Sample Essay #1 This essay uses the following page from the first appearance of Batman, in Detective Comics 27, which is reproduced here. You do not need to reproduce the comic page in your essay.
Bob Kane (artist) and Bill Finger (writer), “The Case of the Chemical Syndicate,” Detective Comics #27, May 1939, page 3.
Damian Wayne Essay Assignment #1 Comic Books and Graphic Novels Prof. Kuskin
The Dark Knight and the Darkness of Our Competitive World
Batman, invented by Bob Kane with the substantial help of Bill Finger, is the most important superhero, even if he is not the first. Page two of “The Chemical Syndicate,” in Detective Comics #27 does not look like much, but it launched “The Bat-Man” into American culture. Batman’s legacy includes comics, radio, television, and films. There are three important things about Batman that every reader must ponder: first, the Batman is not the first comic book superhero, but he is the first one to be dark and brooding. Second, he has no powers and in this way, he is represents us all. If we combine these two representations, we come to a third point: Batman shows us that we live in this world without powers and as we engage with this world we are brought into its darkness. Batman, a model for us all, forces us to realize that any interaction with the world brings us into its darkness. The lesson of Batman is to strive with the darkness around us, to realize that violence defines us, but we can be heroic nevertheless. Ultimately, Batman is a story that forces us to look how violence shapes us, and in this it accomplishes the role of all art, which is to make us reflect on ourselves and our world.
Batman was created as a franchise to compete with Superman. National Publications, the company that finally published Superman, approached Bob Kane, a Jewish New Yorker whose real name was Robert
Kahn, to create a new superhero. Kane had been working on Jerry Iger’s comic studio, and came up with a hero based on Zorro. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Will Eisner, Jerry Iger—it is interesting that so much of the early comic scene was created by Jewish people (and I wish the lectures covered this a bit more; it’s a real oversight). Kane’s “Bat-Man” had red tights and a mask like the one Robin would eventually wear. Bill Finger revised the concept, adding the Batman cowl, the cape, and the gloves.
Kane actually traded the rights for Batman in exchange for a by-line giving him credit. Bill Finger got left out. In any case, Batman originally had no problem using guns, and it wasn’t until DC’s editorial director,
Whitney Ellsworth objected that Batman adapted the antigun ethos (see http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/07/gun-laws-and-batman.html). Originally, the Bat-Man was more deadly, and that is just my point: Batman is born into a competitive world, literally as a hero to compete with Superman. In that world, he takes action, violent action, to define himself. Batman is not born from a pure imagination but an imagination tinted with the hard rules of the American Free Market, from the start.
The nature of Batman as a commercial success has brought him into a number of movies. My favorite, is the recent trilogy by Christopher Nolan and starring Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, and the inimitable Morgan Freeman. These movies—the 2005 Batman Begins, the 2008 The Dark Knight, and the 2012 The Dark Knight Rises—progressively become more intertwined with reality, and, tragically, more enmeshed in real-life violence and horror. In this, they remain true to the Batman story. Indeed, they are clearly familiar with the comic-book history. Batman Begins starts the trilogy off darkly, summoning up a number of comic book characters, such as Ra’s al Ghul (played by Liam Neeson) and the Scarecrow (superbly played by Cillian Murphy—right on!). Yet the movie remains in a comic-book reality, with Batman using his suit to take flight and the Tumbler actually managing to drive across rooftops. Batman Begins is a serious movie about fear. It is also a comic book movie fitting the Batman with the story.
The Dark Knight Rises intensifies the violence and seems to force it into the real world. This is due both to the script, which brings a whole new level of violence to the story, and to the masterful portrayal of
Batman’s nemesis, the Joker, by Heath Ledger. The Joker is a bright shadow of Batman. His face utterly white, and wearing fairly bright colors, he gives into all the urges that Batman denies himself. He is the Batman without Whitney Ellsworth’s control. They are locked together, like attracted opposites: As he says to Batman in The Dark Knight Rises, “This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You truly are incorruptible, aren't you? You won’t kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness. And I won’t kill you because you’re just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever.” Ledger utterly transformed himself into a new person to become the Joker.
He also died after filming, overdosing on prescription drugs, which shrouded the movie in tragedy.
This real-life tragedy only became more intense with the Dark Knight Rises, and the mass shooting at the
Century movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Without dwelling on this very sad event, I would like to underscore the way the movie itself moves away from the comic-book reality to, in fact, change
America. The Dark Knight Rises reintroduces a character from the 1994 Batman comic series,
“Knightfall,” Bane. In the comic, Bane is just a nameless mercenary transformed into a brutal monster.
In the comic, he inspires social rebellion and so has a strange relationship to the Occupy movement of real life. Further, in the aftermath of the terrible shooting, American really began to talk about the politics of gun control. So, I would say, that in the movie, and beyond it, The Dark Knight Rises moves from comic book to reality, forcing us to confront how violence shapes us publically and privately.
Reality and fiction are separate. Fiction helps us think about reality, however, and Batman is one of the most powerful fictions of our time. Batman has been around for seventy-five years now, and during that time he has changed. At the heart of Batman lies a darkness, the darkness of the violence of the competitive world. Whether it is in a comic book from the 1930s or a movie from just a year ago,
Batman shows us that violence shapes our world and, hopefully, it gives us a way to think through the violence around us.
EVALUATION Minimum requirement: The essay has more than one paragraph and discusses one of the assigned comic pages. Yes (50 points) No (0 points) Introduction: The essay has a title and the introduction paragraph has a topic and argument. 8 points: The title, topic, and argument are present and focus on a specific page beyond mere plot summary. The introduction develops a clear relationship with the reader that builds to the thesis statement. 6 points: The title, topic, and argument are present and focus on a specific page beyond mere plot summary, but do not speak to the reader or build to the thesis statement. 4 points: The introduction lacks one of the three elements. 2 points: The essay has an introduction, but does not follow the structure of title, topic, and argument. 0 points: The essay does not have an introduction. Thesis Statement in the Introduction: The introduction ends with a thesis statement that defines the entire essay and explains why the essay is important. 10 points: The introduction ends with an original thesis statement that guides the entire essay, announces the paper’s meaning and explains it. 8 points: The introduction ends with an original thesis statement that guides the entire essay, announces the paper’s meaning, but doesn’t explain it. 6 points: The introduction ends with a thesis statement that provides a reasonable sense of the entire paper, but it is not stated sufficiently clearly or is confused with the individual details of the argument. 4 points: The introduction ends with a statement that relates to the essay overall but is bland or obvious. 2 points: The introduction ends with a general statement that only summarizes the page or is off-topic. 0 points: The introduction does not end with any sort of final statement. Analysis & Synthesis: The essay addresses and interprets the pictorial and textual details of the page. 8 points: The essay interprets specific pictorial and textual details from the page in an original manner, interpreting them so as to go beyond the story. 6 points: The essay interprets specific pictorial and textual details from the page and explains that they are important, but it does not interpret them beyond the story. 4 points. The essay summarizes pictorial and textual details. 2 points: The essay mentions some pictorial or textual details, but mostly focuses on characters or an idea. 0 points: The essay does not discuss pictorial or textual details. Paragraphs: The essay uses clear paragraphs with transitions. 8 points: The essay is divided into more than three full paragraphs, each focused around a main point, in a logical order of transition, and ending conclusively. The transitions between paragraphs are smooth. 6 points: The essay is divided into more than three full paragraphs, each focused around a main point, in a logical order of transition, but some paragraphs lack conclusive endings or the transitions between some paragraphs are not smooth. 4 points: The essay is divided into more than three full paragraphs, but each paragraph is only a few sentences. The essay is a list of short statements (like individual bullet points) that do not flow together. 2 points: The essay is divided into at least three paragraphs: an introduction, a body, and a conclusion, but the paragraphs are too blunt to connect with each other logically. 0 points: The essay is too short or blank. Conclusion: The essay has a conclusive ending. 8 points: The essay has a powerful conclusion that summarizes the argument, restates the thesis in new words, and suggests the implications of the argument for future thought. 6 points: The essay has a conclusion that summarizes the argument, restates the thesis in new words, but doesn’t suggest the implications of the argument for future thought. 4 points: The conclusion summarizes the argument, but states the thesis in roughly the same words as the introduction. 2 points: The essay has a final paragraph, but the relationship to the essay is not evident. 0 points: The essay doesn’t have a conclusion. Clarity: The essay contains readable prose. 8 points: This essay is well written. I could not find significant errors. 6 points: This essay is well written. I found errors, but nothing severe. 4 points: This essay is readable. Some parts of the essay are rough, but the essay made sense. 2 points: The essay is messy and/or has multiple grammatical problems, which make it difficult to understand. 0 points: The essay is blank or is too short to assess. Please write a three-sentence evaluation of the essay. Use one sentence to explain the essay's greatest strength. This is an interesting essay with a lot of great facts about Batman and a great idea about violence. Use one sentence to explain the essay's greatest weakness. The essay does not focus on the page, and thus misses the point of the assignment and the 50 points. Use one sentence to suggest an improvement. Your grade would leap up if you kept the same spirit but focused on the page like the assignment asks. TOTAL: 36 (Letter Grade: F)