‘Gotham’: Is This the First Look at Bane’s Costume?

Bane is officially coming to Gotham in the show’s fifth and final season, and we may have gotten the first look at the iconic villain’s new costume.

On Monday, several of the show’s prominent cast members shared a photo that was taken at the table read for this season’s ninth episode, the second-to-last episode of the series. In the photo, you can see actor Shane West in the back row, donning a much different sort of attire than the rest of the cast.

While most of the actors are in their usual clothes for the read, West is wearing some sort of armor, making it look as though he’s in his actual costume. Earlier this month at New York Comic Con, it was confirmed that West would in fact be playing Gotham’s version of Bane.

So, when you put it all together, it looks like we’ve got our first look at Bane’s costume, or at least a version of it. Take a look!

West is going to be playing a character named Eduardo Dorrance, who is a former Army friend of Jim Gordon’s. He returns to the city after No Man’s Land and seems helpful at first, but Dorrance doesn’t turn out to be the man anyone expects. In the comics, Edmund Dorrance is the name of Bane’s father, King Snake, and it sounds as though Gotham will be using that name to introduce the popular Batman villain.

In the photo, West is most definitely wearing a costume from the show, it’s just unclear as to what version of his character the costume is for. This could be a part of Bane’s actual costume, sure. Then again, this could also be the military outfit that Eduardo Dorrance wears while working alongside Gordon, before he completes his transition into the Bane that we all recognize.

During a recent visit to the set of Gotham, ComicBook.com spent some time talking with executive producer John Stephens, who told us a bit about introducing Bane and the other villains of Season 5.

“I don’t think we were ever really aesthetic about putting in new characters,” Stephens said. “If we kind of wanted to do one, we would throw it in anyway, a canon character. Certainly the character that Shane [West] is coming into to play is the character that we had been waiting to use, because we know we wanted one more big, canon character who was going to come in and make a splash, and he does, entirely. But there’s other characters, too, you mentioned Man Bat of it all, or you just sit and have random episodes and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to put Magpie in this episode.’ So Magpie comes in and she does a great job. So there’s more of that sort of throughout.”

During the Gotham panel at New York Comic Con, it was revealed that the show would be putting a spin on the traditional Bane/Batman story. Rather than breaking Bruce Wayne’s back in a fight, Eduardo will actually break the back of Alfred.

Are you excited to see Shane West make his debut as Bane in Gotham‘s final season? Let us know in the comments!