Batman: I Am Bane Review

Finished reading Batman: I Am Bane, continuing writer Tom King's run on the series as an angry Bane makes his way to Gotham to get revenge on Batman for taking Psycho Pirate from Santa Prisca. The book opens with Bronze Tiger helping Batman discovering one of Bane's henchmen within Arkham which confirms Batman's suspicions that Bane is on his way to Gotham to retrieve Psycho Pirate. This leads to Bruce warning his former and current protégées of Bane as Bruce plans to use Psycho Pirate to reverse what he did to Gotham Girl and protect her the best he can within the five days it will take. Only for Dick, Jason and Damian ignoring Bruce and go straight after Bane leading to them being severe injured. The next story sees Batman and Gotham Girl dealing with the aftermath of the fight against Bane as the two discuss about the future with the possibility of some normality being introduced into Batman's life. The penultimate story sees the origin of Batman's dog Ace as Alfred try's to train Ace as a Christmas present for Bruce. The final story sees Batman teaming up with Swamp Thing on a case to find the murderer of Swamp Thing's biological father. Overall this was a g-- book as it provides a nice payoff for the over arcing story of the series so far as with Batman has to confront and stop Bane before all his attempts in trying to help Gotham Girl go to waste. Writer Tom King does an interesting job in humanising Batman and even Bane in places as the two's childhoods and their relationships to they have with their mothers and how it motivated them to be the people they are to day, which also surprisingly parallels Swamp Thing's relationship with his father to a degree. While the addition of the epilogue story where Batman opens up to Gotham Girl helps to give Bruce the push he needs to make something more of his live than just being Batman by proposing to Catwoman. However one thing that lets the book down is the fact that the ending to the Bane story feels slightly abrupt as there seems to be a little bit of story missing. The art by David Finch helps to bring the edge of the seat and suspenseful action between Batman and Bane to life amazingly well thanks to the way the hits that are delivered which is help to be realised thanks to the rest of the story's art team. Additionally the art by Mitch Gerads and Clay Mann do a great job in contrasting between the different settings and story tones to that of the rest of the book. 7.5/10