Bane & Batman face off on rival Empire covers

After a dozens leaked location spy pics of Tom Hardy as Bane, Empire has two officially sanctioned portraits from The Dark Knight Rises.

UPDATE: Comingsoon has details from Nolan teasing some plot points:

In the article, Nolan reveals that the story picks up eight years after The Dark Knight and that the prologue coming with Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol in IMAX “is basically the first six, seven minutes of the film. It’s the introduction to Bane and a taste of the rest of the film. With Bane we are looking to give Batman a physical challenge that he hasn’t had before.”

Costume designer Lindy Hemming also talked about Bane’s mask in the film. “He was injured early in his story. He’s suffering from pain and he needs gas to survive. He cannot survive the pain without the mask. The pipes from the mask go back along his jawline and feed into the thing at the back where there are two canisters of what ever it is… the anesthetic.”