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Bane is a criminal and adversary of Batman.

Physical Appearances[]

Bane is a physically imposing character. He is in peak muscular condition. He is much muscular than an average human due to his excessive use of the Venom steroid.

He wears a mask similar to those worn by lucha libre wrestlers.

Powers & Abilities[]

  • Super Strength - Bane's physical strength is dramatically increased by the Venom in his bloodstream. He can smash through thin steel doors with little effort.

Season Eleven[]

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Bane versus Batman.

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Bane powers up.

One night in Gotham, Batman drops into a building, shocking three men playing cards with his sudden appearance. They claim to have done nothing wrong until Bane kicks in the door, saying that Batman is after him. After a brief fight Bane gains the upper hand and is about to break Batman until the cape crusader calls in the Batmobile for backup and kooks Bane down. Just then Nightwing appears and they finish off Bane together.

Later, Commissioner Gordon questions Batman for the whereabouts of Bane and Batman tells him that he can be found in a warehouse, depowered.

In Gotham City, the yellow rings of Parallax head to Arkham Asylum. There, Batman and Nightwing are doing their best to contain the newly powered inmates of Arkham, including Bane, who have already been transformed into Yellow Lanterns. Luckily, Superman arrives just in time to offer assistance to Batman and Nightwing.

Superman tries to control the situation but his inexperience with his power ring doesn't help at all, so Bane and Firefly attack him, while he is protecting the doctors. After been attacked by Bane, Poison Ivy and Mr. Freeze, Batman tells Superman that the ring is not doing either of them any bit of good. After this, the Yellow Lanterns stand still and kneel before him. Parallax suddenly appears behind Superman, having John Stewart under his control.

Emil Hamilton succeeds into finding a way to reboot the rings so when he does all the Yellow Lanterns, including Bane, are released from the influence of fear and lose their powers with the rings turning black.

After their rings get rebooted and they lose their powers, the inmates of Arkham fall from the sky unable to do anything to escape from their eventual death but fortunately Superman manages to save them all.

After Parallax's defeat, all the now depowered criminals return to Arkham Asylum.

Appearances[]

In the Comics[]

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Bane as he appears in the comics.

Bane was born in the fictional Caribbean Republic of Santa Prisca, in a prison called Peña Dura. His father, Edmund Dorrance (better known as King Snake), had been a revolutionary who had escaped Santa Prisca's court system. The corrupt government, however, decreed that his young son would serve out the man's life sentence and thus Bane's childhood and early adult life were spent in the amoral penitentiary environment. Though he was imprisoned, his natural abilities allowed him to develop extraordinary skills within the prison's walls. He read as many books as he could get his hands on, built up his body in the prison's gym and learned to fight in the merciless school of prison life. Because of the cultural and supposed geographical location of Santa Prisca, Bane knew how to speak English, Spanish, Portuguese and Latin. Despite his circumstances, he found teachers of various sorts during his incarceration, ranging from hardened convicts to an elderly Jesuit priest, under whose tutelage he apparently received a classical education. Bane murdered this priest upon his return to Santa Prisca years later. He committed his first murder at the age of eight, stabbing a criminal who wanted to use him to gain information about the prison. During his years in prison, Bane carried a teddy bear he calls Osito ("Little bear" in Spanish), whom he considered his only friend. It is revealed that Osito has a hole in his back to hold a knife that Bane used to defend himself.

Bane would be haunted, in his dreams, by a bat. He ultimately established himself as the "king" of Peña Dura prison. The prison's controllers took note and eventually forced him to become a test subject for a mysterious drug known as Venom, which had killed all other subjects: the drug was administered by a doctor who bore a passing resemblance to another Batman foe, Hugo Strange. Later, in Vengeance of Bane II the very same doctor encountered Bane again in Gotham and it is confirmed that it is not Hugo Strange, who, at that point in Batman continuity, was a crazed psychologist and not a surgeon. The Peña Dura prison Venom experiment nearly killed Bane at first, but he survived and found that the drug vastly increases his physical strength, although he needs to take it every 12 hours (via a system of tubes pumped directly into his brain) or he will suffer debilitating side-effects.

During the Knightfall storyline, Bane escapes Peña Dura, along with several accomplices based on the Fabulous Five (his minions Trogg, Zombie, and Bird, all of whom are named after 1960s rock bands — The Troggs, The Zombies, and The Byrds — and were designed to mimic three of Doc Savage's assistants Monk, Ham, and Renny). His ambition turns to destroying Batman, about whom he had heard stories while an inmate. Gotham fascinates Bane because, like Peña Dura, fear rules Gotham - but it is the fear of the Batman. Bane is convinced that Batman is the demonic bat which haunted his dreams since childhood. Therefore, Bane believes fate placed Batman on a collision course with him.

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Breaking the Bat.

Aware that a direct assault on Batman would be foolish, Bane instead destroys the walls of Arkham Asylum—allowing its deranged inmates (including the Joker, Two-Face, the Riddler, the Scarecrow, the Mad Hatter, the Ventriloquist, Firefly, Poison Ivy, Cornelius Stirk, Film Freak and Victor Zsasz) to escape into Gotham City. Consequently, Batman is forced to recapture the escapees, a mission that takes him three months. Having run himself to exhaustion in the process of completing this mission, Batman returns to Wayne Manor where he finds Bane waiting for him (having previously determined his secret identity). After a brief explanation of his obsession to destroy him, Bane attacks Batman, first in the manor and soon the two tumble into the Batcave below where Bane continues his assault on the detective, toying with him throughout. Bane delivers the final blow by raising the Batman up and throwing him down upon his knee, breaking his back and leaving him a paraplegic. Bane thus becomes the only man to have "Broken the Bat".

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Bane using Venom.

While Bane establishes himself as the new ruler of Gotham's criminal underworld, Bruce Wayne passes the mantle of Batman to Jean-Paul Valley, also known as Azrael. As the "new" Batman, however, Jean-Paul grows increasingly violent, ruthless and has little to no regard for innocent bystanders. Believing that Bruce Wayne's way of crime fighting is now obsolete, he vows to fight on the villains' level to defeat them. Valley also refuses to recognize Robin as his partner. Despite Bruce Wayne's strict orders that Valley avoid Bane, he disregards those commands and boldly attempts to confront Bane in his home: with the villain now living in luxury high above Gotham in a penthouse suite. With a set of high-tech, heavy metal gauntlets that Valley added to the Batsuit, he uses them to shoot sharp projectiles at Bane, leaving him bleeding and hurt. But Bane is able to get the upper hand in the fight after using Venom and taunting Valley, making him angry enough to foolishly rush him. Despite besting Valley, Bane sustained deep lacerations in the battle and lost much blood. Hunted by law enforcement, it was impossible for Bane to admit himself to a hospital despite his worsening condition. Thus, Bane's solution was to increase his Venom intake to temporarily block the pain and buy himself time to defeat this new Batman. Humiliated, Valley returned to the Batcave where he built an advanced combat suit of metal, in place of the traditional Batman uniform, with many chambers within the suit that fired razor-sharp weapons. Reduced to little more than a wounded animal fleeing for survival, Bane is no match against the "new" Batman and is overwhelmed by him. Weakened and desperate, Bane's defeat is ensured when Valley severs the tubes that pump Venom into his bloodstream, causing severe withdrawal. With Commissioner Jim Gordon, Harvey Bullock, and Robin watching in horror as this new Batman tortures a defeated Bane: Bane asks for mercy at the hands of Valley when he asks to be killed. Despite his programming as the assassin Azrael, the "Knightfall" arc ends as Valley denies his innate urge to kill Bane.

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Bane and Talia.

Further following the events of Knightfall, Bane recovers from his Venom addiction while serving time in Blackgate Prison. He eventually escapes from prison and returns to Gotham, where he fights alongside Batman to take out a criminal ring that is distributing a Venom derivative to street-level thugs. Following a victory over the criminals (and the revelation that behind it is the same doctor that performed the surgery on Bane years earlier in Peña Dura), Bane proclaims that he is "innocent" of his past crimes and urges Batman to stop hunting him. He then leaves Gotham (without fighting Batman) to begin a search for his father. Bane's search brings him back to Santa Prisca. In search of leads, Bane questions the Jesuit priest who had taught him while he was in Peña Dura. The priest explains that there were four men who could possibly have been his father: a Santa Priscan revolutionary, an American doctor, an English mercenary, and a Swiss banker. While searching for the Swiss man in Rome, Bane encounters Talia al Ghul and the League of Assassins and eventually impresses Ra's al Ghul so much that he chooses Bane to marry Talia and become his heir (an "honor" he had previously bestowed on Batman). Ra's al Ghul then launches a plague attack on Gotham in the "Legacy" storyline, with Bane at his side, who is posing as Ubu. Bruce Wayne, again costumed as Batman, gets his rematch with Bane in Detective Comics #701 and finally defeats him in single combat. The defeat causes Ra's to call off the engagement to Talia and disown Bane.

According to the Jesuit priest, with whom Bane speaks, there is a possibility that Bane's biological father is an American doctor. In researching this issue, Bane comes to the conclusion that he and Batman share Dr. Thomas Wayne as their biological father, with Dr. Wayne allegedly becoming close to Bane's mother during his time in Santa Prisca. Bane alerts Batman to this possibility and during the time that the DNA tests are being performed, stays at Wayne Manor and fights alongside Batman on the streets of Gotham in the "Tabula Rasa" storyline. Ultimately, it is revealed that Dr. Wayne is not Bane's father and Bane leaves Gotham peacefully (and with Batman's blessing and financial backing) to pursue leads in the snowy mountains of Kangchenjunga. Bane eventually finds his father, who turns out to be the unscrupulous King Snake (validating the English mercenary hypothesis) and not El Jefe del País de Santa Prisca, in the "Veritas Liberat" storyline. Bane, with Batman looking on, helps foil King Snake's plans to unleash a powerful weapon upon the world. Bane saves Batman from being shot by King Snake, but is mortally wounded in the process. Batman then saves Bane by bathing him in a Lazarus Pit and leaves him with a clean slate.

He later becomes a member of the Secret Six.

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Bane in the New 52.

In the New 52, Bane has a massive storage tank on his back and is still fighting his addiction to the Venom compound. As Bruce Wayne is unable to keep up with the various legal conspiracies involving Batman Incorporated, he decides to investigate a breakout in Arkham. There he finds criminals being fed a modified fear toxin that is mixed in with Venom which makes the criminals extremely strong and immune to fear. He finds it being given to criminals by a new foe named the White Rabbit, when Batman approaches her she quickly defeats him and injects him with the fear toxin which she then gives to the Flash. Bruce then finds Bane to be behind the new fear toxin and combats him, Bruce manages to burn the fear toxin out of his and the Flash's bodies by getting pushed to the limit. Bruce manages to defeat Bane and knock him off an edge, but is left confused by the White Rabbit. Bane is then washed away by the tide.

It was later revealed that Bane had intended to steal a nuclear device to threaten Gotham City, only to have a run-in with the Court of Owls, who prevented him from stealing the device and didn't want him to interfere with their plans. Later, after Batman defeats Bane, a mysterious figure confronts the villain and informs him that the Court of Owls had undermined his plans. Bane returns to Santa Prisca to lead his army against them.

Notes[]

  • While fighting with Batman, Bane tries to hurt him with his signature move, which was first featured in the Knightfall storyline. In that story, Bane succeeded to defeat Batman by raising him up and throwing him down upon his knee, breaking his back and leaving him temporarily paraplegic. Because of that he is often credited for being the only villain to have "Broken The Bat" and this iconic moment is often recreated and alluded to numerous times in most of the character's appearances in other media with the most recent being the live-action film, The Dark Knight Rises.

Other faces of Bane[]

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