Shadows
Following the events of Batman Returns, a war breaks out in Gotham City between a gang of Joker-inspired criminals and a group of vigilantes dressed up as Batman. District attorney Harvey Dent vows to take down the real Batman, whom he holds responsible for inspiring these copycats, and to discredit police commissioner Jim Gordon. Dent is aided by his fiancée, Barbara Gordon, a GCPD sergeant and Gordon's daughter. He brings in the National Guard to the city and tries to lure Batman into a trap using the Bat-Signal with Lieutenant Harvey Bullock. While patrolling in Dent's childhood neighborhood, Burnside, Batman encounters another masked vigilante as he confronts a young thief who was trying to help his infant sister. The thief is killed by a stray bullet when Batman attempts to evade the soldiers, leaving Bruce racked with guilt.
The vigilante is a young man from Burnside named Drake Winston, who works as a mechanic at Royal Autobody, an auto shop owned by Dent's childhood mentor, Jerome Otis. After being criticized by the Burnside neighborhood council for the National Guard's actions, Dent makes a powerful televised speech denouncing the violence. Bruce meets with the council at Royal Autobody and offers to fund an education at Gotham University for all of Burnside's children. Shortly after the meeting, the shop is set ablaze by the Batman impersonators, who tracked Drake to the garage after he stopped them from robbing a store. Before he could fight them, Bruce finds that they have already been defeated by Catwoman.
Dent goes inside the burning building to find Drake, where he falls and is knocked unconscious near car batteries leaking sulfuric acid. He is rescued by Bruce and Drake, but is rushed to the hospital after the acid burned the left side of his face. Much to his dismay, Bruce is hailed as a hero by the press and finds out that Drake saw him confront the arsonists. At the hospital, Dent's subconscious (taking on the form of an alternate self where he rescued Drake and became governor) encourages him to think of the power in the choices he makes, inspiring him to mark one side of his two-headed coin. Later that night, Catwoman tells Batman she's back in Gotham to track down rich criminals and criticizes him for his lack of action against them as they prepare to stop more fires from the arsonists.
Dent begins displaying increasingly erratic behavior and relying on his coin to make most of his decisions. Barbara learns that he escaped the hospital while talking to Selina Kyle, who secretly scans her hard drive under the guise of helping her with a virus. Dent steals multiple files from the GCPD before retreating into the subway and sets up the abandoned Burnside station as his new base of operations. Meanwhile, Bruce invites Drake to meet him at Wayne Manor to discuss the arsonists. Prior to their meeting, Bruce learns that his great-grandfather acquired an automotive company owned by Drake's ancestors in a forced buyout. Drake goads Bruce into fighting him and deduces that he is Batman from his fighting style before revealing himself to be the masked vigilante. He proposes they form a partnership to combat the chaos brewing in the city.
As her father resigns as commissioner, Barbara receives a note from Dent telling her to meet him at the park. Dent hires a criminal informant connected to a high stakes case known as "The Lincoln Job" to recruit the various Joker gangs for an attack on the GCPD. They collapse four subway tunnels in close proximity to the GCPD headquarters and ambush the police outside. Batman helps Gordon fight the gang members inside while Drake takes out the snipers covering the streets. They eventually find Dent in the evidence room stealing a suitcase from the Lincoln Job after wounding Bullock. Dent manages to make Batman accidentally shoot Gordon with a knockout dart, allowing him to kidnap the commissioner while forcing Batman to stay behind to save Bullock.
The next day, Dent donates some of the stolen money to Burnside's residents. With Gordon's help, Batman and Drake locate Dent at the park meeting with Barbara. Barbara attempts to arrest Dent, but is knocked out by Catwoman, who encourages Batman and Drake to follow Dent while she takes care of the police and henchmen nearby. Distraught from Barbara's actions, Dent kills Gordon and blows up the station to critically injure Batman, discovering his secret identity in the process. Catwoman and Drake rescue Bruce and take him back to the Batcave for Alfred to tend to his wounds.
Selina tells Bruce that the Lincoln Job involved a financial company running federal aid funds through a string of mobbed-up front companies which resulted in millions in kickbacks for politicians. The suitcase Dent stole contains incriminating documents against them, giving him leverage over them. Dent orders all charges dropped against him and displays his dominance by killing mob boss Carmine Falcone. The next day, Dent murders Otis after the latter disowns him and frames Drake for the crime. He then drives to Wayne Manor and meets Bruce in the Batcave, attempting to blackmail Batman into becoming his enforcer. Bruce refuses and instead allows Dent to flip the coin to give him two options: kill Bruce, or allow him to help him reform. As Dent flips the coin, Catwoman cuts the giant penny hanging in the Batcave, which lands next to Dent and makes him fall to his death.
Bruce chastises Selina and claims he palmed Dent's coin so that it would've landed on the good side. Selina calls Bruce out for his rich upbringing and finds Dent had his own coin, questioning if he really did switch it. As she takes her cat and decides to leave him for good, Bruce finds out she placed a microphone in the cat's collar. Two days later, Bruce clears Drake's name from Otis' death and gives him access to the Batcycle. Drake tells Bruce he has an older sister who'd be willing to adopt the thief's younger sister and suggests sending her there instead of just setting her up with a $10 million trust fund so that she could grow up with a loving family. Barbara receives a package from the late Harvey that contains evidence revealing Batman's secret identity and a letter from Catwoman offering her partnership to incriminate Gotham's power elite. Later that night, Bruce decides on whether to go out on patrol or not by flipping a coin as the Bat-Signal shines in the sky.[4]
Echoes
Batman has been missing in Gotham for two years after Dent's death. In his absence, Batman impersonators attempt to uphold the law and are killed by street criminals. Barbara Gordon, now Captain of the GCPD after taking down crooked politicians thanks to Catwoman's intel, is on the hunt for the real Batman. She made an agreement with Bruce not to prosecute him after learning her father had known Batman's secret identity and refused to disclose it provided he'd give up his vigilantism. In her investigations, she notices all the shooters have mental breakdowns at the sight of Batman's costume. She repeatedly contacts Bruce for help to no avail, leading to her visit Alfred at Wayne Manor.
Alfred reveals that Bruce disappeared a month prior and that he has no idea where he is. Meanwhile, Dr. Harleen Quinzel, a psychiatrist strongly interested with persona therapy and the late Joker, has a televised interview with the clown's mistress, Alicia Hunt, who had survived her apparent suicide attempt. However, her interview is cut short by her boss at ACN, Chuck, who instead airs a special news bulletin about an alleged bomber named Robert Lowery (a.k.a. Firefly) getting captured by a U.S. Marshall Team. Quinzel meets up with her coworker, Dr. Jonathan Crane, who announces that he will be treating Firefly. Firefly is actually an undercover Bruce, who is interested in speaking to Crane's mentor, Dr. Hugo Strange, who treated the real Lowery in the past.
Alfred reaches out to Drake for Bruce's whereabouts and deduces his connection to Firefly. Drake asks him to bring a fingerprint kit for Bruce. At Arkham Asylum, Crane performs a fear test on Bruce to determine if he's sane enough to stand trial. Bruce passes, but Crane has him stay in Arkham under the alias "
