The Nuclear Bomb (or Neutron Bomb) was a weapon of mass destruction in The Dark Knight Rises. It began as a Wayne Enterprises fusion reactor meant to supply Gotham City with a source of clean energy. The reactor was weaponized when Talia (Miranda Tate) and the League of Shadows planned to hold the city hostage before destroying it. Bane and the League men kidnapped Dr. Leonid Pavel to have him turn the reactor into a bomb and it became a time bomb when the core was removed from the reactor. The remote trigger to detonate the bomb was in the possession of Talia and the League men drove the bomb around the city in armored trucks until their ultimate defeat by Batman.
History[]
Origin[]
The Wayne Enterprises fusion reactor project was personally heavily invested in by both Bruce Wayne and Miranda Tate while Lucius Fox ran the company. Wayne Enterprises entire R&D budget was used in its creation. The reactor was the first of its kind, according to Lucius. When Russian nuclear scientist Dr. Leonid Pavel published his research about weaponized fusion reactions, Bruce pulled the plug on the project under the guise of it having problems and the reactor secretly sat in a bunker under the Gotham River for three years. It remained on the books of the company that Lucius maintained, unlike the armory of the Applied Sciences division.
The Dark Knight Rises[]
Meeting with Bruce Wayne[]
Miranda persistently tried to meet with Bruce to discuss the fusion reactor project, but was ignored as Bruce was reclusive. With the loss of his fortune and seat on the Wayne Enterprises board of directors, Bruce turned to Miranda and showed her the reactor. He feared it coming under the control of John Daggett. He told her he needed her to take control of the company and the reactor, which she then did at their next board meeting.
Weaponising the weapon[]
Bane had kidnapped Dr. Pavel six months prior and brought him to Gotham where he turned the reactor into a "neutron bomb" with a four-kiloton yield after authorization from Miranda and coerced authorization from Lucius. By removing the core from the reactor, it also became a time bomb with five months left as its fuel cells deteriorated and then became unstable until the point of detonation. It was shown off to the city and the world at Gotham City Stadium and there Bane told everyone the trigger to the detonator was in the possession of an anonymous Gotham citizen and it would be detonated if there was interference from outside the city or if anyone attempted to flee the city. Under duress, Pavel here described the weapon as a fully primed "neutron bomb" with a blast radius of 6 miles (9.6 km). Bane then killed Pavel after Pavel identified himself as the only person who could disarm it.
Tracking the bomb[]
The neutron bomb was made mobile as three armored tactical trucks patrolled the city, one containing the bomb. The roofs of the intermodal containers on the rear sections of the trucks were lined with lead to prevent the radioactivity from being detected by satellites. Miranda volunteered her assistance to Jim Gordon and a rag tag group of cops in finding and tracking the bomb truck. Unknown to them at the time, she deliberately misled them into tracking a decoy.
Blocking the signal[]
After Bruce returned to the city after his defeat by Bane, Lucius gave him a way to block the signal to the trigger using EMP technology from the Bat. Batman gave this device to Gordon. After the delay of stopping a decoy bomb truck, Gordon found and climbed on board the true bomb truck and blocked the signal before Talia hit the trigger to detonate the bomb during her confrontation with Batman. She gloated that Gordon had only bought Gotham eleven more minutes and ordered for a convoy of Tumbler's to protect the bomb truck and left Gotham City Hall to be escorted to the truck.
Detonating the device[]
After the convoy was dismantled by Batman and Selina Kyle and the bomb truck fell off the high road, Talia explained that Lucius showed her about the emergency flood and it was triggered so that reconnecting the core to the reactor to stabilize it in the bunker was no longer an option. Batman hooked the bomb up to the Bat and flew it over the Gotham Bay with the use of autopilot, where the bomb exploded away from the city.
Behind the scenes[]
- The bomb trucks in The Dark Knight Rises are Logistics Vehicle Systems Replacement (LVSR) trucks made by Oshkosh Corporation.