WARNING: The following contains spoilers for the story "Batman" from Infinite Frontier #0 by James Tynion IV, Jorge Jimenez & Tomeu Morey, on sale now
Infinite Frontier is pushing the DC Universe into new territory with the reborn multiverse following the chaos of Dark Nights: Death Metal. But the Joker's latest plan seems to already have a massive number of casualties, including one of Batman's most notorious villains.
Infinite Frontier #0 features a deadly attack on Arkham Asylum seemingly caused by the Joker, with one of the most high-profile casualties appearing to be Bane.
Gotham City is still picking up the pieces after the chaos of Joker War, with the villain's most recent attack leaving scores dead. The city isn't prepared in the slightest for Arkham Asylum to be so quickly struck again in Infinite Frontier. While performing a security check on Bane, a guard named Mahoney is shocked to discover a cloud of Joker Gas and a number of his fellow guards dead on the ground. Mahoney initially assumes it's all part of a plot by Bane and confronts. But as he approaches him, Mahoney realizes that isn't the case: removing his mask, Mahoney discovers that Bane has been given a powerful variant of the Joker Toxin. His face is white, his eyes blank. His dislocated jaw leaks green liquid. From all appearances, the Joker just made good on his threat against Bane and killed him.
During the course of Joker War, a brewing battle between Bane and Joker was teased. Furious with his fellow villain for casually killing Alfred during "City of Bane" instead of drawing it out for maximum effect against Batman, Joker confronted him in Arkham and threatened to do something horrifying to Bane in response. It seems that the Joker has already made good on this promise, killing Bane before he can even try to get free and retaliate. If this really is the end of Bane, it would be a remarkably brutal death for the villain. Bane has proven to be one of the most dangerous of Batman's foes, coming close to breaking him once and for all during storylines like Knightfall and the recent Tom King run on the character.
Constrained within Arkham since the end of that event, it appears that the man who once broke the bat ultimately died just the same as all the other people gassed to death by the Joker: painfully and leaving behind a twisted corpse. It's an inglorious end to one of Batman's most distinct and dangerous foes, and he might be the biggest casualty of the attack on Arkham that also seems to kill off a number of other villains as well. It's also a huge step for the Joker to take, with his attack seemingly leaving fewer than 20 people alive in the Asylum by the time Batman can arrive. If this really is Joker making a statement, then he's done so in a very grisly and deadly way.
But there's also a question of whether or not this was truly the actions of the Joker. The Joker usually announces his crimes in earnest and with gusto, whereas this attack feels far more straight-forward and brutal. This was a fast and brutal death, not the kind of painful and long ones the Joker usually reserves for people he has grudges against. Many characters note this is out-of-character for him, and Scarecrow appears to be using the ensuing chaos to work with Simon Saint to help set up the Magistrate program within Gotham City. That raises the possibility that the Joker could be framed for this crime, and even the murder of Bane, as part of a plan to set up a different kind of threat in Gotham.
Regardless of his true culpability in the matter, this attack forces the Joker into Batman's sights once again, making him one of the most imminent threats of the Infinite Frontier era.