Joker isn't even mentioned in the film.

So here's the thing about The Dark Knight and Batman in general. Yes, Nolan's follow up to the lackluster, Goyer scripted Batman Begins was very very good, and Batman is an iconic symbol within the pantheon of American popular culture. We all love Batman. But, Batman also represents a lot of fascist, conservative America ideals we probably otherwise would like to ignore. Batman is about the threat of anarchy against the rich and powerful. Superman was a Jew, Spiderman was a geek, Captain America was patriotism, the hulk is our own struggle with our inner demons, and Batman is a powerful rich wasp protecting the establishment of other powerful rich wasps. Batman is the Republican Party. And it's unsurprising that Frank Miller made negative remarks about the occupy movement last year, because let's face it; his Batman is too macho for all of that passive protesting bullshit. This is an aristocratic white man who beats up on impoverished urban criminals. He's never able to catch the main villains, and spends most of his time knocking the teeth out of henchmen, faceless guards who aren't evil so much as desperate.

Actually, Batman Begins inspired me to write a horror superhero mash up from the perspective of a young petty African American thief being chased through the dark labyrinth of a public housing community by a racist Batmanesque hero. Let's face it, in slasher movies, the killer is the protagonist. Jason, Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Leather Face, they're superheroes; we go into their films rooting for them to murder those hedonistic slutty kids. I always figured if you actually called them a hero within the story, it could lead to a role reversal where they'd actually become a hated villain. For that one scene in Batman Begins, where he stalks a group of men at the docks, Batman became a feared monster of the night, I wish Nolan took that farther and turned the a tentpole superhero franchise into a horror film. But I'm ranting here, fucking bath salts.

Let's not forget that Batman in The Dark Knight was essentially a positive analogy for the Bush administration. He was the hero we deserved, not the one we needed. He was a martyr for making the tough, morally gray decisions that ultimately lead to him being vilified even though those same decisions also saved the general public. He invaded the public's privacy, he allowed innocent cops to die, and he took the blame for Harvey Dent's death. But no one wants our favorite hero to be a metaphor for one of our most despised presidents.

The Dark Knight Rises takes it so much further and while I can't agree with the politics, it's kind of brilliant. How this thing got made blows my mind.

But here's the thing, The Dark Knight isn't Batman's story, nor is it Bane's. Their conflict takes place within the background. The Dark Knight Rises is John Blake's story. Joseph Gordon Levitt plays a beat cop that is the son of dock thug #2 from Batman Begins. Don't remember him? He was only a faceless henchman that Batman pummeled. He's no criminal mastermind, and through flashbacks, we learn that he was a good man, a down and out factory worker who lost his job and took to working for the mob to provide for his family. He's not a murderer, or malicious thief, just a poor goof who took the wrong job protecting illegal shipments of drugs so he could put food on the table. But Batman ended that. Batman might not kill, but he unknowingly broke the thug's back, an act that mirrors Batman's own demise. He ruined this man's life, unable to find work or do much of anything with a broken back and no health insurance, he took his own life, orphaning his only son, John Blake, who has continued volunteering for the orphanage he was raised in.

Joseph Gordon Levitt's Blake initially blamed Carmine Falcone and became a cop to justly seek his revenge. At some point on the street, Blake is recruited by the league of shadows to purge Gotham of crime. And through Bane, he learns to blame and hate Batman just as much as Falcone. And even the children of the orphanage are enlisted in Bane's army. That's right, Batman has to fight poor children in order to maintain the order of American capitalism.

Initially, Bane indeed brings justice to Gotham, and unites the poor and underprivileged. Bane finishes D.A. Dent's work and takes out Maroni and all of the other mob bosses left unattended in the Dark Knight.

The film can be said to loosely follow the Nightfall storyline. Although, if we want to get all geeky here, Batman Begins also referenced Nightfall with the massive jailbreak at Arkham that flooded the city's streets with every criminal in the city.

Regardless, Bane breaks the bat, but you know this already.

Nolan combines and manipulates a lot of different canon story lines. On paper, it may seem overcrowded, like this could a repeat of Raimi's Spiderman 3 but it works.

Anne Hathaway shines as Selina Kyle and while she may be leather clad, she is never referred to as Catwoman. She may be a "cat" burglar who steals from the rich, but it's not diamonds she's after. Like Leonardo's character in Inception, she steals from the rich not for profit but as financial, corporate espionage. Her name is really only an alias. Selina Kyle is the alter ego, not Cat Woman. You see, she's a member of the league of shadows, she's really Thalia Al Ghoul, the daughter of Ra's Al Ghoul, and she does fall in love with Batman even though her mission is to destroy him.

Christian Bale has famously joked that Nolan better not have Robin in any of these films, and while Joseph Gordon Levitt never dons the outfit, he does becomes a bit of a surrogate for Robin. If we must use a reference point for his character since nerds love that, he could be likened to Jason Todd, the second Robin who famously died at the hands of the Joker. Todd was a character lead by anger. Although he's also technically an orphan, Levitt does end up donning a sort of armored costume that could be compared to Azrael, though that name is never used. Come to think of it, Tim Drake, the third Robin, also had a similar arc. Wait Wait Wait. John Blake. That's like some weird anagram of (J)ason Todd and Tim D(rake). Hmmmm....

And all the nerds collectively creamed their pants. Oh and Ra's Al Ghoul is indeed alive, but he hasn't been revived from the dead by a Lazarus pit, he's essentially been re-cloned and engineered into Bane.

The Joker may have represented anarchy, but Bane and the league of shadows is the evil that is socialism/communism. He is a more violent embodiment of the occupy movement. He rallies the poor against the political, capitalist machine, and Batman is symbol of that machine that must be destroyed. Joker wanted to watch the world burn, Bane simply wants to put an end to political and economic corruption. Bane attacks the Gotham stock exchange and cripples market trading leading to chaos within the business district. For much of the film, I was rooting for Bane, but then he takes out a stadium of innocent people during a football game because communists hate personal freedom and fun. There is no fun in communism, and destroying sports is representative of that. Goddamn communists.

Bearing witness to the slaughter of countless families, John Blake realizes that Bane must be stopped, but he's already broken the bat. Thalia, I mean, Selina Kyle who has now come to love and believe in Batman. She introduces Blake to Lucious Fox, who constructs an Iron Manesque suit in order to battle the seemingly invincible Bane.

Some critics compared the Dark Knight upon its release to The Godfather as a sprawling crime epic. If that's the case, The Dark Knight Rises is Gomorrah and Elite Squad. This is heady, multi-layered nihilism where there is no hero. Our government is fucked, our heroes are fucked, and so are we, corruption is imbedded within the human spirit. It's difficult to fully discern which side Nolan is on at times, although, ultimately, I guess we're supposed to root for Batman even though he's left defeated in the end. The fact there are children's popup books and Slurpee cups for this film brings a big shit eating grin to my face. I can't wait to see how the public reacts.

Ra's a Ghoul

turn out to be DC's first gay character?

Is Ra's a Ghoul the zombie version of Ra's al Ghul?

DC already has gay characters. There was a lot of publicity just a few months ago about a "major iconic" character coming out of the closet. Although in the end it turned out to be Alan Scott, who was the old Golden Age Green Lantern who hasn't been a major icon since the 1940s.

Nobody who doesn't read comics has any idea who Alan Scott is, and heck even a lot of comic readers don't know him either. It was still funny seeing all the ignorant reactions. "OMG is Hal Jordan gay?" "Is Ryan Reynolds going to be gay in the sequel?"

"takes out Maroni". You know? The guy Dent killed during his brief turn as Two-Face.

(after Bane makes a reference to Bruce losing those he loved chasing "makeup wearing clown")
"That clown would have made a joke of you."

Batman: "Not all heroes wear masks; some do things as simple as giving a coat to a scared little boy."
(Gordon flashes to him comforting a young Bruce from BB) Gordon: (whispering) "Bruce Wayne."

Nolan has said there is no reference at all to The Joker in the movie.

It could be to throw people off from focusing on one-line and the nature of the line I read as a meta tribute to Ledger and the character; as bad as Bane is, he's still second rate.

I don't think so, Ledger's death really affected Nolan, plus Nolan saying there is no reference to The Joker and then if there is one, would only highlight even more... (unless I read your post wrong).