Enemy, Part 1: Dust

New York City has been struck by a terrorist attack. In the aftermath, Steve Rogers has devoted his time to sifting through the wreckage to find survivors. He comes across a hand stick out of the wreckage but is devastated to discover that the person is already dead. That’s when another part of the rescue crew arrives and asks how long Steve has been working without a break. It’s been 24 hours straight. Steve explains that he came running when after the attacked happened. He remembered arriving and watched a couple leap out a window hand-in-hand from the burning building before it collapsed, choosing to die in the fall rather than be burned alive or crushed when the structure finally collapsed.

As a stretcher is brought in to carry the body away, Steve asks if they know who is responsible. The rescue worker tells him that the government has named a suspect but they don’t have the evidence to prove it yet and want to be sure. Steve agrees that being cautious about confirming who was behind this attack is important because it was an act of war. Steve also heard that this attack was apparently religiously motivated but can’t understand what kind of faith would advocate this level of violence and this much innocent blood.

His thoughts are interrupted by Nick Fury, who has been searching or him for some time. Tossing him a backpack which contains Steve’s Captain America uniform, Fury says he should be in the Middle East helping with hunting down the men responsible for this attack. This angers Steve who pins Fury up to a wall and tells him to look around because there are people here that need him more and the more time he wastes arguing with Nick could cost him the last few moments needed to rescue them. Getting the point, Nick fixes his eye-patch (which was pushed askew as Steve manhandled him) and tells him to do what he needs to do and then leaves.

Eventually, Steve Rogers heads home to get some rest. Along the way he sees a bicycle laying abandoned on the ground and it causes him to think about how quickly everything changed. On the day of the attack he was on his usual job when. There were people outside everywhere going about their day as they normally would. It all changed in a flash. Steve then removes his shield from his backpack and observes it for a moment and thinks about what it represents, then looks up at the sky which has been darkened by smoke from the disaster site. Putting his trademark weapon away, Steve continues on his way home.

Along the way, he crosses path with a young Arab man walking by. Seeing a group of white men following behind him who look like trouble. Steve asks the kid if it’s a good idea for him to be out right now. The young man — Samir — points out that he lives in this neighborhood and despite his similar ethnic background, is not related to the terrorists. In fact, he was born on this very street and is as American as Steve is. Rogers admires how tough he is but knows there is trouble.

Sure enough, one of the men following Samir pulls a knife. His daughter Jenny had died in the attack and he is out to take the loss out on someone who looks like the people responsible and has decided Samir will be his victim. Lunging at Samir with his knife, the man ends up hitting Captain America’s indestructible shield instead, causing it to shatter. Believing that if the American people give into hatred, the terrorists would have succeeded, he tells the man that he understands the need for justice, but this is not the way. Cap tells them to save this energy for the enemy.

Surprisingly, Samir is very forgiving and he asks Captain America to let the men go. With their rage smothered, the men begin to talk with Samir and he asks to know more about his daughter Jenny. As he walks away from the scene, Captain America feels that this is going to be the way they defeat the enemy, by being united as a people and never forgetting the American Dream.[1]

Six Months Later[2]

Its a quiet Sunday in the town of Centerville, California, a plane suddenly flies overhead and begins blanketing the town with small landmines that are dropped to the ground on parachutes. Inside the small butchers shot, one of the locals is shooting the shit with the shop owner when suddenly they hear an explosion from outside. The butcher shop owner realizes that his son was playing outside and runs out to see if he is ok. He blindly steps on one of the landmines as well.

Hours later, Captain America is being flown in to the region. With him is Nick Fury who wants Steve to wear a high tech Casualty Awareness Tracking Tag, or CAT tag for short. It will allow them to monitor Steve’s vitals at all times and upon his death will give out a locator beacon so that his body can be recovered. If that happens, Fury promises that they will be sending in a Delta Force team to deal with Faysal Al-Tariq, the man who has claimed responsibility for what has happened on the ground below.[3] When Fury refers to Al-Tariq as a monster, Cap says he is one as well. Dropping the CAT tag on the ground because he doesn’t need it, Steve leaps from the helicopter down into the ruined city below.

Centerville has been turned into a flaming ruin with pockmarks where panicked citizens ran afoul of the landmines that littered the entire town. Seeing the shattered remains of people’s lives — especially children — angers Captain Americam and he declares war. Spotting someone sitting in the driver’s seat of a car, Steve races to see if they are still alive, hoping that he can at least one life after all this carnage. Instead he finds yet another dead body. Recomposing himself, Captain America runs deeper into the burning building hoping that today he can make a difference and hopes that he is not too late.

Recurring Characters

Captain America, Nick Fury

Continuity Notes

1. Steve will continue helping with the relief effort, but this time in uniform, as we’ll see in Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #36.

2. As far as the chronology of this moment goes, Avengers, Thor & Captain America: Official Index to the Marvel Universe #13, places the “9/11” parts of this story as taking place after the events of Captain America (vol. 3) #39. The measurement of time is more or less accurate. See below.

3. If you think you’re missing a page or two of story, you are not. Faysal Al-Tariq is shown claiming ownership of the attack and demanding that Captain America face him alone are seen next issue.

Topical References

• The big one is that this story is set as happening shortly after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. This is a topical reference for a lot of complex reasons that it gets its own section down below.

• The time between the first half of this story and the second is stated as being about six months. According to the Official Index the first half of this story happens after the events of Captain America (vol. 3) #39, which was published in March 2001. Captain America (vol. 4) #1 was published in June, 2002. That said, the Index states that the second half of the story happens after Captain America’s appearance in Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #50, which was published in April, 2003. Applying the 4:1 ratio of the Sliding Timescale there are 25 months between March 2001 and April 2003. Divide that by 4 and you get 6.5 months. Since the time measurements are never precise, “six months” can be considered factual.

• On the other hand, the second half of the story is said to be occurring on Easter Sunday. This should be considered topical. This is because what date Easter falls on is determined by the first full moon on or after March 21st of every year. It is constantly moving around. Also other than the mention, the Easter holiday has no impact on the story. These events could have happened on any given Sunday. As such references to Easter should be considered topical. More over, due to events of Captain America (vol. 4) #4-6, the reference to it being Easter would be impossible as well, so it should be ignored.

Interpreting 9/11 In This Story

A good chunk of this story is written in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks which had happened nearly a year prior to this publication. It is rife with references to those attacks, including scenes of the hijacked airplans, a brief cameo by the late al-Queda leader Osama Bin Ladden, the invasion of Afghanistan, and most importantly, Captain America digging through the ruins of the World Trade Center (aka Ground Zero) looking for survivors at the start of this story. However, all of these references should be considered topical for a number of reasons:

• First of all, 9/11 happened over 20 years ago (time of this writing). As such, keeping the real-world events as part of the Modern Age continuity would prematurely age the characters.

• Osama Bin Laden was killed by a Navy SEAL team on May 2, 2011 who found him cowering like a little bitch in a compound in Pakistan. Since no country wanted his body buried on their land, it was dumped into the ocean.

• A brand new building began construction on the site of the original twin towers on April 27, 2006 and eventually the Freedom Tower was opened to the public on November 3, 2014.

• Nick Fury states here that Captain America should be in Kandahar, the central city in Afghanistan. This is in reference to the fact that — when this story was first published — US forces had invaded the country and the city to force out the Taliban government and al-Queda the terrorist group behind 9/11. That began in October of 2011 and the US maintained a military occupation of the region until it withdrew in August, 2021. Moments after they left the Taliban took over the country again in seconds, making this whole thing a big fucking waste of time.

Marvel has not provided a means of generalizing this story as per the rules of the Sliding Timescale. This is likely because the subject of 9/11 is still a touchy subject.

For example, in 2020, writer Peter David had to really plead his case to have the original twin towers be depicted in Symbiote Spider-Man: Alien Reality #1 (to pay homage to the 80s era of Spider-Man that he was revisiting), and had to spend two pages at the end justifying the inclusion in case anyone got upset about it. That all said, I believe the best way to generalize this is that Captain America is digging through the ruins of an a terrorist attack in midtown Manhattan that is unique to the fiction.

Rather than the terrorists being al-Queda or any other affiliated group, modern readers should instead generalize it to a Muslim extremist group. Rather than any of the many Middle Eastern conflicts of the early 2000s, one could assume that this is a fictional conflict unique to the fiction and that perhaps the aggressors are one of the many fictional Middle Eastern countaries that are unique to Marvel’s Earth, such as Ghulistan, Kerhaadistan, Rhapastan, or some other place.