Kevin Marks writes about the struggles in The Dark Knight and No Country for Old Men on Reel Spirituality: “Batman, a creature of the night anyway, becomes now ‘the dark knight,’ assuming the blame for the evil unleashed upon Gotham by The Joker, in order that faith be restored in a criminal justice system, and the fear that grips those who walk home in the dark can at least be alleviated by knowing that the police are back in power, and are now chasing the bizarro Batman/savior figure for his crime of turning against those he had sworn to protect.”

Heroic sacrifice is an epic theme. It was touched on in the Spiderman movies, though not hammered like the responsibility angle. It’s what Saving Private Ryan tried to tell us. Perhaps we’ll see the theme carry the story in the next Batman movie.