?Dark Knight Rises? Trailer Released Online, Watch The Final Teaser Here [VIDEO, SPOILERS]

The third and final trailer for The Dark Knight Rises was released late Monday night following a viral marketing treasure hunt . The two-minute long trailer for writer-director Christopher Nolan's conclusion to his 'Dark Knight' trilogy will screen in previews before The Avengers, but it's available online now.

The new trailer is the darkest one yet, and shows several clips of action that fans have already seen in earlier teasers but plays a piece of ominous music over them to highlight the emotional intensity the film is promising its viewers. Nolan's focus on dark narrative and gritty violence sharply contrasts the high-speed, crowd-pleasing action that The Avengers is promising to viewers. It looks like a summer can in fact have two blockbuster superhero movies so long as they occupy opposite ends of the spectrum.

We get more of Bane (Tom Hardy) and more Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) in the trailer, in which the masked supervillain boasts that he is Gotham's reckoning, while Catwoman says, I'm adaptable. Not exactly a threat; then again, Catwoman has never been pure evil in the style of steroid-fueled Bane.

As for the caped crusader, it appears that he is either forced to flee, captured, killed or all of the above by Bane. In the trailer Batman asks his enemy why don't you kill me? A particularly dark poster released last December for the film also suggested that at the end of Dark Knight Rises Batman will be dead.

No shots of Liam Neeson as Ra's al Ghul, who died in the first film but is rumored to be returning from the grave for the final film, are included in the trailer. Joseph Gordon-Levitt also makes an appearance, though his few lines fail to explain his character, John Blake. Blake is an up-and-coming Gotham police officer secretly helping Batman, similar to Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon.

The new movie takes place eight years after the end of Dark Knight when terrorist mastermind Bane arrives in Gotham City to push the city's defenses to their limits. Batman has been in hiding ever since he took the fall for Harvey Dent (AKA Two-Face's) murderous rampage, but Bane's appearance forces him out of hiding for a final showdown between the forces of good and evil.

What do you think of the trailer? How do you think will Batman's story end? Are you more excited about Dark Knight Rises or The Avengers? Let us know in the comments.