Batman #16 - "I Am Bane, Part One"

[laughing_tree]

"The thing with Bane is that he can defeat Batman. Unlike the Joker, unlike the Riddler, unlike Mr. Freeze, the evidence is that Bane has defeated Batman. I remember as a kid reading Bane breaking Batman’s back and throwing him off the building. I remember how shocking that was, and how everyone in my school talked about it. That was the one thing that owned the comic book conversation that year." -- Tom King

Comments

[icon_uk]

Thing is,, Bruce's cameo in Nightwing didn't make Bruce look ineffective, it explained the context of his capture.

It was done in public, so he couldn't ninja the hell out of Raptor.

Raptor threatened innocents if Bruce didn't come quietly.

Raptor knew he was Batman and made efforts to remove all assorted Bat-gadgets.

Even then Bruce managed to get out of the immediately lethal deathtrap.

Whereas here we have Dick, Jason and Damian, as skilled a trio as Batman has ever trained, being essentially punked. Beaten up off panel and left hanging from nooses in the Batcave, just because we're told Bane is that dangerous. It's just incredibly lazy.

Clearly we're supposed to believe that it was because they were bad sons who didn't listen to Batdad's warnings (despite him knowing full well what they'd do in any event). Only Duke, who did listen, is still around and active in Gotham, though shouldn't that have drawn Bane's ire too?

[zapbiffpow]

Oh! I did not know that about the Raptor thing! But in any case, I still don't mind this - if it was established that King hated Dick and that whole thing was a Take That to him, I'd view that last page negatively. As it is, his work on Grayson proves otherwise. For all we know, Bane did all the same precautions Raptor did off-panel - I think this is less a case of laziness and more a victim of page count and the choice to explore other narrative priorities.