Something that Absolute Batman Focused on his first arc was to use his villain to create parallels with Batman and also subvert traditional expectations for the characters. This new original story of Bane shows that what was true for the black mask is even more so for him. His story is a sympathetic tragedy that acts as a ghostly mirror that Bruce has experienced, and a disturbing warning of what could become of him. As with most things in this series, it takes elements of what makes bane memorable and amplifies them to the extreme.
As in the traditional origin of Bane, he opens with him by being born prisoner on the island of Santa Prisca. Except that his prison is not initially that of concrete and iron, but the island itself. Snyder takes the opportunity to comment on the nature of global imperialism and how it transforms any expression of freedom into crime under oppressive systems. Bane’s father is not an unnamed member of a coup who died before his birth, but the living man raised bane to fight for their freedom. A great crisp of the jailer keeping Batman for the experiment.
When the imprisonment of Bane becomes literal, he hardened into a fighter who would lead an uprising to release his father and their people. It is the height of its moral bow before falling. It is interesting to read this contrasting with Bane revenge From 1993 because they shared superficially so many similarities. Certain rhythms are reused as suspended from bars to survive drowning and the military government of Santa Prisca, but still with a touch. Most of this is in the service of portraying Bane as a nobleman, at least at the start. There is a clear and explicit parallel between Bane who fights for his house and Batman fighting for Gotham
The turning point is when Joker (who in this world is a rich businessman) offers him a “agreement” who motivates bane to abandon his mission and to assassinate his own father by crushing his back. It is from here that he descends into the vicious mercenary and killer who has experiences on him to increase his lethality. At first, it is difficult to imagine how such a fall could have occurred. We are not aware of what Joker has offered him, but it seems unimaginable that such a man in principle could have fallen so far and so quickly.
The answer, although speculative via Alfred, is that of a simple pragmatism and linked to one of the greatest recurring themes in the series. It is better to simply accept an achievable victory rather than continuing to fight forever. Bane wanted to save his people? Joker has the resources to get there. Everything it took was a sacrifice of his morality and being transformed into a ruthless killer. If war is inevitable and what feeds life, then it is useless to try to stop it. It’s just a question of knowing if you can position yourself as the oppressor rather than the oppressed. It is through this case that Bane is able to create a paradise for Santa Prisca. Joker did not lie; All that his cost was bane himself.
This is, of course, the opposite of everything we have learned about Batman. He will never stop fighting, whatever the chances, and Bane counts on this subject. For a while, the comic strip shows us how it goes. We see, in horrible details, the failed assault of Batman against Bane where he is beaten and dismembered with his own hatchet in Bat-Mai. This is how Bane breeze it and how it was taken to Ark M to be subjected to the same procedures as Bane and Reconstructed. There, he also has an offer: accept these gifts to become the ruthless avenger that “Gotham needs”. Bruce accepts and transforms into a monster infused in venom recalling the original Batman: venom This first introduced the substance.
Prestige, if you want, is the revelation that none of this really happens. It is a hypothetical future where Bruce refuses to give in. He uses Bane as a direct challenge for the ethics that Batman established for himself. How far does “never give up”? Snyder hammers the parallels between Bruce and Bane explicitly and without subtlety. The two are men ready to do anything to achieve their goals, and this becomes a question that will break first.
While Nick Dragotta left this month as an artist, Clay Mann does an excellent job for himself. Mann has his own distinct style which may be “more grumpy” than that of Dragotta, but they both have reached a very similar tone and atmosphere. The action is as vibrant and spectacular as ever, and you can feel the vastness of Bane on each page he occupies. Mann’s style almost feels sculpted with stone, which is perfect for what it represents.
Recommended if
- You want to see the origin of Absolute Bane
- The approach of the series of creation of bad guys who reflect Batman himself called on you
- You like a tragic villain
Overall
The origin of Absolute Bane manages to take the monstrous giant and to create a tragic character who acts like any other flowers to what Batman represents. It is no less terrifying than before, but each step along his journey takes elements of the origin of Bane in 1993 and injects them with sympathetic intentions. The result is a plausible disturbing omen of what could become the crushed crushed.
Score: 8.5 / 10
Non-liability clause: DC Comics provided Batman News with a copy of this comic strip for the purpose of this review.
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