SUNDAY CLASSICS: Batman #497: The Breaking of the Batman!

Batman #497 is one of those comics that act as a time machine and will immediately conjure up memories of where you when Bane broke the Batman. Twelfth in line of the Knightfall saga, Batman 497 reads just as fresh as it did back in 93, but do not let the big story in 497 distract you from how awesome Knightfall was and still is. Months have passed and Bane continues to rip through Gotham like a hot knife through butter. Arkham has seen all their prisoners loose and wreaking havoc on the city, madness is the new king. Batman is no stranger in tangling with The Joker, but add the likes of The Riddler, Mr. Zsasz, and many more bat-villains and things get out of control quickly. Tensions started to even play a part in Batman’s relationship with Tim Drake. Every time battle left Batman that much more drained both physically and emotionally, and as if things could not get worse, Bane knows that Batman is Bruce Wayne!

As we find out Bane is willing to kill for any reason, with the goal to silence and punish those who stand in his way. In the last battle between Bane and Batman we see that The Dark Knight is just completely gassed and has no more fight in him. Physically and emotionally he has nothing left to give…

The ultimate gift Bane could give Batman would be death, however, that is not Bane’s goal. To give Batman what he wants would be Bane loses this battle and that cannot be. Bane tends to keep his brand of warfare psychological and nothing more. Gotham has fallen and the Batman has been broken.

At this point, 14-year-old me is witnessing something so powerful with underlying messages (as least I think so) that it would be years until I would really appreciate what I was reading. For me at that time, I was marveled at how massive Bane was. I remember getting Vengeance of Bane and was excited about this new bat-villain and how he just looked so different from anything we have seen up to this point. Bane remains one of my favorite villains.