Comic Book Influences on The Dark Knight Rises (SPOILERS)

[Paul (ral)]

Well done Ral! 

Well done Silver Nemesis & BatmAngelus! All down to them 

[BatmAngelus]

Nice!  I had a feeling the article would get the site some attention.  Even if Smith can't remember the name  . 

Hope Silver Nemesis hears this soon, since his comparisons to The Cult were the ones that got mentioned.

In some ways, I kind of like that he blanked on the name. "It's not [The Other Forum]."

I can live with that.

That is definitely nice compensation.   

[Silver Nemesis]

Kevin Smith described our feature as excellent! That's got to be one of the coolest compliments the site's ever received.

It's lovely to get positive feedback from anyone. But from someone like Smith in particular, who really knows his comics, it means a lot. This just made my day. And I'll bet BatmAngelus is grinning from ear to ear too.

[The Joker]

Couldn't remember site name, but brought up the feature, and the gist of what the site is about.

As Meatloaf would say; "Two out of three ain't bad."

[BatmAngelus]

Stumbled across this last night:
http://www.batmanytb.com/comics/titles/batman/0_100/batman40.php

Batman #40 had a story called "The Case of Batman II" which, according to Batman YTB, was about the following:

When Bruce Wayne dies in an accident, Robin and Alfred are forced to find a new Batman. They enlist a gymnast named Bill Randall, who replaces the Caped Crusader. The new Batman and Robin then defeat the gang of escaped convict Beetle Boles with help from Alfred.

Later, when Bruce's will is read, he turns up alive. He faked his death in order to expose his lawyer who doctored the will. Bruce was really Bill Randall all along. Robin was in on the trick, but Alfred was not in order for his grief to fool the lawyer.

Bruce/Batman faking his death and Alfred not knowing about it?  And I thought that was a jerk move original to the movie!

Also worth noting is that this story was preceded years earlier by a 1944 comic strip in the newspaper called "The Secret of Triangle Farm" where, as a predecessor to Knightfall decades later, Bruce/Batman is incapacitated and Robin must work with a new Batman- Bill Randall.

Here, Randall is NOT Bruce in disguise, but a separate character. 

He's a GCPD cop!  Specifically, a sergeant.

Now, even though the film stated that Blake was promoted to detective, the official description here (I believe it's from The Dark Knight Rises: Secret Files Scrapbook that was an official tie-in) says that he's a sergeant:
http://i.imgur.com/I1Jyvl.jpg

Don't quote me on this, but this story may have been the first time in history that Batman ever needed a replacement.  The fact that his first choice was an upstanding Gotham City cop whose name was reused in a comic issue in which Bruce faked his death and kept it from Alfred seems eerily coincidental.

For those curious about the Triangle Farm story, Sgt. Randall's Batman ends up sharing the same fate that many have speculated for John Blake's Batman.

He gets killed.

[gordonblu]

A belated congrats on the Smith shout-out!

[BatmAngelus]

Speaking of Smith, I was listening to Kevin Smith and Marc Bernardin's commentary on The Dark Knight Returns Part 2 last night and they noted that Batman's EMP gun in Rises may have been inspired by the sonic gun in Miller's comic when Batman faces off against Superman:


I'm not sure about it since the gun is a different design and has a different purpose from the EMP gun in the movie, but thought I'd point it out.

Funny enough, a "Sonic Neutralizer" was sold as a toy for the 1989 Batman movie (scroll to the bottom).
http://www.legionsofgotham.org/FIGURESmoviesTDKC.html
http://www.legionsofgotham.org/ActionFigures/Movie/TDKC/TDKCrpSonicNeutralizer.jpg

[Silver Nemesis]

Yeah, they're quite different really. One of them is a sonic gun, the other an electromagnet. If anything, I think the EMP rifle was closer to Adam West's super powered bat-magnet from the sixties TV show.

But it's cool that Smith is looking for the same comic-to-movie parallels we are. It's only a pity he doesn't post on these boards so he could contribute to our features.

[BatmAngelus]

I'd say that's a closer match.  I'm going to get into the 1960s series soon, from whatever episodes I can find.  Which episode(s) does Batman use that bat-magnet?

Also, I just finished reading The Cult and wow...I would be very surprised if Goyer and the Nolan brothers hadn't read this one.  Great call on including it in the comic book influences feature, Silver.  After going through it, I think TDKRises adapted more of this comic than any of the others that get cited. 

To recap, here's what Silver Nemesis pointed out in the feature:
- the villain recruiting the army of homeless in the sewers
- the execution of influential citizens
- the public hanging of dead bodies
- Bruce getting captured, broken, and left to hang
- Bruce spending time in exile and returning to Gotham as Batman
- Bruce/Batman visiting Gordon in the hospital.  (Note: In the comic, Gordon is shot by a sniper while on the podium.  It's possible this is what influenced the previous film when Gordon was "shot" by Joker and faked his death).

Here are a few other similarities I caught:
- A fight in the sewers between Batman and the villain in front of the villain's underlings, where one of them gets broken and defeated.  (In the comic, this is how Batman defeats Deacon Blackfire.  I think the Nolans and Goyer combined this setting with the Knightfall Batcave fight)
- The villain mentally and physically "breaks" Batman, which Bruce has to recover from.
- the class warfare element.  Nolan can cite A Tale of Two Cities and the media can cite the Occupy movement, but I say this part came from writer Jim Starlin in The Cult.
- The Mayor gets blown up by the villain.
- Batman, while imprisoned, gets told legends of the villain's origins, which may or may not be true.
- Bruce/Batman is imprisoned underground and has to escape.
- The villain has a ton of followers/believers and plans to be a martyr by dying for his cause
- Batman having to resort to guns.  In the comic, it's with tranquilizer rifles.  In the movie, it's with the machine guns on The Bat
- The villain blows up the bridges that lead up to Gotham and fights off all of the government's attempts to re-enter the city and maintain order.  (Bane's takeover is very similar to Deacon Blackfire's and makes me feel that the movie was trying to emulate this part of The Cult as opposed to No Man's Land).
- In the finale, Batman storms in with his latest assault vehicle and leads an army to take back Gotham.

[thecolorsblend]

Also, I just finished reading The Cult and wow...I would be very surprised if Goyer and the Nolan brothers hadn't read this one.  Great call on including it in the comic book influences feature, Silver.  After going through it, I think TDKRises adapted more of this comic than any of the others that get cited.

I do too since you mention it. I realize No Man's Land is the more popular and well-known story but I think the real influence is The Cult. As you say, you can draw a much straighter line between TDKRises and The Cult than NML.