Batman (Christian Bale)’s Timeline and Summary
- Batman crashes a little drug deal thrown by the Scarecrow and his pals, after a band of copycats tries to do his job for him.
- As Bruce Wayne, he listens in on a potential deal with Mr. Lau and nixes it, while subtly asking Lucius Fox for better armor.
- He runs into Rachel Dawes and Harvey Dent at dinner, offering to throw Harvey a big fundraiser.
- As Batman, he takes a jaunt to Hong Kong to pick up Mr. Lau, allowing Harvey to put most of Gotham's organized criminals behind bars.
- He arrives at Harvey's fundraising with a bevy of women on his arm, walking a fine line between mocking Harvey and sticking up for him.
- When the Joker crashes the party, he changes into his fightin' gear and saves Rachel from plummeting to her doom.
- He tracks down the Joker during an attempted assassination attempt on Gotham's mayor, but gets tricked and has to watch as Gordon takes the bullet instead.
- He decides that he can't let any more people die for him, and prepares to reveal himself as Batman. But—psych!—Harvey beats him to the punch, claiming to be the Caped Crusader and getting taken into custody.
- The ploy draws out the Joker, who tries to kill Harvey as the police are taking Harvey to jail. Batman saves Harvey, but ends up crashing his cycle. He's saved from a very stabby death at the Joker's hands by Commissioner Gordon.
- Harvey and Rachel disappear, and Bats brutalizes the Joker in jail to find out where he's taken them.
- The Joker eventually coughs up a couple of addresses, prompting Bats to leap valiantly to Rachel's rescue…
- … only to realize too late that the Joker switched addresses. He rescues Harvey, but Rachel goes up in smoke.
- Bruce mourns for a time before leaping back into action, this time to save a Wayne Enterprises employee targeted for death by the Joker (ironically for threatening to reveal Batman's true identity).
- He then reveals his new sonar tracking device to Lucius… who is less than thrilled by it.
- With Lucius's help, he tracks down the Joker and stops him from blowing up a pair of ferries, along with other bits of assorted mayhem too horrible to contemplate.
- Sadly, he's unaware that Harvey has gone off the deep end, until the Joker tells him.
- Batman races off to stop Harvey from killing Gordon's family. He succeeds, but Harvey plummets to his death.
- He offers to take the blame for Harvey's crimes, protecting his accomplishments as DA and allowing Gotham to rest easy at last.