Not long ago, DC dropped a veritable bombshell when it revealed that one of Batman’s deadliest foes will soon headline a 12-issue maxiseries of his own in the form of Bane: Conquest. Intending on giving the hulking brute “new cities to conquer and new enemies to crush,” this project is made doubly exciting due to the fact that the villain’s co-creators – Chuck Dixon and Graham Nolan – happen to be at the helm. In other words, the book is in good hands.
Currently, Batman is in the midst of what may very well prove to be a game changing story arc in “I am Bane,” so the placement of this title is rather convenient. Actually, it seems like the creative team had been kicking the Conquest idea around for a short while and it was pure happenstance that they were able to align with the publisher’s plans, as Nolan recently told DC Comics News:
“We pitched a Batman vs Bane idea to Dan DiDio and the timing was right. Although he was looking for something more Bane-centric than Batman, so we reworked it as a chance to set Bane up as the ‘Doctor Doom’ of the DC Universe.”
And although the timing could be better, a question often on the minds of readers is whether or not maxis and minis are set within current continuity. A fine example would be Neal Adams’ recent endeavor, Superman: The Coming of the Supermen, which was quite obviously self-contained. This tale, however, does indeed take place on the current timeline:
“This takes place in current Rebirth continuity. There is a new player on the bad guy world stage called Dionysus. When he starts to set up shop and bring trouble to Gotham it gets the attention of Bane and The Batman pretty quickly…for different reasons. Bane is looking to expand his empire on to the world stage. That is his ‘Conquest.'”
Bane: Conquest #1 arrives in comic shops on May 3.
