The Death Ray by Daniel Clowes is a graphic novel about the story of Andy and how he learned about his superpowers. A superhero is someone who has saved the day by accomplishing something heroic for the good of others. Even though we look at superheroes as a something fiction, based on this we have everyday heroes around us such as firefighters, police officers, doctors and many more. In Clowes work, we quickly discover that this superhero theme plays out a little differently than what we are used to. The way that Clowes presents Andy to his super power, it is clear this is not an ordinary superhero story. It is arguable that despite the fact that Andy did more harm than good with his powers, his intentions were good therefore, he would be …show more content…
To start out, on page 22, Andy witnesses and older gentlemen getting his TV stolen by two thieves. Andy immediately goes after the thieves in revenge for the old man. On page 11 we see Andy stepping in to rescue his friend, Louie. Louie was in a situation where he was getting beat up at school and Andy decided to take the risk to helping his friend out. As we see what Andy did in both situations, Andy could be considered very heroic. In a superhero story, a heroic action is something in which the character decided to help someone else for a positive outcome. By this, what Andy did here he would be considered a hero. Contrary to being a hero, Andy also behaved in a way that caused more harm than good in some parts to the story. On page 23, as Andy tests his death ray he kills an innocent squirrel. This is not very heroic because he abused the use of his power for something completely harmless. We can see afterwards the action really had a negative effect on Andy. In the last panel on page 23, the color scheme is very dark with lots of black and some yellow. Also, we see a speech bubble, but can’t see the words he is saying. This represents the way Andy was lost and speechless after this incident. Because Andy was feeling down after what he did, we can conclude that even though he made a bad mistake, that one mistake doesn’t define who his …show more content…
However, as we see, Clowes approaches the superhero genre in a way that most don’t. He does things out of the normal but with the way he does it in combination with his form, Clowes makes a story that keeps the audience interested. Clowes does a good job from that start of the book by incorporating the use of color into the way the plot plays out. Right in the beginning of the book it is clear that Andy’s childhood had a negative effect on his life and left his adulthood with a feeling of emptiness and oppression. We can infer from the way the panels were drawn; the ones of his childhood were full of bright color and representation of life. In opposition, the panels drawn of Andy as an adult had dull colors and expressed the lifelessness and oppression that he was left facing. As the story unfolds, we quickly realize that because Andy was unable to fulfill his hopes of saving the world from evil, he was left with a feeling of regret and that feeling would control him for the rest of his life. “After that, I went through a dark time, I even became Christian for a little while. I was lost, I’ll admit it.” (Page 37). From this quote, we can see that Andy was at a lost for his life and didn’t know what to
We were the lords of all creation. As for andy he spent that break hunkered in the shade, a strange little smile on his face, watching us drink his beer." This quote shows how little things teh prisoners get can make them happy.Another example would be when he used the hammer to escape from prison. It started when he asked Red to get him a rok hammer, which he said he would use to shape rocks. He calms Red's conscious as he tells it would take him a thousand years to break out of prison with a rosk hammer.When he received the rosk hammer he started to shape rocks as soon as he could and hidden that hole with a poster.After he had the hole big enough to crawl throught, he asked Heywood for a six-foot piece of rope.
In the short story “On the Sidewalk Bleeding”, Andy suffers with the inner conflict of his self-identity
Andy goes to psychologist, Dr. Carrothers, to discuss his depression about Rob's death. He does not think he needs to be there because he is fine in school and he is fine at home. Andy talks about why the accident is his fault. He realizes he needs help with his depression and wants to come back for another visit to discuss what is going...
The creators of this movie used several effective, and often subtle, methods to illustrate the hope found in Andy and his surroundings. Andy was always portrayed as a clean-cut and well-groomed prisoner with his shirt always buttoned and his hair always combed. This self-respect was in great contrast to the other prisoners who were portrayed as dirty, stereotypical prisoners. The common prisoners also had vocabularies and grammar that were far inferior to Andy’s. The distinctions between Andy and the common prisoners showed that Andy was different, those differences were that he had hope.
and Mrs. Leonard were not satisfied with their income; as a result, they used to go through other trash and pick free items. Mrs. Leonard gave very miserable time to Andy while he did not do as she wanted. While Andy was in Faster home, social worker rarely visit him, and his mother also visited him once in awhile. Living in the foster home, he also met with someone who taught him to write poems. Since the age of fourteen, he worked and started to save for his future life. There used to be a time when he was bitted up by Mrs. Leonard, and she used to warned him by saying that she would called social worker. Only one time Andy met with his grandmother during those eleven years of foster care. By being in loveless childhood, but it kept a roof over his head and got him through high school. Regardless being in the foster family who was not willing to accept him as their own, he remind very strong. Andy achieved many honors in his school, took part-time job, and determined by everywhere by his bicycle. With the help of his teachers and counselor, he succeed to graduated from the high school, and figure out what he wanted to with his life. Ultimately, Andy earned a full-scholarship to go Wesleyan, then later he went on to Harvard Law
This relates to Andy because he was wounded for being a part of the Royals. A couple would not call for help and the Police Officer was not as pleasant after finding out he was a Royal. In the short story, “On the Sidewalk Bleeding” by Evan Hunter, Andy was stabbed due to being in a gang, and people would not help him because of that. Andy could have survived if someone would have helped him. If someone is different, be the person to help them, not to ignore
It is clear that sometimes Andy abused his powers to do what he thought was right and this was based solely off of Andy’s opinion. We see that he lived with regret for the mistakes he made and but in the end, he is still a superhero. The way this superhero story is told is different than most superhero stories, but the thing to take away from this is that a superhero is someone that has the intentions to save the world. Superheroes sometimes make mistakes and do action not based on the best efforts, but that doesn’t change who they are. They are still a superhero. In this story, Andy had good intentions, but sometimes his opinion wasn’t the same as the people around
First, Andy preserves his self-respect by fighting or defending himself from the rape squad of Shawshank Prison known as “The Sisters”.
Andy loses his best friend in a car wreck after drinking and driving. This affects Andy greatly. Draper shows Andy having to go to therapy for his depression from losing Robert. The beginning of therapy sessions were not great. Andy
One morning when the guards are checking the cells, they discover that Andy is not in his cell. The warden throws rocks out of anger and throws one at the poster of a female Andy had taped on his cell wall. The rock goes straight through once they take down the poster, they see a hole in the wall. Andy had been digging this hole for twenty long years and used it to escape the prison. In the film, there is a scene of Andy in which he stands in the rain with his hands in the air as a free man. He takes in the rain on the other side of the prison and we see the happiness he feels knowing his plan worked. This scene shows us the success and accomplishment he feels knowing that due to his hard work over the years, he is now a free man. Once Andy escapes, he goes to Zihuatanejo, Mexico to start a new life, like he had told Red earlier on in the film. Once Red is granted parole, he is sent to the same hotel as Brooks and works at the same grocery store as well. The difference between Brooks and Red is that Red has a reason to keep going once he is out of the prison. He states “Only one thing stops me. A promise I made to Andy.” (). As he sits in his hotel room. This shows that Andy left a lasting impression on Red and also instilled hope in him to not give up like Brooks had. In the prison, Red was a man who had nothing to look forward to and gave up on ever getting parole but after being exposed to Andy and his beliefs, Red changed his thinking. When Red goes to finally meet Andy in Mexico, he says “I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams … I hope. “ (). This shows that someone who had said that hope is a dangerous thing now hopes for so many things, all because of Andy and his
Otis sat at his tattered corner booth, the pale pink and teal upholstery ripped and worn by all those who had rested there before him. His charcoal-grey hair was oily and unkept as if he hadn’t known the pleasure of a shower or a comb since his early days in the war. His once green army jacket, faded to a light grey, covered the untucked, torn, and sweat-stained Goodwill T-shirt under it. He wore an old pair of denim blue jeans that were shredded in the knees and rested three inches above his boney ankles; exposing the charity he depended upon. His eyes, filled with loneliness and despair as if he had realized a lack of purpose in his life, were set in bags of black and purple rings two layers deep. His long, slender nose was set above a full crooked mouth with little lines at the corners giving his face the character of someone who used to smile often, but the firm set of his square jaw revealed a portrait of a man who knew only failure.
Andy was extremely self-aware, which means that he knows himself for who he really is (Bradberry & Greaves, 2009). On his first night in prison and was quiet and calm. Under the circumstances you would think that he would be an emotional mess, yet Andy held himself together and didn't shed a single tear. Self-management is also very important and Andy was able to do this well. The book states that having good self-management is being able to look at a situation and look at the outcomes before you head in the wrong direction (Bradberry & Greaves, 2009).