1st look at Tom Hardy as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises

Viral campaigns are starting to get out of hand. Take Warner Brothers' latest, which involved the launching of their new site for Christopher Nolan's Bat flick, The Dark Knight Rises. It also included Twitter hashtags, multiple pixels, strange chanting(not kidding), a partridge and a pair tree and a kitchen sink. Simply ridiculous. If you ran through all the hoops, what was eventually revealed to you was this first, powerful image of Tom Hardy as Bane. Guh.



Right off the bat(pun intended), I'm digging the mask, which appears to bear some of the resemblance to Bane's comic book look but also has a touch of Hannibal Lecter to it. Even here you can sense Tom Hardy's intensity. I'm digging the look of this. Here's hoping we get some shots of Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle soon.

This all comes on the heels of a rumor possibly revealing Bane's origin in film, due out on July 20th 2012.  So what do you think of Bane? Do you think Nolan got it right?