Earlier today on my Facebook page, i posted a picture of a print I purchased of Superman standing with Uncle Sam in the rubble at Ground Zero just after 9/11. That got me thinking about what other comic book tributes were out there for this tragic event. There are a few out there, but I think the one that is most well known for various reasons is The Amazing Spider-Man, issue 36. Published shortly after the events of 9/11 2001, this is Marvel’s memorial of the tragedy and tribute to the real heroes of that day. It had to be Spider-Man. There is no other hero that is as connected to New York City as Spidey is. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of the heroes in Marvel’s lineup call New York home, but the connection is strongest with Peter Parker. In the issues of Spider-Man, New York is more than just a setting or background for the story, it is another character. And Spidey has always personified the average, never-say-die attitude of the common New Yorker. When the Twin Towers fell, there was only one hero that marvel could choose to tell this story.
It is an interesting issue, and it is interesting to look back now, 13 years later, and see the attitudes we had back then when it happened compared to today. There was something unifying about experiencing such an awful attack. A feeling of putting our differences behind us and coming together for the greater good. That feeling seemed to permeate the air at that time. Looking around us today, it is easy to see that it did not last. This issue stands alone, it’s not part of the current story arc or anything. It is a true one-shot kind of issue, just to remember this day. Some people at the time felt like it trivialized what happened on 9/11, and looking at this page, I can see why:
But, really, it was a couple of artists trying to cope and deal with something that none of us could really understand. For us, those of us who did not live through Pearl Harbor or World War II, we had never seen anything like this. We had never felt violated like this, and we had never imagined evil like this existed in the world. These artists tried to put into words and pictures their thoughts in the aftermath of something like that. How do you know what to think?
My own experience with 9/11 happened while I was on my LDS mission in Germany. My companion and I were just wrapping up our day and we were meeting our branch president for an appointment at his house. When he picked us up, he had the news on the radio and he was trying to explain to us what had happened. We could not understand what he was saying. My companion, who had been out longer than I had, kept looking at me and saying it didn’t make any sense. He was talking about someone kidnapped a plane, and then it sounded like he said they had flown it into a building. We hadn’t learned terms like hijacking and mass murder in German. When we got to his house, he turned on CNN (apparently you can get it even in Germany) and what we saw caused our jaws to drop. We understood what he was trying to say now, because we could see what was happening. The words didn’t make sense before because we couldn’t even imagine it happening. Now we saw it for real. It was a sobering moment.
At one point in this issue, Spider-Man is talking about what we tell our children. Or rather, parents of children at that time who were witnessing it happen. It reminded me of a conversation I had with my son today at dinner. Apparently they had learned a little about 9/11 at school. He told me what had happened like he couldn’t believe it, and was amazed when I told him I remembered it. I asked him why the planes were flown into those buildings, and he said it was because a bad man did it to kill people because he didn’t like America. That was how his 7-year-old mind processed it. Then he asked me if all the bad men were now in jail so something like that would never happen again. I didn’t know how to answer him. There will always be bad men who will always want to do things like that. The evil we witnessed that day is still around, beheading American journalists. I wondered if we are better off, safer now then we were then? I don’t know. I didn’t know what to say to him, how to answer.
It is interesting to look back and think about the feelings of unity we all felt at that time, but it scary to see how quickly we have reverted back to the factions and divisions that divided us then. I sometimes think it is much worse now than it has ever been. We talk about always remember and never forget, but I think we don’t remember and have forgotten that it was more than just recalling the fallen towers, but how we came together to show the world we would stand back up, together, and rebuild and move on.
Ultimately, that is the message of #36. Ordinary people will stand up and rebuild and not give up. And for a little while, after the attacks we did. What’s happened since?
