Heath Ledger will play The Joker in next year's Batman: Dark Knight. It's crazy enough to work, dammit!

I don't know - from Brokeback Mountain to The Joker? Don't you think he is a bit young to pull this off?

Au contraire, Heath Ledger is a perfect fit age-wise according to comtemporary Batman cannon, where he is around the same age as Bruce Wayne. After all, even though they didn't announce it with bells on, "Batman Begins" was Warners's reworking of the Batman mythos. There was a clear distinction between that film, and the four modern films previously. As a denouncer of those four flicks, I applaud that decision wholeheartedly.

Heavily inspired by the actual comics rather than the public perception of the hero, "Batman Begins" was much closer to the Modern-Age reinterpretation of Batman, that started following the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" storyline with Frank Miller's "Batman: Year One" arc. (Aside: there were moments, like the distraction of the police by bats that the Dark Knight summons using an ultrasonic signal, that were clearly lifted from Miller's work; in this case the third issue of "Year One") Accordingly, Joker was reimagined by Alan Moore - around the same time as "Year One," in one of the finest graphic novels of all time, "The Killing Joke," as more of a pathetic sociopath, and the flip side of the coin to the stoic Batman. Whereas Batman, following the brutal murder of his parents, sought justice against crime in all its forms, Joker sought midless revenge against a society that not only never fullfilled his dreams, but also caused, in his mind, the death of his pregnant wife. I am glad that Chris Nolan and David Goyer will be approaching the material with that attitude in mind.

I wonder whom they will get for Harvey Dent.

Oh to be single and alone and having to worry about this nonsense...

You definitely know more than me - haven't been a DC fan since I was a kid. Couldn't get past where Metropolis was vs. Gotham City I kind of figured that Gotham was Newark, NJ - but sometimes they had Gotham and Metropolis right near each other, sometimes they were further away...and "Central City" just made it even more confusing.

Did anyone ever definitely come up with an geographical explanation of where these places are?

Not really, but it's assumed that Metropolis is a mixture of D.C./New York, and Gotham is pretty much New York (with an oversized "Hell's Kitchen"). Star City is supposed to be a San Fransisco/L.A. clone, and Central City is meant to be Chicago, I think.

You'd like the post "Crisis" D.C. Universe. Much more interesting than latter day Marvel with its obsessive need to turn every single story into a metaphor. Having said that, the relatively new "Ultimate Marvel" line is highly enjoyable.