Batman 3 is titled "The Dark Knight Rises"

[Nephrite]

Clearly, you haven't read many Hugo Strange comics, specifically the storyline Prey.

Hugo Strange is pretty fun. And there are many depictions of him where he's kinda badass. And the neat hook is he knows who Batman is.

Yeah, but everybody knows that. :D Apparently, in Gotham the easiest thing is to figure out who Batman is.

Ra's al Ghul figured it out cause Batman drives a fast car so he must be Bruce Wayne.

Silver St. Cloud figured it out cause Bruce Wayne had wet hair... so he must be Batman!

Simon Hurt looks ridiculous and is a sad attempt by Grant Morrison to insert the DeveeL!! into Batman comics which didn't work. The Joker wasn't kidding when he called him a failed attempt at an archenemy. Now they've retconned him into being some kind of time-traveling ancestor of the Wayne's who worshipped Satan. Dumb.

/end comic book geek rant

Simon Hurt is a guy in a black suit.

And all that stuff about Hurt being the devil was just Hurt's BS. It's not like it was definitive that he was the devil. It was only a mind-game/possibility and Hurt was pretty much lying all the time and went by a bunch of aliases and talked shit about a lot of stuff. And Morrison wrote the Joker saying that, so... whatever. It was exactly the opposite of the usual trope when writers wanna make some character bad-ass, so he beats up Wolverine as some form of shorthand for making him cool.

And Morrison himself said that Hurt is a gibbering idiot with a very comic-booky origin.

I don't really see what's sad or dumb about it. It's comics and crazier shit happened in them. And that was how the character was portrayed. There was no retcon except making him a bad guy as opposed to just some army scientist from a story-long-ago.

It's not like they went from THE devil to A devil-worshipper as some kind of after-the-fact retcon by a disgruntled John Byrne coming to fix the mess of a previous creator because the status-quo isn't what it was back in the day. He's origin was a mystery till the end.

It's just my opinion, just like it's just mine opinion that Strange looks like a leprechaun, which I suppose makes him cool in the garden-decorating community.

And, what the hell maybe he would work in the movie, but now that he's in Arkham City, I think it will be someone else, to avoid confusion or something. WB can be weird about stuff like that. Like when Nightwing couldn't appear in JLU, cause it would cinfude people who watched The Batman.

If the film is now officially "rises" though, I'd hope the name would fit thematically either in the sense Batman "returns from the dead" after a leave of absence, or he becomes far more aggressive in his tackling of Gotham's problems eg realises he could probably do more good using his billions to improve the city/fund the police

The cops are corrupt, so giving them money is like burning it. And he'll need that money for the lawyer if they ever catch him.

He became Batman to be a symbol, but all that fell through now that he's a wanted criminal.

I think the whole "rises" thing is more in line with knighthood and the whole "Rise, Sir Whatever" thing.

[Kelli Fury]

I don't think you can do Harley Quinn with the Joker 100% offscreen and not botch it. I've heard the Penguin/PSH rumor and I really think it would be the best option, though I quite enjoyed Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow and wouldn't mind a reprise of that. I will be pissed if TwoFace is back, because while Eckhart did a great job as Harvey Dent, his TwoFace was horrendous. I hope it's the Penguin, though, I'm curious how he would look since Danny DeVito physically IS the comic book Penguin, it could be really cool to see the character reimagined

[Ski the Swift]

No Penguin and no bringing back Twoface Kay, it has been mentioned earlier in the thread.

[Trebla]

I really think who the villain is going to be is less important than what the theme of the movie is about. BB was about fear. TDK was about escalation. What direction they head in should lead them to the next villain rather than picking one and building a new story around it.

Frankly, while TDK was a brilliant movie and Ledger's Joker an all-time great I like BB better. I loved the origin story and how it was threaded with Bruce Wayne's fear of bats and the criminal underworld. He wasn't afraid of them per se but of what they would do to his loved ones. His scene with Carmine Falcone is my favorite of either movie.

Carmine Falcone: You're taller than you look in the tabloids, Mr. Wayne.

[one of Falcone's attendant bodyguards gives Bruce a rough going-over to check for weapons but comes up with nothing]

Carmine Falcone: No gun? I'm insulted! You could have just sent a thank-you note.

Bruce Wayne: I didn't come here to thank you. I came here to show you that not everyone in Gotham's afraid of you.

Carmine Falcone: Only those who know me, kid. Look around you: you'll see two councilmen, a union official, a couple off-duty cops, and a judge.

[points a gun at Bruce]

Carmine Falcone: Now, I wouldn't have a second's hesitation of blowing your head off right here and right now in front of 'em. Now, that's power you can't buy! That's the power of fear.

Bruce Wayne: I'm not afraid of you.

Carmine Falcone: Because you think you got nothing to lose. But you haven't thought it through. You haven't thought about your lady-friend down at the D.A.'s office. You haven't thought about your old butler. Bang!

[Falcone pulls the trigger, but the hammer falls on an empty chamber with a click; he puts the gun away]

Carmine Falcone: People from your world have so *much* to lose. Now, you think because your mommy and your daddy got shot, you know about the ugly side of life, but you don't. You've never tasted desperate. You're, uh, you're Bruce Wayne, the Prince of Gotham; you'd have to go a thousand miles to meet someone who didn't know your name. So, don't-don't come down here with your anger, trying to prove something to yourself. This is a world you'll never understand. And you always fear what you don't understand. Alright.

[Falcone gives his bodyguards a signal to remove Bruce; they take hold of him, and he struggles against their grip]

Carmine Falcone: Yeah, you got spirit, kid. I'll give you that. More than your old man, anyway. In the joint, Chill told me, uh, told me about the night he killed your parents. He said your father begged for mercy. Begged. Like a dog.

[Tobin]

You're, uh, you're Bruce Wayne, the Prince of Gotham; you'd have to go a thousand miles to meet someone who didn't know your name.

And thats how he ended up in China.

I always thought it was cute how that matched up - and that despite how much he despised Carmine, he took his advice to heart knowing it was true.

[alguien]

Simon Hurt is a guy in a black suit.

And all that stuff about Hurt being the devil was just Hurt's BS. It's not like it was definitive that he was the devil. It was only a mind-game/possibility and Hurt was pretty much lying all the time and went by a bunch of aliases and talked shit about a lot of stuff.

Actually you are wrong. Here's what Grant Morrison had to say:

There's a doctor who's got some good lines in the original story [Robin Dies At Dawn], and he's never named. I thought, "What if he's a bad guy?" That became Dr. Hurt. I thought, "Wow...there was a guy who had access to Batman's psychology for 10 days. That's my villain!" I also thought it was a way to sort of reinvigorate those old stories, as a service to DC, to sell some more of the older books and collections.

The minute I say who he is...it will stop people talking. I was trying to do a definitive Batman story. Batman's stories tend to pit Batman against a diabolical mastermind. I thought, "Who's the ultimate diabolical mastermind?" This is a story about Batman's Black Casebook which is all the mysterious cases, the ones that are supernatural or bizarre. So for me, this is the ultimate supernatural Batman story. There are clues, there are places in fact, where they actually state who's he up against in the story. But people don't want to accept the supernatural explanation. But yes: This is the story of how Batman cheats The Devil.

[Nephrite]

Actually you are wrong. Here's what Grant Morrison had to say:

Yes, well it's an interview from 2009 in which Morrison doesn't wanna reveal Hurt's ID (2nd paragraph, 1st sentence). And the devil or the ultimate diabolical mastermind that he mentions is, you know, Darkseid. Who Batman does cheat by surviving and not blowing up the 21st century with Omega energy.

Hurt is apparently immortal because of his contact with the hyper-adapter, but he's not the actual Lucifer. He might be Jack the Ripper, though. :D

[red snow]

I'm a couple of issues behind on the batman titles but you can always rely on Morrison to craft enjoyable stuff that is utterly fucking ridiculous.

Back to the movie, has anyone read the "I've read the script" rumour? I guess I should put it in spoilers on the off-chance it's true

Hugo strange is the villain but Talia al ghul is in it. Hardy is probably playing the Black Mask and killer croc is a freaky albino/green-skinned action villain. Apparently Strange had Scarecrow carry out his bidding in Begins and has been manipulating various events since then

It smells of wank-fantasy-fic to me as i very much doubt they'd use the weirder villain mentioned - although he was in the animated shorts tie in. Otherwise it confirms several rumours (but that also backs up my suspicions).

[alguien]

I'm a couple of issues behind on the batman titles but you can always rely on Morrison to craft enjoyable stuff that is utterly fucking ridiculous.

Back to the movie, has anyone read the "I've read the script" rumour? I guess I should put it in spoilers on the off-chance it's true

Hugo strange is the villain but Talia al ghul is in it. Hardy is probably playing the Black Mask and killer croc is a freaky albino/green-skinned action villain. Apparently Strange had Scarecrow carry out his bidding in Begins and has been manipulating various events since then

It smells of wank-fantasy-fic to me as i very much doubt they'd use the weirder villain mentioned - although he was in the animated shorts tie in. Otherwise it confirms several rumours (but that also backs up my suspicions).

All that seems too fantastical to me as well...

Too many villains. And Killer Croc? Just, no...

[alguien]

Yes, well it's an interview from 2009 in which Morrison doesn't wanna reveal Hurt's ID (2nd paragraph, 1st sentence). And the devil or the ultimate diabolical mastermind that he mentions is, you know, Darkseid. Who Batman does cheat by surviving and not blowing up the 21st century with Omega energy.

Hurt is apparently immortal because of his contact with the hyper-adapter, but he's not the actual Lucifer. He might be Jack the Ripper, though. :D

Morrison NEVER wanted to confirm Hurt's ID. And Darkside wasn't behind RIP at all, and that's what Morrison is referring to, so your logic doesn't work. He's talking about Hurt and and saying he wanted Batman to fight the Devil.

I think he started out as being "the Devil" but since he kinda failed as a villian, Morrison, who's stated he would have preferred to keep his identity ambigous, was forced by editorial mandate to retcon him.

[Nephrite]

Morrison NEVER wanted to confirm Hurt's ID.

Well, you can't read his mind, just like I can't. But, I assume he can plot ahead. And since Hurt "gave" his soul to Barbatos in 18th century and got immortality for it, which turned out to be just Darkseid's weapon against Batman, Darkseid was indirectly behind RIP.

I think he started out as being "the Devil" but since he kinda failed as a villian, Morrison, who's stated he would have preferred to keep his identity ambigous, was forced by editorial mandate to retcon him.

What is this fail you keep talking about? A lot of people like him, and it's not like if he did fail, DC felt they needed to retcon it REALLY-REALLY fast cause Morrison ruined the Devil for everybody else. Like what a failure as a Devil this guy turned out to be... gee, they better fix it or nobody will ever be able to use the Devil in a DC comicbook ever again now that Morrison made Hurt the Devil. Forever and ever.

Devil existed long before RIP, and I bet there's a DC comicbook with the devil in it coming out next week. And the one after that.

Hurt is created by Morrison, it's not a brand that DC really needs to protect if it fails.

Hurt turned out to be Wayne's crazy ancestor, and all the stuff he says during RIP is just red herrings to mess with Bruce. He also claims that he's Bruce's dad, and it's not like that's the truth either.... that got retconned later cause it was a failure.

Surely if he was the devil he wouldn't need henchmen from South America and other stupid stuff, he could just use devil-magic or whatever.

[alguien]

Well, you can't read his mind, just like I can't. But, I assume he can plot ahead. And since Hurt "gave" his soul to Barbatos in 18th century and got immortality for it, which turned out to be just Darkseid's weapon against Batman, Darkseid was indirectly behind RIP.

Darkseid had nothing to do with RIP. As of now, Wayne/Hurt gave his soul to a demon and later initiated the Black Glove on his own. (of course, that can retconned away later, which is what I dislike about time travel) If anything, it worked against Darkseid's plan, since it seemed to make Bruce Wayne stronger in mind, allowing him to break free of Darkseid's mental trap while the New God was trying to clone him. The quote I mentioned clearly is about Simon Hurt.

What is this fail you keep talking about? A lot of people like him, and it's not like if he did fail, DC felt they needed to retcon it REALLY-REALLY fast cause Morrison ruined the Devil for everybody else. Like what a failure as a Devil this guy turned out to be... blah blah...

I think the overall story failed, but to be honest, I've never thought Grant Morrison was a good choice for as a Batman helmer. He was brilliant in JLA, and really got how Batman fit into that scheme, but his whole Batman run has been... just odd. He thinks its clever to reintroduce something from a What If story or the 60's camp and reintegrate it into a gritty mythos and it isn't. I'm trying to think of one original idea he has that wasn't borrowed from another Batman story and I can't. He can write the characters well, I give him that, but his plots make no sense. Also, I still have a bitter aftertaste from Final Crisis. So glad I waited until that load of whatzefug was in the library instead of buying it. YMMV.

[Nephrite]

Darkseid had nothing to do with RIP.

I did say indirectly. If it wasn't for Darkseid's hyper-adapter, Hurt would've died in a basement in Massachusetts back in 1765. It was Darkseid's banana peel so to speak..

My point was just that it seemed unlikely that DC didn't want Hurt to simply be the Devil, so they made Morrison change it into a Bruce Wayne's demon-worshipping immortal great-great-great-great-great-uncle. Since Morrison is the only DC writer that can crack Top 10 these days, I'm sure there's little he can't do.

Well, you know, let's move on. He won't be in the movie anyway.

[red snow]

And people wonder why successful movies don't increase comics sales? I'm a seasoned comic reader and the last couple of years of Batman has been incomprehensible. I'm still enjoying it but they really need to sort it out before the next film as it currently has two different people portraying Batman. It's confusing for me, utterly inaccessible to newcomers.

[Nephrite]

And people wonder why successful movies don't increase comics sales? I'm a seasoned comic reader and the last couple of years of Batman has been incomprehensible. I'm still enjoying it but they really need to sort it out before the next film as it currently has two different people portraying Batman. It's confusing for me, utterly inaccessible to newcomers.

Even if they boiled it down in the most primal GeofJohnsian way (Hal-Jordan-brave-banana-bad), it still won't bring in readers. It never does. Even when TDK way breakin' BO records there wasn't any significant spike in monthly sales. Surely it had to be there if these mythical new readers tried it out for one month, but saw that it's like hieroglyphics to them. There was no sudden urge among people to suddenly start reading comics.

And there is no super-convenient jumping on point to start reading this stuff. There wasn't one when I started. You grab the ball while it's in the air and you keep running. That's what I did. And DC/Marvel can't really afford one. Sure, every issue could be someone's first, but what are they suppose to do? Repeat Batman's origin every issue? And it's not really rocket science, people know that it's Batman and that it's been in print for 70 years so there's probably some history there. And that it's not exactly like the movies cause those are adaptations and Hollywood changes stuff, and there are also cartoons that are (right now) like the opposite of Nolan's version. I think they can handle it. They understand it's not going to be an exact replica. that is if they even wanted to fork 3 bucks for it.

If you wanna bring in new readers, TPBs are the way to go. If there's someone out there that can't follow Year One then f#$% him, he probably has trouble with the alphabet. You bring them in with classics then hopefully they'll continue reading the monthlies.

Of course, must people don't even know comics exist cause DC/Marvel marketing machine thinks that Newsarama interviews and house ads are the height what you can do to inform people of their existence. It's preaching to the people who are already buying this stuff.

[red snow]

I've often thought handing out free comics as a taster with the cinema ticket would be worth a try.

Plus you don't need to tell people Batman's origin if they've seen the film. All they want is Batman (played by Bruce Wayne) beating up criminals and tackling crazy villains.

If they liked that then put a bunch of ads for some TPBs. It doesn't seem that hard and I'd argue that Batman of late is fairly impenetrable to comic readers at the moment unless they have been around since at least RIP (or ideally the beginning of Morrison's run). I'm reading most of them and have to think which batman is in which.

[alguien]

<thread drift>

People definitely are consuming comics in different ways. If I really enjoy a storyline, after browsing it in the library, I'll buy it in TPB form. But I would really have to like it. For example, I checked Batman RIP and Neil Gaiman's Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader out of the library. Wasn't sufficiently impressed enough to buy either.

Also, my roommate has been buying a ton of old comics on his iPad. Apparently this has been huge success for Marvel.

</thread drift>

[red snow]

Haven't heard much about the supposed script leak online so i'm guessing it was a load of shit. If killer croc had been in it though who would have being a good choice to be in it? Part of me thinks Ron Perlman as he had that kind of roll down pat.

[Nephrite]

So...

There it is. Boy, I would've swore that Bane is radioactive after Batman & Robin. And I would've probably said the same of Catwoman after her big screen... debut.

Man, David Goyer had to pick these villains. Cause my whole concept of reality is based on the fact that Chris Nolan doesn't even know who Bane is. Unless he grew up in the 90's.

[Relic]

Huh. Nolan might be able to make Bane interesting.

I always found catwoman to be a little silly.