'Nom Rage

December 26, 2011 1:12 PM

Bane Facts: You've seen Tom Hardy look awesome as the character in posters and promos, but who exactly is Bane? Don't worry about shelling out cash for graphic novels and back issues, we'll teach you all about the villain that will appear in The Dark Knight Rises.
posted by troll (44 comments total)

He was awesome in Secret Six. I didn't read that series until late in it's run but when I did finally start reading it, I was hooked. The bit with him on a date at the county fair was so good and so funny. That series totally changed my concept of the character. I highly recommend it.
posted by GavinR at 1:17 PM on December 26, 2011 [2 favorites]

He has a goatse face. You can sing that to the tune of the classic "Gas Face".
posted by Burhanistan at 1:17 PM on December 26, 2011

Imagine what Judi Dench could have done with the role.
posted by hermitosis at 1:34 PM on December 26, 2011 [6 favorites]

Is Tom Hardy the guy who makes the ugly clothes or the guy that says the dumb platitudes?
posted by Splunge at 1:36 PM on December 26, 2011

how funny that we call these 'facts'
posted by serif at 1:43 PM on December 26, 2011 [4 favorites]

I don't think there was a decent comic book character that was created in the 90s.
posted by empath at 1:47 PM on December 26, 2011 [1 favorite]

how funny that we call these 'facts'

I know, right? She's usually called Dame Judi.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:59 PM on December 26, 2011 [2 favorites]

I don't think there was a decent comic book character that was created in the 90s.

But but but Deadpool....

OK, you're right
posted by BitterOldPunk at 2:04 PM on December 26, 2011 [2 favorites]

how funny that we call these 'facts'

Do you think it's weird to talk about the facts of Hamlet, or only when we're talking about comic books?
posted by neuromodulator at 2:07 PM on December 26, 2011 [11 favorites]

I don't think there was a decent comic book character that was created in the 90s.
posted by empath

We just covered Spider Jerusalem!

Oh and if you feel like shelling out some cash for the collected editions and stuff... I gotcha covered.
posted by Ron Thanagar at 2:08 PM on December 26, 2011

The very first thing (aside from the intro) that Gregg Katzman tells us is:

"It's a common misconception that Bane needs venom to pose a threat"

and this is in Fact number 11. He (Katzman) doesn't get around to telling us what venom actually is until he works his way down to Fact number 2. I recognize that much of his audience may already be fully aware of what venom is as well as Bane's back story, but some of us aren't. It wouldn't have hurt anything to, you know, start at the beginning.

Speaking of starting at the beginning, why wasn't Fact number 8 (Dark Origin) the very first thing? You know, starting the readers off with a little "who is this guy, how did he get here?" kind of stuff?

These kinds of poor choices, plus typos and wrong word choice [peaked vs piqued] left me wondering where the editors were on this piece. I want to snark about "I guess I should have expected this from an article about a comic book villain" but I can't. I've seen good writing about comics that didn't resemble this fanboy blather.

In closing, I would like to quote:

"Although he grew up in a repulsive prison, Bane is a class act. The man respects women and enjoys a comfy robe and glass of wine during his downtime. In all honesty, I just really wanted to share this image with the Internet. Even the World's Most Interesting Man is jealous of how Bane looks during his downtime."

In the picture show above this statement the guy is wearing a robe as well as fingerless leather biker gloves. If that's not class I don't know what is.
posted by komara at 2:21 PM on December 26, 2011 [5 favorites]

I don't think there was a decent comic book character that was created in the 90s.

Flex Mentallo?
posted by benzenedream at 2:25 PM on December 26, 2011 [2 favorites]

I don't think there was a decent comic book character that was created in the 90s.

A number of people thought Kalo was real.
posted by Smart Dalek at 2:27 PM on December 26, 2011

More Bane trivia : He is also the boss you meet at the bottom of the lighthouse in Gotham City when you play a hero in the free-to-play MMO called DC Universe Online.
posted by crunchland at 2:38 PM on December 26, 2011

Yeah, when i said 'comic book character', i meant 'mainstream superhero character'... Obv there was stuff like Sandman that was excellent.
posted by empath at 2:42 PM on December 26, 2011

I don't think there was a decent comic book character that was created in the 90s.

Squirrel Girl!
posted by martinrebas at 2:47 PM on December 26, 2011 [5 favorites]

Madman appeared in Image and Dark Horse.
posted by Smart Dalek at 2:52 PM on December 26, 2011

I don't think there was a decent comic book character that was created in the 90s.

Fone Bone and Thorn, Hellboy, Tommy Monoghan, Tulip O'Hare, Jack Knight, Barry Ween, Tom Strong, Promethea, Tim Hunter, and the entire cast of Kurt Busiek's Astro City would like to respectfully disagree with you, and that was just occurred to me in the first minute.
posted by mightygodking at 2:57 PM on December 26, 2011 [9 favorites]

[i]I don't think there was a decent comic book character that was created in the 90s.[/i]

Here I thought comic books were suppose to be fun, colorful, and ridiculous. I guess I have to be serious about my hobby.
posted by LilSoulBrother85 at 3:28 PM on December 26, 2011

Is there a hottie love interest? Because if this movie is just a sausage fest I might give it a pass. I need skimpily clad women in my comic book movies to make them worth going to. That way if the movie totally sucks I still have something worth looking at.
posted by cjorgensen at 3:33 PM on December 26, 2011

So, if I'm understanding this correctly, the misconceptions about Bane are that he's slow, dumb, and rude, but in fact, he's very agile, fast, smart, classy, invulnerable and can lift three tons. That sounds pretty accurate to me - of course people who can lift pick up trucks over their heads can do back flips, solve puzzles instantly, overcome their drug addictions by sheer willpower, be a leader amongst men and overcome their traumatic upbringing to live life like Hugh Hefner. Who says comics are about facile wish fulfillment?
posted by Kiablokirk at 3:56 PM on December 26, 2011 [3 favorites]

After having seen the trailer, all I can say is, dear lord, you have six months of post production available to you, and after all of the comedy mileage we've gotten out of Dark Knight's BATMAN SPEAKS IN A GRAVELLY VOICE*, please, please do something about Bane's voice. It took me three times to understand what Bane was saying in the trailer. Three times. Listening carefully. If the entire movie is like that, I imagine I'll find myself trying to read the Japanese subtitles instead.

*Every once in a while, my friends and I will look at each other, and one of us will still say "WHERE'S DENT!" or "YOU'RE SCUM THAT KILLS FOR MONEY!" It never gets old, really.
posted by Ghidorah at 4:14 PM on December 26, 2011 [4 favorites]

He has a goatse face. You can sing that to the tune of the classic "Gas Face" yt .

Bane is Arseface?
posted by homunculus at 4:23 PM on December 26, 2011 [3 favorites]

Squirrel Girl!

I like squirrels!
posted by homunculus at 4:29 PM on December 26, 2011

I don't think there was a decent comic book character that was created in the 90s.

The Maxx. If you don't think that was more than decent, i feel sorry for you.
posted by usagizero at 4:37 PM on December 26, 2011 [6 favorites]

Here's a breakdown of the trailer, btw.
posted by homunculus at 4:50 PM on December 26, 2011

What is Bane saying? I still haven't caught that.
posted by neuromodulator at 6:49 PM on December 26, 2011

This answered every question about the character except for what might be interesting about him or why I should give a shit.

I'm not snarking. I'm open to caring. I want to like this movie, very much. Can some fan explain why I should give half a shit about this character?
posted by Navelgazer at 6:50 PM on December 26, 2011

Can some fan explain why I should give half a shit about this character?

Tim O'Neill's essay on Bane is, I think, the definitive answer here:

Building a better Batman villain was always going to be a trickier prospect. It had to be someone who represented - like Doomsday for Superman - some kind of polarized opposite who could take Batman apart with the same ease. The whole point of the exercise, after all, was to ultimately redeem the heroes by providing a situation against which their "old fashioned" heroic ideals could ultimately triumph - providing an explicit rejoinder to all the crappy copycats clogging up the stands during the period. (The real battle in the last part of the Knights saga, after all, was not a rematch between Batman and Bane but between Batman and the Punisher-lite Azrael.) Just as Doomsday was a cartoonish, over-exaggerated creature of pure menace, the ultimate monster for the ultimate hero to slay, Bane needed to represent a similar kind of iconic challenge to Batman - and because, like, Doomsday, he was only needed for the first act of the overall story arc, he could be as monstrously efficient as possible without necessarily stretching credulity.

So: what was - is - Batman's greatest attribute? More than anything else, what has always been Batman's greatest super-power?

His will.

Bane, regardless of his origins, is a truly great villain because he was the first (that I can recall) who was ever smart enough to use Batman's greatest strength against him. I recently went back and re-read Knightfall and was pleasantly surprised by just how well it held up. It's a really solid story: for months leading up to the event, Bane was a secretive presence on the outskirts of Batman's world, gradually lining up adversaries and manipulating events in such a way as to keep Batman running through hoops to the point of exhaustion. FInally, just when seams began to show in Batman's powerful facade, he lowers the boom: he demolishes Arkham Asylum and lets loose every single one of Batman's worst foes. After this, Batman has no choice: he has to push himself to the limits of endurance and beyond in order to capture every single one of these madmen. He's driven, but he's only a man and he can't take the strain. Batman successfully overcomes every obstacle Bane throws in his path, but all the while Batman knows there's something else out there, something waiting for him, something with the mind to set the entire city on fire for the single purpose of running his chosen prey through the most taxing gauntlet of his life. Suddenly, Batman is afraid.

And Bane knows this. He knows that Batman is too brave, too willful, too defiant to ask for help - he knows that Batman wouldn't just get on the JLA horn and call for Superman's help. He knows that Batman, when pushed, will isolate himself from his friends and family. He also knows that Batman is not a creature of magic or endowed with superhuman endurance: if pushed long and hard enough, he will eventually reach his absolute limit. And when it's time, Bane is there, waiting for Bruce Wayne when he returns home to Wayne Manor, reaching out with his big meathook hands and crushing Batman with all the effort it would take to break a ragdoll. That's all it takes, and Batman is done.

After that, it's no real surprise that Bane fell into disrepair. It's even explicitly addressed in the story: once you've broken Batman, what's left? He has no real interest in crime for its own sake, he's not a thief by nature or a sociopath. He is simply the physical incarnation of WIll, but with no direction he was useless. A lackey, a pawn, a mercenary - none of these really fit, but there wasn't anything left for him to do. No one since then - with the exception of Gail Simone - has really figured out what Bane should do, since he already accomplished the one impossible task he initially set out to do. It doesn't matter that he eventually got beaten by Azrael, it doesn't matter that he's been humiliated in the years since. The fact is, he hasn't half been trying since he broke the Bat. And in his heart of hearts, Batman knows this.
posted by mightygodking at 6:56 PM on December 26, 2011 [13 favorites]

why I should give half a shit about this character?

See, this is my problem, but I wouldn't articulate it that way or make it character-specific. I would say, though, that this is about the least interesting trailer I've ever seen, in a fascinating kind of way. I don't mean that like I'm carrying antagonistic baggage into viewing it or that I'm all pretentious - I like garbage, and I like trailers. But somehow this trailer just falls completely flat for me. Bleah inspirational crap from Alfred, a zeitgeisty OWS monologue, and a boring effects sequence. And a villain saying something incomprehensible while he files his taxes or some shit. I thought the trailer for GI JOE 2 looked entertaining, for christ's sake! Not that I'm going to see it, but I enjoyed the trailer. Swords! Ninja flips! Etc.! This feels like it's trying very hard to communicate some sort of ominous, imminent threat, but I don't feel any intrigue or excitement for it.

I'm hoping it's just an issue with the trailer.
posted by neuromodulator at 7:00 PM on December 26, 2011 [2 favorites]

I don't think there was a decent comic book character that was created in the 90s

You mean Paris Hilton didn't come from of a comic book?

oh yes, here's a difference between comic and caricature...
posted by arcticseal at 7:01 PM on December 26, 2011

'Nom Rage?
posted by HeroZero at 7:13 PM on December 26, 2011

Neuromodulator, evidently he is saying "when Gotham is ashes, then you have my permission to die."

I really hope they fix that voice. It's absurd. I'm vaguely surprised that beaten down Christian Bale doesn't get a puzzled looked on his face, then say, "Hold on a minute, what was that?"
posted by Ghidorah at 7:13 PM on December 26, 2011 [2 favorites]

I now feel weird for having had no trouble understanding Bane. That said, I don't really care whether any of the trailers are good or bad. It's a Christopher Nolan movie, so I'm there on day 1 no matter what.
posted by sparkletone at 7:25 PM on December 26, 2011

And a villain saying something incomprehensible while he files his taxes or some shit.
I'm hoping it's just an issue with the trailer.
posted by neuromodulator at 7:00 PM on December 26

It doesn't sound like the sound issues are much of a concern to Nolan.
posted by sardonyx at 7:31 PM on December 26, 2011

Although he grew up in a repulsive prison, Bane is a class act. The man respects women and enjoys a comfy robe and glass of wine during his downtime. In all honesty, I just really wanted to share this image with the Internet. Even the World's Most Interesting Man is jealous of how Bane looks during his downtime.

komara, it was at that exact point that I lost all remaining respect for the author.

Bane drinks wine and wears a bathrobe? Wow! He's almost as swahv as Hugh Hefner!

I mean, there's fanboy, and there's never-grew-past-the-10th-grade fanboy.
posted by IAmBroom at 7:38 PM on December 26, 2011

'Nom Rage?

Haha! The title is a play on 'Roid Rage, but that's a great picture.
posted by troll at 7:41 PM on December 26, 2011

He has a goatse face.

'Nom Rage?

Om nom nom nom! (nsfw)
posted by homunculus at 9:18 PM on December 26, 2011 [1 favorite]

My opinionated assertions:

Nolan's work, apart from the hired gun remake of Insomnia, is treatise on what it means to be a modern human in a post-religious world.

Begins: You must face your fears and self-actualize.
Dark Knight: Your self-actualization needs ethics and social order, or chaos results.
Rises: You will conflict with other self-actualized beings and their definitions of self, order and ethics.

In Nolan's world, Ras a'Ghul and Scarecrow were boogeymen. The Joker and Two-Face were chaos and corrupted order. Bane and Catwoman are just as good as Batman, if not better, at simply being who they are. Competent. Goal-oriented. Self-actualized.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:48 PM on December 26, 2011 [14 favorites]

I don't think there was a decent comic book character that was created in the 90s.

Deadpool
Impulse (Since twisted to become Kid Flash)
Cassandra Cain (Lobotomised, forced into a non-sensical face-heel turn)
Arrowette (Safely out of things)
Linda Danvers (Earth Angel) Supergirl (who knows? Of course there are hints...)
The Authority (rebooted hard)
Supreme (after Alan Moore) (Wildstorm imploded)
Deadpool
Kyle Rayner (pushed back to make way for (*bleh* Hal Jordan))
Cassandra Sandsmark (Twisted from a nerdy archeologist into a fashion plate)
WildC.A.T.S. (Wildstorm imploded)
Kon-El Kent (Dead, then ...
Stephanie Brown (Dead, then retconned back to life).

That's just off the top of my head. Of course the ones that carried books were Cassandra Cain, Kyle Rayner, Kon-El, Impulse, Linda Danvers, Deadpool. All good characters. And all except Deadpool screwed with badly by DC attempting to bring back the Silver Age. (Steph may have been Robin, but that was still Tim's book even while he quit - but her death was a serious act of character assassination).
posted by Francis at 2:39 AM on December 27, 2011

Great list Francis. I'm getting tired of this re-evaluation of comic book culture on the Internet lately. I think comic book fans forgot that these products come from a ridiculous and entertaining origin. Yeah there are some great thought provoking pieces out there and they should be read and analyzed like any other serious piece of literature. However, I believe the kitsch factor of comic book culture is being replaced by this "super serio" mindset. There is no such thing as balance in comic book culture which frankly why I'm so hesitant in reading new books and participating in online or offline discussions with fans. It's either you take this serious or you are not a "true" comic book fan.

I think with these glut of "serious" comic book films (though great movies) are giving fans unrealistic expectations that every guy or girl in tights movie has to be Citizen Kane quality each and every time. And also it becomes a pattern where a third movie in a trilogy gets lambasted and I feel the Internet fans are going to do the same thing for the third Batman movie. (People really like to tear something down they helped make successful.) Hence all the dumb complaints about Bane's voice which was found out to be a sound issue with the trailer. Now I'm not saying that Spider-Man 3 or X-Men 3 and other "third" movies need to be liked but I'm just saying if you make a series of movies then one or two will be a little weak compared to the others. That should be expected by now.
posted by LilSoulBrother85 at 7:38 AM on December 27, 2011

I still think Hush would have been a better villian for the Nolan series.
posted by spaltavian at 9:25 AM on December 27, 2011

He has a goatse face.

Cannot unsee.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 12:51 PM on December 27, 2011

‘Dark Knight Rises’ star Anne Hathaway: ‘Gotham City is full of grace’ (Spoilers).
posted by homunculus at 2:09 PM on December 29, 2011