Vengeance of Bane – The Bane Workout

The man who would become Bane was born on the island of Santa Prisca (A fictional island in the DC universe, located in the Caribbean Sea and noted for its political unrest).  His father was a revolutionary who had escaped Santa Prisca’s court system.  The corrupt government of Santa Prisca decreed that his young son would serve out the man’s life sentence. Consequently, Bane spent his childhood and early adult life in prison.

For 17 years, the child spent his entire life inside a chamber connected to the ocean within the prison.  He spent every day in secluded boredom and every night swimming for his life to stay afloat when the tide would come in and fill his cell.  Over the years, he grew stronger, more cunning, and filled with hatred for the outside world.

Although he was imprisoned, his natural abilities allowed him to develop extraordinary skills within the prison’s walls. He read as many books as he could get his hands on, and spent most of his spare time physically training in the prison’s gym. He developed his own form of meditation to help him endure his solitude and train his mind.  He also had to survive and learned to fight in the merciless school of prison life. Because of the cultural and supposed geographical location of Santa Prisca, Bane learned how to speak English, Spanish, Portuguese, Persian, Urdu and Latin. Despite his circumstances, he found teachers of various sorts during his incarceration, ranging from hardened convicts to an elderly Jesuit priest, under whose tutelage he apparently received a classical education. 

He committed his first murder at the age of eight, stabbing a criminal who wanted to use him to gain information about the prison.  During his years in prison, Bane carried a teddy bear he called Osito (“little bear” in Spanish), whom he considered his only friend.  It is revealed that Osito has a hole in his back to hold a knife that Bane used to defend himself.

Bane is tortured by a monstrous, terrifying bat creature that appears in his dreams, thus giving him an intense fear of bats. He ultimately established himself as ‘the king of Peña Duro prison’ and eventually became known as Bane. As in ‘the Bane of everything that exists.’

The prison’s controllers took note of Bane’s physical prowess and decided to use him as a test subject for a mysterious drug known as Venom. (Venom is an addictive strength-enhancing super-steroid in the DC universe). The scientist who developed the drug experimented among the prisoners of Peña Duro. These experiments were without success (the prisoners all died) until Bane became the first test subject to endure the procedure.  Venom enhanced the stamina and other abilities of Bane, transforming him into an almost super-human being.  The effects of the serum were temporary, but even without it, Bane represents a significant physical challenge. (In the comics Bane has strength, stamina, agility, and fighting skills that are slightly comparable to DC’s metahumans.)

After Bane’s eventual defeat and incarceration, he suffered terribly from the withdrawal effects of the venom.  In time he came to realise he had depended on it too much. Bane rehabilitated himself and overcame his addiction to Venom. 

Bane would eventually escape Peña Duro, along with several accomplices. His ambition turns to Gotham City, after becoming interested in the tales of ‘the Batman’ from one of his accomplices ‘Bird’.  Gotham City fascinated Bane because, like Peña Duro, fear rules Gotham (fear of Batman). Bane is convinced that Batman is a personification of the demonic bat which had haunted his dreams as a child. Bane believes that fate has placed Batman on a collision course with him.

During the ‘Knightfall’ storyline, Bane goes to Gotham City with the intention of hunting Batman and defeating him. Deciding he wants Batman in his weakest physical and psychological state he attacks Arkham Asylum allowing its deranged inmates to escape.  This includes all the major-league Gotham crazies, the Joker, Two-Face, the Riddler, the Scarecrow etc) to escape into Gotham City.  Consequently, Batman is forced to recapture the escapees, a mission that takes him three months and drives him to mental and physical collapse. 

Exhausted, Batman returns to his home in Wayne Manor, only to find Bane waiting for him. Bane attacks Batman, beating him to within an inch of his life.  Not content with the defeat of his nemesis, Bane decides not to kill Wayne but to let him live with his ‘shame’.  He then raises him up overhead and breaks his back over one knee, leaving him a paraplegic. In the comics, Bane is the only villain to have ‘Broken the Bat’. (This iconic moment is incorporated in the Christopher Nolan film ‘The Dark Knight Rises.’

Eventually, Bruce Wayne would return but is haunted by the memory of the man who managed to hunt him down and break him.  The two have since clashed many times in the DC stories, sometimes as enemies, sometimes as allies. The character of Bane has since gone in many directions from taking over Gotham and becoming a hero, to trying to unravel his past, most notably the identity of his father.

Bane has one of the most cunning, disciplined and highly intelligent minds within the DC universe. Studying several scientific fields, languages, strategy, history, etc, he has all the advantages of classical education.  Unlike other intellectual DC characters such as the Riddler and Lex Luthor, Bane strongly focuses on his goals without any obsessive tendencies clouding his judgments. With his coordinated mindset, Bane was capable of deducing Batman’s identity with little support or investigation.

He possesses a photographic memory, capable of easily studying and fully reading and understanding the actions and the physical movements of another individual.

He is also highly devious and a superb strategist and tactician. Using these skills to frequently manipulate various authorities and superheroes into doing his bidding. In prison, Bane also invented his own form of callisthenics and meditation to develop his mind and body. He also developed his own fighting style derived from gladiatorial-style prison fights to the death.  In the early comic stories, Bane was highly reliant on the use of the drug Venom to enhance his abilities. After his initial defeat, Bane defeats his venom addiction choosing to rely solely on his physical and mental abilities.

As well as comics, Bane has appeared in various media films, books, cartoons and video games. Generally, the storytellers stick with his South American origins and he is portrayed as a Latino male.  In 2010 the director Christopher Nolan brought the character of Bane to the big screen in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’.  In the film, he was portrayed by Tom Hardy.  The origins of the character were changed to that of a European-based mercenary who ran with Ra’s Al Ghul’s League of Shadows.  This version did not sound Latino and had a very fun and unique accent that is often parodied.  Other changes to the character include Bane’s reliance on Venom.  The director (deciding to keep his version of the DC universe as close to the real world as possible) decided to omit Venom (and all references to superpowers etc).  Instead, Bane was reliant on an oxygen supply that helped keep him alive after an injury he sustained fighting in prison.  The Nolanverse ‘Bane’ utilised raw strength and fighting skills derived from the ‘League of Shadows’.