8. No Mans Land
In No Mans Land, a well-loved Batman comic book event, Gotham City has been destroyed by a cataclysmic earthquake and declared (you guessed it) a No Mans Land by the American Government. This is all referenced heavily in the climax of TDKR - in the scene in which John Blake confronts the military on the bridge for example, or even in the shots of Gotham city as its razed from within by Bane. In No Mans Land, Batman returns to a ruined Gotham after a long absence (again, this has already been set up for us with the finale of TDKR), and must learn to operate in a city in which all the rules are different; gangs roam the streets openly, innocents hide in their dwellings, and community trust is at an all-time low. Again, this concept allows plenty of room to accommodate Nolans realism, and in this particular instance, the set-up has been done almost entirely in advance meaning if Warner Bros. ever were to reboot their box-office devouring Batman franchise, this storyline would probably be a prime contender for adaptation.