Deadshirt

Hey there little Bane-iacs, it’s been a wild trip recently for your old buddy, the Banester. Life’s really been suplexing me a lot lately, I’m talking about the ups and the downs! So I gotta just get something off my chest that’s been eating away at me like Killer Croc in a nursery. You all deserve an apology for the trouble I’ve been causing lately. For a good, long time actually. The Venom addiction, my flop of a career with the WWE, the constant type-casting as a meathead goon, it’s enough to make even the biggest man feel weak. Do you feel me, brothers? I could go on and on and on for days about my lapses, but let me just charge straight at that big old rampaging elephant in the room, my Comedy Central Roast.

Talk. About. A. Disaster.

Folks, I don’t know what was going through the heads of those puny Viacom suits, but let me tell you, it wasn’t a concern for the safety of the Roasters. Or the audience. Or the surrounding county and residential area. Heck, those bird-chests weren’t ready for the Bane Train! The worst that they’ve had to deal with before me was keeping Andy Dick on his leash. Can’t imagine a single one of ’em was expecting me to relapse so hard that night.

After all, what did they have to worry about? I was on top of the world after my comeback role in The Dark Knight Rises, an electrifying tour-de-force performance! But we all have our bad days. My nephew even told me not to read the rantings that those tiny little trolls left on my official fansite, but I did, friends, and boy was this big hunk of champion pissed! I just couldn’t help myself and jumped headfirst into Venom Mountain! Nothing makes you feel as alive as that terrible, terrible roller coaster ride! Don’t touch the stuff kids, that’s some advice from your main man.

Speaking of Mr. Dick, I just wanna take a minute to apologize to his family and friends for my inappropriate behavior during my meltdown. I really shouldn’t have twisted his head off like a bottle cap on live television. If I could go back in time I’d twist that twitchy little fellow’s skull right back onto his pencil neck. I hope that in time you’re able to forgive me for being such a hot head. But don’t you worry about those funeral costs, Dick family, you can expect the biggest, baddest tombstone that money can buy, shipped right to your doorstep, courtesy of yours truly!

Since I’m in generous mood, let me tell you that I’d also be happy to cover the cost of the damages that I incurred that night.

Carrot Top, I’m sorry about the third degree burns! I’ll even let you give me those pointers about physical comedy next time! How’s that sound, pal?

Mr. Jeff Ross, here’s hoping that your spine heals up as good as Batty’s did! I know now what you said about my poor, deceased mother and her less than moral behavior with all of those cruel prison guards was all in good fun. It’s just a sore spot that I advise you to avoid in the future. You don’t want to end up like Mr. Dick now do you? Haha! Just kidding Roast Master! You’re not the only joker here!

Last but most certainly not least, I wanna apologize to the great city of San Jose, sparkling diamond of the West! I’m really sorry about shredding 75% of your convention center apart like paper, tossing those first responder vehicles into your municipal building like iron balls from these mighty cannons I call my arms, and leveling seventeen beautiful neighborhoods. That was a pretty low thing for me to do.

Now let’s get serious for just a moment here. Hopefully you little champs don’t know firsthand, but it can be a no disqualification Hell in a Cell of a struggle fighting your addictions. Even a big time super-criminal turned celebrity personality like myself can’t get an easy pin on those feelings. All the money and muscles in the world can’t chokeslam that rage burning up inside of me, burning like the inferno I tossed Carrot Top into.

Little Bane-iacs, Venom just isn’t the answer. Sure it might feel amazing the first, second, third, one-hundred-thousandth time, but it’s no good I tell ya. Once you start you’ll never be able to give it up. Your friends are gonna start keeping that stuff around at parties and making you do tricks, like crushing the Riddler’s stanza for the twentieth time with your bare hands. The cheers just aren’t worth it when you see that defeated little guy calling his insurance agent with that trembling voice and all those tears in his eyes. When you start hurting your friends, that’s when you know you’re a real monster of a man.

Then there’s the ridicule, the constant ridicule. We all regret Batman & Robin, how many millennials does a guy have to piledrive into the pavement until you man-children take a hint?  You don’t have any idea what it’s like to have a mind as brilliant as Batty’s, and to be constantly laughed out of the ring like some kind of flamboyant Solomon Grundy. Come on people! I hunted down Batman, learned that he was really that showboating billionaire playboy (REDACTED), and even came up with a real no-holds-barred, slobberknocker of a plan to wear him down mentally and physically, before snapping that piece of celery he calls a spine! But that’s the thing with anger issues: when you’re always charging through public like some cranked up mad bull, people are going to start cracking wise about your skull meat. That’s my problem and I’m working on fixing it, oh you better believe that I am!

But enough of the pity party.

This electrifying paragon of sports entertainment is ready to start giving back to the community. In just a few short months I’ll be personally breaking ground on my Center for Super Drug Detox and Unhealthy Criminal Mentalities as well as personally wrangling up the first lucky campers for my Little Luchadores Camp, a safe getaway for underprivileged children who have been stuffed into terrible super-prisons and punished for crimes they didn’t even commit. With a nasty history of Venom abuse and undeserved childhood sentences it goes without saying that these are both very important issues to me, and I hope that I can make them very important to you too!

I’ve also entered into a special tag-team partnership with Fancied Chef Cookware for my charity: Piledrivers Not Pills! Pick up some of their great products like the Ultimate Suplex Panini Press today and feel like a real hero knowing a portion of the proceeds are going to some people who could really use a hand.

Anyway, I’ve taken enough of your precious time, chum. I know my words won’t mend any spines or reattach any heads, but I hope they can at least mend a few hearts. If you keep rooting for your favorite pal Bane, I promise I’ll become the champ that each and everyone of you deserves.  My greatest challenge lies ahead of me and I can’t overcome it without the support of fans like you. Bane’s back on the ropes and it’s your turn to tag him in!

At the time of publication, Bane has since been dropped by all of his sponsors following an explosive fit during the dedication of his Gotham-based Recreational Center. His whereabouts are currently unknown.

Kyle Starks is a comic creator from Southern Indiana.  He is pretty well known for making the “best wrestling comic ever”, The Legend of Ricky Thunder.  He, also, is relatively well known for defeating the Dark Wolf Mother in vicious physical combat and thus becoming alpha male of the Nightsphere Moon Dogs.  You may have seen that on the news. You can see more of his comics at www.kylestarks.com , his art at his tumblr and follow his nonsense on twitter.

Click HERE for more on A Long Halloween, our month-long series of Batman essays and art.