Designs for several of the cardboard “stand-ups” based on characters from Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises have been released.  As expected the Dark Knight himself is featured in full Batman gear, but what is interesting is that the movie’s chief villain, Bane (played by Tom Hardy) gets two standups--Nolan, who had such success with creating a villainous Joker (played by Heath Ledger) in his last Batman film, certainly understands that success in superhero films can depend as much or more on creating a great villain than it does on detailing the exploits of the eponymous superhero.  So maybe it's not so strange that Bane gets two stand-ups, one in which the muscular character adopts a WWE pose with arms folded on his massive chest, and another in which he lunges fist forward in a threatening pose.

 

The only other character that gets a stand-up (at least at this point) is Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman (though unfortunately no large image of Catwoman clad in her skintight shiny leathers and holding a pistol is available at this time).  Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, the final film in his Batman trilogy, debuts on July 20th.  Nolan’s previous Batman film earned over a billion dollars at the box office and also generated a huge spike in sales of Batman graphic novels and merchandise (see “DC Direct Unveils Before Watchmen & TDKR).

 

Here (via Superhero Hype) is the small image of all four standees.