Further following the events of "Knightfall", Bane recovers from his Venom addiction while serving time in Blackgate Prison, as seen in "Batman: Vengeance of Bane II - The Redemption" (1995). He rebuilt his body to its peak and eventually escapes from prison and returns to Gotham, where he fights alongside the original Batman, who has by now recovered and taken his mantle back from Azrael, to take out a criminal ring that is distributing a Venom derivative to street-level thugs. Following a victory over the criminals (and the revelation that behind it is the same doctor that performed the surgery on Bane years earlier in Peña Duro), Bane proclaims that he is "innocent" of his past crimes and urges Batman to stop hunting him. He then leaves Gotham, without fighting Batman, to begin a search for his dead father.