Batman: Year One 2011

Bruce Wayne Bruce Wayne returns home to Gotham City after twelve years abroad, where he trained in martial arts, hunted criminals, and studied science, ready to wage a personal war on crime. Detective James Gordon James Gordon moves to Gotham with his pregnant wife Barbara after a transfer from Chicago, stepping into a city already steeped in corruption and violence. From the moment they arrive, both men glimpse how differently power and fear operate in Gotham, and how the line between justice and brutality is often blurred.

On a surveillance mission in the East End, a disguised Bruce Wayne encounters Holly Holly, a teenage prostitute who propositions him. The encounter spirals into a chaotic confrontation with her pimp and several other prostitutes, among them a dominatrix named Selina Kyle Selina Kyle. A gun is fired by one of the reporting officers, who shoot him without cause, and Bruce is hauled into a squad car. Bruised and dazed, he manages to force the officers to stop the car, and he escapes just as the vehicle hurtles off the road. He staggers back to Wayne Manor, where he collapses before his father’s bust and pleads for guidance in his war on crime. A bat crashes through a window and lands on the bust, symbolically steering him toward his vow.

Gordon begins a difficult climb to cleanse the Chicago-style corruption from the Gotham Police Department. On orders from Commissioner Gillian Loeb, several officers move against him, and one of his closest allies, Detective Flass Detective Flass, threatens Gordon’s pregnant wife. In retaliation, Gordon tracks Flass down, subdues him, and humiliates him, leaving him naked and abandoned in the snow. This act earns him a burgeoning reputation as a principled but controversial figure, while Batman’s emergence in the city—first seen taking down a group of thieves—signals a new force entering Gotham’s power structure.

Batman’s crusade escalates quickly, as he targets Flass for taking a bribe and interrupts a lavish dinner party attended by some of Gotham’s most corrupt politicians and crime bosses, including Carmine “The Roman” Falcone Falcone. Loeb pushes to bring Batman in by any means, and Gordon finds himself torn between maintaining order and recognizing the vigilante’s effectiveness. Harvey Dent Harvey Dent emerges as Batman’s first ally in this murky moral landscape, while Detective Sarah Essen Detective Essen questions whether Wayne could be involved in Batman’s identity, all while Batman saves an old woman from a runaway truck and tests the limits of Gotham’s tolerance for vigilantism. Batman also disarms Essen when she points a gun at him, then disappears into an abandoned building as Loeb orders a bomb dropped on it, forcing Batman to fight his way out.

In the wake of these events, Selina Kyle learns that she can blend her own talents with Batman’s crusade. After witnessing Batman’s prowess firsthand, she crafts her own Catwoman persona Catwoman and joins the night’s criminal turn as a counterpart and foil. The city’s tension reaches a fever pitch as Gordon’s personal life becomes entangled with his professional duties; his affair with Essen is exposed by the ever-watchful Loeb, who uses it to pressure Gordon into quieting charges against Flass. Meanwhile, Barbara’s trust in her husband’s integrity is tested as Gordon considers the mounting evidence and the seductive power of Batman’s methods.

As the plot advances, Batman infiltrates Falcone’s manor and overhears a plan against Gordon, only to be interrupted by Catwoman’s intervention. Bruce Wayne, torn between his duties as a man and his responsibilities as a vigilante, steps in to assist Gordon. The pursuit becomes intimate and personal: Gordon aims to rebuild his life with his wife, while Batman’s actions threaten to dismantle the delicate balance of power in Gotham. When Gordon discovers that his family is being held by Johnny Vitti (Falcone’s nephew) and his gang, he drives into a perilous confrontation with the criminals, risking everything to save his wife and son. On a bridge over the river, Gordon and Vitti chase one another, a tense showdown that ends with Vitti’s defeat. Bruce Wayne also arrives on the scene, saving the baby as Gordon loses his glasses in the struggle, then reveals himself to be Batman. With the revelation hanging in the air, Gordon quips that he is “practically blind without glasses,” and chooses to let Bruce go.

The aftermath sees Gordon and Barbara attempting to repair their relationship through marriage counseling, even as the city teeters on the brink of an escalation that could redefine its future. In a climactic rooftop monologue, Gordon hints at the existence of a greater threat, acknowledging the warnings from Flass’s notes and naming a figure who has begun to whisper through Gotham’s shadows—“The Joker.” He stands on the rooftop, awaiting a friend that he hopes can help, and the unspoken implication lingers: that Batman’s vigilantism has become an ongoing, uneasy partnership in Gotham’s uneasy quest for justice.

“It turns out that Flass is smarter than he looks, took notes on every little talk he had with Loeb” … “there’s a real panic on, somebody has threatened to poison the Gotham reservoir,” who calls himself “The Joker.”