Batman: Mask of The Phantasm - Plot

Plot

During a conference of crime bosses held in a Gotham City skyscraper, gangster Chuckie Sol is killed by a mysterious cloaked figure shortly after Batman bursts in on the meeting. Batman is blamed for Sol's death. Councilman Arthur Reeves tells the media that Batman is a public menace, then attends a party at the mansion of billionaire Bruce Wayne, Batman's alter ego. Reeves teases Bruce about his bad luck with women and for having allowed an old girlfriend, Andrea Beaumont, to get away.

In a flashback to ten years ago, during Bruce's college days, Bruce meets Andrea in a cemetery while visiting his parents' grave. That night, in one of his first crime-fighting attempts, Bruce foils an armored car robbery while disguised in a black ski-mask and leather jacket. Though he succeeds, he is discouraged that the criminals did not fear him. Around the same time, he begins a romance with Andrea. Eventually, Bruce decides to abandon his plan to become a crime-fighting vigilante and proposes marriage to Andrea. Soon afterward, however, Andrea mysteriously leaves Gotham with her father, Carl Beaumont, ending her engagement to Bruce in a Dear John letter. Believing that he has lost his only chance of having a normal life, Bruce finally dons the mask of Batman.

In the present, the killer finds and kills another gangster, Buzz Bronski. Around the same time, Batman discovers that Andrea has returned to Gotham. Batman soon discovers evidence linking Andrea's father with a number of mobsters. The killer later targets Salvatore Valestra, the mob boss for whom both Sol and Bronski once worked as enforcers. Desperate, Valestra turns to the Joker for help. The killer tries to eliminate Valestra, but finds the gangster dead, his face disfigured with Joker venom; the house then explodes, with the killer barely escaping. Batman pursues the killer, but is interrupted by the police, who believe that Batman is responsible for the murders. Andrea rescues Batman in her car, and they spend the night together at Wayne Manor. Andrea explains to Bruce that she and her father had been hiding in Europe from the Valestra mob, to whom he owed a lot of money. Carl Beaumont eventually repaid them, but they wanted "interest compounded in blood." Batman believes that Andrea's father may be the killer, but soon gets Reeves (who has been poisoned by the Joker with Joker venom) to confess that he told the mob where Beaumont was hiding in return for campaign contributions, and that the mob ordered Beaumont's death.

The killer tracks the Joker to his hideout — a miniaturized replica of Gotham City in an abandoned amusement park — and removes the ominous costume: The killer is Andrea, intent on avenging her father's death. The Joker is also revealed to be the last surviving member of the Valestra mob; before his fateful first encounter with Batman, he was an unnamed hitman who personally murdered Carl Beaumont on Valestra's orders. Batman arrives and saves Andrea from the Joker, and begs Andrea to give up her quest for revenge. She refuses, stating that the mob ruined any chance she had at happiness; she then tells Batman that he himself is driven by revenge. Andrea vanishes and Batman battles with the Joker, a struggle that ends in stalemate. Moments later, Andrea reappears and seizes the Joker, bidding Batman goodbye before vanishing with the the maniacally laughing supervillain in a cloud of smoke. The model city (and the entire amusement park) then erupts in a series of rigged explosions, which Batman barely escapes by falling into a waterway and being swept away to safety by the current.

Back in the Batcave, Alfred consoles a heartbroken Bruce, telling him that no one could have helped Andrea. Bruce finds a locket containing a picture of himself and Andrea in the cave. Meanwhile, Andrea is shown standing alone on the deck of a departing ocean liner. In the final scene, Batman stands alone on the top of a Gotham building; when the Bat-Signal appears in the sky, he swings off into the night to continue his war on crime.