Last week I implied that Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character in The Dark Knight Rises, John Blake, is a the way that filmmakers are trying to side-step the Robin character while still including some of his storyline. My argument was based on the fact that John Blake is a completely made-up character with a name similar to Tim Drake and he is not only being played by an extremely big actor, but is also featured heavily in the trailer.

One thing that I failed to mention, however, is the fact that the villain featured in the film, Bane, is the same one that breaks Batman’s back in Knightfall, forcing Jean-Paul Valley to put on the bat suit. It makes sense then, that John Blake would be a kind of mixture between Tim Drake and Jean-Paul, especially given the footage we see in the trailer, making it seem like Bane does get the better of Batman. And I’m not the only one who thinks so.

Yesterday, I stumbled upon this article over on What Culture!. In it, Luke Stevenson argues that JGL will put on the bat suit, and then some. He claims that John Blake is going to actually become Batman, and that Christian Bale’s Batman might be broken beyond repair. His logic is that the Nolan trilogy is too iconic for an immediate reboot, and as Dorin said in her Justice League article, this would be necessary to fit Batman in with a Justice League movie. He thinks that JGL will be a transition piece between films in lieu of a reboot.  He also points to the title of the film, arguing that ‘rises’ implies the beginning instead of the ending that this film is for the Nolan franchise.

Read the full article here.

What do you think of Stevenson’s argument? Do you think that Gordon-Levitt will be able to carry on the Dark Knight torch?

Leave your thoughts in the comments!