Warning: Contains spoilers for Murderworld: Moon Knight #1!The darkest Civil War prediction from Tony Stark has officially come true in Marvel‘s latest miniseries. Civil War was a landmark event for Marvel fans because it featured their favorite heroes reaching an impasse and dividing themselves. Following the enactment of the Registration Act, Iron Man and Captain America ultimately split the Avengers due to their opposing viewpoints. While Steve Rogers wanted the government to stay out of all superhero activity, Iron Man and his Civil War team saw the Registration Act as the best-case scenario that should be humored to prevent something worse from coming to pass. Now, with the controversial law rescinded, a recent Marvel miniseries has officially shown that Tony’s worst fears have become reality.
In Murderworld: Moon Knight #1 by Jim Zub, Ray Fawkes and Luca Pizzari, a flashback for one of Murderworld’s contestants, Marina, reveals that she’s actually a member of HYDRA. The flashback showcases her engaging in a training exercise that involves the murder of countless HYDRA agents to prove her worth. However, things are not as they seem. It turns out these “agents” are actually Life Model Decoy (LMD) robots, the same machines Arcade has been using to take out his contestants while imitating countless Marvel heroes like Spider-Man and Wolverine. What’s even scarier is that these brutal LMDs were not created by Arcade or HYDRA, but rather by S.H.I.E.L.D. before the spy organization disbanded.
SHIELD’s Robotic Creations Were Meant to Replace Heroes
When Marina speaks to her mentor about the LMDs she just fought, the masked figure explains to her that S.H.I.E.L.D. actually planned to use these types of robots as an effort to replace heroes like the Avengers. The organization saw the LMDs modeled with similar superpowers as their counterparts as “part of a potential initiative to replace costumed heroes with controllable doubles.” With devices like these under their belts, S.H.I.E.L.D. would be able to ensure human heroes would never exist again because their retirement could be enforced with their deadly LMDs that have been showcased throughout Arcade’s twisted Squid Game-like competition. These robotic enforcers are essentially the Registration Act dialed up to eleven, and they’re something that Tony Stark predicted would happen come to life.
These LMDs Are Exactly What Tony Stark Feared Would Happen
Back in Iron Man/Captain America: Casualties of War #1 by Christos Gage and Jeremy Haun, Tony calls out Steve’s shortsightedness by telling him that he also doesn’t see the Registration Act as a good thing. The only reason he supports it is that the alternatives to the Act make it seem like child’s play. He even gives an example of some of the worst outcomes the government could enact with Project Wideawake, a terrifying initiative that would have hunted every hero down with Sentinels and implanting them with inhibitors to take away their powers. Iron Man was ultimately the hero in Civil War because knew that the government would not stop trying to control them if the Registration Act went down, so he was forced to support it because it was the best possible option. The LMDs in the Murderworld series are proof of why Tony had a right to be afraid because they are a product of the extremes the government was willing to take to ensure heroes could not go about freely.
These shocking revelations regarding Arcade’s murderous robot “heroes” prove that Tony was right to enforce the Registration Act. Some freedoms as a hero would certainly be sacrificed, but this was far better than what the government had in store had the Act failed. Iron Man was right to be scared of what the Marvel Universe‘s government can do, and with the introduction of LMDs as another attempt by them to control the heroes, it adds to Tony Stark‘s case that Civil War‘s controversial law should have stayed in place.
Murderworld: Moon Knight #1 is available now from Marvel Comics!