It is an overview of Bruce Wayne's early life, including his parents' murder, his time spent traveling and training throughout the world, and his return to Gotham City to become Batman.

After nearly a year of training, Master Kirigi tells Bruce he has exceptional intelligence and physique, but his traumatic past has made him self-destructive.

Bruce Wayne leaves Korea and heads to France, where O'Neil summarizes events from Sam Hamm's Batman: Blind Justice.

Bruce trains with a bounty hunter named Henri Ducard, who shows him "the uses of brutality, deception [and] cunning".

The narration explains that Bruce meets and learns from every great detective in the world, when he approaches Willie Doggett.

O'Neil again recounts events from Year One: Bruce's first night out, fighting street thugs while still uncostumed, is deemed a failure.

In a framing device, in the present day the Batman observes a gang of criminals while positioned on a gargoyle, with his musings as he prepares to confront them providing the flashbacks to the formative moments of his development.