Plot summary: Sick of Batman always foiling his schemes, Rupert Thorne hires the enormous assassin, Bane, to dispose of the vigilante once and for all.

(Originally published on The Reel World April 4th, 2021)

Notes

Original Air Date: September 10^th, 1994

Directed: Kevin Altieri (19)

Written: Mitch Brian (3)

Animation: Yang Animation Co., LTD. (33)

Music: Lolita Ritmanis (6)

This is obviously heavily borrowing from Bane’s huge debut comic, ‘Knightfall’, albeit with toned down violence.

Despite the aforementioned comic’s popularity, the producers didn’t even want to use Bane as they didn’t like him breaking Batman’s back, and felt he was a little gimmicky. Didn’t stop them from having a literal werewolf though…

Oh hey, Mitch Brian. It’s been a while! After writing the first and seventh episodes of the series he took a lengthy break to work on… Presence of Mind… or something.

Despite the awkward ending Rupert Thorne will go on to hire Bane again in Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman.

Recap

Candice, Rupert Thorne’s right-hand woman not seen since ‘Two-Face’, eagerly awaits a plane at Gotham airport. She welcomes an enormous passenger wearing a suit and a luchador mask (an eternally dope look).

Rupert Thorne works up a sweat on a punching bag, KO-ing one of his smart-mouthed employees for making a crack about Batman. Bane arrives and collects his advance payment for taking out the vigilante, a suitcase full of diamonds.

Bane hatches his plan, unleashing Killer Croc in order to lure Batman out where he can be studied. Batman & Robin swing into action and chase the enormous reptile-man into the sewers.

Having seen enough, Bane mercilessly beats the piss out of Croc (with assistance from Venom). The Dynamic Duo drag his unconscious body back to the surface where they find the Batmobile a smoking wreck!

Interrogating (read: torturing) the heavily-bandaged Croc in prison, Batman learns Bane has a South American accent and juiced himself with chemicals that made him superhumanly strong.

This is apparently all Bruce needs to later pull up some files on super-soldier experiments in the Peña Dura prison. The unseen footage of Bane’s rampage distrubs Batman, Robin and Alfred.

Candice and Bane conspire to take out Rupert Thorne after the job is complete and seal the deal with a kiss before Rupes arrives. Robin spies on the meeting but gets noticed and easily captured.

Batman follows Candice home and confronts her, but Bane telephones to gloat about capturing The Boy Wonder, whose costume flaps in the breeze across the street with rendezvous instructions pinned to it.

Arriving at the destination, Batman goes toe to toe with Bane, who shrugs off his strikes and counters his throws. He even survives being launched into the harbour with an enormous harpoon gun, and crushes a Batarang like a toy.

Elsewhere, a freed Robin battles Candice in a weirdly sexual fight where they try to drown each other. It’s not like Candice completely kicks his ass… but it’s not not like that.

Before the behemoth can Break The Bat, Batman wises up and slashes at his Venom-injection device, causing him to violently overdose on the super-steroid and pass out.

Bruce escorts the defeated Bane to Rupert Thorne’s office and unmasks him. Adding insult to injury, he plays a tape of Candice & Bane’s planned betrayal and then struts out, victorious.

Best Performance

Tom Hardy obliviously left an indelible mark on Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, but for as good of an overall acting performance as it is… the voice is bad. Yet here is Henry Silva eighteen years earlier, perfectly capturing the essence of the character.

I assume most producers prefer Hardy impressions to try and cash in on a billion dollar movie, but before that Bane tended to be a generic shouty man. Heck, does he even have lines in Batman & Robin? Silva instead makes him Latino & Proud without sacrificing any of his sense of hulking menace. He’s just an enormous, suave, slab of beef. There are even hints at the more intelligent persona that he tended to be missing in most non-TDKR adaptations.

John Vernon continues to be a great supporting actor, and Diane Michelle once again imbues Candice with such chaotic, traitorous energy. I wish she appeared more, to be honest.

Episode Ranking

I remembered liking this one a lot less a few years ago than I did this time around. It’s as good of a villain-centric episode as you’ll find in the whole series, with a tantalising set-up, solid raising of the stakes, and a surprisingly satisfying payoff.

The visuals, particularly the cityscape scenes, are a notable step backwards. I’m not sure if it was in production for a long time or the exact opposite, but it was bothersome to me at first. It’s not a total loss though, with an excellent shot where Candice opens a mirrored door, with Batman appearing in the reflection when she closes it again. But the writing and voice acting do most of the heavy lifting here.

The fight scene was shockingly good, perhaps the best extended one-on-one we’ve seen outside of Mask of the Phantasm, with Batman giving up on strikes and moving to lucha-takedowns, only for Bane to get wise and counter him. That kind of silent trial and error visual progression, telling a story through physicality, is all I’m looking for in a fight scene to be honest.

The only thing keeping it from going higher is that it’s basically pure-action, while almost every episode above it has a strong emotional backdrop. The few that don’t are superlative Paul Dini masterpieces.

1. The Laughing Fish
2. Mask of the Phantasm
3. Almost Got ‘im
4. Heart of Ice
5. Harlequinade
6. The Trial
7. Shadow of the Bat Part I
8. I Am the Night
9. Robin’s Reckoning Part I
10. The Man Who Killed Batman
11. Perchance to Dream
12. Two-Face Part I
13. Bane (NEW ENTRY)
14. A Bullet For Bullock
15. Joker’s Favor
16. Read My Lips
17. Feat of Clay Part II
18. Catwalk
19. The Demon’s Quest Part II
20. Harley and Ivy
21. Robin’s Reckoning Part II
22. House & Garden
23. Beware the Gray Ghost
24. Mad as a Hatter
25. Heart of Steel Part II
26. Appointment In Crime Alley
27. Two-Face Part II
28. Pretty Poison
29. Shadow of the Bat Part II
30. Feat of Clay Part I
31. His Silicon Soul
32. Off Balance
33. Vendetta
34. Birds of a Feather
35. Heart of Steel Part I
36. On Leather Wings
37. See No Evil
38. The Clock King
39. It’s Never Too Late
40. Joker’s Wild
41. Eternal Youth
42. The Cape and Cowl Conspiracy
43. The Cat and the Claw Part I
44. Zatanna
45. Day of the Samurai
46. Avatar
47. The Demon’s Quest Part I
48. The Mechanic
49. The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne
50. Terror in the Sky
51. P.O.V.
52. Christmas with the Joker
53. Fear of Victory
54. Be a Clown
55. The Worry Men
56. What is Reality?
57. Fire From Olympus
58. Night of the Ninja
59. Mudslide
60. The Cat and the Claw Part II
61. Nothing to Fear
62. Prophecy of Doom
63. Tyger, Tyger
64. Blind as a Bat
65. If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?
66. Dreams In Darkness
67. The Last Laugh
68. Cat Scratch Fever
69. Moon of the Wolf
70. Paging the Crime Doctor
71. Time Out of Joint
72. Sideshow
73. The Under-Dwellers
74. The Forgotten
75. The Terrible Trio
76. I’ve Got Batman in My Basement

Rogues Roundup

Bane (Henry Silva) (first appearance)

Say what you want about the pale blue tights, the suited version at the start of the episode absolutely rules, threading the needle by going neither full wacky Luchador nor Hulk-rip-off. That’s helped by little touches like him ducking to get off the plane, Candice’s car sagging when he gets in it, a flunky struggling to lift his suitcase (which he carried with ease), and hitting a punching bag so hard it flies off its chain. These things go a long way before he even lays a finger on anyone.

They also do a great job of establishing he’s more than a big dumb meathead, deploying a plan to study his opponent and spotting Robin from across the street and then hunting him down effortlessly. Plus he kicks Croc’s ass off-camera, which is doubly-effective as he establishes himself as the new upper echelon for physical challenges to Batman. Of course he ultimately loses to our hero at the end of the episode, but only when Bruce exploits a weakness.

He’s going to debut very high, just below the show’s true elite. It’s funny that the creative team used the character under protest, because I think they found a really good take on him.

Rupert Thorne (John Vernon) (eighth appearance)

As has been his role throughout the series, Thorne comes in tremendously handy when trying to facilitate certain plots. He’s Batman’s richest ‘normal’ villain (no clue if he’s meant to be wealthier than Penguin), which makes him perfect for an episode about a ruthless mercenary. I also like how he has stuck around amidst all these costumed freaks and Bane’s coup never comes to fruition.

I’ll give him a generous bump back into the top 20.

Killer Croc (Aron Kincaid) (fifth appearance)

Despite only appearing for a couple of minutes, this is easily Croc’s second best outing. Bane selects him because he’s the only villain who approximates his own size (making Bane look smarter, and ensuring Croc is plot-essential). He pulls off a brazen robbery while wearing an enormous trench coat, presumably a reference to his disguise in ‘Vendetta’, and then gets his reward for a job well done: a savage beating from Bane and some torture from Batman.

Thanks for playing, Croc, and welcome back to the top twenty as well!

1. The Joker
2. Poison Ivy
3. Harley Quinn
4. Mr. Freeze
5. Two-Face
6. The Ventriloquist
7. Catwoman
8. The Phantasm
9. Bane (NEW ENTRY)
10. Mad Hatter
11. Penguin
12. HARDAC (and Randa Duane)
13. Clayface
14. Ra’s al Ghul
15. The Riddler
16. Lloyd Ventrix
17. Killer Croc (↑)
18. Count Vertigo
19. Clock King
20. Rupert Thorne (↑)
21. Nivens
22. Josiah Wormwood
23. Scarecrow
24. Roland Daggett (and Germs & Bell!)
25. Talia al Ghul
26. Sid the Squid
27. Thoth Khepera
28. Maxie Zeus
29. Jimmy ‘Jazzman’ Peake
30. Tony Zucco
31. Man-Bat
32. Hugo Strange
33. Red Claw
34. Arnold Stromwell
35. Mad Bomber
36. Tygrus
37. Rhino, Mugsy and Ratso
38. Kyodai Ken
39. Gil Mason
40. Nostromos (and Lucas!)
41. Cameron Kaiser
42. Dr. Dorian (and Garth)
43. Mad Dog
44. Ubu
45. Professor Milo
46. Romulus
47. Sewer King
48. Boss Biggis
49. Montague Kane
50. The Terrible Trio