Of all the versions of Bane, Gotham went for a Dark Knight Rises look

On Monday, Tze Chun, a writer and producer on Fox’s Gotham series, shared a first look at the show’s version of the Batman villain Bane on his Twitter account.

For the upcoming fifth and final season of Gotham, the production has pulled out several stops, jumping forward in time 10 years to potentially show Bruce Wayne’s final transformation into the crime-fighter we know and love. Additionally, Shane West has been cast as a character named Eduardo Dorrance (who shares a surname with Bane’s canonical dad) who shows up to help James Gordon restore order to Gotham, using a team of elite soldiers. According showrunner John Stephens, this does not go well, and is connected to how Bane will be introduced.

In the comics, Bane wears a black unitard slit down his chest, combat boots and his characteristic black, white and red mask, reminiscent of Lucha Libre wrestler. Bane is not from Mexico, but rather from a fictional, Spanish-speaking Caribbean island that’s a lot like a veiled metaphor for Cuba, but ... it was comic books in the ‘90s.

In Gotham, Bane appears to wear an elaborate muzzle/respirator and a jacket fitted at the waist and padded at the shoulders. The makers of the show appear to be taking a lot of influence from Tom Hardy’s Bane from The Dark Knight Rises — although, to this writer’s eye, the mouthpiece and shoulder pads look more reminiscent of Tom Hardy’s Max from Mad Max: Fury Road.

A cursory glance at the replies to Tze Chun shows a lot of fans distressed over the look, although a few diehard fans have shown their support.

Comics writer Gail Simone, who featured Bane prominently in the ensemble cast of her Secret Six series, weighed in, as well:

As it stands, the most comics-accurate live-action film costume for Bane is still from the cinematic masterpiece known as Batman & Robin, and looks to remain that way for some time.

Warner Bros. Pictures