"The Science of Superheroes" By Lois H. Gresh and Robert E. Weinberg

Summary of Chapter 3, The Dark Knight: Batman
Batman is one of the most iconic comic book superheroes. However, he is distinctly different than all the others. Batman is the only superhero without superpowers. Bruce Wayne is just an average man. He was able to become Batman by rigorously training his body and mind. Batman defeats his evil enemies by outsmarting them.
Another thing that sets Batman apart from the other superheroes are his roots. Batman’s past is very dark. He was inspired to become Batman because he witnessed both his parents get murdered by a street crook. Also he has a sidekick, Robin. Robin assists Batman in fighting the villains they face in Gotham city. These villains are very unique and similar to Batman they possess no superpowers.
To fight these villains, Batman utilizes realistic high tech devices, such as lasers jet packs, and aerial cameras. The earliest mention of lasers can be found in Einstein's theories of 1917. Jet packs do exist, they were created by Wendell F. Moore in the 1960's. However, they are very impractical as they only contain enough fuel for a flight of 20 seconds. Lastly, aerial surveillance has been around since the 1950's, a little bit before Batman's time.
Batman’s utility belt contains the most crucial tools for him to use when fighting the villains. His belt contains explosives, an infrared flashlight, smoke and gas capsules, fingerprint tracing equipment, a miniature camera, lock-picks, and a small oxyacetylene torch. Everything in Batman‘s utility belt also exists in the society we live in today. Though, some of the items in the 1960s weren't invented yet. This goes to show that the comic Batman may have predicted a few things.
One of the Batman comics released, "Cataclysm", has an earthquake in Gotham city. The damage done was horrendous. There were city-wide fires, collapsed buildings and bridges, and power outages. The city was completely cut off from help.

Gotham city is based off of New York City, which is located on a Continental rift. Not many people are worried about earthquakes in New York City, however they are possible. As a result, New York City is horribly unprepared for such an occurrence. It’s skyscrapers are built too close to each other and the buildings are too high to survive and strong earthquake. Also the infrastructure of the city is much more outdated that cities that commonly have earthquakes. If an earthquake similar to the one in "Cataclysm" happened in real life, then New York City would be completely wrecked.






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