9-11 September 11th 2001: The World's Finest Comic Book Writers and Artists Tell Stories to Remember; Volume 2 (Artists Respond) [Englisch] [Bibliothekseinband]

By contrast, there's the story written by Stan Lee ("The Sleeping Giant" I believe it's called) which uses a simple animal metaphor to retell 9/11 past, present and possible future. It starts out interesting but never elaborates on 9/11, only simplies it and assumes we can't figure things out for ourselves (such as the terrorist mice wearing "666" T-shirts).

Most of the stories were in between the ones I mentioned. Sometimes the tales are clever and subtle, but usually there's just a small bit of creativity per story.

Granted, I don't think I'm the target audience of this book. If you're looking for stories of hope after the attacks, you might enjoy this book more than I did.

The volume is divided into section entitled Nightmare, Heroes, Recollections, Unity, and Dreams, which provide a rough thematic organization to the stories. There are stories dealing with what actually happened, such as James Denning and Guy Davis' "Walk," Josh Krach, Scott McDaniel James Pascoe's "The Job." and Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti's "Silver Linings in a Big Dust Cloud"), as well as stories that address the line between comic books and the real world created by 9-11 (e.g., "Unreal," "For Art's Sake" and "If Only"), while a few actually work DC superheroes into the story (e.g., "This, Too, Shall Pass" and Gaiman's "Endless" story, "The Wheel"). Unlike the Marvel universe, where Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, and the Avengers all work out of New York City, the DC superheroes inhabit an alternative, so there was not the need to have Superman, Batman, and the others deal with the destruction of the World Trade Center the way their competition had to. There are also a couple of stories that serve as reminders that there were dogs that were involved in the rescue efforts as well.

One of the other major differences between this and the first volume, which featured work by the talents at Chaos! Comics, Dark Horse Comics, and Image Comics, is that some of these stories are a bit more political. Neal Adams does a splash page supporting the Red Cross that shows Superman holding an American flag with scorch marks and Uncle Sam rolling up his sleeves in front of the rescue workers at Ground Zero with the caption: "First Things First. Then We Come For You." Stan Lee and Marie Severin tell "A hitherto undiscovered Aesop's fable" entitled "The Sleeping Giant" whose moral is "Never awaken a sleeping giant!" There are several stories that make an argument for tolerance and objectivity, such as Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, and Prentis Rollins' "Wednesday Afternoon" and Geoff Johns, David S. Goyer, Humberto Romas and Sandra Hope's "A Burning Hate," while Ben Raab, Roger Robinson and Dennis Janke's "A Tale of Two Americans" makes a point about true patriotism. The final word goes to Joe Kubert, who points out "I've lived long enough to see the worst turn into something better."

Yeah, there are some misfires in this collection. "The Firsts Division" and "Spirit" both involve famous dead people, and while the latter is slightly better, neither really works. Paul Levitz and Jim Lee's "The American Dream" has some good points but could have found a better way to get them across than a lecture. But this just makes the simple elegance of Tim Sale's three-paneled page (from an idea by Chuck Kim), where a boy wearing a Superman t-shirt ducks into a telephone booth and changes into a FDNY t-shirt all the more effective. There are enough efforts within these 224 pages to find a few you will really like, and can forget about those you do not.

What I found was an amazing collection of comics and other art about the events of 9-11. This volume is broken up into three sections: Nightmares, Heroes, and Recollections. All the works are amazingly well-done. Each has a different color, tone, and message, but all are touching. I spent a good couple hours just looking at these stories, with my heart pounding and tears streaming down my face. No, these are not real photos, but the fear, anger, and all the other emotions that I and others felt on that day all came flooding back through the colorful stories presented here.

For those people, like me, who may have difficulty with that time still, or who just don't want to read one of the thousands of books and stories out there, this might be a good choice for you. At times it's light, presenting children's dreams of superheroes and real heroes. At times it's harsh, dealing with bias, hatred, and America's internal struggles with "what's an appropriate response?" But above-all, it's a wonderful collection of amazing work that will allow you to remember the heroes of that time, along with the goodness that began to surface in our nation after the fact.