didn't ultimately matter given the fact he turned out to be a mere henchman.
I wouldn't say he was a henchman, the best way I'd put it is that he's the MAIN villain but Talia is the HEAD villain.....kind of like co-conspirators. My friends and I argue about this quite frequently lol. Then again, just my opinion.
Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head. Referring to him as a mere henchman really misses the point.
I think if they were going to do the Talia being the leader of the villains twist, then they missed an opportunity to do it better by never showing anything of them operating together. Talia is revealed as the villain, then Bane dies and the heroes go and chase Talia. Their relationship and power dynamics are basically left to the imagination of the viewer - was Talia the brains of the operation while Bane was just doing as he was told and acting like he was in charge, was it a partnership of equals, or was Bane really in control but doing things to serve Talia because he cares for and is protective of her (or as repayment for getting him out of the prison). I was pleased to see he was just going to kill Batman even though Talia had said not to, because that kind of showed that he wasn't just a mere henchman who did what he was told, but then he gets blasted away and they just focus on Talia so we don't see much more to establish that.
By the way, obviously lots of people talk about how the Joker would have been in it or mentioned if Heath Ledger was still alive, or joke about how the film is obviously making a point never to mention the Joker. But how often was Ra's al Ghul mentioned in The Dark Knight? I don't remember him, the League Of Shadows or the incident ever being referenced at all, and no one ever thought that was weird or thought they were obviously making a point not to mention it. It seems a pretty normal thing to not mention the villain or events from previous films unless they're actually relevant.