Miles Morales – aka Spider-Man – is helping his fellow Champions when an emergency alert sounds on his cell phone. Without explaining to his colleagues, Morales spins a web and heads towards his high school. While the other Champions are confused by the abruptness of Spider-Man’s exit, Viv Vision offers an explanation. “I’m receiving multiple emergence reports from Brooklyn Visions Academy,” she says. “There’s been a shooting.”
On February 14, 2018, a similar emergency alert was issued at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (MSDHS) in Parkland, Florida. Within minutes, fourteen students and three staff members had died in a real-world shooting. In the years between the 1999 tragedy at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, and events in Parkland, close to 200 reported shootings occurred in other schools across the United States.
Many of the surviving students at MSDHS banded together to launch a “Never Again” movement in response. Comic book writer Jim Zub, meanwhile, decided to do his part by spotlighting school shootings in issue 24 of Marvel’s Champions, published a mere seven months after the events in Parkland.
When the fire alarm sounded at 2:21 p.m. on February 14, both students and teachers initially didn’t know how to react. There had already been a fire drill that morning – was this another one? When gunshots were heard seconds later, everyone realized it was not a drill. Geography teacher Scott Beigel was shot after unlocking his classroom to allow students trapped in the hall to enter. Student Peter Wang held hallway doors open so that his classmates could exit faster but was unable to make it through himself before likewise being shot. Both Beigel and Wang were amongst the seventeen killed during the tragedy.
In We Say #NeverAgain – a 2018 compilation of essays from students who survived the shooting at MSDHS – Augustus Griffith Jr. tried to explain what it felt like to be locked in a classroom that day. “The succession of shots grew quicker and quicker,” he wrote. “Was there more than one gun firing? We weren’t listening, but we heard everything: every gunshot, every scream, every body thudding lifelessly to the floor. The fire alarm continued for minutes that felt like hours, though our eyes were fixated on the door in sheer horror. We were trapped and truly helpless, the shots eventually descending down the stairs, leaving us with only a terrifying, vague idea of what was going on and praying that no one would approach the door.”
When Spider-Man arrives at Brooklyn Visions Academy, the police inform him of multiple fatalities and that the shooter had taken his own life. The superhero wants to go inside the school but is told it’s a crime scene. After checking his cell phone, Miles Morales instead heads to Mount Sinai Hospital where one of his friends is in surgery after having been shot twice. Other classmates are there as well, waiting, hoping, and praying that Fabio Medina pulls through.
The Champions, meanwhile, are holding a meeting. “I’ve lived through this too many times,” Riri Williams, the superhero Ironheart who has experienced her own fair share of gun violence, tells them. “People get shot. Everyone gets sad and angry. And then they just get over it ’til next time.” When Amadeus Cho asks what the team should do, Williams replies, “Nothing. If people don’t want to change, Amadeus, there’s nothing we can do.”
During the twenty-year period between the events at Columbine and those in Parkland, 683 people lost their lives from mass shootings in the United States. For journalist Dave Cullen, however, something was different about February 14, 2018. “I flew down the first weekend, but not to depict the carnage or the grief,” he wrote in his 2019 book, Parkland: Birth of a Movement. “What drew me was the group of extraordinary kids. I wanted to cover their response. There are strains of sadness woven into this story, but this is not an account of grief. These kids chose a story of hope.”
It started during the tragedy itself. MSDHS student David Hogg decided to film his fellow students and interview them for a documentary as they huddled together during the shooting. That night he then defied his parents by going back to the scene and was interviewed by Laura Ingraham of Fox News. “I don’t want this to be another mass shooting,” he said. “I don’t want this to be something that people forget.” He added that the killings affected everyone, not just those directly involved, “especially if we don’t take action to step up and stop things like that.” The following day, Hogg issued similar calls for action on ABC’s Good Morning America and CNN.
Jackie Corin, meanwhile, posted on Facebook the night after the shooting, “Please pray for my school.” She then advocated for stricter gun laws and ended her post with the words, “MAKE IT STOP.” The next night at a candlelight vigil for the victims, Corin met Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who put her in touch with state senator Lauren Book. By now Jackie Corin wanted to put pressure on the Florida legislature and Book agreed to assist.
“I just wanted to do it immediately,” Corin told Dave Cullen. “Because I knew that the news forgets. Very quickly. And if we were all talk and no action, people wouldn’t take it seriously.”
Another student, Cameron Kasky, likewise took to social media the night of February 14, 2018. “I want people talking about this,” he posted on Twitter. “I can’t let this die like the others. I need this to be the end. Everybody needs this to be the end. Talk to me.” Kasky woke up the next day to slew of responses and found himself being interviewed on NPR and Anderson Cooper 360. By the time the weekend arrived, David Hogg, Jackie Corin, and Cameron Kasky were joined by fellow students Ryan Deitsch, Emma Gonzalez, and Delaney Tarr. The #NeverAgain movement had officially launched.
On March 24 – a mere 38 days after the events in Parkland – hundreds of thousands of protesters descended on Washington, D.C. for March for Our Lives, a demonstration in support of stricter gun control laws. Over 800 similar marches were held the same day in cities across the United States and around the world.
To help students deal with the trauma of a school shooting in the Marvel Comics Universe, Brooklyn Visions Academy has made counselors available to them. “I’m not grieving,” Miles Morales says during a session. “I mean, I am. Totally. But it’s more than that. I feel guilty. Like I could have done something, stopped it.” The counselor disagrees, replying, “I understand the impetus of this guilt, but you can’t let that change the reality of the situation. You couldn’t have stopped it, Miles. You’re not a superhero.”
Later that evening, Miles Morales and Kamala Khan – Ms. Marvel – sit alone on the roof of a building. “I have powers and it doesn’t matter,” Morale admits. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t protect them. If I can’t do that, then what’s the point?” Khan replies that she’s been thinking the same thing.
“What can we do?” she rhetorically asks. “How do we stop this? Viv rattles off statistics and data points. Amadeus wants to solve it like a math problem. Riri is cynical about it all but won’t stop tinkering. But you and me, we’re the same. The thought of people suffering and dying while you have the power to make things better drives you crazy. But we can’t – we can’t save everybody. Understanding our limitations is important. Once you accept those, you’ve got a simple choice to make. Despair or hope.”
The next morning, Miles Morales thinks about what Kamala Khan had said the night before. “‘Despair or hope,’” he repeats. “Ms. Marvel says she’s not a leader but that was exactly what I needed to hear. Her words bring me back down to earth and remind me of what’s most important. Being there for each other, keeping faith that things can improve, and rallying together to fight for a better future.”
In We Say #NeverAgain, Carly Novell offered a similar assessment. “Our lives are painful,” she wrote. “We have experienced loss – this cannot be undone. And we have experienced change, which cannot be forgotten. Instead of questioning, honor the lost, remember, and be grateful. We are here because life must go on, and the world keeps turning; living means going on and turning with the world. We can live and remember, but we can’t live our lives stuck on February 14. The world didn’t stop, and neither can we – not only for us, but for them.”
Anthony Letizia