Superhero movies have become an endless attempt to rewrite 9/11

Anna Mae
Sep 12, 2016
1 min read

''Midway through 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron, Iron Man is looking for a way to subdue an enraged Hulk after the (then-evil) Scarlet Witch messed with Hulk's mind. The battle pits a giant, robotic suit of armor against a huge monster in a titanic fight across a city center. It's silly stuff, of course, but very, very fun.

And then, in the middle of it, Iron Man drives the Hulk into a massive building under construction, bringing the entire structure crashing to the earth, and director Joss Whedon inserts a moment that makes you gasp. It is almost the spitting image of this famous photograph, with businessmen racing, panicked, from billowing clouds of dust behind them. The photograph, of course, is from September 11, 2001. The businessmen are racing from the collapse of the World Trade Center.

Whedon sets his action continents away from Manhattan, in Africa, and the dust clouds are much closer and more ominous in the film than they were in the photo. Still, the echo is unmistakable...''

by Todd VanDerWerff