As a comic reader, I understand the frustration that fans feel when their favorite characters are adapted to the big screen and bare little to no resemblance to their comic counterparts. With that in mind, I was surprised by the reaction of many casual fans of the Batman movie franchise who are disappointed that the villain emerging from The Dark Knight Rises is Bane. They must be thinking of the Batman and Robin movie, where that character was little more than a brainless thug.

This revelation seems to come from the lack of knowing who Bane is in relation to his comic origins. Although his first appearance was in Batman: Vengeance of Bane, I am more familiar with him from the book Batman Knightfall. In this book, Bane finally makes his move against Batman by emptying all of the criminals from Arkham Asylum and then sending his henchmen to weaken our hero before finally arriving to deal the fatal blow.

Within the context of the Nolan Batman movies, this villain is a really good choice for several reasons. Bane is an intelligent as well as physical opponent for Batman. Just based on how he manipulates events in Knightfall, it is obvious that Bane thoroughly studied the Dark Knight before making his presence known. Bane is also considered a dark shadow of Bruce Wayne if he had grown up in a world of brutal violence. With this attitude, he believes that killing an opponent is the logical choice in order to ensure justice. This makes him a perfect candidate for a certain League of Shadows we’ve seen in Batman Begins.

Although the details of the plot have not been released, I find it highly possible that Bane will premiere as Ra’s al Ghul’s new right-hand-man. This makes sense because Bane shares a similar sense of justice as The Demon’s Head. If they are going to bring back al Ghul, a villain that would fit perfectly with that is Bane. We can also take into account that Batman is in a state of exhaustion, dealing with the deaths of Rachel Dawes and Harvey Dent. It will be really intriguing to see how this version of Bane seeks to break our hero physically as well as emotionally.

The character is also a perfect choice for ending this series of movies. Even though his defeat of Batman wasn’t permanent, it did change the tone of the books and allowed for some interesting stories. I hope that causal fans take notice of how Bane was never done justice in any medium other than the comics and will be as eager as I am to see one of Batman’s greatest villains fully realized on the big screen.

Nerdvana contributor Daniel Reichstein (danscomicblog AT yahoo.com) has studied television and movie production at Scottsdale Community College and is pursuing a degree in technical writing at ASU. He welcomes comments and story ideas!