When you think of recent successful comic book movie outings, there is no franchise that comes to mind more quickly than the Christopher Nolan's Batman series.
Then, after you have thought of that and the smile of contentment has left your lips, you remember the Joker, more specifically, Heath Ledger as Joker, and the smile becomes a look of sadness.
This is because Heath Ledger's Joker was one of the most iconic portrayals of any villain to grace the silver screen, and his untimely demise has left whoever follows him as a villain with some mighty big shoes to fill.
When Nolan confirmed that Tom Hardy will be donning the mask and portraying the super tough and super smart Bane, I personally, was excited, mostly because Bane is my favorite Bat-villain of all time. But a thought occurred to me.
Maybe, just maybe, there are people who aren't as informed as I am about Bane and may be worried that he isn't going to be as good a villain as the Joker, and may even remember him from his mind-meltingly awful appearance in George Clooney's Batman and Robin. (If you haven't seen it, please don't. Save yourself the two hours of pain and misery).
Curious who Bane is? Here's a quick lesson about "The Man Who Broke the Bat".
Born in a Prison: Bane's Youth
Bane's first appearance was in Vengeance of Bane #1 back in 1993, created by Chuck Dixon, Doug Moench and Graham Nolan. Bane was born in a prison called Peña Duro in the fictional Caribbean Republic of Santa Prisca. His father was a revolutionary who managed to evade the Santa Prisca authorities time after time. They decided that the then unborn Bane would serve his father's sentence instead.
As a result, he was a perfectly happy and well-adjusted young man! Or maybe not. Bane spent his early years confined to this terrible prison, honing his mind and his body to become the perfect weapon. He killed his first man at the age of eight, by stabbing him in with a knife that was concealed in his teddy bear.
As he grew smarter and stronger, he proclaimed himself the King of Peña Duro. However, his rise to power would not go unnoticed.
The men who controlled Peña Duro were acutely aware of Bane and his survival abilities. As a result, they made him take part in a trial for a drug known as Venom, which was designed to vastly increase the subject's physical strength.
Despite the drug having killed every previous test subject, Bane not only survived the procedure but emerged stronger than ever. The drug's effect continues, but Bane has to keep injecting the venom into his brain every 12 hours or he will die.
This doesn't stop Bane who, using his new-found power, managed to escape from Peña Duro with his henchmen and traveled to the place that he had become obsessed with during his incarceration: Gotham City.
Breaking the Bat: Bane's Master Plan
During his time in Peña Duro, Bane became fascinated with Gotham City. He would come to draw comparison with it and his prison saying that both were ruled by fear. Peña Duro is a prison, a place where fear naturally rules, and Gotham is also ruled by fear: fear of the Batman.
As a child, Bane was tormented by dreams of a demonic bat that would attack him. Therefore, he rationalised that not only would he rule Gotham as he did Peña Duro but by crushing the Batman he would absolve himself of his terrible dreams.
Bane knew that a direct confrontation with Batman would be futile. Therefore, using his tactical intellect, he devised a plan to wear him down until he would be unable to fight back. The first stage of his plan involved breaking all of Batman's villains out of Arkham Asylum.
This led Batman to spend the next several months chasing and re-capturing these villains, to the point of complete mental and physical exhaustion. After finally finishing his mission and capturing the last escaped villain, Batman returned to Wayne Manor to recuperate – only to find Bane there waiting for him!
Bane had managed to decipher Batman's secret identity. He attacked Batman at his weakest. Bane's plan worked perfectly, as Batman was in no state to defend himself after all the months of extreme exertion he had been subjected to.
As a result, Bane's fight with Batman was only ever going to have one outcome. Bane defeated Batman and then broke Batman's spine across his knee, leaving him crippled, and forever immortalizing Bane himself as "The Man who Broke the Bat".
So there you have it!
A comprehensive look at Bane, his origin story, and his first arc as a Batman villain. For those who argue he isn't as iconic as the Joker, there is no villain who has defeated Batman as convincingly as Bane did.
His story is one of violence and retribution, that tested Batman to his very limits.
