DEFINITION OF A HERO

Alec Fisanick

Batman: Shadow of the Bat, Issue No. 90

Abstract• Issue No. 90 opens with Batman and Lynx surrounded by a group of thugs, and they

must figure out how to escape. During the fight, the two characters find a young girl being held prisoner by the thugs in an abandoned building. The young girl sees Lynx fight and is intrigued by her abilities because she is a female. Unfortunately, Lynx is knocked unconscious by one of the criminals forcing Batman to come to her rescue. Batman is able to save Lynx, but he must leave the young girl behind. When Lynx regains consciousness, she explains to Batman what drives her to continue battling criminals: fighting stokes her ego and makes her feel important. Batman and Lynx return to the scene of the fight to find multiple dead bodies but no young girl. The two see a funeral procession coming down the street and a coffin small enough to fit a child. Lynx immediately understands what is happening—the young girl is dead. A man in the procession tells Lynx that the young girl died fighting the criminals, and she fought the men because she was inspired by Lynx. Batman tries to console Lynx telling her that being a hero is difficult and sometimes has unfavorable outcomes. He adds that those who are heroes are held to a higher standard in life. The issue closes with Batman leaving Lynx by herself in the streets to think about the true meaning of being a hero.

Focus Theme• This issue focuses on Lynx and her journey to understand what it

means to be a hero. Does being a hero mean that the good guy always wins and everyone lives happily ever after, or are there hardships that go along with the title of “Hero”? Lynx’s journey to answer these questions will serve as the focus theme for this presentation.

This two-page panel serves as the establishing shot for the comic. Fans of Batman will recognize the black suit

and emblem in the background. The female standing very confidently

looking on is Lynx. While she might have been a villain in other issues, Lynx will assist

Batman in his quest to rid the city of bad guys. The way

Lynx is posing in this opening shot makes her look very

important and very heroic.Creating characters that stick in

a reader’s mind is something that takes a lot of time and effort. Easy ways to make

characters stand out to readers is to give them clothes and features which are different

from all of the other characters.

When the fight begins, Lynx shows the goons that she knows how to fight. The pictures show that she is

winning the fight. The speech bubbles just give

added details about what is being depicted.

In a picture-specific panel, the pictures show the reader

all of the necessary information and the words

play a secondary role to the scene.

Lynx continues her battles against the goons. The set of action-to-

action panels shows pieces of the fight at a time. At this point in the

story, Lynx thinks that being a hero just means knocking out enemies.

Action-to-action is the easiest way to show that a character is

doing something. This technique allows for

one part of the action per panel and helps

to keep the story moving.

Vade-Faced Wu pushes Lynx through a glass window. The moment-to-moment transition helps to show her fall in slow motion. What Lynx

did not know is what she would see at when she reached the ground would change her outlook on life

forever.

Moment-to-moment transitions help to show one

action in small chunks.

Following her fall through the roof, Lynx was shocked to see

that Batman had jumped down into the warehouse to save her. Batman’s act of

heroism is what made Lynx begin to really consider what

it meant to be a hero.

A character’s body language and the way s/he is drawn can say a lot about the current situation. If the character

is drawn so that the reader must “look up” to see him/her, that person

is perceived to be of importance. Likewise, a character on the ground or that a reader must “look down” to see is viewed to be in trouble or of

lower standing.

McCloud writes that using diagonal panels help to add an emotional aspect to the

scene.

In this panel, Vade-Faced Wu has ordered his men to attack

Lynx because she is “only” a girl. The diagonal tilt to the panel helps draw

the reader’s eye to the young child

crying.

Aspect-to-Aspect moves between subjects to set the

mood. All of the subjects in an aspect-to-aspect panel are

happening at the same time.

The young girl was worried for Lynx’s

safety once the fight re-started, but once Lynx proved that she could hold her own

against the goons, the young girl became

very pleased. This is when the girl started to see Lynx as a hero.

After defeating his goons, Lynx engages Wu in hand to hand

combat. Lynx is focused on

defeating Wu and his men so she can save the

young girl Wu is keeping hostage.

The use of overlap in this panel helps to

make the characters feel

more 3-dimensional.

Figuring ways to create depth helps to make a comic have a more real feel. As McCloud points out, this can be done by overlapping pictures, having characters stand at different

distances from each other, fading the background out slightly, or positioning characters on different spaces on the grid.

Unfortunately for Lynx, Wu lands a powerful

punch, knocking her to the ground. The use of breaking the fourth wall

helps the reader to imagine how hard Wu must have hit Lynx in

order to knock her down.

Breaking the fourth wall and having

pictures bleed into the white space surrounding the

panels is one technique used to

show action or emotion.

A duo-specific panel is when the words and

pictures “say” the same thing.

The middle panel on the top row is the duo-specific panel.

Batman dropped a smoke grenade in order to save the injured Lynx from battle, an action that a hero would do.

The young girl’s facial expression

shows the anger she felt after the goons started celebrating

for “scaring” Batman and Lynx away. The

girl was upset because she was

inspired seeing Lynx fight, and she knew that the goons had

been defeated during the battle.

Facial expressions can portray emotion even when words are not

present.

Batman continues his heroic actions by carrying Lynx out

of the building after dropping the smoke bomb. Because the two characters

are pictured slightly off-center, the reader’s eyes

are free to roam the panel. One of the things a reader

might see is broken glass on the ledge, suggesting that

the two escaped by jumping out of a window.

Having the subject of a panel just off center can help focus the reader’s

attention on other things taking place in a scene.

In the top panel, Lynx has just been badly injured by Vade-Faced Wu and needs

to be taken to see a doctor. In the bottom

panel, Lynx is already in the doctor’s room saying

that she needs to get back on the streets again to

save the young girl.

Unlike in other forms of media, showing that time has passed in a comic can easily be shown by using a word box. This technique, known as scene-to-scene,

allows for the writer to jump to a new scene

without spending valuable panel space explaining

how characters got from one place to another.

Lynx is explaining to Batman what it is

that makes her tick. She claims that just

because she is a criminal does not mean she doesn’t have feelings, a

foreshadowing of events to come.

Subject-to-subject allows the reader to view a scene from multiple angles as the story continues on. This technique is most

successful when multiple characters are having a

conversation.

Understanding how the flow of a page works helps to make

sure the reader stays engaged in the story. The choice of flow from panel to panel can also

help to add suspense and emotion to the story.The unique part about the choice of flow for this page is that two

events are shown. One event depicts Lynx ‘s

reaction when she found out that the

young girl died. The second event, shown in the panels going down the right side, shows

the young girl’s burst of inspiration to fight the

Wu and his goons because of her hero

Lynx.

Being intense is okay as long as it is done correctly

and in moderation. Using too much

emotion too often will cause the

emotional aspect of the comic to lose its feeling after a while.

The young girl lets out a triumphant yell after pushing Wu to his death. The intense emotion shown on the young girl’s face in

this panel is her emotional reaction to fighting and defeating the bad guys just like her hero Lynx been

able to do.

Once a scene has been established, using a variety of shots is

acceptable. One possible shot that could be used is a close-up. This shot is a

great way to show a character’s emotion.

Lynx has just learned that the young girl died fighting Wu and his men. Just before she passed away,

the young girl told asked an old man if she was “as brave as the

one-eyed warrior princess,” referring to Lynx. This revelation

brought Lynx to tears knowing that she had been this girl’s hero.

While Lynx might be crying, she is not completely sad. She has just found out that the young girl she

tried to save in the warehouse has died because she saw Lynx as a hero.

This makes her angry as she was a “hero” to the young child, and yet she was not able to save her from dying like every hero aspires to do.

An interdependent panel is when both the picture and the words are necessary in

order to understand what is happening. In the example from McCloud to the right,

losing either the picture or the words would give the panel a completely different

meaning.

Conclusion• Lynx finally understood what it meant to be a hero after she found

out about the young girl’s death. Being a hero does not necessarily mean that good always triumphs over evil. In this case, Lynx was a hero to the young girl because her heroic actions inspired the child to fight back against Wu and his goons when Lynx was unable to. Batman points out in the final panel of the issue that inspiring others and serving as a role model means just as much as making sure criminals do not prevale.