I found this to be quite interesting for Batman lovers...check it out. There was no name from the writer if anyone knows let me know so i can publish it too.
The Dark Knight
Batman
A NonSuper Superhero
One of the true icons of comic book culture is Batman, a superhero
without super powers. The scourge of the underworld, Batman is a
spectacular crime fighter with a dazzling array of weapons and gadgets.
Unlike most comic book heroes who are gifted with extraordinary
powers, Batman is an ordinary man who develops his skills
through training and hard work. A master detective, Batman is one of
the few superheroes who outthinks as well as outfights his opponents.
The creation of artist Bob Kane, Batman first appeared in Detective
Comics #27, May 1939. Like Superman from a year before, the
costumed crime fighter caught on quickly with the reading public,
and within a few years, was starring in his own comic as well as continuing
to appear in Detective Comics.
Unlike Superman, however, Batman wasn’t unique in comics.
Before he debuted, a number of noncostumed heroes appeared in the
pages of Detective and Action Comics. Soon after Batman’s appearance,
a number of very similar costumed heroes with secret identities
joined the ranks of comic book characters, yet none ever achieved
the same level of success as Batman. None ever became an American
legend recognized throughout the world. What made Batman so
special?
For one, his look was unique. Batman’s name came from his
appearance. He looked like a bat in human form. With his cloak and
hood, he looked like no other character in comics. With his bright
red and blue outfit, Superman was an all-American hero. Clad in
dark colors and wearing a mask while fighting crooks, Batman was a
creature of the night. To use a catchphrase invented many years
later, the early Batman truly was a “Dark Knight.”
Then there were Batman’s roots. Unlike Superman, who was
defined by his parents’ noble sacrifice, Batman was the product of murder.
Batman’s tragic history gave him a depth of character unequalled
by most superheroes. As pointed out by comic book historian Les
Daniels, Bob Kane created Batman months before ever considering the
character’s origin.11 Kane was more concerned with his hero’s look
than with his history. The story of how young Bruce Wayne’s parents
were killed before his eyes by a petty criminal, inspiring the boy to
devote his life to fighting crime, didn’t appear until December 1939.
Kane invented Batman, but it was Kane working with writer Bill Finger,
who together devised Batman’s background. The right look and
the right history combined to make Batman a compelling character.
Equally important in shaping Batman was the decision in late
1939 by newly appointed DC editorial director, Whit Ellsworth, to
keep actual violence in Batman stories to a minimum. Early adventures
in Detective Stories had Batman using a gun to dispatch villains.
Ellsworth wanted DC comics to be kid-friendly and reasoned that
too much violence would alienate readers. Within a year, guns were
gone and Batman was capturing, not killing, criminals.
The next major step in Batman’s evolution came with the addition
of a kid sidekick, Robin, in Detective Comics #38, April 1940. Bill
Finger, who was writing the scripts for the series, complained that
Batman had no one to talk to. Bob Kane obligingly created Robin.12
The Boy Wonder added dialogue to the comics and also gave read-
ers a character their own age. Robin proved to be a wise move. The
circulation of Detective Comics nearly doubled after the addition of the
teen hero, leading to a proliferation of teenage superhero assistants
over the next two decades.
The final key to Batman’s success was the bizarre crew of villains
he battled each month. Finding worthy opponents for Superman
required enemies with incredible powers or super science. Batman,
a crime fighter who used his intelligence to battle crime, merely
needed criminals with a good gimmick to make them worthy opponents.
Bob Kane, Bill Finger, and writer/artist Jerry Robinson created
a wild rogues’ gallery for Batman that was spectacular even by
comic book standards. Top-notch villains included the Joker, Catwoman,
Two-Face, the Penguin, the Riddler, and many more.
Appearance, history, a teen sidekick, and intriguing villains make
Batman one of the most popular superheroes in history. During Batman’s
more than sixty years of comic book stardom, the formula has
changed on occasion. For example, the original Robin grew up and
needless to say became a crime fighter. A second Robin died. However,
his replacement fights by Batman’s side today.
Other writers and artists following the team of Bob Kane and Bill
Finger reshaped Batman to fit the times. Most notably, Frank Miller
turned Batman into a darker, grimmer, more realistic character in
his retelling of Batman’s origin in the 1980s with “The Dark Knight
Returns.” Miller’s stark imagery served as a major influence for Tim
Burton’s film, Batman. Today, Batman continues to shine as one of
DC Comics’s greatest stars, with his adventures highlighted in a
half-dozen comic books every month.
A non-super superhero, fighting non-super criminals. Where’s
the science? Just keep reading.
The Science of Batman
Unlike Superman, Batman wasn’t born with super powers, nor did a
friendly alien like the Green Lantern give Batman super powers. An
explosion didn’t douse him with chemicals as in the case of the Flash.
Batman didn’t fly a homemade rocket to outer space like The Fantastic
Four, nor did he witness a gamma ray explosion up close like
The Incredible Hulk.
Batman is a self-made hero. As explained in numerous stories,
including “How to Be the Batman,” Detective Comics #190, Batman
spent years training in a gym to become a perfect acrobat. He
directed his entire education toward scientific crime fighting. Bruce
Wayne trained his mind much in the same manner as he trained his
body. As he stated in Detective Comics #190, “I’ve got to know science
thoroughly to become a scientific detective.” There’s little question
that Wayne succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.
Consider “The Amazing Inventions of Batman,” as discussed in
Batman #109, August 1957. In this story, Batman and Robin use
portable jet packs to fly between buildings; use a heat ray to detonate
dangerous boxes of explosives floating in Gotham City harbor; and
use a flying camera to spy on crooks planning a robbery. Was Batman
using real-life science or merely 1950s pseudo-scientific nonsense?
The first accurate prediction of a portable flying pack was made
in 1928 in the novel The Skylark of Space by E. E. Smith, also serialized
in Amazing Stories, August through October 1928. The first
issue of the magazine featured a cover with a man flying while wearing
a rocket backpack. The same issue of Amazing Stories also featured
the first Buck Rogers story. Although the cover had nothing
to do with Buck Rogers, the flying backpack illustration and Buck
Rogers were forever linked by inaccurate research as that “crazy
Buck Rogers stuff.”
The writer of “The Many Inventions of Batman” was Edmond
Hamilton, a friend of DC editor Julius Schwartz and longtime comic
book scriptwriter. Hamilton had been writing science fiction stories
since 1926, and there’s little question that he read the August 1928
issue of Amazing Stories. Most likely, it served in part as Hamilton’s
inspiration. But, quite possibly, so did real science.
In the 1950s and 1960s, magazines like Popular Science and Popular
Mechanics ran several articles about portable jetpacks being
developed by scientists trying to come up with new methods of transportation.
The man most often mentioned regarding such devices
was Wendell F. Moore, a scientist who worked for Bell Aerosystems
during those years. Moore dealt with small rockets fueled by hydrogen
peroxide. According to several news accounts, he came up with
the idea of a man flying by the use of small rockets on his back one
evening while doodling.
Moore’s doodles turned real in 1960 when the Army Transportation
Command awarded Bell Aerosystems a contract for $150,000 to
develop a Small Rocket Lifting Device. The Army wanted a practical
machine for improving troop mobility. Moore built his rocket belt and
on April 20, 1961, an associate of his at Bell Aerosystems, Harold Graham,
flew 112 feet outdoors using the rocket belt.
Unfortunately, the Bell jetpack was highly impractical. The
invention was little more than a high-powered rocket strapped to a
man’s back. The jetpack used pressure from liquid nitrogen to force
hydrogen peroxide into a catalyst chamber where it reacted with silver
screens coated with samarium nitrate. The mix created a jet of
very hot, very high-pressured steam that provided the thrust that
lifted the user into the air. One wrong move and the pilot was badly
burned by the steam. Equally dangerous, the flier had to use his own
legs as landing gear. In addition, the jetpack made an incredibly loud
noise when in operation.
Despite all of its flaws, the Bell jetpack fascinated the public. The
device was demonstrated numerous times around the world. It was
shown in television shows, air shows, and was even featured in the
James Bond film, Thunderball.
The Army never used the Bell jetpack for the simple reason that
it could only carry enough fuel for a twenty second flight. When
Moore died in 1969, the jetpack was retired from use. However, the
idea of a personal flying device refused to die. An August 2000 news
release13 described the Solo Trek XFV, made by Millennium Jet
August 10, 2000.
Inc., a vertical one-man jet that could fly up to 80 miles per hour and
for 150 miles before refueling. Chalk one up for Batman.
Flying police weren’t anything unusual in Gotham (a.k.a. New
York City). The first police helicopter patrols in the world began in
Manhattan in 1948. Batman merely took a proven idea and pushed
it one step farther. In “The Many Inventions of Batman,” the Dark
Knight used a flying camera to spy on a criminal scientist and his
gang. While aerial surveillance was in its most primitive stages in the
1950s, it was an idea that was evolving. In the comic book adventure,
the criminals steal Batman’s invention and use the flying camera to
locate an armored car traveling on the highway. Any resemblance to
a certain car chase involving an ex-football player was purely coincidental.
Just remember, Batman predicted it first!
What about the heat ray used to detonate explosives in the
water? Lasers can be traced back to Albert Einstein’s 1917 theories.
The first microwave laser was built in 1954, three years before the
Batman story took place. The first optical laser was invented three
years after the story was published. Batman was merely taking existing
science and projecting it forward a few years.
In our time, small, high-powered diode lasers are often used in
delicate surgical procedures, but could be wielded as a weapon if
necessary. Still, whatever damage they could cause, lasers aren’t
nearly as effective as low-tech weapons like guns or knives. The
Armed Forces have conducted tests with much more powerful lasers,
but the results of these tests aren’t available to the general public.
The most common use of a laser in warfare is as a powerful light gun,
causing major eye damage to distant enemy forces. Use of lasers to
blind people in warfare has already been banned in an international
treaty.
The most powerful tool used by Batman in his war against crime
was his Utility Belt. On it, he kept a number of tools and devices to
help him battle criminals and solve mysteries. The multi-faceted
Utility Belt has become a part of American pop culture. Some computer
hackers hang all sorts of electrical equipment like pagers, personal
organizers, pocketknives, flashlights, tool kits, and even
miniature computers from their belts. Needless to say, the hacker
nickname for such a belt is a “bat belt.”
According to the first Giant Batman Annual published in 1961,
the following items are contained in Batman’s Utility Belt:
Explosives
Infrared flashlight
Smoke capsule
Fingerprint equipment
Miniature camera
Pass keys
Tiny oxyacetylene torch
Gas capsule
Batman’s silken rope is described as being drawn out of the belt
lining like a fisherman’s line is drawn from a reel.
It was a fascinating list for the time. Miniaturized items weren’t
readily available in a world before microcircuits and computer chips,
but still, were the items outrageous or merely projections of what
science promised for the future?
Do we even need to mention miniature cameras? Every appliance,
electronics, and camera store in the United States has a full
stock of miniature cameras.
There’s also the Fraser-Volpe Co. M.I.C.E.—miniature integrated
camera eye—which is a wireless high-resolution camera system.
It can be used as a standalone camera, and it can also be attached
to all sorts of optical devices such as binoculars and rifle scopes. The
system lets the optical device function normally while it transmits
realtime videos back to a command center. It’s a device many people
thought only appeared in Mission Impossible, but it’s real. There’s
no question that it would be part of Batman’s arsenal.
Next, we have pass keys. These keys are part of any respectable
burglar’s equipment and something that every crime fighter needs
in his war against the underworld. Pass keys or picklocks are legal in
most states, but it is a crime to be caught carrying such tools if there
is clear indication of criminal intent. Most professional thieves know
better than to carry picklocks with them since almost any thin piece
of metal (or sometimes plastic) is all that is necessary to open most
locks.
What’s true for criminals we must assume is true for Batman, as
well. In his Utility Belt, he probably carries a small set of “jiggler”
keys, very thin keys that can be inserted into most locks and jiggle
the tumblers, and a few Master keys, general all-purpose keys that
slide easily into many locks. Along with keys, Batman carries several
lock picks and tension wrenches. These are easily made from pieces
of spring steel, including piano wire and hacksaw blades. Using these
few tools, the Dark Knight can enter nearly any apartment or building
with ease.
Electronic locks are more of a challenge, but a little ingenuity
and an electronic coding device will work wonders. Automobile
security isn’t any more challenging for criminals or crime-fighters;
most door locks can be opened with a thin piece of wire. Despite
advertisements to the contrary, the famous “club” can be picked by
most car-jackers in seconds. Besides which, most steering wheels are
vulnerable to attack with or without an attached club.
Do you think that a miniature oxyacetylene torch is impossible?
Most units can’t fit on a desk, much less fit on a man’s belt. Still,
nothing is impossible in modern times. An MEC Midget Torch
weighs just six ounces and isn’t much longer than a man’s hand, and
the tip is narrower than a human finger. Maybe it’s not a comfortable
fit in the front of the Utility Belt, but it’s portable, so Batman
could easily attach it to the side or back.
When Batman faces desperate odds, a gas capsule makes the
fight a lot fairer. Modern policemen often have the same problems
when trying to disperse an unruly crowd. Following the Dark
Knight’s lead, they also can use gas, and not some unwieldy canister
that needs to be fired from a rifle. A 4-inch by 1-inch Punch II
police-strength pepper spray14 will stop even the most violent criminal.
A one-second spray aimed at the eyes causes temporary blindness.
It also induces choking, coughing, and nausea. Violent drug
addicts and psychotics aren’t bothered by Mace or tear-gas products
but they’re not immune to Oleoresin Capsicum, the active ingredient
in pepper spray. Batman’s most violent enemies, human monsters
like Bane, might feel no pain but they’re not immune to this
less-than-lethal but highly effective aerosol weapon.
Smoke grenades are easy. They’re available in the mini-size of
1 1⁄4 × 3–inch length (fits easily into a small pocket or container), and
they generate 22,000 cubic feet of smoke. This is enough smoke to
cause a lot of confusion during a fight. A large smoke grenade is 1 1⁄2
× 6 inches and will generate a white–gray cloud measuring some
40,000 cubic feet. Both seem adequate for Batman’s needs.
Infrared lights are 3.8-inch long cylinders that produce a fivefoot-
wide circle at 25 feet. They can provide infrared illumination
for up to a hundred yards. The light lasts up to eight hours using one
lithium battery. The entire light weighs 3.5 ounces.
We still need a dependable fingerprint kit. Most small kits aren’t
very useful, and partial prints taken at the scene of a crime usually
prove to be unidentifiable when examined in a lab. The way to avoid
this is to have a top-notch modern fingerprint outfit at the scene of the
crime.
The Latent Print Developer Kit from Criminal Research Products
Inc. offers a full line of fingerprinting products that will work
on the scene as well as in a lab. Batman could carry tiny vials of the
many types of latent print powder to identify his enemies. Antistatic
latent print powder neutralizes static electricity from plastic surfaces.
Atomic Brand latent print powder adheres to the actual fingerprint
secretions, thus reducing smearing and ridge destruction. Silver
black latent power is used when regular powder doesn’t provide sufficient
contrast. Zinc Print latent powder is used for developing
latent prints on greasy, zinc-plated items such as vending machines
and change boxes. Magnetic latent print powders are used specifically
on paper, cardboard, wood, glass, plastic, and other non-ferrous
surfaces. Safe-Cracker latent print powder is used on all metal surfaces
such as safes, file cabinets, vaults, etc. Special combinations of
these powers make finding fingerprints on just about any surface a
thousand times easier than it was in the 1960s.
The last resource in Batman’s Utility Belt is probably the most
dangerous. Explosives are not meant to be carried in a belt pocket
for many hours at a time. Even TNT, the most popular explosive of
the twentieth century, can be deadly due to changes in the weather.
Lawrence Livermore Laboratories in California runs a HEAF
(High Explosive Applications Facility) where they experiment with
new miniature explosives. At Livermore, scientists design new molecules
with explosive properties. They extenstively test these explosive
compounds using computer models before they synthesize
them.
One discovery made at the labs is the compound LX-19, which
has the highest explosive power of any compound discovered in the
world. Unfortunately, the material is too unstable to use as an explosive.
However, research compound LLM-105 is sixty percent more
powerful than TNT and is much more insensitive to its physical surroundings.
It seems reasonable to assume Batman carries several
sticks of this compound in his Utility Belt.
Though not exactly a part of his Utility Belt, Batman’s silken
rope was another one of The Dark Knight’s most powerful tools.
Equipped with a grappling hook (easily bought for under $30 at most
stores handling mountain climbing gear, as well as many internet
shops that specialize in ninja accessories), the slender line offered
Batman a silent and secret method to scale buildings without being
seen by his enemies inside.
Batman was usually shown swinging on a rope, not climbing one.
Swinging was more dramatic, but, in real life, was not very practical
in a big city. Not to mention that a rope-swinging Batman and Robin
made perfect targets for crooks armed with machine guns. It’s much
more likely that Batman used his rope primarily for climbing.
In the 1940s and 1950s, no one believed men could scale tall
buildings using mountain-climbing gear. It was the stuff of Batman
comics and nothing more. A crazy idea going nowhere.
Today, that attitude has gone through a complete reversal. One
of the most popular illegal “extreme” sports is “buildering,” the art
of climbing a city building without using any mountain-climbing
gear. Young men and women climb the walls of large structures in
cities, using cement hand holes and building decorations as their
only aids. Entire magazines are devoted to buildering, and climbers
frequently post the best routes for climbing major urban skyscrapers
on internet bulletin boards. It’s just another example of life duplicating
comic books—in this case, ordinary teenagers and young
adults imitating Batman.
Nothing in Batman’s Utility Belt is beyond the reach of modern
science. Some of the items might have been futuristic in the 1960s,
but all of them are available today, proving that The Dark Knight
(and his writers) had a keen eye for future developments in crimefighting
techniques.
Similar examinations of the Batplane, the Batmobile, and even
Batman’s huge crime lab located in the cave beneath Wayne Manor
yield the same result. In the late 1950s, Batman’s crime notes were
on file cards, with duplicates of the cards kept on microfilm. As times
changed, so did Batman’s filing method. A computer database came
into use. As computers grew more complex, so did the database Batman
used. By the late 1990s, his computer was tied to those of major
law enforcement agencies throughout the world, providing Batman
with up-to-the-minute information about criminals anywhere in the
world. What was once the domain of comic books has become part
of the real world of crime fighting. Except for his vigilante methods
and costume, Batman could be one of today’s lawmen.
The Gotham City Earthquake
One of the biggest and most involved stories involving Batman was
in 1998 and 1999 in a multi-issue, multi-character crossover called
“No Man’s Land.” The beginning of the story, labeled “Cataclysm,”
had an earthquake strike Gotham City. The earthquake destroyed
Bruce Wayne’s manor, as well as the Batcave and Batmobile. City
Hall and the main Gotham police station were smashed, and much
of the city went up in flames. Afterwards, the city was cut off from
the outside world, and anarchy reigned as Batman and a few others
tried to save what remained of the once proud metropolis.
Gotham City bears an uncanny resemblance to New York City.
It’s suffered plenty over the years as one criminal mastermind after
another has made the city a living hell. But nothing compares to
being hit by a major earthquake, measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale.
Pure imagination, or grounded in science and reality?
Definitely reality. In this case, comic book reality predicted real
life, as on January 17, 2001, Manhattan and Queens experienced a
minor earthquake registering 2.4 on the Richter scale. The location
of the epicenter was somewhere on the upper east side of New York
City about four miles down.
Although it is the West Coast that is famous for its earthquakes,
the East Coast isn’t immune to such tremors. New York City is
located in the middle of a tectonic plate. It’s not on the edge of a
plate, as is the case in California. The New York City fault is a continental
rift, a break in the rock caused by the collisions of continents
400,000,000 years ago. This rift runs through the Bronx, down the
East River, through Staten Island, and down to Charleston, South
Carolina.
Rifts have a tendency to produce earthquakes. This puts New
York City at risk. Plus, there are numerous fault lines in northern
Manhattan running both north-south and east-west through the
city. According to seismologist Klaus Jacob, working at Columbia
University, “an earthquake could occur anywhere.”
There have been major earthquakes in the area of New York
City in the past two hundred years. One happened in 1737 and
another in 1884. Since 1884, there have been no major earthquakes
in the vicinity of New York City. A quick calculation places the
chance of a third earthquake taking place in the next thirty years
quite probable.
Part of the reason is that a level five earthquake isn’t much news
in California. Buildings are spread out more than the buildings of
New York City, and the population isn’t as dense. Since earthquakes
are much more common in California and Alaska, eighty percent of
earthquake hazard reduction funds are spent in those two states. Few
people, including city officials, worry about a New York City earthquake.
This means that Manhattan isn’t really prepared if a major
quake hits.
The infrastructure of Manhattan is much older than that of Californian
cities, and it’s much more vulnerable to an earthquake. In
New York, a level five earthquake would be like a level six earthquake
in California. Manhattan is set on bedrock. Bedrock might be
unshakable, but seismic waves travel much faster in bedrock than in
several underground plates. Worse, much of New York is built on
soft soil. The Manhattan waterfront was built on reclaimed land and
much of it is made up of sandy and loose rock. In the event of an
earthquake, soft soil and landfill is shaken enough to turn it into
fluid. A good part of New York City would be washed out to the
ocean by a major earthquake.
An earthquake in New York would smash unreinforced
masonry, destroying the famous New York brownstones and walkups.
Pipes beneath the street would crack and explode. Stairways
would crack and elevators would be knocked off their cables.
Rooftop water tanks would fall, as would decorations like parapets
and gargoyles.
Manhattan has a network of old gas lines and nineteenthcentury
sewers and cast-iron pipes. Water pipes beneath the street
are particularly vulnerable to a quake, which could result in a loss of
water pressure. Firemen would thus have a difficult time putting out
major fires. Flight would not be an option as bridges and tunnels
would be down or blocked with debris.
“Cataclysm” is merely a comic book story. In graphic details, it
shows disaster striking at the heart of a great urban metropolis. In
light of the attack on the World Trade Center, it paints a vivid picture
of not only what could happen but what did happen in New
York. And in the end, it shows how the city survives because of the
efforts of heroes. Just like real life.
Batman and all related indicia property of DC Comics. Of course, you know that.
