The Daily Planet Review Section

COUNTDOWN TO THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

In 11 weeks the character of Bane returns to the big screen as the antagonist to Batman in the last of the Nolan Bat Trilogy.

Bane was created by Doug Moench, Chuck Dixon and Graham Nolan and first appeared in "Batman: Vengeance of Bane" (January 1993). Whilst you can read all about Bane here, the main purpose of his creation was to be the primary villain in the event story "Knightfall" which ran through the Batman books.

Much like Doomsday in the "Death of Superman", it may be true to say that Bane's career peaked when he broke the back of Bruce Wayne/Batman. It can be argued, though, that Bane only accomplished this due to a super-steroid coupled with the fact Batman was exhausted and suffering with the flu. Fair fight? Since then, however, he has enjoyed a modicum of popularity but none of the writers that worked on him have really managed to "get" him (with the notable exception of Gail Simone) which, again, probably goes back to the purpose of the characters creation in the first place.

The same can be said of Joel Schumacher and Akiva Goldsman who first brought Bane in to the live action realm in the truly God awful "Batman and Robin".

In "Batman and Robin" scrawny serial killer Antionio Diego (Michael Reid MacKay) is acquired by Dr Jason Woodrue (John Glover) for illegal experiments in producing super-soldiers for the shadier nations using his Venom drug. By injecting Venom into Diego, via tubes in this head, Woodrue creates the mindless Bane (Jeep Swenson).

Gone was the devious, intellectual villain in the comics. This version of Bane was an inarticulate thug (he barely does more than grunt) who acts as a bodyguard for Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman). He has become almost a faux-Hulk. He does, however, still wear a variation of costume and is muscular enough to prove formidable to Batman and Robin (though in this movie it wouldn't be that difficult) though is ultimately taken down Robin and Batgirl (oh, the shame).

Whilst there are so many other terrible aspects to this dire movie, this wasteful depiction of the character met with negative criticism from the fans. With good reason too. But maybe that is about to change.

Not much is know about Bane (the excellent Tom Hardy) in "The Dark Knight Rises" other than what has been revealed beyond what has been revealed in the trailers and in magazines/on websites. We can see straight off the bat (no pun) that he is not going to look the same.

We know that, in some way, he will match his comic book counterpart and take down Bruce Wayne/Batman. At what point during the film is unknown. We also know that he is going to reign terror down on Gotham. Even with this little information, we know that he is going more menacing, devious and intelligent than his previous film iteration.

Everything coming out seems to point in the direction of Bane being the main antagonist (the trailer implying that Catwoman in the film is more ambigious as to her loyalties, and quite right that is too). However, rumours have swirled that he is hammer for Talia Al Ghul to strike at Bruce Wayne and Gotham. Whether this is true, we'll just have to wait and see. From what we do already know, it seems that Nolan, Hardy et al have crafted a fascinating villain to rival the Dark Knight in a different way than those that have have come before.