The Untold Truth Of Bane

Of all the supervillains in Batman's considerable gallery of foes, there's only one who can claim to have truly beaten the Dark Knight: Bane. He was the mastermind of one of the most brutal Batman stories ever printed, which climaxed in the famous moment where he shattered Bruce Wayne's spine over his knee and ruled Gotham City's criminal underworld. That didn't last, of course, but over 20 years after his victory in "Knightfall," he's been able to maintain his mystique better than almost any other modern villain, for one simple reason. No matter how many times he might've been defeated since, he'll always be the man who broke the Batman.

There's more to Bane than just that single story, though. From a twisted origin to the unknown prototypes that paved the way for him, and all the way to his tenure as a kinda-sorta good guy, here's the truth behind Batman's overpowered nemesis.

Two years after the introduction of Venom, 1993's "Vengeance of Bane" introduced the world to its most famous user. The super-steroid was only half of the equation, though, and the other half was one of the wildest origin stories ever committed to comics.

Bane — he's never been given any other name in comics — was given a life sentence in prison before he was even born. His father had been on the losing side of a revolution in Santa Prisca, and because of "the medieval codes of this island nation," his first-born son had to carry out his prison sentence in Peña Duro after he died. Bane's mother was imprisoned while she was pregnant, and raised him in prison until she died when he was six. After that, he was thrown into the prison's general population, and after being scouted for unsavory purposes by one of the other prisoners, he had a vision of himself in the future in a "perfect form." He killed the other prisoner the next day, and was put into a pit that would flood every night at high tide, where he spent the next ten years surviving out of spite by holding himself just above the water and eating whatever fish he could catch in his teeth — and also doing a whole lot of pushups.

He also developed his own set of meditation techniques to hone his mind, and when he was let out of solitary at 16, he quickly learned to read and studied every book he could. He also volunteered for an experiment on a super-steroid that would allow him to achieve that "perfect form" he'd had a vision of so many years earlier. After becoming the unquestioned master of the prison he'd been born into, a fellow criminal's tales of Gotham City inspired him to become the master of that place as well. He just had to take out the guy who was already controlling the place.

If you're a fan of "Knightfall," you might want to check out "Blind Justice," a Batman story that ran in the pages of "Detective Comics" #598 to #600, by Sam Hamm and artist Denys Cowan. In that story, a hulking, muscle-bound villain named Boneshaker pushed Batman to the limit and shattered his bones, leaving him unable to fight crime and leading him to pass the mantle to a blonde substitute. If that sounds familiar — and if Boneshaker's design, with his pro-wrestling-esque mask and the wires connecting from a high-tech belt to his wrists, seems to ring a bell, too — then there's a reason for that. It has a lot of the same story beats as "Knightfall."

The only thing is, "Blind Justice" came out in 1989, four years before Bane made his first appearance. It's not like this was an obscure story, either: Hamm was the screenwriter of the wildly popular 1989 Batman movie, and the saga was printed across three oversized, 80-page issues that were touted as a celebration of Batman's 50th anniversary. That said, it was never as popular as "Knightfall," which eclipsed it as one of the most notable events in "Batman" history.

Beyond the suspiciously similar surface elements, the look of the villain, and the idea of a replacement Batman, the two stories have plenty of different elements, and Bane is a far more interesting and complicated character than the Boneshaker was. Still, looking back on them both, it's hard not to see "Blind Justice" as a prototype for what happened a few years later.

Bane's tenure as the heir to Ra's al-Ghul's international criminal empire didn't exactly end well, and when the villains inevitably turned on each other, Bane turned his obsessive hatred to Ra's instead of Batman. This time around, though, he didn't just settle for destroying him in a physical confrontation. He decided to end al-Ghul's immortal life once and for all.

Ra's, of course, uses the mystical Lazarus Pits to stay alive and keep his body safe from the ravages of age, which makes him uniquely difficult to kill. Bane can snap Ra's over his knee as much as he wants, but as long as the Lazarus Pits are around, Ra's can be revived, good as new. With that in mind, Bane put his inside knowledge as a former member of the League of Assassins to good use by tracking down and destroying every Lazarus Pit in the world. He even got Batman to help with what he thought was the final one.

It worked, too. Ra's was driven to desperation and eventually killed by his daughter, Nyssa. Needless to say, he eventually came back, but Bane proved to be surprisingly effective at taking him down. All told, Bane spent about as much on-panel time trying to take down Ra's as he did trying to take down Batman, even if it was a little less notable.

Like most of Batman's more popular villains, Bane was featured on "Batman: The Animated Series." While villains like Mr. Freeze and the Mad Hatter were given a new depth in their appearances, though, Bane was the opposite.

Rather than masterminding his own plot to take over Gotham City, the "Animated Series" take on Bane — voiced by Henry Silva in his first appearance, an episode appropriately titled "Bane" — was pretty much just hired muscle brought in by Rupert Thorne. He was presented as slightly more meticulous than other characters, and gathered information by beating it out of Killer Croc, one of Batman's strongest foes. In the end, though, while he was a solid physical challenge for Batman, the Caped Crusader took him down without anything close to the trouble he had in the comics.

There was an interesting footnote to his animated appearances, though: in "Batman Beyond," it was revealed that in the future, Bane's dependence on Venom had left his body withered and weakened in his older days. That didn't stop other criminals from adapting Venom for their own use, though, in the form of "slappers" that transferred it through contact with the skin.

Bane isn't exactly on the Bat Family's Christmas card list. Not only did he try to put an end to Batman by breaking his back in "Knightfall," but he was also the architect of one of the biggest tragedies in Bruce Wayne's entire life. In fact, it's arguably an even more heartbreaking moment than when the Joker blew up Jason Todd in "Death in the Family." The event in question is when Bane snapped Alfred Pennyworth's neck in "Batman" #77 by Tom King, Mikel Janín, and Tony S. Daniel. And the worst part about it? He did it in front of Damian Wayne, traumatizing the headstrong Robin for ignoring the warning that something bad would happen if he tried to enter the City of Bane.

While no one in comics stays in the grave for too long, Alfred's death was still a brutal twist. It was all part of Bane's master plan, as he realized that breaking the Bat physically might not be enough. Instead, he concocted a dastardly scheme where he destroyed every aspect of both Bruce Wayne and Batman. From ruining his wedding to Selina Kyle to recruiting Flashpoint's Thomas Wayne and snapping Alfred's neck, Bane ensured that the Dark Knight's life was in tatters after he was done with him.

The 1990s were a truly magical time for pop culture. The Tamagotchi arrived, driving parents and teachers up the wall, and Marvel and DC finally collided in a cross-company battle to determine which of their characters would come out on top in different dream match-ups. Headlining encounters like Batman versus Captain America and Superman versus Hulk dominated most of the pages of the "DC Versus Marvel" crossover series, but there was also a tense showdown between Cap and Bane.

As you might expect, Bane wanted nothing more than to break Captain America's back, since that's apparently his equivalent of the Stone Cold Stunner. Cap warns the villain not to mess with him, but Bane engages in the skirmish anyway. He flings his mighty shield, and Bane appears to dodge it, setting up Cap for his vertebrae crusher with a gorilla press slam and some mandatory trash talk. Then, in the nick of time, the shield returns and knocks Bane out cold, giving Cap the victory over the Santa Prisca bruiser. Imagine if Batman had brought his own boomerang shield when he faced Bane in "Knightfall" — it would have been a squash match.