Last night, Dave and I saw The Dark Knight Rises. It was an amazing film and the entire time I was beside myself with the literary references. By the end, all I could do is sputter, "wow, dickens, french revolution, etc." Thus followed 20 minutes of me gushing in book nerd heaven to Dave, outlining the entire plot of A Tale of Two Cities, and the basic history of the French Revolution (including a side bar about The Marquis de Sade, his role in the revolution, and one of my favorite plays, Marat/Sade). This article (www.slate.com) is a pretty good summary of most of the parrallels. Also it points out Kafka! I love Kafka and can't believe I didn't catch that. What I'm saying is it was a great mix of comic book, action, great story, literary and historical allusion.