Batman recap: the story so far

No. 01 · 1966 · Film · optional

Batman recap

Batman and Robin get a tip that a yacht carrying the inventor Commodore Schmidlapp is in danger, and the rescue turns out to be a trap: the yacht is a hologram and a shark attacks Batman on the Batcopter ladder until he drives it off with shark repellent spray. Four villains have joined forces as the United Underworld: the Joker, the Penguin, the Riddler and Catwoman. They have kidnapped Schmidlapp and taken his dehydrator, a device that reduces people to dust. Catwoman, posing as a Soviet journalist named Kitka, charms Bruce Wayne so the gang can kidnap him. The villains escape their traps in a submarine disguised as a penguin, and the Dynamic Duo survive an exploding buoy, a torpedo attack and a bomb that Batman cannot get rid of anywhere on the docks.

How Batman ends

The villains dehydrate the nine members of the United Nations Security Council and steal them in vials. Batman and Robin chase the submarine, force it to the surface with a sonic charge and beat the gang in a brawl on deck; Catwoman is unmasked as Kitka, to Bruce's dismay. The dust of the council members gets mixed together, and when they are rehydrated, each speaks the others' languages and has the others' habits. Batman and Robin slip out a window.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 02 · 1989 · Film

Batman recap

Gotham City is run by crime boss Carl Grissom, and a masked vigilante is frightening its criminals. Photographer Vicki Vale and reporter Alexander Knox look into the Batman legend, and Vicki starts dating Bruce Wayne. Grissom sets up his right-hand man, Jack Napier, who is sleeping with Grissom's mistress, to die in a police raid on Axis Chemicals. Batman intervenes, and Jack falls into a vat of chemicals. He comes out with white skin, green hair and a fixed grin, calls himself the Joker, kills Grissom and takes over his gangs. The Joker poisons cosmetics with Smylex, a chemical that kills people laughing, and becomes obsessed with Vicki. Bruce realises the Joker is the mugger who murdered his parents in front of him when he was a boy, and tells Vicki he is Batman.

How Batman ends

The Joker lures Gotham to a parade by throwing money from balloons filled with Smylex gas. Batman hauls the balloons away with the Batwing, but the Joker shoots it down and drags Vicki up a cathedral bell tower. Batman fights him at the top; as the Joker escapes on a helicopter ladder, Batman ties his leg to a stone gargoyle, and the Joker falls to his death. Commissioner Gordon unveils the Bat-Signal and Alfred brings Vicki to the Batmobile.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 03 · 1992 · Film

Batman Returns recap

At Christmas in Gotham, a deformed man raised in the sewers by penguins, Oswald Cobblepot, emerges as the Penguin, and the corrupt businessman Max Shreck uses him to push a power plant that will drain the city's electricity. Shreck pushes his timid secretary Selina Kyle out a window when she discovers the scheme; she survives, sews herself a black vinyl suit and becomes Catwoman. Shreck stages a recall of the mayor so the Penguin, now a public hero, can run for office. Catwoman teams up with the Penguin to frame Batman for a murder, while Bruce Wayne and Selina fall for each other without knowing who the other is. At a masked ball they each realise the truth. Batman broadcasts a recording of the Penguin mocking the voters, wrecking his campaign.

How Batman Returns ends

The Penguin's gang tries to kidnap Gotham's firstborn sons, and when that fails he sends an army of penguins with rockets to blow up the city. Batman turns them back on the Penguin's lair. Catwoman refuses Bruce's offer to go away together and electrocutes Shreck with a kiss and a taser. The Penguin dies, and his penguins carry his body into the water. Bruce finds no body for Selina, and in the last shot Catwoman looks up at the Bat-Signal.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 04 · 1992 · Series

Batman: The Animated Series recap

The series is mostly standalone episodes, aired from 1992 to 1995, about Batman protecting a 1940s-style Gotham City with Alfred, Commissioner Gordon and, in some episodes, Robin. Most of the classic villains get their own stories, many of them origin stories. In "Heart of Ice", Mr. Freeze is a scientist who froze his dying wife Nora and was turned into the cold man he is by a corporate executive he now hunts. In "Two-Face", district attorney Harvey Dent, a friend of Bruce's, is scarred in an explosion and splits into a second personality. Clayface is an actor who disfigured himself with a face cream. The Joker's assistant Harley Quinn, created for the show, becomes a regular, and the Penguin, the Riddler, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, Ra's al Ghul and Catwoman all return. Dick Grayson works as Robin while studying at college, and Bruce wrestles with whether Batman can ever stop.

How Batman: The Animated Series ends

There is no single finale; the show ends after 85 episodes with its villains back in Arkham Asylum and Batman still on patrol. The same team continued in 1997 with The New Batman Adventures, which adds Batgirl, Nightwing and a new Robin, Tim Drake. Mask of the Phantasm, released in 1993, is the series' feature film, and the 1998 film SubZero continues Mr. Freeze's story. The same voice cast, led by Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill, carried on into Justice League.

No. 05 · 1993 · Film

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm recap

A cloaked killer called the Phantasm begins murdering Gotham gangsters, and witnesses blame Batman, so the police and city councilman Arthur Reeves start hunting him. Flashbacks show Bruce Wayne years earlier, before he took up the cape, falling in love with Andrea Beaumont. Bruce is ready to give up his vow to fight crime and proposes, but Andrea leaves the country with her father Carl, a businessman in debt to the mob, and sends Bruce a goodbye letter. Heartbroken, Bruce puts on the cowl for the first time. In the present, Andrea returns to Gotham as the remaining mobsters from her father's old partnership are killed one by one. Batman discovers that the mob had the Joker, then a nameless hitman, kill Carl.

How Batman: Mask of the Phantasm ends

The Phantasm is Andrea, avenging her father. The last surviving mobster turns to the Joker for protection, and the Joker kills him. At the abandoned Gotham World's Fair, Batman fights the Joker as the Joker sets off explosives; Andrea appears, takes the Joker and disappears with him in the smoke. Bruce finds her locket in the Batcave, and Andrea is last seen alone at night on the deck of a cruise ship, leaving Gotham behind.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 06 · 1995 · Film

Batman Forever recap

Two-Face, the scarred former district attorney Harvey Dent, blames Batman for his disfigurement and terrorises Gotham. Edward Nygma, an inventor at Wayne Enterprises, is rejected when he pitches a device that beams television into people's brains; he kills his supervisor and becomes the Riddler, sending Bruce Wayne riddles. The psychologist Chase Meridian is drawn to both Batman and Bruce. At a circus, Two-Face kills the Flying Graysons, and Bruce takes in their surviving son, Dick, who discovers the Batcave and wants revenge. The Riddler and Two-Face team up; the Riddler's device sells to millions, draining their minds to make him smarter, and from it he learns Bruce is Batman. The villains attack Wayne Manor, blow up the Batcave, wound Bruce and kidnap Chase.

How Batman Forever ends

Batman and Dick, now Robin, storm the Riddler's lair on Claw Island. The Riddler makes Batman choose between saving Chase and Robin; Batman destroys the brain device, scrambling the Riddler's mind, and saves both. Two-Face falls to his death after Batman tricks him with a handful of coins. The Riddler ends up in Arkham believing he is Batman, and Batman and Robin run toward the Bat-Signal together.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 07 · 1997 · Film

Batman & Robin recap

Batman and Robin face Mr. Freeze, a scientist who must wear a refrigerated suit and steals diamonds to fund a cure for his wife Nora, frozen with a disease called MacGregor's Syndrome. Botanist Pamela Isley is left for dead by her employer, who has built the steroid-powered henchman Bane, and becomes Poison Ivy, with pheromones that make men fall for her. Ivy turns Robin against Batman, and the two quarrel. Alfred is dying of the early stage of the same disease, and his niece Barbara arrives from England. Ivy pulls the plug on Nora's cryogenic chamber and tells Freeze that Batman killed her, so Freeze decides to freeze all of Gotham with a giant telescope. Barbara discovers the Batcave, and Alfred gives her a suit.

How Batman & Robin ends

Batman, Robin and the new Batgirl beat Ivy and Bane and thaw Gotham with satellites. Batman shows Freeze that Ivy pulled Nora's plug and that Nora is still alive, and Freeze hands over his cure for the early stage of the disease, which saves Alfred. Freeze and Ivy share a cell in Arkham, where Freeze promises to make her pay. The three heroes stand together in the Batcave.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 08 · 1999 · Series

Batman Beyond recap

In 2039, an elderly Bruce Wayne has hung up the cowl after a heart attack nearly forced him to use a gun. Teenager Terry McGinnis, whose father is murdered on the orders of Derek Powers, who has taken over Wayne Enterprises, stumbles into the Batcave, steals a high-tech Batsuit and becomes the new Batman, with Bruce guiding him from the cave. Terry juggles school, his girlfriend Dana and his family while fighting a new rogues gallery: Powers himself, poisoned into the radioactive Blight, the shapeshifter Inque, the telepathic Spellbinder and the Jokerz street gang. Commissioner Barbara Gordon distrusts the new Batman at first and later accepts him. Across three seasons Terry grows into the role, meets the Justice League of the future, and learns more of the original Batman family's history.

How Batman Beyond ends

The last episode, "Unmasked" (2001), is not a true finale: Terry tells Max about an early mistake, when he took off his mask to calm a frightened boy, Miguel, and Kobra kidnapped the boy to get at Batman. The real ending comes later, in the Justice League Unlimited episode "Epilogue", which reveals that Terry is Bruce's biological son through a secret Cadmus project and shows an adult Terry carrying on as Batman.

No. 09 · 2000 · Film

Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker recap

The Joker reappears in Neo-Gotham decades after he vanished, leading the Jokerz gang in a string of high-tech thefts, and Bruce insists it cannot be him. Terry learns from Barbara Gordon what happened: years earlier the Joker and Harley Quinn kidnapped the young Robin, Tim Drake, and tortured him for weeks until he became a small copy of the Joker. In the fight that followed, the brainwashed Tim shot the Joker dead and Barbara buried the body, and Bruce, guilty over what happened to Tim, eventually retired. The new Joker attacks Bruce in the Batcave, leaving him badly hurt, and Terry learns the stolen equipment is being used to take over a military satellite.

How Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker ends

The new Joker is Tim Drake, now a grown man: the Joker had planted a microchip in him carrying his own mind, and it has been taking Tim over. Terry beats the Joker on his space-weapon base by mocking him into rage, then destroys the chip with a joy buzzer, freeing Tim. Tim recovers, and Bruce, who had wanted Terry to quit, tells him he is Batman for good.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 10 · 2004 · Series

The Batman recap

Bruce Wayne is 25 and in his third year as Batman, working alone, while Gotham's police treat him as a criminal. Detective Ethan Bennett, Bruce's friend, is turned into Clayface by the Joker, and Detective Ellen Yin hunts Batman before becoming his secret ally. The show gives every villain a new look, including a dreadlocked Joker, Penguin, Mr. Freeze and Bane. Over five seasons the cast grows: Commissioner Gordon arrives in season 3 with Barbara, who becomes Batgirl, Dick Grayson becomes Robin in season 4, and the last seasons bring in members of the Justice League as Batman faces an alien invasion.

How The Batman ends

The series ends with the two-part "Lost Heroes" (2008): the alien Joining returns and steals the Justice League's powers for its androids, and Batman, Robin and Green Arrow help the League take them back. Batgirl finishes the code that shuts the Joining down, and the heroes celebrate on the Watchtower, with Batman now a full partner of the League he met at the end of season 4.

No. 11 · 2005 · Film

Batman Begins recap

Bruce Wayne, who watched a mugger named Joe Chill shoot his parents, leaves Gotham and lives among criminals to understand them. In a prison in Bhutan he is recruited by Henri Ducard to train with the League of Shadows under Ra's al Ghul, but refuses to execute a man and burns down their temple, saving Ducard's life. Back in Gotham, he builds a suit and gear with the help of Alfred and Lucius Fox and becomes Batman. He targets the mob boss Carmine Falcone and finds that Dr. Jonathan Crane, the psychiatrist at Arkham, is importing a fear toxin and wears a mask as the Scarecrow. Bruce's childhood friend Rachel Dawes, now an assistant district attorney, is poisoned by Crane. Ducard reveals he is the real Ra's al Ghul and that the League means to destroy Gotham.

How Batman Begins ends

Ra's steals a microwave emitter to vaporise the city's water and spread the toxin through Gotham, loaded on a train to Wayne Tower. Gordon blows up the tracks with the Batmobile, and Batman leaves Ra's on the train as it crashes, refusing to save him. Rachel learns who Bruce is and says she will wait until Gotham no longer needs Batman. Gordon is made a lieutenant and shows Batman a new criminal's calling card: a joker playing card.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 12 · 2008 · Film

The Dark Knight recap

A year on, Batman, Lieutenant Gordon and the new district attorney Harvey Dent are squeezing Gotham's mob, and Bruce hopes Dent can replace Batman. A criminal called the Joker offers to kill Batman for the mob and begins killing people until Batman unmasks. He murders a judge and the police commissioner and nearly kills the mayor, and Gordon seems to die protecting him. Dent claims to be Batman to draw the Joker out, and Gordon, alive after all, captures him. The Joker has already had Dent and Rachel Dawes kidnapped and placed in separate buildings rigged to explode. Batman goes to save Rachel, but the Joker has switched the addresses; Rachel dies, and Dent survives with half his face burned.

How The Dark Knight ends

Dent becomes Two-Face and murders those he blames for Rachel. The Joker rigs two ferries, one of prisoners and one of civilians, to make each blow up the other, and neither does; Batman catches the Joker. Dent holds Gordon's family at gunpoint and dies in a fall when Batman tackles him. To keep Dent's crimes from freeing the criminals he jailed, Batman takes the blame for the murders and flees as Gordon has the Bat-Signal smashed.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 13 · 2008 · Series

Batman: The Brave and the Bold recap

Batman teams up with a different DC hero in almost every episode, in a light, colourful style modelled on the 1950s and 1960s comics. Each episode opens with a short adventure before the main story. Regular partners include Green Arrow, Aquaman, Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes), Plastic Man and Booster Gold, and the show visits the whole of DC's history, from the Justice Society to the Legion of Super-Heroes and the Bat-Mite. Running threads include Blue Beetle learning to be a hero, Aquaman's booming bravado, and episodes such as a musical starring Neil Patrick Harris.

How Batman: The Brave and the Bold ends

The series ends with "Mitefall!", in which Bat-Mite tries to get the show cancelled so a darker Batman series can replace it, and the episode openly says goodbye: Batman thanks the audience and the characters toast the show's run. The cast reunites in the 2018 crossover film Scooby-Doo! and Batman: The Brave and the Bold.

No. 14 · 2010 · Film

Batman: Under the Red Hood recap

The Joker beats Jason Todd, the second Robin, with a crowbar in a warehouse in Sarajevo and blows him up before Batman can reach him. Years later, a new vigilante called the Red Hood takes over Gotham's drug trade from Black Mask and starts killing criminals. Batman and Nightwing chase the Red Hood across rooftops and learn he knows Batman's methods. Ra's al Ghul confesses that, guilty over his part in the Joker's attack, he used a Lazarus Pit to bring Jason back to life, which left him unstable. The Red Hood is Jason, furious that Batman never killed the Joker.

How Batman: Under the Red Hood ends

Jason kidnaps the Joker and gives Batman a choice: kill the Joker or let Jason shoot him. Batman refuses to kill and throws a batarang to stop Jason, the Joker sets off explosives, and Jason disappears in the blast. Afterwards, Bruce sits in the cave looking at a card from Jason's first day as Robin.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 15 · 2011 · Film

Batman: Year One recap

Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham after twelve years abroad, and Jim Gordon transfers to the city's corrupt police department, where his partner and boss are on the take. Bruce tries fighting crime in disguise, is badly hurt, and decides to become something that frightens criminals, a bat. Gordon refuses to join the corruption, is beaten by fellow officers and slowly builds a name as an honest cop, while also having an affair with a colleague. Batman terrorizes the mob boss Carmine Falcone and the crooked Commissioner Loeb, and Selina Kyle starts her career as Catwoman.

How Batman: Year One ends

Falcone's nephew kidnaps Gordon's baby son to pressure him, and Gordon chases him down on a bridge; Bruce, without his mask, rescues the baby. Gordon admits to himself he might know who Batman is, and chooses not to look. Loeb is forced out, Gordon is promoted to captain, and he waits on a rooftop to meet Batman, his new ally.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 16 · 2012 · Film

The Dark Knight Rises recap

Eight years after Dent's death, Batman is gone, organized crime is broken under the Dent Act, and Bruce Wayne is a recluse. The cat burglar Selina Kyle steals his fingerprints for a masked mercenary, Bane, who uses them to bankrupt Bruce. Bruce puts on the suit again. Bane, once of the League of Shadows, breaks Batman's back in a fight and dumps him in an underground prison abroad. Bane turns a Wayne Enterprises fusion core into a nuclear bomb, traps the police underground, exposes the lie about Dent, and holds Gotham hostage for months while the city's elite are tried in kangaroo courts. In the prison, Bruce heals and makes the climb that only one person, a child of Ra's al Ghul, ever made.

How The Dark Knight Rises ends

Bruce returns to Gotham and frees the police. Miranda Tate, Bruce's ally, is revealed as Talia al Ghul, Ra's's daughter and the escaped child, and Bane only her protector. Selina kills Bane, and Batman flies the bomb out over the bay, where it explodes, apparently killing him. Bruce leaves the Batcave to the young officer John Blake, whose legal first name is Robin, and Alfred later sees Bruce alive with Selina at a cafe in Florence.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 17 · 2012 · Film

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1 recap

Ten years after he retired, 55-year-old Bruce Wayne lives with his guilt over Jason Todd's death while a gang called the Mutants terrorizes Gotham. Bruce puts the suit back on, with a heavier, more brutal style. Harvey Dent is released after surgery repairs his face, but he returns to crime as Two-Face, and Batman stops him. Carrie Kelley, a 13-year-old girl, buys a Robin costume and joins Batman. Commissioner Gordon, about to retire, backs Batman while his successor wants him arrested.

How Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1 ends

After losing a fight to the Mutant leader, Batman beats him in a mud pit in front of his followers, and many of the Mutants turn into a new gang, the Sons of the Batman. In Arkham, the catatonic Joker hears that Batman has returned and wakes, smiling.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 18 · 2013 · Film

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2 recap

The Joker kills his psychiatrist and a talk-show audience and goes on a killing spree. Superman, working for the US government, warns Bruce to stop. Batman chases the Joker to a fairground, where the Joker kills dozens of people, and Batman finally breaks his neck partway; the Joker finishes the job himself to frame Batman for murder. A Soviet nuclear strike knocks out power across the country, and Batman leads the Sons of the Batman to keep Gotham from rioting while the rest of the nation falls into chaos.

How Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2 ends

The government sends Superman to bring Batman in, and they fight in Crime Alley, with Batman in an armoured suit and Green Arrow's help. Batman fakes his own death with a heart-stopping drug, and at his funeral, Superman hears his heartbeat and lets him go. Bruce leads Carrie and his followers underground to train an army for the future.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 19 · 2014 · Series

Gotham recap

After Thomas and Martha Wayne are murdered, rookie detective Jim Gordon promises young Bruce Wayne he will find the killer, and the hunt runs through all five seasons. Season 1 pulls Gordon into a gang war between Carmine Falcone, Sal Maroni and Fish Mooney, and follows Oswald Cobblepot's rise from errand boy to the Penguin. Season 2 brings the Galavan family and Hugo Strange's experiments at Indian Hill, and Edward Nygma becomes the Riddler. In season 3, Jervis Tetch spreads a madness virus and Bruce is drawn toward the League of Shadows. Season 4 has Bruce training as a masked vigilante while Jeremiah Valeska, a version of the Joker, rises. In season 5, Gotham is cut off from the mainland, a no man's land, and Gordon and Bruce fight to save it.

How Gotham ends

The finale, "The Beginning...", jumps ten years: Gotham has recovered, and Gordon is about to retire as commissioner. Bruce returns as a bat-themed vigilante, stops Penguin and Riddler from killing Gordon, and recaptures Jeremiah after he escapes Arkham. Gordon decides to stay and switches on the searchlight on police headquarters to call the new vigilante, the Batman.

No. 20 · 2016 · Film

Batman: The Killing Joke recap

The film opens with a long prologue about Batgirl, Barbara Gordon, who becomes obsessed with a young gangster and has a strained, briefly romantic partnership with Batman before giving up the cowl. The main story follows Alan Moore's comic: the Joker escapes Arkham, shoots Barbara through the spine, kidnaps Commissioner Gordon and tortures him in a derelict amusement park, trying to prove that one bad day can drive anyone mad. Flashbacks show one version of the Joker's past, as a failed comedian whose pregnant wife dies and who falls into a vat of chemicals during a robbery.

How Batman: The Killing Joke ends

Gordon stays sane, and Batman finds the Joker and offers to help him. The Joker tells him a joke about two inmates escaping an asylum, and both laugh as the police arrive; the scene ends ambiguously as the laughter stops and only the rain is heard.

Post-credits scenes

Yes. In a mid-credits scene, Barbara, using a wheelchair, sets up her computer and starts working as Oracle.

No. 21 · 2017 · Film · optional

The Lego Batman Movie recap

In Lego Gotham, Batman stops the Joker's latest plot and goes home alone to Wayne Manor, where Alfred worries about his loneliness. Batman tells the Joker he means nothing to him, which hurts the Joker deeply. At a gala, Barbara Gordon takes over from her father as police commissioner and proposes that the police work with Batman instead of relying on him. Bruce absentmindedly adopts an eager orphan, Dick Grayson. The Joker and every Gotham villain surrender, and Batman suspects a trick; he steals the Phantom Zone Projector from Superman's Fortress of Solitude with Dick's help and sends the Joker into the Phantom Zone. In the Zone, the Joker recruits other prisoners, including Voldemort, Sauron, King Kong and the Daleks, and returns to destroy Gotham.

How The Lego Batman Movie ends

Batman lands in the Phantom Zone himself and has to admit that he needs others. Back in Gotham, he teams up with Robin, Batgirl, Alfred and even the Gotham villains, and tells the Joker he matters to him. Together they pull the broken city back together by linking pieces of Gotham. The villains go back to Arkham, and Batman welcomes his new family to Wayne Manor.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene; the end credits run over a song by Batman.

No. 22 · 2019 · Film

Joker recap

In 1981, Arthur Fleck, a mentally ill party clown and aspiring comedian, lives with his mother Penny in a run-down Gotham apartment. He has a condition that makes him laugh uncontrollably, and city cuts end his counseling and medication. A coworker gives him a gun, and when three drunk Wayne Enterprises employees beat him on the subway, Arthur shoots them dead. The killings spark protests against the rich, with crowds wearing clown masks. Penny's letters claim Thomas Wayne is Arthur's father; Thomas says Penny is delusional and Arthur was adopted, and hospital records show she let a boyfriend abuse him. Arthur smothers his mother in the hospital. He discovers that the romance he imagined with his neighbor Sophie was a fantasy, and a late-night host, Murray Franklin, mocks his stand-up act on air and then invites him on the show.

How Joker ends

Arthur goes on the show as Joker, confesses to the subway murders and shoots Murray dead on live television. Gotham erupts in riots. Rioters free him from a police car and cheer as he dances on its hood, while one of them shoots Thomas and Martha Wayne in front of young Bruce. In the last scene Arthur, laughing, sits in Arkham State Hospital and walks away leaving bloody footprints.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 23 · 2022 · Film

The Batman recap

In his second year as Batman, Bruce Wayne is a reclusive vigilante working with Lieutenant Jim Gordon. A masked killer, the Riddler, murders Gotham's mayor on election night and leaves riddles addressed to the Batman. He kills the police commissioner and the district attorney, exposing their ties to the mob boss Carmine Falcone and a drug called drops. Batman follows the trail through the Iceberg Lounge, run by Falcone's lieutenant Oz Cobb, the Penguin, and teams up with Selina Kyle, a waitress searching for her missing friend. The Riddler reveals that Thomas Wayne once asked Falcone to scare a journalist, who was then killed, and that the Renewal fund Bruce's father founded became a slush fund for the mob. Selina learns Falcone is her father.

How The Batman ends

Selina tries to kill Falcone, Batman stops her, and the Riddler shoots Falcone dead. The arrested Riddler, Edward Nashton, has planted car bombs that break Gotham's sea wall, and his online followers attack the new mayor's rally. Batman saves the mayor and leads survivors out of the flood with a flare. In Arkham, the Riddler befriends an unseen inmate who laughs at him. Selina leaves for Bludhaven, and Batman resolves to be a symbol of hope.

Post-credits scenes

Yes. After the credits, a short text and voice clip from the Riddler says "goodbye?" and shows a website address. It is a tease, not a scene, and sets up nothing specific.

No. 24 · 2024 · Series

Batman: Caped Crusader recap

In a 1940s-style Gotham, a young Bruce Wayne fights crime as a feared vigilante while the police, led by detectives Harvey Bullock and Arnold Flass, are in the pocket of the crime boss Rupert Thorne. Commissioner Jim Gordon becomes Batman's secret ally, while his daughter Barbara, a public defender, and Detective Renee Montoya distrust him. Season 1 introduces a crime boss Penguin, Clayface, Catwoman, Harley Quinn as a psychiatrist, and district attorney Harvey Dent. In season 2 (2026), the Riddler takes over Thorne's empire, Hugo Strange, Scarecrow and the Mad Hatter appear, and a laughing toxin spreading through the city leads to the Joker.

How Batman: Caped Crusader ends

Season 1 ends with Harvey Dent sacrificing himself to save Barbara and a man poisoning victims with laughing toxin, setting up the Joker. In the season 2 finale, "The Laughing Death", a badly hurt Batman impales the Joker, who falls from a building into the mist and is never found. Alfred arrives with the cure, and Batman, Gordon, Barbara and Montoya agree that Gotham will rebuild.

No. 25 · 2024 · Series

The Penguin recap

A week after the flood, Oz Cobb finds that Carmine Falcone's son Alberto is taking control of the family and kills him on impulse. Victor Aguilar, a teenager from the flooded Crown Point, sees the body, and Oz makes him his driver and protege. Sofia Falcone, Carmine's daughter, just released from ten years in Arkham for murders she says her father framed her for, becomes Oz's rival. Oz plays the Falcones against the Maroni family, partners with Salvatore Maroni's wife Nadia, and sells a new drug, Bliss. A flashback episode shows Sofia's past: she suspected her father killed women, including her mother, and he had her committed. Sofia wipes out the Falcone leadership with poison gas and takes the family over, and when a Bliss deal goes wrong, Oz burns Nadia Maroni and her son alive. Oz's mother Francis, who adores her son, is his weak point, and flashbacks reveal he let his own brothers drown as a boy.

How The Penguin ends

Sofia captures Oz and his mother, and Francis disowns him after learning what he did to his brothers, then suffers a stroke that leaves her in a vegetative state. Oz turns the mob bosses' own deputies against them, abducts Sofia and has his police contacts return her to Arkham, where she gets a letter from her half sister, Selina Kyle. Oz then strangles Victor, the one person who cared for him, as a weakness he cannot afford. He dances in his new penthouse, Gotham's underworld his, as the Bat-Signal shines over the city, setting up The Batman Part II.

No. 26 · 2024 · Film

Joker: Folie à Deux recap

In 1983, Arthur Fleck awaits trial in Arkham for his five murders. His lawyer, Maryanne Stewart, wants to argue that Joker is a separate personality created by his abuse. In a music therapy class Arthur meets Lee Quinzel, who says she is a fan, and the two fall into a romance played out through musical fantasies. Lee sets a fire so they can escape for a moment together. The case becomes a media spectacle; Arthur fires his lawyer, represents himself in full Joker makeup, and makes the court a stage. Witnesses include his old neighbor Sophie and his former coworker Gary, whom Arthur spared. After an inmate he befriended is killed by guards, Arthur drops the Joker act on the stand and admits there is no Joker, only him.

How Joker: Folie à Deux ends

As the jury returns a guilty verdict, a car bomb blows open the courthouse, and Joker followers free Arthur. He finds Lee on the stairs, but she leaves him because he is no longer Joker. Arthur is caught and returned to Arkham, where a young inmate tells him a joke and stabs him repeatedly. Arthur dies, and behind him the inmate begins carving a smile into his own face.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.