7 Tiny Details From Comic Book Movies Only True Fans Noticed

6. The Dark Knight Becomes A Long Halloween

Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight saga was lauded because it offered something completely different to traditional comic book movie fare. Boasting a crime drama feel, a stellar cast and electrifying cinematography, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and, to a lesser extent, The Dark Knight Rises, all laid the benchmark for how comic book films should be made - their reverence cannot be in doubt.

In the years since, Nolan's films have, however, garnered an unfair reputation for having prioritised 'realism' over comic book authenticity. Ignoring for a second that, y'know, all these films boasted fairly outlandish plots with a nocturnal protagonist at their centre, it's still an unfair criticism to make, especially since all three films paid homage to some seriously seminal Bat-books.

Batman Begins followed the style of Frank Miller's Year One, and the sequence where he gets Katie Holmes' Rachel to the tumbler under the cover of a bat swarm was inspired directly by a similar scene in the comic where Bruce is forced to outmanoeuvre GCPD's SWAT team. The Dark Knight Rises' inspirations are a little more obvious, with Knightfall and No Man's Land having contributed most to that film's story, but when it comes to its 2008 predecessor, things are a little more difficult to discern.

Easily the best thing about The Dark Knight is the relationship between Batman, Gordon and Dent, and the influence Joker has on the district attorney's descent into madness. It's also a dynamic lifted straight from Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's brilliant Long Halloween, a comic situated during Batman's second year as a crimefighter.

There, the three are put up against the mob as the city's emerging supervillain element (led by the Joker) come out to play. There's the added element of the Holiday Killer thrown in for good measure, but there's no getting away from the fact that The Dark Knight's best feature was lifted straight from The Long Halloween - making it a more faithful Bat-film than people give it credit for.