With his upcoming appearance in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, the character of Bane completes his graduation onto the A-list of Batman villains. But who is Bane? Where did he come from? And what elements of his storied past have Team Nolan keyed into for his second big-screen bow?

Obviously, if you want to go into The Dark Knight Rises knowing nothing, then this is an article best avoided.

Unlike the other ‘classic’ members of Batman rogues gallery, Bane was created in the early 90s to fulfill a specific story function: he was to be the man who would ‘Break the Bat’.

In the same way that Doomsday was introduced into the pages of the early 90s Superman books with the express purpose of ‘killing’ the Man of Steel, Bane would serve the equivalent purpose in the Bat-titles Knightfall storyline.