Some years after the events of Batman and Robin, Bruce Wayne has retired from his life as Batman. Dick Grayson is also retired as a superhero and is studying at the Gotham City College. However, one of the collage professors, Johnathan Crane, is using the universities resources to perfect a toxin that will be able to manipulate peoples' emotions giving them uncontrollable fear. One night, he enlists the help of a fellow scientist, Doctor Kirk Langstrom, to help him experiment with his toxin. The experiment goes wrong and Langstrom is instead mutated into the terrifying monster, Man-Bat. Langstrom goes on a rampage, killing people in Gotham and is mistaken for Batman returned as a murderer. Hearing about the killings on the news, Bruce Wayne is forced to become Batman again and bring down Man-Bat. Meanwhile, Johnathan Crane takes advantage of the chaos caused by Man-Bat and uses his, now perfected, fear toxin to become the supervillain Scarecrow, using his new fear gas as a weapon.
