The Dark Knight Rises: Rumors and Speculation

I fully realize that a large portion of the movie going public may, in fact, have already seen The Dark Knight Rises, the most recent movie in the rebooted Batman franchise, thanks to the new trend of midnight showings (otherwise known as Sleepy Nerd Friday). However, I assume (I would hope rightly) that most normal people--i.e., the people who don't already know the entire storyline so they can pick it apart by combing through every comic book released since grade Z pulp was first pressed together and pointing out every meaningless discrepancy and sending it to Christopher Nolan's Hotmail account--would wait until this weekend (or, more rationally, six months from now at the dead-mall second-run dollar theater) to see this certain blockbuster.

Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but our crack team of researchers here at C2R have managed to get a list of the rumored spoilers about the film. Sure, you can not read this column and get a nice, engaging story, or you could just read it now and save yourself $12.50 and a night dealing with rude teenagers.

So here's a list of important rumored spoilers for The Dark Knight Rises:

• Batman's new villain is the mysterious Bane, whose strengths including buying up struggling firms and firing everyone while sucking out the last penny before their discarded carcass is sent adrift in the ocean of red ink*, while his weaknesses are not being the Joker.
• Cat burglar Anne Hathaway manages to escape a heist by being mistaken for a whippet.
• Sadly, the Penguin was traded to Carolina before he could enlist as the next villain, so they had to scrape up Bane from the comic vault. (Seriously, who's next? Egghead?)
• As much as Bruce Wayne would like it to be the case, the final hero vs. villain showdown does not, in fact, happen at Zuccoti Park.
• Lucius Fox introduces a new gadget to Batman's utility belt: the undisputed masterpiece of Genesis's Invisible Touch. 
• Gotham is finally revealed to really be New York City, as everyone already knew, only with less rats and more bats.
• Commissioner Gordon, unable to cope with the guilt over covering up Harvey Dent's true identity, instead preoccupies himself by refocusing his efforts in finding Peter Pettigrew.
• And cats! More cats! Because of...because of Anne Hathaway, you see? As...the...Catwoman? Dammit, I which I had thought of that before.
• Batman does not spend any time looking for Robin, mostly because he can't be bothered to look in the closet.
• Alfred totally gets sick of Batman's shit and tells him to go piss up a rope, then he peaces out. That happens! I swear!
• Sadly, it appears that Batman does not, in fact, say "Want to see my Dark Knight rise?" to Vicki Vale. 
• For some reason, they do not reintroduce Maggie Gyllenhaal as Batgirl. That would be sooo cuuute and you all know it.
• Yes, I know, Maggie Gyllenhaal's character was killed in the previous movie. So what? This is a movie about a freakin' crime-fighting bat who owns a tech firm that produces unrealistic gadgets and has a Transformer car and fights dudes with burlap sacks over their heads. I'm sure they could cook something up.
• The movie ends in a horrific, tragic twist, when Bruce Wayne, having fallen from grace from Wayne Enterprises, is forced to do the one job only a flawed hero like Batman can do: be installed as the CEO of Yahoo.

*Yes, I thought of this joke before that asshole Rush Limbaugh went and ruined it for me. I'm using it anyway.