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.

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 escape the National Guard, leaving Bruce racked with guilt.

The vigilante is a young man from Burnside named Drake Winston, who works as a mechanic at 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.

Inspired by the speech and the thief's death, Bruce meets with the council and Dent at Otis' auto shop and offers to pay for an education at Gotham University for all of the children in Burnside.

Shortly after the meeting, the shop is attacked by the Batman impersonators, who tracked Drake to the garage after he stopped them from robbing a store during the speech.

Dent goes inside the burning auto shop to find Drake, where he falls from the stairs and is knocked unconscious near car batteries leaking sulfuric acid.

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.

Dent escapes his hospital room as he begins displaying increasingly erratic behavior and relying on his coin to make most of his decisions.

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.

Prior to their meeting, Bruce learns that his great-grandfather acquired an automotive company owned by Drake's ancestors in a forced buyout.

Dent hires a criminal the police use as an informant who was connected to "The Lincoln Job", a case where a group of robbers attempted to rob 31 million dollars in two armored cars, and uses him to recruit the various Joker gangs for an attack on the GCPD.

At the station, Gordon calls out Dent for his twisted sense of morality, prompting him to shoot the commissioner despite the coin flip encouraging him not to.

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.

Barbara reminds Alfred of the agreement she had with Bruce – she wouldn't prosecute him (after learning her father had known Batman's secret identity and refused to disclose it) provided he'd give up his vigilantism.

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.

Bruce quickly finds that Firefly has a bounty on him and talks with Edward Nigel Maynard, a sociopathic soldier who leaves behind riddles and member of a crew of criminal veterans called the "Strange Rangers".

As Crane monitors Bruce's actions, Quinn requests to have a persona therapy session with him, having been tasked by Chuck to get a modern picture of Lowery at the promise of getting her own show.

When Bruce returns, Maynard gives him a riddle to solve to help him survive and informs him that there are only four Strange Rangers left, including them and a former super soldier named Mark Desmond aka Blockbuster.

Barbara sees the footage and prepares to go to Wayne Manor to confront Alfred, but she is suddenly arrested by the FBI for abnormal activity in her bank account.

Bruce informs Rakim to tell Drake to bring him some Nepentholene, a drug designed to prevent the brain from forming permanent memories, to help him overcome Crane's fear toxins.

Bruce activates the tracking device to alert Drake and create an opening in the room before he and Maynard help Quinn and the inmates evade Blockbuster.

As the cops and federal agents arrive at Arkham, they are attacked by Crane, now donning a scarecrow outfit, unleashing his fear toxins on them.

As Gotham watches the madness unfold, Batman ambushes Crane with his own fear toxin, sending the doctor into a panic.

DC further revealed that the series would be written by Sam Hamm and illustrated by Quinones, and would include the return of Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer) while also introducing a new version of Robin named Drake Winston (whose appearance is inspired by Marlon Wayans, who was originally attached to play the role in the Burton films)[9] and showing the transformation of Billy Dee Williams' Harvey Dent into Two-Face.

In the series, Batman has mysteriously disappeared after Dent's death, leading Gotham citizens to take to the streets to fight in his place, including Barbara Gordon, who becomes Batgirl.