Rupert Thorne

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comic_color=background:#8080ff
character_name=Rupert Thorne
publisher=DC Comics
debut= "Detective Comics" #469
creators= Steve Englehart and Walter Simonson
alliance_color=background:#c0c0ff
full_name= Rupert Thorne
alliances=
powers=He had the best political and underworld connections in Gotham|

Rupert Thorne is a fictional character, a crime boss and enemy of Batman in the DC Comics universe. Created by Steve Englehart and Walter Simonson, the character first appeared in "Detective Comics" #469.

Fictional character biography

Thorne is introduced as a corrupt politician being blackmailed by Doctor Phosphorus into turning the city against Batman. After Phosphorus is defeated, Thorne persuades his fellow city councilors to declare Batman an outlaw. He attempts to gain complete control of Gotham City by becoming Mayor. Learning that Professor Hugo Strange knew Batman's secret identity, he captures and tortures him to make him divulge it. Strange resists, however, and apparently dies in the process. Even though he has the body disposed of, Thorne is literally haunted by strange visions and sounds of Strange. ("Detective Comics" #469-#479, May 1977 - October 1978)

After failing in his campaign against Batman and spending some time in hiding, he secretly returns to Gotham. ("Detective Comics" #507, October 1981) He gets the corrupt Hamilton Hill elected as Mayor, and then has his puppet fire Police Commissioner James Gordon in favor of Peter Pauling, who is on Thorne's payroll. Thorne finally identifies Bruce Wayne as Batman after acquiring photos of him changing costume from reporter Vicki Vale. Thorne then hires Deadshot to kill Wayne. Deadshot is unsuccessful, however. Meanwhile, Thorne is still haunted by the ghost of Hugo Strange, who is revealed to have faked his death and tormented Thorne with experiments designed to simulate ghostly experiences. Thorne becomes convinced that Hill and Pauling are plotting against him and trying to drive him insane. Thorne kills Pauling but is eventually apprehended by Batman. ("Batman" #354, December 1982)

Thorne makes a return appearance in "Detective Comics" #825 (cover-dated January 2007, released November 2006). This was his first major comics appearance in decades, and his first appearance in the Post-Crisis DC universe. He is shown incarcerated in Blackgate Penitentiary when Doctor Phosphorus makes an attempt on his life, one that is prevented by Batman.

Rupert Thorne is notable as one of Batman's only surviving mobster villain and has appeared in other medium. This may be due to Thorne's willingness to work with Batman's Arkham Villains, something that mobsters Falcone and Maroni have refused to due which cost them their lives.

Other media

Television

Batman: The Animated Series

In "", Rupert Thorne (voiced by the late John Vernon) appears in at several points throughout the series to virtually control Gotham's criminal underworld. Thorne first appears in the episode "", in which he was indirectly responsible for district attorney Harvey Dent's transformation into the arch-criminal Two-Face. Thorne blackmails Dent with his psychological records, threatening to tell the press that the young DA suffers from multiple personality disorder unless he stops prosecuting his henchmen. Enraged, Dent "switches" into his alternate, violent personality and chases Thorne into a nearby chemical processing plant, where an explosion permanently disfigures half of Dent's face and leaves his evil personality in control. Dent, now calling himself "Two-Face", later seeks revenge on Thorne, and with the help of a reluctant Batman, succeeds in capturing him, although both Thorne and Two-Face are sent to prison, as Two-Face was just barely stopped from killing Thorne. In this story, Thorne replaces mafia boss Sal Maroni as the mechanism for Dent's disfigurement and transformation into a criminal.

Thorne's next appearance is in the episode "It's Never Too Late", where he is at war with a rival mob boss, Arnold Stromwell, whom he plots to ambush and kill. Batman saves Stromwell in time, and after persuading Stromwell to give up his life of crime, they work together to bring Thorne down and restore Stromwell's legitimate life. Thorne corners Stromwell and his estranged brother, Michael, and almost machine-guns them to death before being knocked out by Batman and left for the police.

The "Batman: The Animated Series" episode "Paging The Crime Doctor" reveals that Rupert Thorne's younger brother, Dr. Matthew Thorne, lost his license when he failed to file a police report on a gunshot wound he treated, probably working for Rupert. While reluctantly performing medicine on gangsters without a license as "The Crime Doctor," he surgically removes a benign tumor, with the help of his colleague, Dr. Leslie Thompkins, from Rupert's heart on the promise that his brother would use his connections to reinstate Matthew's medical license. Matthew turns on Rupert, however, when Thorne's men plot to kill Thompkins, and turns himself in to the police in the aftermath, leaving Thorne's fate in the episode unknown.

Thorne is also notable in the series for introducing Bane into the DC Animated Universe. In the episode "," Thorne hires him to assassinate the Dark Knight. Unbeknownst to Thorne, however, his moll, Candice, is conspiring with Bane to kill him as well as Batman so they could both run the city. After Batman defeats Bane by severing the tubing that pumps the "Venom" steroids into his body, he sent the hired killer to Thorne, trussed-up and noticeably shrunken, complete with an audio recording of his treasonous conversations with Candice. It wasn't revealed what Rupert did to Candice after that. His final appearance in the show is the episode "Second Chance", where he is one of the primary suspects for kidnapping Two-Face just before his operation to restore his face. Robin is sent to interrogate him, but is captured by Thorne's men and brought to Thorne himself. While Thorne denies any involvement, he sends his men to take Robin somewhere and kill him, unaware that Robin escapes with his life.

Rupert Thorne also appears in the non-canonical video game "The Adventures of Batman & Robin" for the Sega CD, in which Clayface takes on Thorne's shape while the real Thorne is on vacation, using the gangster's money to hire other supervillains in a plot to kill Batman. In the scenes where Clayface took on Thorne's form, Vernon reprises his role.

When "Batman: The Animated Series" was revamped as "The New Batman Adventures", Rupert Thorne was absent from the new show. He later reappears in the direct-to-video animated movie, "", in which he works with The Penguin and Carlton Duquesne in an arms deal. The three are also allied with Bane, although there is no mention of Bane's previous allegiance with Thorne.

The Batman

Thorne is also featured in "The Batman" voiced by Victor Brandt. In the first episode, his criminal empire falls apart before supervillains like the Joker appear in Gotham. He also makes a cameo in the episode "A Matter of Family." In "Rumors," he was shown to be one of the captive victims of Rumor.

Thorne plays a larger role in "The Batman Strikes!", a comic based in the continuity of the show. In one issue, he works with Bruno "Ugly" Mannheim to create a army of super-villains based on Bane, Man-Bat, and Firefly.

Film

Batman (1989)

In the original script for the the 1989 film "Batman", written by Tom Mankiewicz, Rupert Thorne hires Joe Chill to murder Bruce Wayne's father, Thomas, who is running against Thorne for city council. [http://www.scifiscripts.com/scripts/batmanscript1.txt]

References