| Rupert Thorne | |
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 Rupert Thorne |
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| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | Detective Comics #469 |
| Created by | Steve Englehart and Walter Simonson |
| In-story information | |
| Full name | Rupert Thorne |
| Abilities | He had the best political and underworld connections in Gotham |
Rupert Thorne is a fictional character, a crime boss and enemy of Batman in the DC Comics universe. Created by Steve Englehart and Walter Simonson, the character first appeared in Detective Comics #469.
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Fictional character biography
Thorne is introduced as a corrupt politician being blackmailed by Doctor Phosphorus into turning the city against Batman. After Phosphorus is defeated, Thorne persuades his fellow city councilors to declare Batman an outlaw. He attempts to gain complete control of Gotham City by becoming Mayor.
Thorne is one of three criminals who makes a bid at a secret auction for Batman's identity held by Professor Hugo Strange. He captures and tortures Strange to make him divulge it. Strange resists, however, and apparently dies in the process. Even though he has the body disposed of, Thorne is literally haunted by strange visions and sounds of Strange. [1]
After failing in his campaign against Batman and spending some time in hiding, he secretly returns to Gotham. (Detective Comics #507, October 1981) He gets the corrupt Hamilton Hill elected as Mayor, and then has his puppet fire Police Commissioner James Gordon in favor of Peter Pauling, who is on Thorne's payroll. Thorne finally identifies Bruce Wayne as Batman after acquiring photos of him changing costume from reporter Vicki Vale. Thorne then hires Deadshot to kill Wayne. Deadshot is unsuccessful, however. Meanwhile, Thorne is still haunted by the ghost of Hugo Strange, who is revealed to have faked his death and tormented Thorne with experiments designed to simulate ghostly experiences. Thorne becomes convinced that Hill and Pauling are plotting against him and trying to drive him insane. Thorne kills Pauling but is eventually apprehended by Batman. [2]
Thorne makes a return appearance in Detective Comics #825 (cover-dated January 2007, released November 2006). This was his first major comics appearance in decades, and his first appearance in the Post-Crisis DC universe. He is shown incarcerated in Blackgate Penitentiary when Doctor Phosphorus makes an attempt on his life, one that Batman prevents.
Other media
Television
Batman: The Animated Series/The New Batman Adventures
In Batman: The Animated Series, Rupert Thorne (voiced by the late John Vernon) appears at several points throughout the series to virtually control Gotham's criminal underworld. Thorne first appears in the episode "Two-Face", in which he was responsible for district attorney Harvey Dent's transformation into the arch-criminal Two-Face. Thorne blackmails Dent with his psychological records, threatening to tell the press that the young DA suffers from multiple personality disorder unless he stops prosecuting his henchmen (who keep escaping punishment thanks to bribes paid by Thorne). Enraged, Dent "switches" into his alternate, violent personality and chases Thorne into a nearby chemical processing plant, where an explosion permanently disfigures half of Dent's face and leaves his evil personality in permanent control. Dent, now calling himself "Two-Face", later seeks revenge on Thorne, and with the help of a reluctant Batman, succeeds in capturing him, although both Thorne and Two-Face are sent to prison, as Two-Face was just barely stopped from killing Thorne. In this story, Thorne replaces mafia boss Sal Maroni as the mechanism for Dent's disfigurement and transformation into a criminal.
Thorne's next appearance is in the episode "It's Never Too Late", where he is at war with a rival mob boss, Arnold Stromwell, whom he plots to ambush and kill. Batman saves Stromwell in time, and after persuading Stromwell to give up his life of crime, they work together to bring Thorne down. Thorne corners Stromwell and his estranged brother, Michael, and almost machine-guns them to death before being knocked out by Batman and left for the police.
He next appears in the episode, "The Man who Killed Batman", in which the titular character, Sidney DuPris, begs Thorne to smuggle him out of Gotham to escape from many people on both sides of the law. Sidney recounts his story, which started with his role in Thorne's failed drug racket and ended with a near-lethal encounter with the Joker. Thorne refuses to believe that Sidney is a victim of mere circumstance, and prepares to kill him when Batman, who survived all along, appears and knocks him out.
The episode "Paging The Crime Doctor" reveals that Rupert Thorne's younger brother, Dr. Matthew Thorne, lost his license when he failed to file a police report on a gunshot wound he treated, probably working for Rupert. While reluctantly performing medicine on gangsters without a license as "The Crime Doctor," he surgically removes a benign tumor, with the help of his colleague, Dr. Leslie Thompkins, from Rupert's heart on the promise that his brother would use his connections to reinstate Matthew's medical license. After the surgery, however, Matthew turns on Rupert, when Thorne's men plot to kill Thompkins, and turns himself in to the police in the aftermath, leaving Thorne's fate in the episode unknown.
Thorne is also notable in the series for introducing Bane into the DC Animated Universe. In the episode "Bane," Thorne hires him to assassinate the Dark Knight. Unbeknownst to Thorne, however, his moll, Candice, is conspiring with Bane to kill him as well as Batman so they can both run the city's underworld. After Batman defeats Bane by severing the tubing that pumps the Venom steroids into his body, he sends the hired killer to Thorne, trussed-up and noticeably shrunken, complete with an audio recording of his treasonous conversations with Candice. It it is not revealed what Rupert does to Candice after that, as she is not seen again in the series. This, however, changes nothing between him and Batman, despite Batman having saved Thorne's life as well as his own.
His final appearance in the show is the episode "Second Chance", where he is one of the primary suspects for kidnapping Two-Face just before his operation to restore his face. Robin is sent to interrogate him, but is captured by Thorne's men and brought to Thorne himself. While Thorne denies any involvement, he sends his men to take Robin somewhere and kill him, unaware that Robin had escaped with his life.
Thorne's final major appearance in the DC Animated Universe continuity is the direct-to-DVD movie, Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman, based on The New Batman Adventures, in which he works with The Penguin and Carlton Duquesne in an illegal arms deal with the President of Kasnia. The three are also allied with Bane, although there is no mention of Bane's previous allegiance with Thorne in Bane. Of the three Batwomen, Thorne shares a personal history with Sonia Alcana, whose life he ruined when he ordered her parents' shop burned down when she was still a child. Thorne had escaped punishment due to lack of evidence, although everyone knew he was the one behind it. In the end, Thorne is proven guilty for his role in the arms deal, and sent to prison.
Rupert Thorne also appears in the video game The Adventures of Batman & Robin for the Sega CD, in which Clayface takes on Thorne's shape while the real Thorne is on vacation, using the gangster's money to hire other supervillains in a plot to kill Batman. In the scenes where Clayface took on Thorne's form, Vernon reprises his role.
The Batman
Thorne is also featured in The Batman voiced by Victor Brandt. In the first episode, "The Bat in the Belfry", his criminal empire falls apart before supervillains like the Joker appear in Gotham. He also makes a cameo in the episode "A Matter of Family". In "Rumors", he is shown to be one of the titular character's captives.
Thorne plays a larger role in The Batman Strikes!, a comic book based in the continuity of the show. In one issue, he works with Bruno "Ugly" Mannheim to create an army of super-villains based on Bane, Man-Bat, and Firefly.
Film
Batman (1989)
In the original script for the the 1989 film Batman, written by Tom Mankiewicz, Rupert Thorne hires Joe Chill to murder Bruce Wayne's father, Thomas, who is running against Thorne for city council. [3] He was replaced by Carl Grissom.
See also
References
- ^ Detective Comics #469-#479, May 1977 - October 1978
- ^ Batman #354, December 1982
- ^ http://www.scifiscripts.com/scripts/batmanscript1.txt
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