While reading the book description,
you had a hunch. While reading the first chapter, you had an idea and if you’ve
made it to the last page, then you should outright know that Kid Silver: Alone is inspired by the
Dark Knight and the Boy Wonder. While describing Kid Silver: Alone, I commonly referred to the book as Batman and Robin with the serial numbers
filed off. I’ve had a lot of weird ideas about Batman and Robin, foremost being
the relationship between Bruce Wayne and the various Robins.
One day, in the late summer of
2012, I was watching Justice League: A
New Frontier on cable. There’s this scene, in which Robin makes a cameo,
bounding in while Batman has a conversation with Superman. Superman notes
Batman’s new clothes, (he had traded in his black and gray costume for a blue
and gray one.) and that he had a kid running around the cave.
“What’s with the kid?” Superman
asks.
“It’s my job to stop criminals. Not
to scare children.” Batman replies grimly. I should mention that this statement
is in reaction to an earlier scene where Batman is rescuing a child from a
Doomsday cult. Batman had beaten the cult members to a bloody pulp with the aid
of two detectives, one of whom becomes The Martian Man-hunter. The child
recoils from Batman and one of the detectives, Jon Jones’s partner, scolds him,
saying “ Give him some room. You’re scaring the kid.”
We all know the origins of the
first Robin or, at least, we know a version of the origin. We know that Robin’s
parents were performers in the circus and that they were murdered, much like
Batman’s parents. Batman and Robin, sort of, bond over their shared tragedies
and Batman teaches Robin how to be a hero. When Batman said, “It’s my job to
stop criminals. Not to scare children”, the Robin origin changed into something
dark and interesting. In this incarnation, Batman had made Robin into a tool,
like his new blue suit. He was using Robin to make himself appear less
intimidating to children, which was actually the DC’s reasoning for creating
the Robin character. Batman had been growing darker and more authoritative in
children’s eyes, so they created a character, a child character, garbed in
bright red and yellow.
There are deeper tones to the Gray
Knight and Kid Silver relationship than one of a man using a child as a tool,
but that’s how the idea began and I couldn’t help but keep that dynamic for a
little while. The Gray Knight gives orders to Kid Silver in the same way that
someone might give orders to an iPhone 5. ‘Maxwell, get rid of the body.’
I turned to the Internet, asking
the question: Do you think Batman loves Robin? The Internet hadn’t disappointed
me, giving me a slue of disgusting suggestions, but among the notions of
Robin’s sexual slavery, I had gotten answers referring to Batman’s and Robins
relationship as being brotherly rather than a relationship between a father and
a son. Although Robin is called a sidekick, they consider Robin to be a partner
to Batman, instead.
The seeds of Kid Silver: Alone had also begun with a half-formed three-panel
joke for a comic strip I had thought up. The joke made its way into the end of
the book when Boss Vincent is speaking with Maxwell. Batman and Robin race into
an abandoned Planetarium (because they apparently fucking have those). Mr.
Freeze has turned the lens of the Planetarium’s giant telescope into a freeze
ray and he threatens to throw Gotham into a new ice age. Mr. Freeze’s henchmen
aren’t scientists. They’re guys who get paid to hit other guys. I doubt that
they’d know how to work a freeze ray. They’re just there to get in Batman and
Robin’s way while the freeze ray warms up (or cools down. I’m not sure how a
freeze ray works.) In a lot of cases, Robin is there to keep the henchmen busy
while Batman goes after the main bad guy. In this case, that’s Mr. Freeze.
Technically, in this scenario, Robin and the henchmen can just go home, nothing
they can do will change the outcome of this fight…or will it? That’s where the
joke falls apart. I could easily see the henchmen running out to grab a beer
while everything gets figured out, but I can’t see Robin doing that. Even if
Batman were to have his neck broken in front of Robin, I think Robin would stay
and fight. Robin is called a sidekick, but I think he knows what it feels like
to be a hero, to be a real hero, to fight when you had no hope of winning.
This sparked an idea inside of me.
I was curious how Alfred would feel about Robin looking to finish the work of
the slain Batman. Dr. Sparks and Alfred don’t exactly maintain the same role,
but Dr. Sparks was born out of the reaction I expected out of Alfred. If Batman
and Robin had a brotherly love, who was their father? In my opinion, that would
be Alfred. One of the major problems with new writers writing Young Adult
fiction is that they forget that the main character is under-aged, therefore
there lives are governed by a parent r guardian. There has to be a reason why
the parent or guardian is allowing the main character to go on the adventure.
For Harry Potter, his parents were dead and his guardians didn’t care
about him. With Ender of Ender’s Game,
his parents didn’t have a choice in the matter. The government wanted Ender and
his parents couldn’t say anything about it. In The Hunger Games, the main character’s father was dead and her
mother didn’t have a choice. In the case of Kid
Silver: Alone, Harry Garrison forced him into this adventure and Dr. Sparks
tries his hardest to stop the adventure from happening, but can’t. I imagine
that Alfred would have tried to stand in Robin’s way if he could. He would have
lost one sudo-son. He wouldn’t have been able to lose another one. He wouldn’t
allow Robin to risk it.
Next, let me ask you a question. Is
Altruism real? Do you believe that it is possible to do a good deed without any
reward what so ever? Something you may have noticed in this novel, is that
there are no classic hero moments. No instances where a wide-eyed beauty clasps
her hands together and says, ‘Oh, you’re my hero’ to Maxwell. It’s a
half-explored concept that I can’t take all the credit for, but every heroic
act Maxwell engages in is tinged with some sort of major failure. In the first
chapter, where Maxwell and Harry seek to save a rich man’s daughter, they find
her long dead and Maxwell remarks on how all the criminals would probably end
up back on the street because he and Harry hadn’t been cops. They hadn’t read
anyone their Miranda Rights.
Think about being a hero who can
only fail, who is always a few moments too late to save the girl. How long do
you realistically think you could keep fighting crime when you know that people
are going to die anyway. How long before you walk away?
If I were to make another Kid Silver novel, Maxwell would not be
Kid Silver anymore. Part of it is obvious. He had been arrested for Aggravated
assault on a Police Officer and Assault with A Deadly Weapon on a Police
Officer. He’s not getting out of jail anytime soon. Therefore, he wouldn’t be a
Kid Anything, anymore. The other part is that Maxwell had seen too much failure
as a hero. The victims will cry out, but he would learn not to listen.
Throughout Kid Silver: Alone, Maxwell tears his life apart to save the day. To
stop Alan Sown, he had to lose Elena, his first love. He had to turn on Dr.
Sparks, his only positive father-figure. He had become a fugitive, sacrificing
his own identity as a hero. Ultimately, he even loses his freedom. With each
knick and tear, he could have stopped. He could have walked away, but instead
he raged forward like someone crawling across broken glass and barbed wires to
save another’s life.
Like I said, I hadn’t thought this
concept out completely. Most of it happened on accident, but while editing it,
the question kept arising. When Harry was kidnapped, I asked myself if I would
save him. When Maxwell had been beaten unconscious by the villains of North
City and Dr. Sparks takes him to New York, I asked myself if I would go back.
When Elena died, I asked if I would still think the city was worth it. Maxwell
is the ultimate Altruist, in my eyes because he doesn’t even get to have the
feeling that he was right in his actions. He gets absolutely nothing from his
adventure except for the peace of jail cell.
No comments:
Post a Comment