Title Batman: Vengeance of Bane Format graphic novel Binding square bound Date January 1993 Writer(s) Chuck Dixon Artist(s) Graham Nolan & Eduardo Barreto Collects n/a Storyline On the island of Santa Prisca, a pregnant woman and her unborn child were sentenced to fulfill the life imprisonment of her husband at Pena Duro. After she died, when he was six, the boy was placed in the general population of one of the most brutal prisons on earth. He was thrown from a catwalk when two inmates fought. After thirty-one days in a coma, the boy awakened. He killed the man that caused his fall, earning him the name Bane. Pena Duro's warden placed him in solitary confinement, vowing he'd have hair on his chest before he saw sunlight again. After ten years, Bane was released back into population. He learned to read. When not reading (he taught himself to read in six languages), he pushed his body to the limits of perfection. Bane, having never lived outside Pena Duro, learned of Gotham City and of Batman through an inmate. The vision of a bat was his only fear for the decade he was in solitary confinement. He vowed to destroy the Batman. After killing over thirty men, Bane was subject to medical experiment. He was dosed with a synthesized drug called Venom, which increased his already impeccable strength and physique. Bane's plan was to "die," getting him thrown into the ocean for the sharks like his mother years before. It worked. He returned to hold the warden hostage. He was given a helicopter, and escaped with three of his followers, who'd stolen the formula for Venom. Bane was a free man for the first time. They traveled north to Gotham City, where he baited the Batman with a gang slaughter. Bane began watching the Batman, learning the Batman. Their first confrontation was non-confrontational; Batman did not appear to take Bane's threat seriously.