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

[cyberghostface]

The restaurant bit is a funny concept but from a real-world perspective it would be the equivalent of a fast food restaurant doing a Manson-flavored happy meal.

[thanekos]

The fast-food bit being a Kingdom Come riff: unexpected, but understandable.

[janegray]

I'm intrigued. This makes me want to see more.

[q99]

Agreed, but in the writer's defense there is in-universe precedence of this kind of stuff happening.

[sarahnewlin]

I'm reminded of Diana working at Taco Whiz!

[beyondthefringe]

I know Bane and his team are supposed to be all deadly awesomesauce, but I still call bullshit on them getting the jump on the boys in this issue -and- everyone they get in the next issue.

[candescencearia]

... I know this is comics and comics deaths rarely stick, but... This is some kind of fake-out, right? They wouldn't just gruesomely kill off Dick, Jason and Tim just to play up how deadly Bane is, right?

Right?!

[thanekos]

I dunno, they clearly have surprise on their side in every case- the worst might be Bird vs. Catwoman, and even that works because, well, a shot in the back'll slow anyone's roll.

[kamino_neko]

They're alive, but injured, and Bruce has them in suspended animation, in Superman's Fortress of Solitude (which he somehow broke into, because Batman).

[lbd_nytetrayn]

It's probably just the mannequins Bruce keeps around for... well, for occasions like this.

You know, if they weren't the mannequins.

Which they might not be.

[crinos]

Am I the only one who is curious as to what "Jokerize" your fries means?

Maybe coating them in Wasabi?

Also: I am reminded of that episode of BTAS where a casino mogul makes a Joker themed casino in order to try and provoke Joker into attacking it so he can collect the insurance. Point is, trying to use Joker imagery without his permission is generally hazardous to your health.

[starwolf_oakley]

The Bane Problem: He can't break Batman's back again, and his reasons for wanting to go after Batman were he had nightmares about a giant bat as a child.

Yes, Bane is very strong and very intelligent, but it is hard to figure out what to do with him. He doesn't really want to run Gotham City. What would he go with it? At least him getting Santa Prisca from Lex Luthor during "No Man's Land" made sense character-wise.

[mastermahan]

Okay, I'm just going to ignore the final page and focus on Batman and Sons apparently being canon now, because the fast food scene is pure gold.

[kamino_neko]

It's right there on the next page...they're coated in a red-white-green seasoning. Which is probably just salt and food colouring, or maybe salt and powdered peppers.

[kamino_neko]

Yeah, I was disappointed that the tray that the Wonder Woman-costumed waitress didn't have a taco shell full of onion slices, and a cup of coffee. >_>

[icon_uk]

Me- Yay, ludicrous control freak Batman is back... how I've missed him

Nearby cat - Lying

[mrstatham]

This. It's one of the reasons I tended to scoff at people declaring that Simone's use of the character as a comically stupid, socially inept would-be father to Scandal was great. It just didn't match up to what the character was, or should be. It was vaguely funny, sure, but not Bane.

But.. Yeah. I think the character is interesting when taken in directions away from Batman, and more into stuff like running Santa Prisca, as you suggest. Nudging the character more into political stuff, having him use his brain, that's pretty interesting. Having him perpetually around Batman, we know he's not going to be there long-term, and as an anti-Batman, he's not at interesting as some of them. And that's all he's going to be with stories like this. It was great the first time around - the novelisation of Knightfall is still awesome in terms of Dennis O'Neill condensing what makes Bane tick, but.. it's done. It's not interesting twenty-five years on.

[mesmiranda]

See, I feel like if it was wasabi, or something like 'every tenth or eleventh fry is covered in poison and every twenty-second one is solid diamond', the Joker would take a look at it and go "...huh, you know what, that's good. Keep it up, guys."

As it is, I can see him buying out a huge order of the Joker fries for himself and his henchmen before blowing up the restaurant chain. And eating the fries in the rubble, just chewing away.

Also, the burger and knife feels anal-retentive even by Batman standards. It's like what a caricature of Bruce Wayne would do.

[remial]

OR, maybe the Joker (or one of them) worked out a deal where in exchange for the Joker NOT burning the franchise to the ground, and killing everyone involved in alphabetical order, he gets free food for life.

cos I could see the Joker doing that.

[shakalooloo]

Nice of Bane to paint his declaration so that the audience can see it, and not the intended target.

[bradygirl_12]

We really need more fast-food scenes with the Bat-Family. Part of this was posted before, and I mentioned the Seinfeldian bit with Bruce using knife and fork on that burger. Never gets old! :)

Gah! Now I'm hungry!

[chrisdv]

And on the third page, we have Jason Todd playing with himself.

[crinos]

That'd actually be kind of cool/terrifying.

Like once a week Joker just comes in, orders food, and hangs out. All the staff know its really him and are super on edge, but he never hurts anyone and the patrons usually assume he's an actor in a costume and some people even get their picture taken with him.

[beeyo]

I think Bane is more interesting when he wears a jacket.

I'm not joking.

[beeyo]

It does kind of fly in the face of all the growth that's gone into Bruce trusting and relying on his friends and family, but it does kind of build up Bane as a credible threat. And in the context of Tim just dying (kind of), I can see him putting the boys out of commission for a bit in order to protect them from what he sees as an incredible threat.

But overall it's just to make Bane look dangerous.

[icon_uk]

Damian I can sort of see Bruce doing that to and possibly Jason (who have both died on Bruce;'s watch) though neither of them would ever forgive him for it), but to Dick?

Who has stood in for Batman himself for an extended period of time? Who has a history of fighting the likes of Deathstroke and more recently everyone Spyral could throw at him? Suddenly he's back to being the jobber hero of the Batverse?

And yes, it's to up the threat level of Bane, but it's an incredibly lazy way of doing it, Bane hasn't earned this.

This is Batman RIP, let's remove Dick from the field by having him taken down off panel by random member of Dr Hurt's incredibly unimpressive gang of villains level of unimpressive.

[zapbiffpow]

Jason: "...So we're just going to ignore that and fight Bane, right?"

I wish DC did live-action 'Scenes from the Rebirth Universe' shorts in addition to the DCEU, because I really, really would love to see this whole restaurant scene adapted cinematically.

In fact, that's probably what they should do for their Rebirth commercials. Drum up actionable interest.

Good catch!

[blue_bolt]

He stole his toy from Tim!

Oh, that is hilarious.

[caivu]

Simone's Bane wasn't stupid.

[mrstatham]

He was played for laughs and treated mostly like an idiotic, overbearing would-be father with no social skills. It wasn't Bane. But then.. Well, *Simone*; as long as people were squeeing over it or thinking *that was awesome* at the time I doubt she much cared. Besides, it's an opinion.

[mrstatham]

It'd be more entertaining than the DCEU has managed to be at the moment.

[caivu]

Where are you getting any of that from? That's not the Bane I read in Secret Six at all.

[beeyo]

You make several good points. You'd think that if anyone got Grayson as a character , it'd be Tom King

I thought that Tim was "dead" ....

[7dialsmystery]

...and that was supposed to be Damian who's 12 or 13 now.

[zapbiffpow]

I don't mind so much, really - it's Bruce's book, anyway. Consider Nightwing, where that Court of Owls guy Raptor captured Bruce Wayne and tied him up as bait, despite being Batman. That was Dick's book, so he gets to be the star there.

[zapbiffpow]

*tips bottle in your direction*

[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.

[strejdaking]

Wait, how is what they said above reason to dislike it?