Two years after the Apokolips war, a wreary, guilt-ridden 55-year-old Bruce Wayne has retired from the Bat Mantle and now takes care of an ailing Alfred inside the Wayne mansion. Taking the role as the Bat and becoming one of the Justice League has brought Bruce nothing but pain, misery and loss as the death of his old friend Clark and many others still haunts him. Bruce's strategy to isolate himself from the outside world is disrupted when he encounters a young girl named Barbara Gordon, the daughter of the now-retired Commissioner Gordon, who aspires to emulate him. Gotham on the other hand has fallen into disarray, plagued by a merciless, technologically advanced teenage gang called the Mutants, and subsequently confronted by a formidable terrorist named Bane, Bruce, overwhelmed by the chaos and tormented by his history, ultimately loses his composure and reasserts his identity as the Bat.