Bane's first appearance was Batman: Vengeance of Bane #1. Cover art by Glenn Fabry. Bane is the DC Comics fictional character best known for breaking Batman's back.
Bane possesses peak human strength, enhanced by his use of the drug "Venom." He is also quite intelligent (having deduced Batman's secret identity) and devious (he crafted the entire Arkham escape).
History
Born to serve the life sentence of his father, Bane's childhood and early adult life were spent behind the walls of Pena Duro, a infamous prison located in Santa Prisca. He built up his body in the prison's gymnasium, and started taking Venom to enhance his physical strength.
Years later Bane escaped Pena Duro, along with several accomplices. His ambitions turned to destroying Batman, whom he had heard tales of while serving his sentence. Bane was convinced that the demonic bat that haunted his dreams since childhood was a representation of the Batman.
Bane destroyed the walls of Arkham Asylum, allowing its deranged inmates to escape into Gotham City, where Batman spent three months rounding them up, running himself to exhaustion, and then returned to Wayne Manor, where Bane awaited him. The beast fought the Batman, defeated him, and delivered the coup de grace: he broke Batman's back and threw him to the streets of Gotham.
While Bane established himself as ruler of Gotham's crime, Bruce Wayne passed the mantle of Batman to Jean-Paul Valley (Azrael). As Batman, Jean-Paul grew increasingly violent, allowing the villain known as Abattoir to fall to his death, and refused to recognize Robin as his partner. "AzBat" (as comics fans refer to him) fought and defeated Bane at the end of the "Knightfall" arc.
Bane first appeared in Batman: Vengeance of Bane #1 (1993). The "Knightfall" story arc ran through Batman #491-500, Detective Comics #659-666, and Showcase '93 #7-8, with tie-ins appearing in several other titles published during that time.
In other media
While Bane is one of the more popular villains in the comic continuity, he hasn't enjoyed as much visibility on television or the silver screen.
Bane has appeared as a villain on Batman: The Animated Series and its spin-offs (voiced by Henry Silva in all appearances but the straight-to-video Mystery of the Batwoman, in which he was voiced by Hector Elizondo), but in those depictions never achieved what his comics counterpart could: the defeat of Batman.
Bane first appeared in Batman: The Animated Series as a muscular thug hired by the mobster Rupert Thorne to eliminate Batman. He ends up fighting Batman in the sewers, but before he can break his back as he did in the comics, Batman is able to use the controls that inject Bane with Venom to give him an overdose before pulling out the tube that sends the drug into Bane's body; this becomes a recurring theme in Bane's defeats when he does appear on the series.
Bane was depicted in the movie Batman and Robin and played by the late wrestler Jeep Swenson. This depiction received harsh criticism from fans. In the movie he was again a convict from a prison, but this time he was turned into Bane by a mad scientist who injected him with Venom. Rather than being the devious intelligent villain of the comics, he was a mindless thug who served as the sidekick of Poison Ivy, one of the main villains of the film. His defeat came when his Venom tube was pulled out of his head.
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