After the internet lit up upon discovering that a line from Donald Trump’s inaugural address was incredibly similar to Bane’s speech in The Dark Knight Rises, the Trump-Bane comparisons went viral. The Hollywood Reporter asked two of Bane’s creators — comic-book writer Chuck Nixon and artist Graham Nolan — if they’d heard rumblings of the comparison, and the two men didn’t seem especially bothered by it. Instead, they offered this alternative framing: “Is he like a Batman villain? In many ways he is,” Dixon told THR. “But our last guy in that office often reminded me of a Bond villain. So there you go.” (Obvious bit of post-presidential dreamcasting: Barack Obama, Bond villain.) Both men are conservatives (Dixon identified as a Trump supporter, and Nolan described himself as a lifelong Republican), and have more faith in a Trump administration than they would if Bane were head of the republic. “I would not care to live under a Bane presidency,” Nolan said. “But in the world of Bane there is also the Batman. So we have nothing to worry about.”
