Gotham Knights: Knightfall

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Born to serve the life sentence of his father, Bane's childhood and early adult life are spent behind the walls of Peña Duro, an infamous prison located in Santa Prisca. Though imprisoned, his natural abilities allow him to develop extraordinary skills within the prison's walls. He reads as many books as he can get his hands on, builds up his body in the prison's gymnasium, and learns to fight in the merciless school of prison life. Despite his circumstances, he appears to have found teachers of various sorts during his incarceration, ranging from hardened convicts to an elderly Jesuit priest, under whose tutelage he apparently receives a classical education. Bane murders this priest upon his return to Santa Prisca years later. However, he commits his first murder at the age of eight, stabbing a criminal who wanted to use him to gain information about the prison.

During his years in prison, Bane carries a teddy bear he calls Osito (Spanish for "little bear"), whom he considers his only friend. It is revealed that Osito has a hole in his back to hold a knife that Bane uses against anyone who bullies him (this is spoofed in Italian superhero parody Rat-Man by Leo Ortolani where the titular bumbling and goofy superhero has constant and heated discussions with a stuffed teddy called Piccettino, whose voice only he can hear).

Bane ultimately establishes himself as the "king" of Peña Duro prison. The prison's controllers take note and, eventually, force him to become a test subject for a mysterious drug known as Venom, which had killed all other subjects. It nearly kills him at first, but he survives and finds its effects enhance his physical strength, although he needs to take it every 12 hours (via a system of cables pumped directly into his brain) or he would suffer debilitating side-effects.

Years later, Bane liberates Peña Duro, giving himself a massive army of dangerous killers and he leads them in overthrowing it. Taking the armory of the prison for themselves, Bane, along with several accomplices (his friends Trogg, Zombie and Bird, all of whom are named after 1960s rock bands: The Troggs, The Zombies, and The Byrds, and were designed to mimic three of Doc Savage's assistants Monk, Ham, and Renny), Bane turns his ambition to destroying Batman, whom he had heard tales of while serving his sentence. He is fascinated with Gotham City, as, like the prison, it is a place where fear rules: in this case, fear of Batman. Bane is convinced that the demonic bat that haunted his dreams since childhood is a representation of the Batman.

Bane trains his men heavily and turns them into an army in between studying Batman and making their preparations. 

Aware that a direct assault on Batman would be foolish, Bane destroys the walls of Arkham Asylum and Blackgate Prison along with blowing the bridges of Gotham City. After providing the Blackgate Escapees with weapon caches, Bane and his forces slipped into the shadows to wait as Batman was forced to run himself ragged fighting the army of criminals now rampaging around Gotham. Things got even worse when Bane had Nora Fries abducted and stored somewhere else, forcing Mr.Freeze to engage Batman as well.

Once Batman and the GCPD had exhausted themselves corralling them all, Bane had his army abduct the super villains and secure them in an underground prison where they were drugged heavily and kept sedated. As for the lesser criminals, those who refused to serve Bane were eliminated.

In the meantime, Bane sent the trio to deal with Batman. They were defeated but left their marks on him. Finally, Batman arrived at Wayne Manor to find Bane waiting for him. Bane soundly thrashed Bruce and broke his spine. He took Batman's cowl as a trophy and had Batman imprisoned in a far away underground prison pit.

Returning to Gotham, Bane ruled the city and forced everyone prison to submit to him as their king, keeping intruders at bay with bombs in the buildings.

Only the remnats of the GCPD lead by Commissioner Gordon, Alfred Pennyworth, Nightwing, Batgirl, Huntress and Catwoman remained to try and keep a semblance of order in the city.

Bruce meanwhile was eventually rescued by Talia and taken to The League where he was dipped in a Lazarus Pit. It healed Bruce's body but the result was a brief bout of Lazarus-Insanity which Talia helped him through. While Bruce's body was restored his spirit was broken after such a devastating loss. He needed to rebuild himself. He needed to prepare. Bruce asked Talia to lead him to Shiva.

While Nighting held down the fort in Gotham, Bruce trained under Lady Shiva to regain his edge and fighting spirit. Naturally Shiva took great pleasure in putting Bruce through hell and back but he withstood it until finally, finally Bruce took his power back.

In the meantime, Green Arrow sneaked into Gotham to join the war efforts.

Bruce went to a spare Batcave he'd hidden on Arkham Island and grabbed his gear and then sneaked back to Gotham. He reunited with his family and embraced them warmly and openly and shook hands with Green Arrow.

It was time to get to work.

The heroes gradually finished dismantling Bane's bombs and then signaled reinforcements as they took out his army and yes, freed the criminals. Despite their horrible crimes, illegal imprisonment was still illegal imprisonment.

Elated to finally see Batman again, Joker immediately tried to hug him.
Batman decked him.

As reinforcements poured into Gotham, Batman lead the team to victory and finally squared off with Bane for a rematch. He was healthy, he was strong and he was better than ever.

This time around, Batman had a plan.

First chance he got he broke Bane's venom tubes and the machine that controlled them to power Bane down. Next, he broke the mask on his face that supplied him with pain killers so that Bane would actually feel the pain. The playing field had been leveled and after a rough fight, Batman finally defeated Bane, tossed him out on the streets and tore off his mask and held it up in victory. 

This was Gotham.

This was Batman's City.

Bane and the other criminals were locked up in federal prisons while Blackgate and Arkham were rebuilt with the rest of the city. 

In the meantime, Amanda Waller finally introduced herself to a select few criminals she thought might be useful...