Absolute Batman#10(2025)

Bruce wakes up naked in a cell in Ark M, despite being under a level of sedation that should have kept him unconscious for a further forty-eight hours. Although the doctors have removed the multiple weapons and tools surgically implanted throughout his body, they missed a lock pick hidden in the roof of his mouth, which he removes and uses to pick the lock on the cell. He runs through the dark corridors, passing a giant egg within a glass-fronted cage labelled "Helfeger Experiment". He enters an area of the prison known as the "K.L.A.Y. biome", where the floor appears to be made of multiple people crushed together. Their grasping arms restrain him and Bane knocks him unconscious. Forty-five days later, Bruce appears to have become despondent, barely moving and refusing to eat. The staff assume he has given up, but when several orderlies come to take him for further experiments he beats them up using knuckledusters made from his own teeth; then blows out the wall of his cell using explosives made from a mixture of his urine and guano from the bats roosting in his cell. He runs past the same glass cage, but the egg inside has now cracked open. Taking a different route, he reaches a sheer wall, which he climbs up. At the top of the wall he finds a forest, known as the "Isley Ecosystem". As he passes the trees he notices that they have human eyes and mouths on the trunks. One of the trees ensnares him in vines and a group of humanoid figures walk out of the forest towards him, saying that "The Green wants out". One of them attacks him, spewing tendrils from its mouth that sink into the orifices on his face. Bane appears and kills the creature, then once again beats him unconscious and returns him to his cell. On day ninety-one of his incarceration in Ark M, Bruce has just come through two weeks of surgeries, the first subject out of twenty-seven to survive the full cycle. As a result of his ordeals Bruce is now bald, has a network of green scars all over his body and appears mentally broken. However, Bane and Doctor Arkham, the lead researcher, suspect part of him is still holding out. As a test they place the batsuit and utility belt in his cell to see how he will react. Although Bruce at first recoils from them, yelling at them to leave him alone and there's no winning; he ultimately dons them and breaks out once more. His escape leads him through the "Langstrom Experiment", where he is confronted by multiple hideous human/animal hybrids while a group of scientists watch from inside a glass cage. The hybrids beg him to kill them. Suddenly he is once again attacked by Bane, who casually slaughters the hybrids. Bane tells Bruce that he is trying to spare him the pain he went through and he'll thank him in the end. He throws Bruce at another cage with a giant egg in it, and Bruce smashes through the glass and cracks the egg open. Bane advances, when suddenly a reptilian creature leaps out of the cage and attacks him. The creature whips Bane with its tail, sending him flying into the cage with the scientists in it. He breaks through the glass and crushes most of them; the two survivors try to run but the crocodile-like monster devours them. Bruce recognises the monster as Waylon and approaches him. Waylon grips Bruce by the throat, but then release him and allows Bruce to ride on his back, scrambling up the rockface and into the sewer tunnels. The lead researcher, Doctor Arkham, comes out and asks Bane if he is excited for the final phase. Bane replies that he is, because now he gets to truly break Batman.