Batman : Year One

The story begins with the arrival of both James Gordon as well as Bruce Wayne to Gotham City. Gordon is transferred from Chicago. His wife is pregnant with their first child. Bruce Wayne has returned after twelve years abroad, where he learned science, manhunting and martial arts. Gordon quickly gets to see the corruption in Gotham, especially as he is paried with a highly corrupt policeman as a partner - Detective Arnold Flass. Flass tries to get him to play ball with the corrupt practices in the GCPD, and even gets him to meet commissioner Loeb, which is also highly corrupt. When it is clear that Gordon will not play ball, and will not be corrupt, Flass gangs up with a few of his colleagues and beats up Gordon as a warning. Even though the people were wearing masks, Gordon figures that they were Flass and his friends as he could recognize one the person's laughter as being distinctly Flass'. They assailants remind Gordon that he has a pregnant wife as a threat. Meanwhile, Bruce goes to a seedy area of Gotham to check out how bad things are, where he gets approached by a young prostitute. His pimp comes up and scolds her and proceeds to beat her (Telling her to look better for potential customers and to waste time on people who are not interested). Bruce tells the pimp to stop, which escalates into an altercation. The prostitute stabs Bruce in the leg, and a young Selina Kyle (also a prostitute) intervenes and fights Bruce too. Bruce recognizes that she has karate training but easily defeats her. The police arrive at the scene and shoot Bruce and proceed to take him in the car, where they are discussing whether to take bruce to the hospital or not. Bruce manages to swerve the car into a crash. He rescues the policemen and then proceeds to escape. Gordon follows Flass and his friends, and waits outside. Once he finds Flass leaving, he follows him and makes him crash his car. He then proceeds to beat him down, in one of the most badass moments in Batman comics. He beats him just enough not to require hospitalization. He then strips him naked, handcuffs him and leaves him on the forest overnight. He knows Flass would never report it, He realizes that he'll need a much more tough approach to fight the corruption in the city, which sometimes might require means many would find unconventional or even slightly outside the law itself. An injured Bruce is shown in his living room, looking at a bust of Thomas Wayne. He is desperate for inspiration, when a Bat flies in by breaking one of the living room windows and sits on the bust. Bruce takes this as a sign, and vows to 'become a bat'. Gordon, meanwhile, is getting more and more fame for his upstanding ways, even from the press. In light of this, pressure has gone right up to the mayor to remove him from the police force, but the mayor doesn't as Gordon has the press on his side, making it a politically bad move to do so. Bruce is shown donning the Batman costume and fighting criminals, but obviously being inexperienced, makes a mess of it, almost killing a criminal and injuring himself badly in the process. Over the next few weeks, more and more of such cases of the Batman assaulting criminals are heard, and the GCPD is now involved in stopping him. Gordon deduces that he operates between midnight and 4 A.M, and that he's working his way up the levels of crime, initially fighting low level street thugs and now moving upper to more established criminals, and will target corrupt policemen if they get in his way too. Batman crashes a party where Commisioner Loeb and Falcon where discussing the Batman situation. Batman gives them all a warning that none of them are safe anymore. A few days later, Batman ends up tieing Falcone naked (much like Gordon did to flass), and dumps his Rolls-Royce in the river. Gordon seems to have a sneaking suspicion that District Attorney Harvey Dent and questions him about his activities on certain dates and times. It is then revealed that Dent has been working with Batman. Later, Sarah Essen and Gordon happen to chance upon Batman (when he was trying to save an old lady's life). Batman manages to escape from Essen and flees to a nearby building. Gordon tries to cover the building, but at the same time hold back, but Commisioner Loeb orders air support to bomb the roof of the building.