Rupert Thorne
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| Rupert Thorne | |
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| Publication information | |
|---|---|
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | Detective Comics #469 |
| Created by | Steve Englehart and Walter Simonson |
| In story information | |
| Full name | Rupert Thorne |
| Abilities | 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.
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[edit] Fictional character biography
Thorne was introduced as a corrupt politician being blackmailed by Doctor Phosphorus into turning the city against Batman. After Phosphorus was defeated, Thorne persuaded his fellow city councilors to declare Batman an outlaw. He attempted to gain complete control of Gotham City by becoming Mayor of the city. Learning that Professor Hugo Strange knew Batman's secret identity, he captured and tortured him to make him divulge it. Strange resisted, however, and apparently died in the process. Even though he had the body disposed of, Thorne was 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 returned to Gotham. (Detective Comics #507, October 1981) He got the corrupt Hamilton Hill elected as Mayor, and then had his puppet fire Police Commissioner James Gordon in favor of Peter Pauling, who was on Thorne's payroll. Thorne finally identified Bruce Wayne as Batman after acquiring photos of him changing costume from reporter Vicki Vale. Thorne then hired Deadshot to kill Wayne. Deadshot was unsuccessful. Meanwhile, Thorne was still haunted by the ghost of Hugo Strange, and it was eventually revealed that Strange had faked his death and tormented Thorne with experiments designed to simulate ghostly experiences. Thorne became convinced that Hill and Pauling were plotting against him and trying to drive him insane. Thorne killed Pauling but was eventually apprehended by Batman. (Batman #354, December 1982)
Thorne made 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 was shown incarcerated in Blackgate Penitentiary when Doctor Phosphorus made an attempt on his life, one that was prevented by Batman.
[edit] Other media
[edit] Batman: The Animated Series
In Batman: The Animated Series, Rupert Thorne (voiced by the late John Vernon) appears in at several points throughout the series to virtually control Gotham's criminal underworld. Thorne made his first appearance in the episode "Two-Face", in which he was indirectly responsible for district attorney Harvey Dent's transformation into the arch-criminal Two-Face. Thorne blackmailed Dent with his psychological records, threatening to tell the press that the young DA suffered from multiple personality disorder unless he stopped prosecuting his henchmen. Enraged, Dent "switched" into his alternate, violent personality and chased Thorne into a nearby chemical processing plant, where an explosion permanently disfigured half of Dent's face and left his evil personality in control. In this story, Thorne replaces mafia don Sal Maroni as the mechanism for Dent's disfigurement and transformation into a criminal.
Also in Batman: The Animated Series, episode "Paging The Crime Doctor" states 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 from Rupert's heart on the promise that his brother would use his connections to reinstate Matthew's medical license.
Thorne was also notable in the series for introducing Bane into Batman's life. In the episode "Bane," Thorne hired him to assassinate the Dark Knight. Unbeknownst to Thorne, however, his moll, Candice, was conspiring with Bane to kill him as well as Batman so they could both run the city. After Batman (just barely) defeated Bane by severing the tubing that pumped 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. Bane was the last episode of the series to feature Rupert Thorne.
Rupert Thorne also appears in the 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, Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman, in which he works with The Penguin and Carlton Duquesne in an arms deal.
[edit] The Batman
Thorne is also featured in The Batman. 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." Thorne plays a larger role in The Batman Strikes!, a comic based in the continuity of the show. He is played by Victor Brandt.
In the original script for the first Batman film, written by Tom Mankiewicz, Rupert Thorne hired Joe Chill to murder Thomas Wayne, who was running against Thorne for city council. ([1])
