Eight years after Harvey Dent's death, Gotham is a seemingly clean city, except for Commissioner Gordon's conscience. Bruce Wayne lives withdrawn, unable to find meaning after Rachel's disappearance and Batman's retirement. It is offered to him by Bane, a mercenary made monstrous by a pain-relieving mask, who first reduces Wayne Enterprises to bankruptcy and then steals its highly secret nuclear reactor, converting the nucleus, designed to produce clean energy, into an unstoppable atomic device.