Bane, portrayed by Tom Hardy in The Dark Knight Rises (2012), the conclusion of the Batman film trilogy by director Christopher Nolan, reminds me of Darth Vader when he took off his mask at the end of The Return of The Jedi. In some media I read, it has been reported that Nolan indeed had Vader partly as inspiration when conceptualising Bane. His voice, which reminds me more of Sean Connery, is partly based on Irish bareknuckle boxer, Bartley Gorman. Tom Hardy puts on weight to add bulk to the character but honestly, he looks kinda fat-ish. He looks more menacing in Warrior (2011). Hot Toys offering of this version of Bane is true to the movie version, including the details of his body down from the scars up to pimple-like bumps. The headsculpt, well, nothing to really comment about since Bane wears mask, but is per Hot Toys standard i.e. veins and whatnot, even though there are again comments of the colours and lack of weathering. Be warned though, coz the figure I got has an unpainted strip along the upper head straps of Bane's baldy head. An obvious quality concern, xl-shop graciously changed it for me but one of the two remaining stocks has the same "defect". The gears are minimal as Bane is purely physical but there's still a tad feeling of hesitance when parting with my moola to David. The one sixth hobby is increasingly becoming a game for the ten percentile hehe. Removing the infamous vest is surprising easy though time consuming compare to other more nightmarish gears I had came across from Hot Toys. And nothing break this time. Like Napoleon Dynamite says, "Luckeee!!!". The hand glaives, sweater, leather jacket (which reminded me of the one Kate Hudson's Pennylane wears in Almost Famous) are nice, and so is the supposedly customised Crye Precision GEN 1 combat pants and modified boots (what do I know about military garbs anyhoo?). Well, I still have a beef regarding Hot Toys molded boots but enough said. It looks nice and precise overall. Take note that I could not slip in the hand glaive when wearing the jacket coz I find the opening to be too narrow. A pity coz Bane wears it all the time. Now here's the setback for this figure...the size. Yes. Hot Toys' Bane is well, a tad shorter than DX12 Bats. I mean, yes, but no, uh...what the heck? I sees it as a 1/7th scale. And this is the antagonist who breaks Bats? Hahahaha...I couldn't stand it, so I did what I needed to do next. Swap the bods with the just released Advanced Muscular Body. The pants wouldn't fit, that's for sure coz its tighter and smaller, so I just grabbed whatever combat pants available at xl-shop, which happens to be a DML camo pants, coupled with a spare ACI combat boots, and bingo. The Bane I wants. Tall (but maybe too tall, almost near The Predator's height) and bigger (the shoulder width is approximately the same) but what the heck. It's Bane, man! The leather jacket does not "hang" as naturally as the on the original body. Also looks shorter, undersized now but it sill slips in without any pressure.
Maybe down the line, I would try to look for a similar combat pants, I realise there're some from Soldier Story's FCS Multicam figures, DiD, Very Hot Toys but they're incredibly rare and only in camo. The Belfast mercenary coat is non-existent, but I've read that even for the movie, they used a Trialmaster jacket. That could be obtained from MC Toys Will Smith's I Am Legend set. The boots are heavily customised. I have seen the Soldier Story Korean boots, but it's kinda not "brutal" enuff and not the same thing, without the details etc., so I'll probably stick to standard combat boots. But that means more money to be spent, so this will do for now. Or maybe not. Sometimes, these sort of things will nag me. To put it out of me head, I got the DiD set but in camo. Would very much tempted to bleach/dye blah blah but nah, camo is good enuff though not for the hardcore fans and purists. The pants should have knee protector in the form of hardshell but DiD seems to take the lazy route and has glued on piece of plastic. I swapped it with the knee pad from the original which are also glued on. The ACI boots sorta makes Bane looks like wearing a battle ship sized gear, so I swapped back the original ones. I am eating my own words ere but ok, for once, the size and molded boots compliment the figure. Nothing is perfect. Managed to squeezed in the glaives, yes both of em (in the movie he only wears one), an incredible exercise of patience, creativity and dexterity, through the opening of the coat. So, goodbye Bane. Off ya go into the cabinet with the rest of the crew.
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