Over at Vulture, Kyle Buchanan talks back to the major post-9/11 blockbuster trend of using massive, violent destruction of cities and faceless, nameless innocent bystanders as backdrop for superhero, action and various other Michael Bay-esque films. 

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Please stop invoking 9/11 where it doesn’t belong.

a) “Man of Steel” has nothing to do with 9/11 or post-9/11 or any of that. Metropolis may seem like New York, but it isn’t (technically, in the DC Universe, Gotham City is really supposed to be New York). Just because buildings were destroyed on a massive scale, doesn’t make it “like 9/11”. It’s a movie about an alien superhero fighting an alien supervillian in a made-up city. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH 9/11

b) Its a movie. A comic book movie at that. Where do you want them to fight? In a corn field out in Iowa? Then they destroy all the crops and ruin a farmers entire business. And that has little-to-no exciting, cinematic quality to it.

c) I will say, I do agree with a little part of the this. It always bothers me when superhero movies destroy major cities and it’s never even brought up. Like, how many billions of dollars worth of damage did the Avengers do to NYC? Who is gonna pay for that? But *I know* its insanely nit picky, because come on, they have a whole other story to tell.