The Dark Knight Rises – A Brief(ish) History of Bane

The first movie showed us who Batman is, the second presented what he aspired to be in the form of Harvey Dent.  And Bane is who he could have been if everything went wrong.  And with the end of The Dark Knight leaving Batman operating outside the law and feared by the public, the door is open for a darker champion to step it.  In that way, Dark Knight Rises could hit on one of the themes of Knightfall – the difference between heroism and brutality.  Bane vs. Batman for the soul of Gotham City.

To me, Bane isn’t generally defined as being the opposite of Batman.  In the comics, that role has been filled by the Wraith, Prometheus, Catman, the Cavalier, and a variety of others, depending on the era.  But there’s a weight to Bane that those other characters don’t have.  Remember, Joker and Two-Face are off the table.  While Bane isn’t exactly as well-known as those two, he has a built-in importance.  He’s the guy who literally broke Batman.  Bane’s history in the comics automatically makes it a big story.  Even people who’ve never heard of him will, over the next year, hear over and over that Tom Hardy is playing Bane, the villain who broke Batman’s back.  There aren’t that many other villains that feel major.  He’s a surprising choice, but a really good one. So is Tom Hardy going to dress like a luchador?  It’s hard to picture, but Nolan’s team has really done a great job of making the costumes seem like something that could reasonably exist in the real world while still making them look the way they’re supposed to.  Just look at Scarecrow – they didn’t go the full Ichabod Crane on him, but he’s immediately recognizable.  I have total faith in them.