‘Seeing’ justice done: envisioning legality in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy

This chapter seeks to examine the underlying vision of law, legality and justice being propounded by the superhero on screen and beyond today. It explores the way in which Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy both draws on and transforms the genre’s traditional tropes—including its critique of the law. Nolan’s films point to an understanding of legality that responds to the prevalence of legal and biopolitical exceptionalism, both on screen in terms of the dominance of the superhero genre, and in the practice and operation of law—revealing the intertwined nature of representation and reality in our envisioning of legality.