9/11 - Spiderman

The video that I have chosen to show is a montage of pages from a spiderman comic that was released days after the 9/11 bombings, the comic is Marvel's response to the attack and attempts to reinforce the diaster of the attacks through using their comic book heroes. The reason for me selecting this video is because it is different from the traditional 9/11 tribute videos which mainly consist of images of the twin towers under attack with a tribute country western song played over the images.

This video offers a different style of commereating the attacks, it shows pages from the Amazing Spiderman comic issue #36 and seperates them with text from the creator of the video. The video begins with "sometimes you can't be the hero" and is followed with an image of Spiderman perched on top of a near by building looking down at the rubble where the twin towers once stood. The caption above Spiderman's head at this point reads "...God...". This section of the magazine was a two page spread which emphasises it's importance, it shows a classic American hero stood helplessly watching the terrorist attack, and it is again very American that at this time he would say 'God' as perhaps a plee, but 'God' for American's at this time is one of the things that unite them toghether.

The following screen shows Spiderman down on the site of the attack and there are 2 people running away from the cloud of smoke, who say to the hero, 'Where were you?' and 'How could you let this happen?'. As we know Spiderman being a fictional hero is one who prevents crime and terror, but this page has perhaps more to it as it is voicing the American people's questions of their nation at that time of how they could let something so terrible happen, so Spiderman is portrayed as a face for the nation in this commerative magazine.

The video also goes on to show part of the comic which commemerates the real heroes of that day, it shows the fire fighters, police officers and those people who fought the hijackers of flight 93 to prevent more destruction and loss. It has an image of a fire fighter sat under the banner of 'Remember the Heroes'. There is also a scene where a small child is sat waiting for his dad to return from the wreckage and when Spiderman goes to comfort him they see the dad's dead body being carried away. The comic encaptulates the terror and sadness of that day and the video's text supports well the remembering of the losses of 9/11.

The final image of the comic and video is of Marvel's heroes stood behind the men and women of the public workforce that day that were true heroes and draped behind them is the American flag, this is Marvel's way of showing their support for the heroes of that day and commemerating them by making them stand with their 'superheroes'.