No 2012 movie preview would be complete without mentioning The Dark Knight Rises-- you'd better believe ours did-- but when you're Entertainment Weekly, you get to take it a step further and actually premiere image from the movie itself. As part of their look forward to 2012, EW has posted three new images from the hugely anticipated Batman movie on their website. You can check out cropped versions of all three below, and go for the website for the full picture.







The solo Bane image is by far the most striking of the three, the first time it's really been possible to see the human Tom Hardy behind Bane's terrifying mask. Is that a look of fear on his face? Of pity? He appears to be in some kind of jail cell, though given the regularly grim locations that Christopher Nolan chooses for these films, that doesn't really tell us much. Bane looks equally fierce in the second photo with Batman, though since you can't see his mouth there's a part of me that keeps thinking he's smiling, and instead of getting ready to do battle he and Batman are sharing a friendly fist bump. Of course, as we know from the countless set photos and videos from this scene, it is in fact a giant battle that breaks out during this scene.

With IMAX midnight tickets already on sale and a mere 7 months until it comes to theaters, The Dark Knight Rises is bound to be pretty much everywhere you go this year. Is the next step going to be a big trailer airing during the Super Bowl? I'd expect that, but who knows what might happen between now and then-- people want to know about this movie constantly, and the always pitch-perfect Warner Bros. marketing team seems happy to oblige so far.