10 Things DC Comics Wants You To Forget About Bane

8. His First Appearance Was Kinda Bad

For some, Bane's debut in the DC Universe - the Batman epic Knightfall - makes up some of the best comic books in the Dark Knight's history. For us...it was a Tuesday. Hang on, sorry, we were channelling Raul Julia for a second there. Yes, Knightfall does often get mentioned in the same breath as classic Bat-Titles like The Dark Knight Returns and The Long Halloween and it does, in fact, deliver on its promise of greatness. To start off with, anyway. The introduction of Bane's character is genuinely intriguing, offering an enemy unlike any other we've seen Batman face before, who seems to have gone through as many trials, tribulations and traumas as our hero. He also seems to be the first sane genius that's tried to take down the Caped Crusader. That's worrying. All that tension comes to a head as Bane launches his assault on Gotham City, releasing the inmates from Arkham Asylum, taking control of the entire town and then effortlessly snapping Bruce Wayne's spine over his knee. Even now it makes us wince to look at the above panel, especially with the knowledge of the sickening snapping sound effect Christopher Nolan's foley artist elected to use in the same scene for The Dark Knight Rises. For all intents and purposes, this is the first time we've really seen Batman defeated. Which is pretty interesting. What happens after that is a lot less so. The mantle of Batman for some reason gets passed onto Jean-Paul Valley, a crummy novelty character who'd been introduced not long before, who fought crime under the name Azrael and was super into Jesus and stuff. He upgraded the Dark Knight's costume to be shiny and spiky, with big gold shoulderpads and pouches aplenty. It was horribly nineties and embarrassing, as was the rest of the story.