We have seen an up tick in super hero movies for a lot of reasons and 9-11 really isn't one of them. Like Wibble said Marvel's licensing issue were part of but so is the advance in CG. There are more super hero movies now because it is a lot easier to make them. A lot of his other position are grossly over stated as well. Capitan America is the patron saint of American service members? I see how it helps him make his point but the argument is weakened a little since he simply pulled it out of his ass. A large percentage of the people I know were in the military and have never heard anyone talk about Captain America. In fact I never saw many service members reading comics of any flavor.

As for the reason super heroes don't use you don't need a deep analysis of the American physique and the definition of hero, they don't carry guns because they were written for children. Comics had enough enough problems getting passed the mom filter without having the good guy running around shooting people. Once comics starting selling to an older crowd we started see more heroes carrying guns. The new Captain America carries a gun by the way.

He also seems to be drawing a lot of conclusions about the sate of America from a film that wasn't even very popular. Reading his article you would assume the Expendables was some huge block buster instead of a crap movie that most people didn't see and a lot that did see it didn't like. What does he make from the popularity of Hollywood Chihuahua? It had almost as big of an opening weekend. I guess there were not any popular movies he could find to make his point. That say a lot the validity of his point.

He is elegant but in the end he is full of shit.