So with COVID-19, everyone is digging up fictional work that dealt with pandemics before. Contagion is top of the rentals, Outbreak is not far behind. In Japan and Korea, Albert Camus' The Plague is on the best-seller lists.

So I thought it was a good time to revisit Spider-Island which is, to my mind, the only major Marvel event in the last 10 years to center around a city-wide epidemic. Now there have been comics stories that deal with viruses before. You have the Legacy Virus in X-Men which was a metaphor for AIDS. In Batman you had an event called Contagion that IIRC led up to No man's land. There have also been a number of Marvel stories and DC stories that deal with plagues like say Red Skull's gas, and Joker venom. But Slott's Spider-Island showed a city-wide epidemic, one which could have become a pandemic but was contained by the efforts of Spider-Man and of course Mayor J. Jonah Jameson.

Because on re-reading Spider-Island, it strikes me that Post-COVID, that Jameson is the real hero, acting in a way that real life government officials. Immediately closing schools, and public places, putting the city on lockdown, quarantining everyone and making sure nobody goes in and out.

Spider-Island - Mayor Jameson is Great.jpg

Spider-Island - Mayor Jameson is Great 2.jpg

Jameson also believes that the cure/vaccine for the disease should be free for all citizens and refuses attempts to monetize it.

Spider-Island - Mayor Jameson is Great 4.jpg

Of course, Slott's Spider-Island is not really serious. It's basically a high concept story of everyone getting Spider-Powers. So the disease is just an excuse for that. And of course the nature of the disease, puts the entire story outside the scope of the health system.

In that respects, the Spider-Man PS4 game is more useful/helpful. The developers said that they looked at Spider-Island as an inspiration for a city-wide epidemic when they used the "Devil's Snare" plot in the final section of the game. And that part of the game does bring the city's health system and other people in focus. And the PS4 game deals with a very broken and irresponsible mayor (Osborn) in charge as opposed to Jameson who is aces.

So yeah, Mayor J. Jonah Jameson...genuflect, show some respect, get down on your knees.