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    Batman

    Character » Batman appears in 23537 issues.

    Bruce Wayne, who witnessed the murder of his billionaire parents as a child, swore to avenge their deaths. He trained extensively to achieve mental and physical perfection, mastering martial arts, detective skills, and criminal psychology. Costumed as a bat to prey on the fears of criminals, and utilizing a high-tech arsenal, he became the legendary Batman.

    THE DARK KNIGHT - More Hidden Characters in Nolan's trilogy?

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    NaveTorment

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    #1  Edited By NaveTorment

    Okay so I know that we're all excited about Ben Affleck's portrayal of Batman in Dawn of Justice, with Snyder in the helm (the man who gave us Rorschach) and all the allusions to DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and the recent poster of Supes in Gotham City, I'm thinking that it'll be one of the best portrayals of the Dark Knight to date: it could start off with the first meeting between the titans as we've seen in John Byrne's Batman/Superman origin story in MoS, and could very well be a culture-piece showcasing how the two biggest superheroes in the world, who also happen to be polar-opposites, come together in a time when superheroes are culturally controversial (like they are in Kingdom Come or in Dark Knight Returns), with Supes being a pro-govt agent and Bats being the rebel and hopefully one epic fight scene in Crime Alley. This is, after all, Snyder's Batman, and if nothing else we know that Snyder's a stickler for comic-book precision (down to the point where he adapts Superman killing Zod straight out of John Byrne's books). I'm excited. Yes. I get it. But you know what was also the best Batman adaptation ever? Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight trilogy.

    This was a trilogy that was truly on a GRAND scale. Sure it was limited to just Batman, but the world it created around the Batman was NOT limited to just 6 or 7 major characters, there's an entire world in the Dark Knight universe that is living, that offers arguments and counter-arguments, that exists and is effected by the presence of Batman. And more importantly, it is very "real" in a very "neo-noir" sense. I don't think that Snyder, who's point of departure are the comics themselves, can ever look past the iconography of these characters, he doesn't look beyond the larger-than-life essence of these characters and allow us to glimpse into the ordinary, the real. That's something Nolan has done. Were this an academic post, I'd call Nolan's Gotham City a polyphonic or dialogic movie with a heteroglossia of voices -- there are multiple voices within the narrative which allows it to question itself, heck all of his villains are ideological opposites, to me the Dark Knight Trilogy is like a Leo Tolstoy novel, and I'm not exaggerating. It's there. Had this not been on film it should've been a novel.

    But there are these characters.... yes it's all populated with real-life people who are exist and who all have their own political and philosophical opinions, and it seems that in order to make that world more real and mature Nolan and Goyer deliberately used "character types" from the comics. So you have Det. Ramirez, who could have easily been Det. Rene Montoya, or Stephens who could have easily been Harvey Bullock, they refused to use the comic-characters because ultimately those characters deserve more than just a cameo. In the spirit of being a stand-alone piece, they refrained from making intertextual references like "This is why Superman works alone" (WHICH SUPERMAN DAMN IT?!!)

    However, as Super Fans we have this entire culture to ourselves (I myself was banned from Superherohype forums because of reasons undisclosed to me -- and I assume that it's because I was being too vocal on the forums about how awesome Nolan's films are, the admins there didn't take well to "Nolanites" but I don't know, that's another issue entirely) that Bat-culture, amogst fans, loves to go and make convulated arguments and connections from the films and I don't know about you guys but I still love over-analyzing The Dark Knight Trilogy.

    Which brings me to these characters who serve as comic-equivalents. For example, Ramirez is montoya; Stephens is Bullock; that fat asian guy in the prison camp at the beginning of Batman Begins was eerily like Ubu; Robin Blake is friggin Dick Grayson and all the other Robins combined; there was speculation amongst fans whether Mr. Reese was the Riddler himself, or if the Tattooed Prisoner at the end of TDK was Killer Croc since he visually resembles Croc from Azzarello's THE JOKER ogn (a book where you pretty much Heath Ledger's Joker, with the Glasgow smile, although Azzarello refuted such claims, saying he developed the idea independently). Nevertheless as fans we always make those connections and for a small aspect of us, it's actually a fun game.

    Well, it's been 6 years since TDK came out, and it's been 2 since I've been on a superhero comic-book forum, but I was going through older TV shows and I found out that one of the actresses from a now-almost cult-favourite British Soap called HOLLYOAKS featured a young actress who also starred in The Dark Knight. Her name is Sarah Jayne Dunn. And it's alright if you don't recognize her from the title-cards... it's because she played a relatively non-role. She is billed as "Maroni's Mistress" in the alleged "Iceberg Lounge" scene (the scene when Batman rips through Maroni's guards at the club, some crazy Bat-fans have suggested that that's the Iceberg Lounge even though there's no substantial proof of it). Maroni dismisses his date, before being pulled by Batman outside and interrogated.

    Now, correct me if I'm mistaken but... wasn't "Maroni's mistress" in The Long Halloween none other than SOFIA GIGANTE, aka Carmine Falcone's daughter? What do you guys think? Is this the hidden Sofia Gigante in Nolan's superhero crime saga? She's a soap star and I wouldn't really mind her being in that role, seeing as how Falcone is portrayed by the brilliant Tom Wilkinson, who is also an English actor.

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    What do you think? Also, what other "hidden" Batman characters do you see in Nolan's trilogy? Are all Bat-Fans meant to be committed to Arkham Asylum? Thanks for reading guys. Cheers.

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    NaveTorment

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    #2  Edited By NaveTorment

    2 days and no response? Am I in the wrong part of the forum? To continue with "possible hidden characters" in The Dark Knight, the next character I'm surprised didn't make an appearance is Oswald Cobblepot himself - The Penguin.

    Now, mind you that the Penguin is perhaps unique amongst Batman's villains for not being insane. He is still a "freak," just not part of the Arkham Inmates. He is a freak by birth and not accident, and as such Penguin's entire commitment to crime has been to contest or cope with that Napoleon complex.

    Which is why I think that there are a number of characters already in the Dark Knight trilogy who sort of functions the way Penguin does in a number of areas. As a villain, Penguin is your typical Nolan "clean-dressed" antagonist; he isn't a criminal as far as the law is concerned, and yet manages to be that noir-villain who is responsible for bootlegging goods, being a master of trade beyond currency, organizes or unites the various crime bosses and somehow still manages to stand above them. In all film-noir functions, he is Al Capone, sympathetic, controversial, against the law, and "untouchable." I'm surprised Jeph Loeb didn't use him more strongly in The Long Halloween. Either way, the Penguin functions in most stories as 1) the untouchable, "gentleman of crime" who wears a suit and is clean as far as the law is concerned; 2) he operates out of the Iceberg Lounge, which is essentially a speakeasy, and 3) he is the smallest villain who is able to operate above the Mob and is constantly bullied and thrashed by Batman and his allies.

    In the Dark Knight trilogy, that function is achieved by characters like Carmine Falcone, who had his own restaurant where all the wealthy and corrupt leaders of Gotham congregated; William Earle, as an untouchable gentleman criminal; and Lau, who was above the Mob and in that scene in the Dark Knight, was the polar opposite of the Joker when it came to uniting the Mob.

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    If we had the Penguin instead of Lau in this scene, it would still make sense because the Penguin is both above the Mob (as Lau is, since he combines their money and takes it away), part of organised crime, and finally the polar opposite to the Joker in respect to other criminals. As a character Lau also functions as the informant or stooge that Batman and his allies capture and interrogate; ultimately leading to the capturing of the "bigger fish" (in this case, the entire mob).

    As for casting the brilliant Rutger Hauer as Mr. Earle in Batman Begins, well he functions pretty much the same way as Cobblepot does by being "an enemy of Bruce Wayne," a member of the social elite, and most importantly as a "bad-guy" who is a "legitimate businessman." Next to Joe Chill, it's Earle who is perhaps the earliest foe Bruce encounters. In the Waynes' funeral scene in Batman Begins, Earle hungrily tells Bruce that he'll take care of Wayne Enterprises and offers his fake condolences.

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    The scene is taken out of Batman: Dark Victory, where instead of Earle, it was Carmine Falcone who comes to Bruce's parents' funeral and offers fake condolence. The impression is the same: a saddened, young Bruce recognises the enemy at an early age. In other words, the filmmakers felt that Earle's role was interchangeable with Carmine Falcone's, the legitimate Mob Boss of Gotham was the same as the legitimate business magnate in Gotham, that's an equation that only the Penguin could've completed (and, just to indulge my obsession, Earle's carrying an umbrella! Yay!)

    It's just sad because had the Penguin been in the trilogy, surely it would've been richer. I suppose Nolan and his team felt that a smaller role would not have done the character justice (like they did for most of the other characters), and really the notion of Batman being a "freak by birth" was never a thematic concern for the films, and I suppose that Carmine Falcone as the mafioso and the level of drama that he brought to the story couldn't have been achieved with Cobblepot. Still, one can wonder. And of course, I always imagined Nolan's Penguin to be a Bond villain who was less sympathetic and more sinister. The one who fits perfectly is of course, Goldfinger, as this business tycoon who is unstoppable, but also Le Chiffre:

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    Complete with a monocle-like glass eye. Le Chiffre had all the makings of the Penguin, and whereas Mads Mikkelsen did an incredible job as the greedy gambler obsessed with beauty and money, the original was played by none other than Peter Lorre, an archetype of film-noir freaks if there ever was one:

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    (he even looks the part)

    But the one non-Nolan character who feels like a Bond villain and possesses that white-collar villain that the Penguin represents, who could've really been an awesome addition to the Dark Knight universe and serve as a model for the Penguin... is the character played by Leonardo diCaprio in Sorcese's WOLF OF WALL-STREET:

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    Jordan Belfort would've been the perfect Penguin in a movie directed by Chris Nolan. I'm referring to the character, not the actor. And yes, by this point you know I've gone completely nuts.

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    deactivated-5d2b83d5a0d79

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    srsly tldr no offence breh ;3

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    AllStarSuperman

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    #4  Edited By AllStarSuperman

    It was gonna be a TLDR, I scrolled and stopped when I saw the underwear pictures, I still didn;t read.

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    deactivated-5edd330f57b65

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    awesome

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    DeathpooltheT1000

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    Nolan said he changed characters for others, if he didnt have big plans for them.

    So they could be those characters are made to mirror them.

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