Thoughts In The Key Of N

Following my post earlier today, all one of you who read it reprimanded me for not covering both the movies that lead up to The Dark Knight Rises. This is a fair call, and to be honest, precise recollection of both previous films is important to get the very most out of The Dark Knight Rises. So far, every sentence in this article has finished with that title, The Dark Knight Rises.

I will change that, because Batman…Begins.

Bruce Wayne is in a sorry state. It looks like Tasmania, but the reality is it’s…well, they never tell us where it is. As a kid, Bruce fell down a well and broke his arm, and his parents got shot, and he had to hang out with Katie Holmes. He had a pretty rough run, there. Bruce is now in Nowhere Prison, getting his daily exercise by beating up seven inmates at a time, when Merely Ducard arrives via shadow, and points out it was six. He also says if Bruce is sick of his morning punch routines, and of drinking from broken pipes in walls, he should pick a blue flower and drop by Merely’s place in the mountains.

Merely lives in the mountains. He beats Bruce up on arrival, but soon becomes his mentor (Mentor Ducard). He works for the taciturn Ra’s Al Ghul, and teaches Bruce how to be a ninja. Ninjas tell stories around campfires, and have sword fights on ice: This is factual. He soon tells Bruce that the only thing left to do is conquer fear (check), beat Merely in hide-n-seek (check), and then execute some guy (che-what?). Bruce disagrees with the last one and burns Merely’s place down, but saves Merely from burning, then icy, death. Go Team Bruce.

Back in Gotham, Rutger Hauer is doing his first honest acting this side of 2000. This all comes unravelled when Bruce returns and wants to get in on the Wayne Enterprises action. He meets Lucius Fox, an old friend of Dr Dad Wayne, and Lucius shows off all his neat, could-be-useful-to-Batman toys. Bruce discovers a cave under the house, and creeps into Detective Gordon’s office to say “hey, ‘sup”. Bruce is feeling pretty smug about all this.

MEANWHILE, Cillian Murphy, winner of the No-Blink-A-Thon 2002-2005, is being utterly creepy, and appears to be in league with a crime boss. Bruce decides he wants to meet the crime boss, and so dresses in his best black outfit, hangs from a crane and beats EVERYBODY up. He also saves RACHEL DAWES from a mugger, gets tased for his help, and throws some dirty photos at her. They aren’t photos of him – he’s dressed as Batman now.

Gotham has daylight, and everyone’s pretty happy.

Now that the crime boss is locked away, Bruce turns his attention to…well, fluffy toys, apparently. This has him cross paths with the Stare-Master 2002-2005, and gets ignited and drugged for his efforts. It’s okay, Alfred and Mr Fox put him back together, just in time for RACHEL DAWES to get captured by Blinky. Bruce takes out Dr Eyes, gasses him for good measure, and then after showing off his car to Gordon, takes RACHEL back to his crib-cave. Then he has a birthday party.

The guests are shooed with drunken Wayne slurs, but only once Wayne has discovered Merely Ducard is present, and he’s actually Ra’s Al Ghul (which means he gets two names, and the other Ra’s gets none) They fight, Ra’s has a posse, and manages to beat up Bruce and set his house on fire. Ra’s is quite a bastard.

BUT RA’S DOESN’T KNOW ABOUT ALFRED! Alfred gathers Bruce up from under a beam, and takes him to the cave where he guilt-trips Bruce into going out to fight Ra’s. Why? Because Ra’s and Scarecrow laced Gotham’s water with drugs, and if they can turn that to steam, they are going to mess everybody up. Oh yeah, they have a steam machine. Cheeky devils.

Bruce dispenses with the quips, and gets down to business, beating up inmates, chasing down Ra’s, and loaning his car to Gordon to go shoot stuff up.  Scarecrow? RACHEL DAWES tases him in the face – he’s no threat. After a game of cat-n-mouse-n-train, Bruce and Ra’s have a showdown which leaves Ra’s stuck on a careening train, and Bruce gliding in the night. And then the train explodes, like REALLY explodes. Merely Ducard? Merely dead.

Gordon and Bruce hang out on Police HQ with a big light. They’re friends now. Gordon gives Bruce a card left at a crime scene, asks questions and because Bruce has no answers, he steps off the building. WHOOOSH. BIG WORDS APPEAR:

BATMAN BEGINS.

So THAT’S who he was. I wonder if anyone’s robbing banks…

~ by nick on July 30, 2012.

Posted in Comics
Tags: batman, Merely Ducard, Ra's Al Ghul, RACHEL DAWES