Unreality Companion: The Post-9/11 Metaphor of Marvel's Phase 2

In which I develop on the content of my weekly Unrealitymag.com article.

Sometimes a metaphor is obvious: screaming its meaning from the streets and bludgeoning you over the head with its importance.  Sometimes it's a bit more subtle.  Sometimes you miss it entirely, only catching on to it well after the fact.  Sometimes you wonder how you could have overlooked it at all.

Before Captain America: The Winter Soldier was released on BluRay last Tuesday, I had completely missed the implicit metaphor of the film.  Yes, I knew that it dealt with post-9/11 politics like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Patriot Act.  Yes, I knew that Cap' was invoking JFK with his iconic "The price of freedom is high" speech during the film's climax.  And, yes, I understood the ideological analogy of the Bush Administration's policies to fascism.  But I glossed over them until they just became aspects of the movie, rather than its central focus.  And, after writing my Unreality article for this week, I looked back on all of Phase 2 and realized that every Earth-bound entry formed a consciously post-9/11 metaphor with the Battle of New York nesting at its core.

In order to see Phase 2 as a post-9/11 metaphor, we first have to see The Avengers' climax as a 9/11 metaphor, if an admittedly light-hearted and ultimately triumphant one.  We need to strip the Battle of New York of all of its fantastical dressings and see the socio-political underpinnings implicit in its design: hostile foreign operatives, lead by a megalomaniacal fugitive from the United States government (fresh from an incredibly public attack of civilian targets on US soil), unexpectedly attack New York City, specifically targeting civilians and civil institutions of no strategic value - indiscriminately killing and destroying whatever they come across.  And, yes, the city is defended by gods, monsters and super soldiers who ultimately turn back the tides of destruction, but at its core - beyond the quips and the schwarma - it's basic premise is a call back to a bright Tuesday morning in 2001.

Iron Man 3, which opens Phase 2, immediately sets out to make this metaphor one of its central premises.  In the wake of New York, Tony Stark finds himself with the same feelings of insecurity and fear the nation was forced to grapple with after the September 11 terrorist attacks.  He begins suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks and debilitating flashbacks to his experiences in the battle.  Afraid that he's just "a man in a can" who's incapable of protecting those he cares for most from harm, he spends sleepless nights building an arsenal of Iron Man suits: going from building seven suits over the course of four years to building thirty-five over the course of one.

It's no coincidence that the film's villains of choice are The Mandarin - an ideological cross-section of Osama Bin Ladin, Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il - and The Ten Rings: the Al Qaeda stand-in from Iron Man.  The Mandarin's televised addresses to the American public bear a striking resemblance to Osama Bin Ladin's cave-side chats: a reminder that he's not just at-large, but active.  The film's plot twist - that the alleged Mandarin was a think tank-designed character played by failed actor Trevor Slattery - is a direct indictment of lax media scrutiny, and even direct media manipulation, that convinced the American public that incursions into Iraq and Afghanistan were not only justified, but necessary to our national security: claims that would be widely disproven after-the-fact.

While it may be easy enough to overlook, Thor: The Dark World's London setting is more than just an appeal to Marvel's British fan-base.  The first high-profile terrorist attack after September 11 was the 2005 bombing of the London Underground, in which three suicide bombings occurred on three different London trains.  While far from September 11's level of destruction and exposure, it never-the-less catalysed terrorism as a global, rather than domestic, issue.

What Thor: The Dark World loses in terms of real-world analogy, it gains back in tenacity.  Malaketh, while not the super-Bin Ladin that the Mandarin is designed as, nevertheless leads a campaign of terror across the nine realms.  Not only does he leave Asgard realing and defenseless after an unexpected surprise attack and prison break on the realm, but he makes London the epicenter of what essentially amounts to a realities-destroying bomb that will unmake all nine realms (the Infinity Stone known as the Æther).  Although foiled by Thor & Co., Asgard ultimately ends up being ruled by the "war criminal" and Bin Ladin stand-in from The Avengers, Loki, who opportunistically seized power and now is positioned to continue his political ambitions from an even stronger seat of power (which is chillingly remeniscent of recent ISIS activity).

If Iron Man 3 dealt with the public mindset and aftermath of September 11th, and Thor: The Dark World dealt with the increased globalization of terrorism, Captain America: The Winter Soldier dealt with the political policies of the Bush Administration.  Following the Battle of New York, Nick Fury convinces his superiors that S.H.I.E.L.D. needed "a quantum surge of threat analyis," resulting in a fleet of next-gen helicarriers designed to preemptively and unilaterally deal with national security threats and curtail civil liberties.  He even brags that they will be able to neutralize threats before they even occur.

The twist, however, is that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been infiltrated and is being controlled by Hydra: the Nazi deep-science division that was headed by the Red Skull during World War II.  The metaphor is obvious: the exact same fascist idealogies that American soldiers fought and died to defeat in the 40's are the same ones running the country today.  What's worse, though, is how much sense it all seems to make.  Nick Fury merely wanted to keep the nation safe from Loki, the Mandarin and the Ten Rings: agents of terror in Marvel's post-Avengers world.  Alexander Pierce, the head of Hydra, argued that "it's only a matter of time before a dirty bomb goes off in Moscow, or an EMP fries Chicago:" two of the very real threats endangering global security today.

With the three terrestrial Phase 2 films so hyper-focussed on the global reaction to September 11th, I can't help but wonder what Age of Ultron has waiting in the wings for 2015.