When he was first introduced to us in all his brawny glory, Absolute Batman sent shockwaves across the comic book fandom. This Batman was unlike anything we’ve seen before; a massive wall of pure muscle that made linebackers and Killer Croc alike blush. He looked like he could bench press a mid-sized Sudan. So naturally, knowing Batman’s mythos like we do, we all asked the same question; if this was Batman, what did Bane look like? We finally got our answer a few months ago, when the team behind Absolute Batman showed off a preview of their new Bane, who was a ten-foot tall mountain of beef. Everyone made the Swole Bane jokes, because how could you not? Unfortunately, we were wrong. That wasn’t Bane at his best, nowhere near it. That was Bane before he even used any Venom. After injecting it, Bane isn’t a monster or a mountain, he’s a gosh-darn abomination.
Swole Bane is Here
Absolute Batman #8 saw Batman on a tear through Gotham City’s underworld, demanding to know what happened to his friend Waylon. Together with Harvey, Oswald, Edward, and Alfred, they learn that Waylon has been sent to Ark M for some kind of experiment, and how to get Bruce inside so he can rescue him. Batman prepares, but Alfred can’t bring himself to tell Bruce the truth about what Ark M is connected to, how it’s just a small part of a greater whole. He couldn’t bring himself to warn Bruce that once he goes inside he’ll realize that he’s not fighting a war against the powers that be in Gotham, he’s fighting the oldest war there’s ever been: the one fight against tyranny and evil.
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Batman sneaks into Ark M underwater, with Alfred guiding him with the schematics of the building. However, Bruce reaches the bottom of the prison way sooner than he should have, upon which he and Alfred realize there’s an entire underground prison that is completely hidden and already fully operational. Batman slinks his way through the black site, and happens upon a wall with the skeleton of a giant bat on display. This definitely alludes to one of the human experiments that Ark M is running being the Man-Bat experiments, so it’s likely we’ll be seeing Kirk Langstrom sometime in the very near future. Either way, while Bruce is looking at the skeleton, Bane walks up on him and attacks. Bane’s hulking size belies his actual speed and technique, as he not only easily takes all of Batman’s hits, but disables each of his limbs with a simple poke at the joints. Batman tells Bane that he only needs one leg to beat a juiced-up monster like him, but Bane tells him that he hasn’t even used any Venom yet. Then he injects it.
Swole Bane is Beyond Words
A couple months ago, Bane co-creator Graham Nolan called the Absolute version of Bane an abomination. Either he knew in advance, this was a last minute tongue-in-cheek name change, or this was a giant coincidence, Absolute Bane premiered in the “Abomination” story arc, and nothing could be more fitting. This new Bane isn’t a man at his peak enhanced by an addictive steroid, but a monster of pure physicality transformed into something beyond human. He’s already big enough to give Andre the Giant a noogie as a baseline, but when he injects himself with Venom, he grows to a size that is supposed to be beyond people. Just take a look at him.
Based on the fact that Batman is 6’6” and Bane is able to hold him aloft in a hand that is about as big as Bruce’s torso, we can safely estimate Bane to be at least fifteen feet tall, potentially upwards of nineteen or twenty. This is by far the biggest this character has ever been, and is without a doubt the most terrifying. Just like his original counterpart he is incredibly skilled at fighting, inhumanly strong, and the first person to ever break the Bat. At seeing what Bane really is, Batman falls to his knees, knowing he stands no chance. Bane captures him, and welcomes Bruce to his new home at Ark M. Bruce came here to save his friend, but he might not even be able to save himself. This Bane is legitimately terrifying, just like the original was in his first appearance, but the dial of insanity has been turned up to twelve. Abomination is the only word for him.
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