I've been a huge fan of Bane since I was a kid, so it's been great to follow his career from almost the beginning. He's actually one of the few characters I can think of whose development over the years feels really natural, and is almost completely free of "he wouldn't do that" moments. From his beating the addiction to venom and becoming much more dangerous for it (despite the now un-superhuman strength, he was now more focused and no longer at risk of going into sudden withdrawal, which is how Jean Paul beat him). Then he gets recognition for his intellect by Ra's Al Ghul=
. He massacred most of Two-Face's gang in NML, beat up the Joker, and thrashed Nightwing a year or so before. His development into a pseudo-goodguy has felt pretty organic too, considering it started with simply a couple goals that overlapped with the goals of the heroes (burning the city records in NML, destorying Ra's' Lazarus Pits alongside Batman, etc).
I was somewhat disappointed with the "Is Bane Batman's Brother?" plot. I felt that the relationship between Bane and Bruce was executed well enough, but the story itself was anticlimactic (I actually wouldn't have minded if Bane had turned out to be Bruce's half-brother, with the way they set it up).
I was rolling my eyes a little at his role in Secret Six for the first few issues. He was just so monosyllabic. I'm glad that Simone's gotten over that and now has a firm grasp of how he speaks.
question!
I was reading the Bruce Wayne: Murderer? trade last night. and in there, Dick mentions something about having killed the Joker. I apparently missed whatever that was. anybody know what the dealio is with that?
There was a story not long before BW:M, where Dick beat the crap out of Joker so badly that his heart stopped. They revived him, but yeah, Dick technically "killed" the Joker.
