The major publishers dealt with the weirdness of the times in different ways. Marvel published terrible comics almost exclusively for most of the decade. DC, on the other hand, published some absolute classics and some misbegotten failures and seemingly couldn’t tell which was which. And in the midst of all this, there was a period of three or four years where they put their major characters through hell. Superman died. A more violent warrior took over the role of Wonder Woman. Green Lantern’s home city was destroyed, so he turned evil, tried to destroy reality, and died. Hawkman died. Aquaman lost a hand. Green Arrow turned into an ecoterrorist and died. Basically, DC spent years just jacking up favorite characters. And Batman didn’t escape unscathed – Batman had Knightfall. And the guy behind Knightfall was none other than Bane.
My favorite part of this was that Bane was in prison serving his father’s life sentence.
That never fails to crack me up – it’s a pretty sweet system of criminal justice. “Man, that guy’s hard to catch. Wait, he’s got a kid? Let’s just lock him up. You want to get a sandwich?”
In a way, it makes SOME sense. Maybe his parental guilt would lead him to turn himself in.