#death of fallen america

[vertigoartgore]

1982's The Death of Captain Marvel Vol. 1 #1 cover by Jim Starlin and Steve Oliff (based on Michelangelo's famous Pieta sculpture).

[alice1939]

[Commission I ordered]

[Artist: Milerva Rosewall - Fb] I'm obssessed with Stony's funeral scene and Tony crying for Steve in The Confession, so I decided to order this. The flower in Steve's coffin is Columbine, which symbolizes honesty, reverence, strength and wisdom. I think it fits Steve, so I put it there.

[extraordinary-heroes]

Fallen Friend: Death of Ms. Marvel #1 (Cover art by Carmen Carnero)

[chaiaurchaandni]

all US presidents are war criminals

[joezy27]

HAWKEYE - Clint Barton & Kate Bishop (Classic Costume)

Fallen Son - The Death of Captain America (2007) #3 Variant cover by Michael Turner & Peter Steigerwald

[themarysuep]

She was so full of hope and wonder and the commitment to help people.... it radiated from her like sunlight, Steve about Kamala in Fallen Friend

[age-of-moonknight]

“Chapter 3: Avenger,” Fallen Friend: The Death of Ms. Marvel (Vol. 1/2023), #1.

Writer: Saladin Ahmed; Penciler and Inker: Andrea Di Vito; Colorist: Edgar Delgado; Letterer: Ariana Maher

[burningfudge]

Fallen Friend: The Death of Ms Marvel (2023)

[billowingangel]

America doesn't like Fireworks

Here's a headcanon/projection I have for America. I also thought I already posted this but I actually dreamt that…totally not a sign of #mentalillness

content warning: mentions of multiple real life deaths, great war and world war two are mentioned, mentions of ptsd/shell shock.

i'm not fully sure those need a warning but just in case I wanted to provide them.

At first America loved fireworks to celebrate the fourth of july. He had loved the display of colors and patronism his citizens showed! He was a freshly indepent nation when the fireworks began in 1777. He thought they were beautiful, amazing, spectacular, and a wonderful sign of what the future would hold.

He also greatly prefered fireworks to the guns and canons set off during the 4th and was happy that after 1812 that phased out.

When Independence Day became an offical holiday in 1870 he cried with joy. That year he watched the firework display with an intense feeling of pride in his heart.

But then it began to change for him. In the years between 1903 and 1909 there were 44 deaths due to fireworks and even more injuries. He began to feel a bit of unease over the citizen's love for fireworks.

Then the Great War happened...So many young men came back from the war shell shocked. Hell, America even had some shell shock for a while. That first year after the war and the fireworks going off, he felt all those men's fears and his own fear.

That was a major turning point for him.

It didn't help that between 1928 and 1942 there were another 56 deaths in factories and stores due to fireworks. And then after World War Two, the sound of fireworks began to make America's heart race.

After a few years America decided he would leave his big house in Washington DC and go to another one of his houses. This house was further away from any firework show the city was doing. He wouldn't feel anxious and would be able to celebrate his independence/birthday in peace and quiet. But by that time it was the 1980s and more people were doing fireworks in the comfort of their backyards. The noise and smoke that filled the street of America's suburban house terrified him. Were they under attack? He had rushed to investigate only to find people with fireworks and firecrackers.

America gave up, it was probably just him upset by this whole mess. Those who had shell shock probably got used to it by now, correct?

But then in the 2000s he began to hear more talk, more talk of veterans struggling with the fireworks. Dogs struggling with the fireworks. Pets, kids, many more people then he assumed were scared of the loud fireworks. And in a way it explained to him why at the turn on the 1900s he began to have a change of heart about fireworks, a feeling of unease and uncomfort. Because despite how much he partied or celebrated on July 4th he still just didn't feel right, that something was wrong.

Then more and more states began to ban the setting off of fireworks for personal use but that wouldn't stop the citizens despite the growing number of people who found discomfort with them. America wouldn't go anywhere in the South around the 4th of July mostly staying in States that had the strictest bans on fireworks. By this time his fear of fireworks had greatly decreased especially since he realized the cause, it wasn't all his feelings but Americans feelings as well.

He even began to host some birthday parties where you could see the city sanctioned firework show. Firework shows were different to him then just the random ones in someone's back yard, those were expected, well controlled, a professional was doing it.

America hopes that one day he'll be able to like fireworks again but that probably wouldn't be until people stopped doing it on their own or when people and animals stopped being upset by it. Both those cases seem unlikely, so America will just grit his teeth and accept the firework tradition.

I even used some sources for this *insert surprise pikachu* History of Fireworks Firework Accidents and Deaths I couldn't find out when it became the norm to do your own fireworks but I assumed at least by the 80s. I also believe states began putting in place bans/laws about personal fireworks in the early 2000s but don't quote me.

[watch-joey-collect]

[comicwaren]

“Seems like I’m always late for the things that matter.” -- Spider-Man

Cover art for Fallen Friend: The Death of Ms. Marvel #001

Art by Kaare Andrews

[vertigoartgore]

Jim Starlin's The Death of Captain Marvel Trade Paperback Cover (1994).

[saecookie]

Panels that made me go apeshit in Civil War: 3/?

[holy-shit-comics]

[thepopoptic]

[yokelfelonking]

Post 9/11 Trivia

Most folks on this site were either children on September 11, 2001, or weren’t even born yet.  But America went crazy for about a year afterwards.  Here’s some highlights that I remember that might not be in your history books:

There was national discussion on whether or not Halloween should be canceled because…fuck if I know why.  After planes crashed into buildings in NYC it follows that 6-year-olds in Iowa shouldn’t be allowed to dress up like Batman and ask their neighbors for candy, I guess.  (Halloween wasn’t canceled, by the way.)

On a similar note, people asked if comedy - any sort of comedy - was appropriate anymore, ever.

People sold shitty parachutes to suckers “in case your building gets attacked and you have to jump out the window.” There were honest-to-God news reports warning people not to jump out of the window with shitty mail-order parachutes because they wouldn't work.

As a follow-up to the attacks, someone mailed anthrax to some prominent politicians and news anchors - you know, famous people - along with some badly-written notes about “you cannot stop us, death to America, Allah is good” and after that every time some random dumbass found a package in the mail they didn’t recognize they thought that the terrorists were targeting them, too.

Everyone was similarly convinced that their town was going to be the next target, even if they were a little town in the middle of nowhere. "Our town of Bumblefuck, South Dakota (population 690) has the largest styrofoam pig statue west of the Mississippi! Terrorists might fly planes into that too! It's a prime target!"

People started taping up their windows and trying to make their houses or apartments airtight out of fear of chemical and biological attacks. There were news reports warning people that turning your house into an airtight box was a bad idea because, y'know, you need air to breathe.

"[X] supports terrorism!" and “if we do [X], the terrorists win!” were used as arguments for everything.  "Some rich Arab you never heard of donated to his organization that backs Hamas which backs al-Queda, and also owns stock in a holding company that has partial ownership of the Pringles company, so if you eat Pringles you're supporting terrorism!" "The terrorists want to tear down our freedoms and our way of life and rule us through fear! Eating what you want is one of our freedoms as Americans! If you're afraid to eat Pringles, the terrorists win!" (I promise you that this sort of argument is in no way hyperbole.) (This argument is how Halloween was saved, by the way.  “If we cancel Halloween, the terrorists win!”)

People worked 9/11 into everything, and I mean everything, whether it was appropriate or not.  If you went to the grocery store the tortilla chips would remind you to support the troops on the packaging. Used car sales would be dedicated to our brave first responders. You couldn't wipe your ass without the toilet paper rolls reminding you to never forget the fallen of 9/11, and again, this is not hyperbole. My uncle, who lived in Ohio and had never been to New York except to visit once in the 70′s, died of a stroke about 8 months after 9/11, and the priest brought up the attacks at the eulogy.

On a similar local note, on the day of 9/11, after the towers went down, gas stations in my home town immediately jacked up gas prices.  The mayor had the cops go around and force them to take them back down.  I doubt any of that was legal.

Before 9/11, Christianity in America - and religion in general - was on a downward swing, with reddit-tier atheism on the upswing. Religion was outdated superstition from a bygone age. The day after 9/11? Every single church was PACKED. (This wasn't a bad thing, but the power-hungry on the Evangelical Right saw this as a golden opportunity to grab power and influence.)

EDIT: By Popular Demand - Freedom Fries. I initially left these off because they came a couple years after the initial panic and most people thought they were kind of absurd (and I don't recall anyone really going along with it other than maybe some local diners here and there). France didn't want to get involved in our world policing so some folks were like "TRAITORS!" and wanted to call french fries "Freedom Fries" instead, so as to stick it to the French.

Besides dumb shit like that…it’s really hard to overstate how completely the national mood and character changed in the span of a day, or how much of the current culture war is a result of the aftermath. (9/11 was the impetus for the sharp rise in power of the Evangelical Right, who made themselves utterly odious and the following backlash helped the rise of the current Progressive Left, for instance.)

And if all of this seems batshit...well, it was. But I want you to think for a moment how people react today over even trivial shit. People send death threats over children's cartoons. They call for blood if the maker of a video game had an opinion they don't like. If someone made a racist joke a decade ago when they were a teenage edgelord, folks will go after people who even associate with them. "DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND ALL THE HARM THEY'RE DOING!?"

Now take that same level of over-the-top histrionics and apply it to the unprecedented event of passenger planes crashing into crowded buildings in America's most populous city and killing thousands of people all at once. "DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT WE WERE ATTACKED!?"