9-11 September 11 2001 "World's Finest Comic Book Artists and Writers" Tackle the Tragedy

On this day it seems topical and fitting to review 9-11 September 11 2001, the second volume of the DC Comic's World's Finest Comic Book Writers and Artists Tell Stories to Remember.

Created as a way to raise money for 9/11 relief efforts, World's Finest Comic Book Writers & Artists Tell Stories to Remember Volume II often seems as if it has less to say about the events of September the 11th as much as it represents a mental and emotional snapshot of the state of mind of some people in the comic book industry after 9/11.

With DC at the wheel, Volume Two has the requisite superhero appearances beginning with Superman and a few more minor appearances by such as Static Shock. Neil Gaiman produces another Endless story. Even Superman's super pup puts in an appearance but unlike Marvel's own 9-11 tribute, DC's Volume Two is less about the superheroes and veers unpredictably across uneven territory. Despite the glossy packaging and illustrations, Volume Two feels raw if only because the pages seem to leak the same confusion, pain, chaos and struggle to understand that characterized many New Yorkers at the time. That is not to say that Volume Two's stories don't offer answers, in fact they're filled with morals and definitive answers with a range of opinions ranging from extreme patrioitism to political correctness. But all the answers have the hollow feel of weak arguments by people who are unsure what to say and how to say it.

Volume Two, from the start is plagued with a profound sense of unworthiness for which the cover of Superman admiring the rescue workers at Ground Zero in the shiny Alex Ross cover sets the tone. It is probably one of the few times that Alex Ross took his cue from the New York Post's Sean Delonas but it is Sean Delonas' cartoon of Superman and Batman admiring a firefighter and police officer that hangs over much of the edition.

After 9-11 many people rightly felt a sense of cultural unworthiness realizing that the preoccupations of early 21st century American culture had become increasingly shallow and vapid in the face of real tragedy and the serious nature of the world that had intruded into television networks and movies that pandered instead of informing and delivered sound bites instead of information. Yet the unintentional blow struck by that Sean Delonas New York Post cartoon fell on comic books because after all celebrities and anchormen and even sports stars are not our heroes in the way that superheroes are.

That sense of "We Are Not Worthy" colors Volume Two beginning with an opening that has Superman feeling less than real in the face of his helplessness contrasted with the rescue workers. It isn't the absurd montage that Marvel's scene of superheroes and supervillains including Dr. Doom teaming up to lift up girders, but it acutely points up the contrast of superheroes with virtually unlimited abilities who live in an unlimited world with our own. The attempt tp place superheroes, whether Superman or Spider-Man at Ground Zero is ultimately senseless. In Volume Two, only Kurt Busiek manages to tell a story that combines superheroes with tragedy and he does it by leaving out both the Superheroes and 9/11.

The preoccupation with the unworthiness of comic books continues on throughout Volume Two. A poignant strip in Volume Two which reveals a story of Superman and the Justice League as the drawing of a child whose mother is a rescue worker too expresses the idea that comic book superheroes are for children and that 9/11 brought a time to put away childish things and embrace adult responsibilities instead. That is a responsible sentiment in some ways but other responses to that unworthiness quickly took the form of self-indulgence such as Brian K. Vaughn's "For Art's Sake" that stars him in a dialogue working through his feelings that his work is not worthy. It is here that Brian K. Vaughn veers directly into Art Spiegelman territory (indeed Art Spiegelman's In The Shadow of No Towers, is easily foreseen here),

And that is one dividing line in 9-11 September 11 2001, the second volume of the DC Comic's World's Finest Comic Book Writers and Artists Tell Stories to Remember, between those whose response to 9-11 is to urge the embrace and recognition of the virtues of self-sacrifice and those who veer into self-indulgence. The worst of these is a story that has a yuppie couple being forced from their home near Ground Zero only to return and find that the area had been sealed of to promptly agonize over how easy it is to lose one's freedom. Beyond the complete self-indulgence of telling a story in which the death of 3000 people doesn't affect them in any way beyond the inconvenience, layering it over with that final self-righteous statement, as if being kept out of a toxic zone for your own protection means "losing your freedom" is simply obscene.

There are plenty though who get it right. James Denning's story Walk captures the spirit of ordinary heroism that so many showed on that day in the towers. A spirit born out of human commitment and human needs. Will Eisner's The Real Thing is yet another commentary on our cultural unworthiness but the art and directness captures the feeling best. Ironically of course Hollywood did go on to make a mediocre World Trade Center movie after all but for one brief period, some did wake to see the greater reality behind the scenes. Jo Duffy's Gemini Falling is a beautiful transformation of a tragedy into a symbolic afterlife that fits well within the realms of the comic book world, transforming tragedy into myth. Paul Levitz's Tradition is a quiet shocking piece in which the slow buildup of panels gives away to the unrestrained horror of the moment.

These panels which actually capture some of the grief and shock of the day are unfortunately mixed with a despicably politicised Static Shock story and a similarly themed story that leads you to wonder if anyone involved in it ever met a New York City construction worker. While Volume Two may be suffused with a certain preachiness, that preachiness should have at least remained within the boundaries of admiration for the sacrifices made on that day, instead of the crudely patronizing tone embodied here.

In complete contrast to the painful attempts at directly addressing September 11th, Kurt Busiek's After The Fire takes place in Astro City not New York but it does what Kurt Busiek deals best, telling the story of an extraordinary world at the ordinary level and showing the sacrifices made for us have to be passed on and repaid to others. It's the kind of things Joss Whedon struggled to articulate much later in The Chain but that Kurt Busiek handles gently and effortlessly in After The Fire.

Josh Krach's The Job in many ways set the template for World Trade Center but it handles it by merging comic book rapid action with Scott McDonald's and James Pascoe's art that brings home the day with shockingly explosive images.

(see panel below)

Like After The Fire, this is Volume Two at its best and freed from self-doubt it embraces what comic books do best, show ordinary and extraordinary heroes and submerging the author out of sight by channeling our creative impulses into the portrayal, not of the angst that Brian K. Vaughn projects, but of a noble idea.