El héroe post-9/11: Ex Machina, superhéroes sin capas y el lamento por la caída de las Torres Gemelas

Por: Ricardo A. Serrano Denis

     Todo evento traumático conlleva un periodo de lamentación, de luto y de confusión. Cuando las Torres Gemelas cayeron el 11 de septiembre de 2001 el lamento fue inmediato y vino acompañado de interrogantes dirigidas al porqué del ataque. Una de las preguntas más interesantes que nació de ese lamento, que también surgió tras el ataque japonés a Pearl Harbor, fue el siguiente: ¿cómo se permitió que esto ocurriera? La pregunta sugiere una acusación de negligencia militar. Estados Unidos tenía la tecnología, la malicia, para contrarrestar no solo ese ataque pero cualquier otro que se dirigiera contra la nación. Sin entrar en mucho detalle, la respuesta más o menos corrió por antiguas avenidas discursivas de guerras pasadas. Estados Unidos era un gigante durmiente que el Medio Oriente acababa de despertar. Pero llegar a esa respuesta (la misma que se dio en la Segunda Guerra Mundial) conllevó un tiempo prolongado de lamentación y de luto. Lo mismo pasó en el mundo de los comics.

      Un mes después de la caída de las Torres, Dark Horse, Image, DC y Marvel publican una serie de libros conmemorativos donde sus héroes explican el por qué no pudieron parar el ataque contra las Torres Gemelas. Lo hicieron porque sabían que no podían engañar al lector o ignorar el evento, mucho menos cambiarlo. La mayoría de los héroes de Marvel viven en Nueva York. Spider-Man sólo podía parar el ataque sin mencionar que los Fantastic Four también viven en la ciudad. Pero no ocurrió, y los comics no podían pedir una suspensión tan aguda de la credibilidad de sus historias al hacer que sus héroes interviniesen en los ataques. No quedaba más que lamentar.

      En Amazing Spider-Man #36, escrito por Michael Straczynski, Spider-Man presencia la caída de las Torres. Al bajar a las ruinas, Spider-Man encuentra ciudadanos perdidos, dados al rencor de lo sucedido. De ese enojo nace el cuestionamiento del héroe, de su ignorancia. Spider-Man, contemplativo y derrotado, solo puede decir We didn’t know. Como única alternativa, Spider-Man pasa a ayudar a los policías y a los bomberos. En el proceso se da cuenta de que los héroes reales del evento no son seres con capas ni semi-dioses americanos. Son seres humanos que simplemente hacían su trabajo. Esta va a ser la fórmula de la gran mayoría de las historias conmemorativas del evento. Un héroe clásico reconoce, valida, el heroísmo del hombre común después de lamentar su incapacidad de no poder haber previsto el ataque a las Torres. De la falla del mito sale la validación del nuevo héroe.

 

      Ahora, quizás una de las historias más interesante suscrita a la fórmula le pertenece a Superman. Unreal, escrito por Steven T. Seagle, empieza de forma sencilla: recordándole al lector las habilidades de Superman. Puede ignorar los principios de la física, respirar en el vacío del espacio, volar contra todo sentido de lógica aeronáutica e inspirar a personas comunes a ser más de lo que son. Pero, en sus palabras, “the one thing I cannot do is break free from the fictional pages I live and breath…become real in times of crisis…and right the wrongs of an unjust world”. Estas líneas parecen reafirmar que el destino del héroe americano recae en un acto absoluto de lamentación, sin espacio para la acción o incluso venganza contra aquellos que hicieron de la nación una víctima.

     Es en este contexto que entra Ex Machina (2004-2010) de Brian K. Vaughan y Tony Harris, la historia de un héroe que repensó los límites de su trauma y los convirtió en una reacción de responsabilidad legal. La historia de un héroe que decidió asumir la responsabilidad que Superman nunca se atrevió tocar, la de ser alcalde de su ciudad.

 

     Según Jeff Geers, “the post-9/11 hero is stuck within the disaster (of the Twin Towers), working within the limitations of the system to rebuild and repair it”. De tal forma comienza Ex Machina. El comic cuenta la historia de Mitchell Hundred, un superhéroe que tiene la habilidad de hablar y controlar todo tipo de máquinas. Adquiere el poder tras encontrar un mecanismo extradimensional debajo del Brooklyn Bridge. El mecanismo explota y le da el poder a Hundred. Su origin story se atiene a lo real. Hundred se llama a sí mismo The Great Machine y su disfraz lo hace ver como un piloto. Usa un jetpack para volar. Su presencia en Manhattan crea el mismo debate que persigue a Batman, el de la necesidad de un vigilante que trabaje fuera de los parámetros legales del estado. Pero todo cambia cuando rescata una de las Torres Gemelas el 11 de septiembre de 2001. The Great Machine se convierte en el héroe que el 11 de septiembre nunca tuvo. Antes del evento, en julio 4 de 2001, Hundred se había revelado como The Great Machine y había anunciado su candidatura para alcalde de Nueva York. Los ataques hacen que Hundred regrese a su disfraz. Su intervención eleva su campaña y en noviembre de 2001 es electo alcalde de Nueva York.

     Regresando a Geers, el héroe post-desastre es esencialmente impotente: es incapaz de prevenir el desastre pero tampoco puede corregirlo del todo. En efecto, el héroe se rinde ante las limitaciones reales del ser humano. La narración de Hundred afirma este punto. Hundred dice:
 
     I made it back to Ground Zero ninety minutes after I diverted the second plane…I tried 
     to help everyone who was trapped by the fire. I tried to convince the jumpers to hold 
     on, but…but people don’t listen to the goddamn “Great Machine” the way…Whatever, I 

     tried to catch them, but there were so many. I’m not that fast, not that strong.

     Hundred prefiere recordar su intervención como una fallida en vez de una digna de la figura que representa. El que rescató una de las Torres no importa. El lamento por la que calló es más importante. Por eso Ex Machina sugiere que después de 9/11 parece irresponsable esperar que el superhéroe lo arregle todo. El héroe post-desastre no puede reparar una cultura traumatizada. Su ideal utópico cae ante la realidad de su humanidad. Matthew Wolf-Meyer dice, “superpowered attempts at utopia fail not due to a weakness of the superhero, but because the superhero is basically a representative of conservative social order”. 
 

       Siguiendo lo expuesto por Wolf-Meyer, Ex Machina supone el reconocimiento de un superhéroe que no puede seguir representando el ideal utópico de seguridad continua al que se adscriben los héroes clásicos de Marvel y DC. Al representar un orden social conservador, el héroe tiene que subyugarse a una representatividad mayor encontrada en los mecanismos del estado y en los puestos que lo mantienen funcionando. En efecto, el gobierno es la única máquina fuera del alcance de los poderes de The Great Machine. Por eso el personaje acoge el puesto de alcalde como su nuevo alter ego. Sin él es un ciudadano más y como The Great Machine no puede realizar los cambios que la ciudad requiere. (Por eso, por ejemplo, la guerra que declara Batman contra el crimen es eterna, porque Batman solo reacciona ante el problema, no lo intenta cambiar a un nivel fundamental. Atacar el problema de raíz implicaría que Bruce Wayne se insertara en una posición de poder político. Significaría el fin de Batman.)

      Ahora, Hundred tiene una relación bastante problemática con sus poderes después de ser electo. En uno de los story arcs del comic, Hundred contempla cancelar una protesta anti-guerra convocada para el área Downtown de Manhattan. Después de 9/11 congregaciones sustanciales de gente en un lugar determinado se consideran una situación de riesgo, un posible blanco para un ataque terrorista. Hundred decide no cancelar el permiso. Cabe destacar que Hundred es pintado como un centrista bastante inclinada hacia la Izquierda. Entre las situaciones que desata encuentra el matrimonio de una pareja de bomberos gay, la legalización de la marihuana (que acaba de forma ambigua pero revela que Hundred la fuma) y la censura de una obra de arte que tiene la palabra “nigger” sobreimpuesta sobre la figura de Abraham Lincoln. Cada controversia resulta en una victoria liberal, pero los discursos desenterrados del diálogo gravitan más hacia el centro. Hundred mantendrá que todo es cuestión de balances. Unas libertades no pueden atentar contra otras.

 

      En el caso de la manifestación anti-guerra Hundred sufre la consecuencia de ser un liberal muy utópico. Una bomba de gas tóxico explota en la demostración y muere una cantidad preocupante de manifestantes. El ataque hace eco en las ansiedades que salieron del 11 de septiembre y Hundred ahora tiene que pensar como gobernante en vez de superhéroe. De ese pensar sale el que la ciudad, bajo órdenes de su alcalde, adopte una política limitada de surveillance. Cada estación de tren contiene una cámara digital que identifica posibles sospechosos. Pero el esfuerzo no rinde fruto. Hundred decide retornar a sus poderes como excepción a la regla que él mismo se impuso al ser electo, la de no intervenir como The Great Machine mientras esté en poder. Hundred atrapa al responsable, un residente legal de la ciudad que declara sus intenciones de culminar lo que Hundred interrumpió el 11 de septiembre. Pero el arresto del terrorista resulta en una victoria vacía, una repetición a menor escala del 11 de septiembre. Hundred no previene el ataque, su reacción viene después de la violencia. Tal parece que el espectro de la Torre que no rescató aun persigue a Hundred, estableciendo paralelos entre su incapacidad de prevenir otro ataque y la mentalidad que hizo posible la falta de acción que caracterizó los eventos del 11 de septiembre. La moral de la historia parece ser que después de 9/11 cada acción heroica es seguida por una reacción inversamente destructiva. El comic reafirma la impotencia del héroe y valida su decisión de abandonar el disfraz por uno que más fielmente representa los límites de nuestra humanidad.
 

      En fin, Ex Machina termina siendo la historia de un héroe que sale del lamento post-traumático de la caída de las Torres Gemelas. Sus acciones son medidas por traumas y ansiedades culturales que hicieron del superhéroe americano una víctima más del ataque terrorista del 11 de septiembre de 2001. The Great Machine fue un héroe más que fracasó. Un héroe que aunque responde al lamento de Superman de no poder salir de las páginas a rescatar a su lector reacciona ante la ficción de su condición al elevar su lamento a un nivel de autoridad más problemático. El héroe post-9/11 no tiene capa. Usa corbata y chaleco y es electo por el pueblo. Ahora es parte del gobierno y nace de un mito nuevo que exige que sus héroes sean víctimas perseguidas por las sombras de las Torres Gemelas.

When Supermen Lament not Being Real: the demise of the superhero in the wake of 9/11

by: Ricardo A. Serrano Denis

When the Twin Towers fell on September 11th, 2001, Superman was nowhere to be found. Spider Man’s senses failed to tingle, the Fantastic Four explored other dimensions, and Captain America was too invested, perhaps, in other threats more immediate and less secretive than the one that descended upon New York on that day. The Hulk had no other option than to get angry after the fact. The case could weigh more profoundly on Spider Man given his actual residency in the city, being that Superman lives in the fictional city of Metropolis (evident though it may be that said city was originally modeled after Manhattan in both scope and character to the point of it being labeled in the comics themselves as “The Big Apricot”). And yet, the fact still remained that neither one of them could even conceive such a likelihood so as to later explain the attack in fictional form.
 
     Writing for SF Weekly, Robert Wilonsky noted perceptively that, “In a post-Sept 11 world, even the phrase, ‘Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane!’ sounds different; its awe has been replaced by shock and repulsion” (see Comic Book Nation by Bradford Wright). Comic books as an expression in escapism could no longer be recognized as such when the comic book world itself had to explain the absence of the Twin Towers and why their heroes were incapable of stopping the terrorist attacks when they had been able to fend off countless other threats more intense and dangerous in scope when contrasted with the reality of the the comic world. Battling Galactus, the giant world-eating alien, pales in comparison to two planes that should’ve been easily swatted from the sky by a single superhero, much less by a group of them such as the Avengers or the Justice League, each with their own god-like heroes any one of which could’ve single-handedly stopped the attacks. But that quite simply did not happen. 

      In their absence, the public chose to confide their expected heroics to real men and women who served as firemen, police officers, congressmen, senators, vice presidents and presidents. Men and women that actually existed. This still didn’t ease the pain of explaining the attacks within the logic of a superhero world. The immediate comic book response was Heroes by Marvel Comics. Published in December 2001, Heroes was particularly interesting in its effort to unite icons old and new—or rather, in its ambition to establish new icons while simultaneously reintroducing old ones, as writer Stefanie Diekmann states in the Guardian article “Hero and Superhero.” Many of Marvel's famous characters, such as Spider Man, the Silver Surfer and Captain America, were resurrected and represented alongside the ‘protagonists’ of 9/11: firemen, police officers and other rescue workers immortalized visually as covered in the black dust of the broken towers. 

      The front page of Heroes is subtitled: “The world's greatest superhero creators honor the world's greatest heroes.” The idea within the book is that fiction should bow to reality in the immediate aftermath of an event so catastrophic in proportions so as to actually establish an historic time-frame or era (remember, American life after the attacks is now considered as the post-9/11 era). DC Comics followed in releasing 9/11: The Worlds’s Finest Comics Book Writers & Artists Tell Stories to Remember with short stories and single page artwork by the industry’s top talents. The book’s cover sees an Alex Ross drawn Superman standing before a mural littered with policemen, firefighters, nurses, and rescue workers. Above and to the left of Superman is a small word balloon saying “Wow.” Again, fiction recognizing reality’s place in the aftermath, or not intentionally seeking a spotlight it can’t honestly and sincerely fill at the moment.

      This passing of the baton, if only for a moment, is interesting if not a bit deceptive. Superheroes do recognize true heroics in the men and women of 9/11, but they do so with an authority bestowed upon them by readers that accept their judgment as sound in recognizing heroics in other people. In other words, they seem to be grading the true protagonists of 9/11 by superhero standards, the same ones expected by comic book readers. If such is the case, the superhero’s lament is one of not being real enough to save the day. But their saving grace is being able to guide the coronation of everyday rescue workers, policemen, nurses, and firemen as real-life superheroes. 

      Perhaps one of the most striking expressions of the superhero’s lament is found in Amazing Spider Man #36, released October 31st, 2001. Within the opening pages of the comic book we see Spider Man almost lost in the color of fire and explosions of the collapsed towers saying, ever so subtly in tone, “God.” His only expression amidst the unknowable in a single word, collecting public sentiment and becoming one with New York in a day where all shared the same feeling, calling to the same being. “God.” The pages pass and we come to New Yorkers fleeing from the destruction, looking at Spider Man, and asking: “Where were you? How could you let this happen?” Spider Man’s only response, in the form of narration and not dialogue, is: “How do you say we didn’t know? We couldn’t know. We couldn’t imagine.” The lament of the superhero, best expressed in this Spider Man issue, rests on 9/11 laying bare the limits of fiction in its wake. When the unimaginable happens, one cannot expect the imagined to act on our behalf. In the wake of 9/11 it was up to superheroes to recognize heroics in the men and women of the real world. It wasn’t up to superheroes, at that moment, to save the day but to comfort loss and let real men and women don the capes of heroes, if only for a short while.

Negotiating the Past: The Rise of History as a Pop Culture Phenomenon

By: Ricardo A. Serrano Denis

            History has often been accused of being footnoted fiction. It has been the subject of cross-disciplinary name calling that ends in inconsequential academic ramblings that do not further serious debates on the nature, meaning, and consequence of studying the past. One is easily jaded by such accusations in that they keep with a narrow frame of thought that restrains knowledge from evolving into an agent of human understanding. Instead, they make the production of knowledge a process of exclusive infighting amongst professional thinkers (meaning men and women trained for the academic world) that deviate from the original purpose of knowledge creation, making sense out of humanity. And this brings up questions.

            If History is fiction, then why is it not consistently studied in Literature courses as legitimate works of fiction? Why reduce the impact of its findings by relegating such works to the space of interpretation (a dirty word in the world of classic academia)? When did cataloguing something as fiction demean the subject matter of any kind of study? It is here that the whole point of pedagogical research collapses. History is nothing more than one of many outlets that produce information, in league with Sociology, Anthropology, Biology, Physics, Psychology, and many other disciplines tasked with the same thing. History produces information on a debatable platform (and I mean this in the most pedagogically productive of ways), subject to any and all kinds of discussion so long as its purpose stays within the sphere of understanding what it means, and has meant, to be human. Now, if anything, if we are to consider History fiction, then it should be feared as an academic phenomenon, and here’s why: History can be the most dangerous kind of fiction in the written world.

            The year 2012 saw America threatened by two atomic bombings, a violent middle-class revolution, and a foreign invasion dooming the city of New York to a repeat of 9/11-like destruction. These threats have two very distinctive things in common. First, they are conceptually configured in a language very much rooted in historical discourse. Revolution screams 19^th century French history and Cold War fears of Soviet dominion on a global scale; foreign invasion jettisons the sounds of revolution with a clash of ideologies and ways of life again rooted in Cold War bursts of paranoia; and atom bombs cloud reason by ringing the bells of past fears not lost but rescued for further political terror. And secondly, they were all represented as legitimate 21^st century dangers through superhero films.

             
            In The Dark Knight Rises, Batman faces his toughest challenge yet: a popular uprising of Gotham City’s people against the city of Gotham itself. This, of course, set upon the imminent danger of atomic destruction through an unstable reactor politically infused with meaning by Bane, the 99% personified in a man with a scary mask. Revolution, here, is framed as stable as history permits it to be, which means it is pretty unstable. Its disorganized structure resonates with mid-20^th century stereotypes of revolution painted Soviet red. The Dark Knight Rises updates said stereotype with contemporary imagery, positing the now infamous Occupy movement as a ‘natural’ continuation of an historic tradition (see Soviet Communism) already vanquished in what is slowly being considered ‘a long ago’ (back when history ended in 1991, according to Francis Fukuyama. The Free World had won and, hence, history reached its apex). This gives ‘Recent History’ a whole new meaning. The contemporary merges with the past in an attempt to establish continuity in humanity’s political struggle.

            Marvel’s The Avengers, on the other hand, rescues recent despair in an attempt at redeeming the past through current American foreign policy. As a race of space aliens threaten New York with their own brand of 9/11, Captain America (a World War II vet) leads a unit of heavily militarized superheroes ever watchful for enemy infiltrations inherently bent on disrupting the American way of life first, and later the world by consequence of the first objective. The Avengers rescues the ‘sleeping giant’ metaphor made famous by the Pearl Harbor incident of 1941 and inserts it into the American military experience of the 21^st century (this metaphor supposes the argument that the United State fell asleep on the war intelligence job and that it could have intercepted the Japanese surprise attack). The Avengers fend of the alien invasion but with heavy casualties. New York City, the film’s set piece battleground, is forcefully thrust into the still fresh echo of 9/11 in spectacular glory. In a sudden twist of fate, America’s heroes avert the invasion by saving the city from a prematurely launched atomic missile diverted by Iron Man into the alien ship that coordinates the original invasion, avenging heavy loss and giving America military triumph. The atom bomb, a Cold War symbol of fear, is revived as a supporting character in a grander narrative looking to make war make sense in the 21^st century. It evidently needs the past for that.

            And so, we are subjected to a revival of History through an effort rooted in fiction. A negotiation of past meanings is taking place in that the present looks to acquire new meaning in old symbols of fear and action. Popular culture is rapidly becoming a primary supplier of informational authority in all things considered political and historical. As a result, the validation of information is exponentially relying on its exposure on silver screens, video games, and comic books. Alan Moore (the author of Watchmen, and V for Vendetta) once wrote:

            History, unendingly revised and reinterpreted, is seen upon examination as merely a different class of fiction; becomes hazardous if viewed as having any innate truth beyond this. Still, it is a fiction we must inhabit. Lacking any territory that is not subjective, we can only live upon the map. All that remains in question is whose map we choose, whether we live within the world’s insistent texts or else replace them with a strong language of our own. (After the Fire, 1996)

            In calling History the most dangerous kind of fiction, we must acknowledge that it is dangerous precisely because it wears the cowl of ‘truth’, one which historians insist on wearing forevermore. We must remember that what historians consider secondary sources can quickly become primary sources for the general public. This is why I comment on superhero narratives, because the history that travels through them can end up teaching audiences more about the past than history books in general. A serious attempt at lighting History under continued debate can help by lessening the weight authority bears upon the discipline. It may lead researchers and thinkers to the realization that classifications only dampen the labor of information production, to the point of keeping knowledge bound to the chains of exclusivity. In the end, it doesn’t really matter if History is fiction or not. Either way, History continues to walk down the path of a regulator, trying to keep facts in check, even if fiction ends being more convincing in doing so.