Ben Kingsley is playing The Mandarin in the upcoming “Iron Man 3” movie, and instead of being a super powered bad guy, he is a terrorist, someone who is attacking various cities and killing numerous people with explosives. However, the idea of a regular terrorist being the enemy to a superhero is nothing new. Batman has made his career with fighting terrorists, and honestly “Iron Man 3” felt more like a Batman film than one from the Marvel Universe. Here is a look at the terrorists that Batman has fought that bear a similarity to the bad guys in “Iron Man 3.”
Ra’s al Ghul
A movie that shares a very close relation with “Iron Man 3” is “Batman Begins,” specifically with the structure of the story. The bad guy in that movie was a man named Ra’s al Ghul, the leader of a terrorist group known as the League of Shadows. In the movie, Ra’s al Ghul’s entire plan is to bring Gotham City to its knees and has plans to unleash a giant terrorist attack on the entire city, one in which Batman has to stop. This is a perfect villain for Batman, since he has no powers and must defeat the entire terrorist organization.
The Joker
In the second of Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, he brought in The Joker to challenge Batman. Much like Ra’s al Ghul, his goal was to bring Gotham City to its knees. Honestly, the two men have a lot in common, although they went at it from a different perspective. While Ra’s al Ghul planned to use his Leave of Shadows to cripple Gotham in order to rebuild it in their image, Joker just wanted to watch it burn. While he was a terrorist, he had no ulterior motive.
Bane
That brings the story to the end, which also swings it back to where it started. Bane came to Gotham City and took the act of terrorism to the extreme, actually blocking it off from the rest of the United States and then using a nuclear threat to keep the military at bay. The story here harkens back to the League of Shadows, as Bane attempts to bring Ra’s al Ghul’s plan to fruition. Between the three movies, the acts of terror against the country were varied, but all too dangerous. They are also very close in similarity to “Iron Man 3,” proving that maybe Marvel looked to Nolan and DC for inspiration this time around.
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