Broken Frontier

Unreal.  Story by Steven T. Seagle.  Art by Duncan Rouleau and Aaron Sowd.  Letters by Comicraft.  Color by Richard and Tanya Horie.  9-11: The World's Finest Comic Book Writers and Artists Tell Stories To Remember.  Volume 2.  DC Comics, 2002.

In the immediate aftermath of the traumatic events of September 11, 2001, the comic book industry responded with several anthologies of comics intended to provide reflection, healing, and charity.  9-11: Artists Respond, Vol. 1 was published in January 2002 by Chaos! Comics, Dark Horse Comics, and Image, and DC Comics published 9-11: The World's Finest Comic Book Writers & Artists Tell Stories to Remember, Vol. 2 shortly thereafter.  All writers, artists, letterers, and colorists donated time and labor, as did the printers.  The ink and paper manufacturers contributed to the cost of the project.  All proceeds from the sale of the anthologies went to 9-11 charities.

Together, the two volumes contain over 160 original comics, ranging from one to several pages each.  Each in some way addresses the shock, devastation and grief of that day.  Victims and survivors are honored, and the comics abound with messages of hope and healing.  The one-page comics in particular carry amazing force, from Dave Johnson's image of Batman standing over a shadow of two towers and two red roses (Vol. 2), to Steve Guaraccia's drawing of an airplane, boldly labeled "This is not a bomb" in a script reminiscent of Magritte's (Vol. 1). 

The cover of Vol. 2, by Alex Ross, is an update of the cover of DC Comic's The Big All-American Comic Book (Kubert, Hibbard, Mayer et. al., 1944).  While DC's 1944 cover showed a boy and his dog gazing up in awe at larger-than-life drawings of superheroes, Ross's cover shows Superman and Krypto gazing up in awe a larger-than-life drawings of the heroes of 9-11.

Unreal, a deceptively simple two-page comic found on pp. 15-16 of Vol. 2, begins in outer space where we see Superman flying around the International Space Station. He is musing about his abilities, while he gives the Space Shuttle a hand.  "I can defy the laws of gravity," Superman thinks.  "I can ignore the principles of physics.  I can breathe in the vacuum of space."  While he appears to repair the Shuttle's thrusters, he isn't the least bit distracted from his thoughts.  This is all in a day's work to Superman, who salutes the departing Shuttle while thinking about the smiles of relief he brings to a grateful public.

The trouble starts when we turn the page of what, so far, is a routine Superman comic.  The first panel of page two is confusing and disorienting.  It takes a few moments to realize that the panel shows the comic page we have just read, but from a slight distance.  A slow zoom out in perspective has begun.  And Superman plants the first seed of doubt, thinking, "But unfortunately…"

In the next panel, the zoom has progressed to a slightly greater distance, and we see that a little boy is reading the comic, tears streaming down his face.  The third panel steps back even further, and we see that the boy reading the comic is being carried through smoke and darkness by a firefighter.

The effect is very intense.  On the first page of the comic, we are in an area as vast as outer space.  Activity is mundane and untroubled.  But turn the page, and in the first panel, our experience is disoriented.  As we come to terms with the new perspective, we are forced to go from the infinity of outer space to a tiny point of incomprehension.  And then, as our perspective widens, we are taken into a place of danger and fear.

Superman's reflections become a lament.  His abilities are nearly unlimited by the things that limit mere humans, but in spite of his great powers, he cannot leave the pages of fiction and help save people.  He is imprisoned in the pages of the comic book clutched by the little boy, while fire rages, buildings collapse and people flee in fear.  Right at the moment that he is needed the most, Superman must face the fact that he is unreal.  He is a hero who can defy the laws of probability, but in times of crisis, he can't break free of the fictional pages of the comics.

By the time Superman mourns his inability to become real in a crisis, in panel four, we have a full view of the context of the comic we were just reading.  We're at Ground Zero, and the air is glowing with the yellow and orange of fire.  In the fifth panel, the fireman runs across a burning floor to deliver the little boy to a woman, and hustles the two away.

Fortunately, Superman says,fortunately, the real world is protected by heroes of its own.  And in the sixth panel of page two, the final panel of the comic, we are once again in tight close-up on the comic book the child is reading.  Superman is still locked in his salute to the Shuttle, but he is facing the other way now, directing his salute at a brand-new panel.  Next to the panel of Superman's salute, and just above him, we see the fireman, carrying an American flag, running back into the wall of orange-white flames.

A total of 343 firefighters died at the World Trade Center.  On that horrible day, they became American symbols of courage and nobility, heroism and sacrifice.  But their symbolic status sometimes masks how real they were, people with mortgages to pay and lawns to mow.  The surviving first responders didn't feel much like heroes, as they struggled with pain, loss, and poor health.  Long lines of grateful citizens held up signs of gratitude and solidarity, day in and day out, as the firefighters returned to Ground Zero to look for survivors, and then remains.  The thankful populace piled heaps of flowers, cards, signs, and candles at the doors of firehouses.  I often wondered how difficult that must have been for the firefighters, who are made of flesh and blood, not steel.  I often wondered about the kinds of inner conflicts the survivors faced as they resisted their new status as symbols and struggled to preserve their humanity in the awful ashes of the World Trade Center.

And this is where I find the beauty of Unreal.  In lamenting his unreality, and lauding the real world heroes, Superman does not turn the firefighters into symbols, but rather highlights their humanity.  We all felt a little unreal that day, caught as witnesses to a nightmare.  In protesting his helplessness, Superman becomes just like us, wanting so much to do something, and feeling thwarted.  By identifying with us, Superman comforts us.  He reminds us that we have real, human protectors, made not of steel, but of flesh and bone, and a sense of humanity more powerful than fear.