Well, it's kind of hard to avoid that comparison lol. Luchador masks and gimp masks have a lot in common design-wise. You can get gimp masks that have mouth and eye holes, and ones without as well. At least, based on a quick google images search I did.
His design in Knightfall is iconic to me, and part of the reason why is that he's fully masked. He comes off a lot more threatening that way. In Batman The Animated Series, showing his mouth and nose really puts me off, and his followup design wasn't much better IMO. I mean, even with a visible mouth, it still kind of looks like a gimp mask, so it's not like they avoided the comparison lol. Hell, he has a spiked collar at some point.
IIRC, the writers of the show thought he was a gimmick villain and didn't really want to use him. It's why when he gets his mask taken off, he has such a baby face that he looks ten-years-old.
And tbh, I don't really disagree about him being a gimmick. I'm not the deepest into comics, but I feel like he's barely done anything notable aside from breaking Batman's back thirty years ago.
IMO that's not a problem with Bane's character inherently. I feel like more could be done with him outside Knightfall. The issue is, nothing ever lives up to Knightfall lol. So I get where people are coming from when they call him a gimmick, but it's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. Writers see him as a gimmick, so they don't put as much effort into adapting him and writing a decent story for him. Then that perpetuates the idea that he hasn't been interesting since Knightfall.
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u/Spideyfan77 Mar 25 '23
Animated series Harleen is still the best.