man (2008), these battles occur in almost all the films that have been released in the last fourteen years, though in different intensities and proportions. It comes as no surprise that in such battles, there would be a lot of collateral damage, both to people and to property. The premise of Captain America: Civil War (2016) rests on this aspect as well. Though Civil War does not directly mention collateral damage, one can trace back the possibilities of a city full of people almost dying in Sokovia in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). Those people, innocent as they were, were about to die because ofa mistake made by the 'billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, genius' Tony Stark (Avengers).
The Beginnings of Collateral Damage
In Iron Man, Obadiah Stein, Tony's colleague, orders a hit on Tony at the beginning of the film, which in turn leads the latter to build an armour of iron, welded together in a cave, powered by a miniaturised arc reactor. In one way, one could argue that the first superhero in the modern-day MCU (that is, not taking into consideration the X-Men movies or The Incredible Hulk, all of which came before Iron Man) was created as collateral damage. The creation ofa superhero does not qualify as damage, but given the amount of collateral damage he would dole out in the next eleven years in the MCU, one could argue that when he went from being Tony Stark to Iron Man, that was, indeed, damage. In the book, Avengers Assemble: Critical Perspectives on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the author writes about the Iron Man suit,
The technologically advanced Iron Man suit also promulgates another myth about the pre-eminence of American warfare in the...