The Dark Knight to have a female villain?

[Myasishchev]

Lapis Exilis wrote:

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I'm not having any trouble grasping the character - I'm saying the way her "tragedy" is written is dumb. It's a contrived tragedy which anyone as intelligent as she is said to be would easily throw off by realizing, hey, I'm a grown woman, I'm a master assassin with mad organizational skills, and I don't have to please Daddy, who's been treating me like shit all these years, and if Bruce doesn't want me, I don't need him either. The girl needs to read a copy of "He's Just Not that Into You".

The other hilarious/sad part is that Bruce's attractiveness is basically an informed attribute, as well. I mean, I guess he might do it for some chicks, and he's physically probably one the hottest dudes on New Earth, but he's also a dreary, monomaniacal dick (most of the time). I mean, at least when Lois Lane and Lana Lang were beating each other half to death on a regular basis over Superman, you at least got the impression he was desirable, would make a good partner, and was generally kind and not yelly, bossy, angry, intrinsically violent, borderline crazy, or likely to wind up dead any day now. Whereas it's almost preposterous that anyone who knows Batman well enough to know his name could believe it could work out, given that he'll tell you right up front that you'll never compete with the ghost of his mom.

I heartily agree all the way around. Nolan did a very good thing by changing the basic motivation of Ra's away from eco-terrorism (lord, some of the comic book monolgues about why wiping out 9/10ths of humanity to restore the purity of the earth is a brilliant idea on his part are unbelieveably painful) to correcting the corruption of civilization. It's equally as nutty, but it makes for a tighter story as to why Gotham specifically would be targeted, and it was a fun "shadow history" bit in his speech at the end about burning London and loading trade ships with plague rats. It also put the aims of the League into a more reasonable scale - destroying one city versus 9/10ths of humanity. And I personally loved the business about decoy front men and the question - never really answered - about whether or not Ra's al Ghul was immortal.

No way! I liked the ecoterrorism. I wanted the ecoterrorism. And the Lazarus Pits. Take all that away, might as well have just had Batman fight the Jackal. (That is, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, not history's worst Spider-man villain, at least before Mephisto came along.)

Well of course it didn't make sense - what in comics does? But it was nice to see her actually have a plan of her own for once. She could be such an interesting character, if they could stop playing her as hot Fatal Attraction psycho with a Daddy complex.

Not too terribly much anymore, unfortunately. At least in the old days, they could claim innocence and an audience of children. Neither condition is true these days. : /

[Hartzilla2007]

Myasishchev wrote:

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*I'm sort of wondering about the legal aspects of that. If I recall, those sales would probably be void, since Wayne or the responsible decisionmaker there would have cause to know that the sales, if done substantially under market, were not authorized by her principal. I think the agency principle is that if one knows or should know that an agent is actively working against the principal, any obligations the agent attempts to create on behalf of her principal are not binding. But I'd have to go look that up and bleahhh.

I'm pretty sure Lex being POTUS at the time kind of takes away any say about it seeing as I believe it would be illegal for him to run Lexcorp at the time (I don't know for sure if it is against the law but he isn't suppost to be running the company while being president, but if someone else knows more about this subject it would help.)

[Kegg]

I think it's sort of obvious why they moved away from the ecoterrorism.

Terrorists who despise the decadance of the United States? Led by a guy with an Arabic name. Well, he turns out to be Irish, but maybe that's a call-back to the 1980s, who knows... (good Irish roster of villains in that movie really).

You could say the nihilism of the Joker builds on this. We've had a villain who despises the world's decadence, now we have the anarchic embodiment of it. I'd be surprised if the third film doesn't have villains with similarly dark motives - Al Gore doesn't really seem to cut it (Item: Do we really need to portray environmentalists as the bad guys?)

And if you really want an environmental-themed villain, to me, the average schlub who just sees the movies and stuff, I'd have to ask if Poison Ivy doesn't fit the bill better. I thought environmentalism was her MO.

[Admiral_Young]

^ ^This is exactly the reason why Lex stepped down, conflict of interest reasons along with a whole slew of other reasons that I'm not familiar enough with to type down or even speculate about. He asked Talia to head LexCorp thinking that the daughter of Ra's al Ghul could be trusted, why someone as intelligent as Lex would think that is beyond me, one could argue that he wasn't aware of her personal connection to Batman and by default Superman as well and probably thought she wouldn't have been a threat to him or his business. I think Talia was also running the League's public front companies at the time as well which is why she was brought to his attention in the first place.

[Kestrel]

Kegg wrote:

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(Item: Do we really need to portray environmentalists as the bad guys?)

Only if you're carrying around an unlicensed nuclear reactor on your back.

[Myasishchev]

Kegg wrote:

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(Item: Do we really need to portray environmentalists as the bad guys?)

All right, valid point.

AdmiralYoung wrote:

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^ ^This is exactly the reason why Lex stepped down, conflict of interest reasons along with a whole slew of other reasons that I'm not familiar enough with to type down or even speculate about. He asked Talia to head LexCorp thinking that the daughter of Ra's al Ghul could be trusted, why someone as intelligent as Lex would think that is beyond me, one could argue that he wasn't aware of her personal connection to Batman and by default Superman as well and probably thought she wouldn't have been a threat to him or his business. I think Talia was also running the League's public front companies at the time as well which is why she was brought to his attention in the first place.

Still wanna know how she happily took a job as the one of Alexander's trusted ruling council within the Secret Society of Supervillains two weeks after Lex presumably would have sworn vengeance on her, in addition to Superman and Batman.

It's a minor continuity problem, I suppose, but it's needling. My guess is Geoff Johns, Dan DiDio, Gail Simone, and everybody else just forgot, or rather didn't make the connection that Alex pretending to be Lex meant that any baggage Lex had, Alex would have to carry around with him. (Although I grant otherwise it makes sense, to go from disgraced ex-president to leader of a supervillain army, just the personal vendetta between Luthor and Ghul that ought to have existed--unless Ghul knew about Alex' identity--just somehow didn't.)

[Admiral_Young]

Ra's isn't your typical environmentalist though since he want's to depopulate most of the human race while he's going about restoring the planet.

[Myasishchev]

No, but it's a fair point, that it's potentially irresponsible to misrepresent a positive and indeed necessary cause such as environmentalism through a ridiculously evil supervillain like Ra's. Even if it's all in good fun and in the original spirit of the creation.

I mean, maybe if the movie was made by Glenn Beck, it would be appropriate.

I'm not exactly swayed by the argument, but it's definite food for thought.

Also, see edit, re: Luthor. You're way more up on this stuff than me, perhaps you have the answer.

[Admiral_Young]

I do see the point about Ra's...I just tend to see the characters as characters and not put too much politics into it. I realize that they're there, it's just much more enjoyable to read without that aspect getting in the way of the fun of reading.

Re: the Lex thing, sloppy writing? LOL

[Captaindemotion]

Admiral_Young wrote:

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Jetfire...I stated Eva Green a couple pages ago! I think swould be fantastic . Anne Hathaway is an excellent actress who has proven over the course of her career that she is very versatile. She was one of the few bright spots in this year's "Valentine's Day" (yes I saw that movie). Gary Marshall who directed the movie and of course directed Anne in "The Princess Diaries" and it's sequel once called her the new Julia Roberts. I think she would be an interesting choice for Selena Kyle. I think she has been rumored by fans before as being the new Catwoman.

And she was apparently up for the female lead in Raimi's abortive Spider-man 4 - IIRC, he wanted her to play Black Cat but the studio wanted to make her Vulturess.

[Admiral_Young]

Yes I think ultimately she would have been signed had that film not been canceled, I'm glad it did, I read what looked to be a legit treatment for it and it read like fan fic. I had good sources who claimed it was real.

[exodus]

Kegg wrote:

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Harley Quinn also works fine for me, although I don't know how that jester costume would square with the dark and gritty Nolan-verse.

Think Goth chick like Faruza Balk and Harley fits perfectly in Nolan's universe.

I'm think more along the lines of Poison Ivy or Talia.
I can't think of a crime Catwoman could commit in Nolan's universe that would require Batman over Gotham PD. Catwoman is just a thief. Unless she's the love interest to Wayne but unknown secret partner to Batman in the film. The villain would have to do something that threatens the city and can redeem Batman in the eyes of the public after what happened at the end of "Dark Knight".

[Admiral_Young]

^ This is actually how I would see Harley fitting in. Someone like Lisbeth Salander from "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" books, goth and a psychiatrist who works at Arkham Aslyum who becomes corrupted by her fascination with the Joker. I think it would work.

[exodus]

Admiral_Young wrote:

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^ This is actually how I would see Harley fitting in. Someone like Lisbeth Salander from "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" books, goth and a psychiatrist who works at Arkham Aslyum who becomes corrupted by her fascination with the Joker. I think it would work.

Plus, seeing how the Joker killed off all of Gotham's mob bosses, knowing she's the Joker's girl could allow cronies left behind to rally to her side.

[the G-man]

Myasishchev wrote:

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No, but it's a fair point, that it's potentially irresponsible to misrepresent a positive and indeed necessary cause such as environmentalism through a ridiculously evil supervillain like Ra's. Even if it's all in good fun and in the original spirit of the creation.

But, while most environmentalists are harmless, there are real eco-terrorists on earth, such as the Earth Liberation Front. Isn't Ras simply an extrapolation of those types?

And isn't worrying that Ras is going to make environmentalists look bad about as silly as thinking Two-Face is going to District Attorneys look bad?