During the chase, Batman eventually corners Napier, and catches him just before he falls into a vat of chemicals.
However, Batman lets go, and Jack falls in. Gordon sees Batman, and orders him to halt, but the Caped Crusader gets away. Gordon then instructs his men not to mention what they saw.
The next day, Napier's death is ruled as a suicide, but Knox suspects that Batman ended up taking care of Grissom's man. Knox asks Vicki to help him further investigate the case, but she blows him off, saying she has a date with Bruce Wayne.
Meanwhile, Jack Napier has managed to survive, and makes his way to a seedy doctor to have his face repaired. However, the chemicals he fell into have permanently bleached his skin white, and turned his hair green. As well, his face seems frozen in a permanent grin.
Jack then returns to Grissom's penthouse, having concluded that he had Eckhardt tip off the Police, and that Carl set him up to die. Revealing his newly-changed face, Jack claims to now be The Joker, and kills Grissom.
Meanwhile, Vicki and Bruce share a rather quiet evening in Wayne Manor. While Vicki is rather intrigued by Bruce, she finds that the large Manor does not seem to reflect much on him. When she invites him to an outing, he declines, saying he has to leave town for certain reasons.
Back in the criminal underworld, the Joker claims that Grissom has gone away for awhile, and has left him in charge, Claiming to oversee all of Grissom's affairs, the other crime bosses are not convinced, and still fail to acknowledge this, even when the Joker electrocutes one of their own.
Meanwhile, Vicki grows curious about Bruce, and follows him as he leaves his mansion. Though he said he was leaving town, she finds him staying close to Gotham. Following from a distance, Vicki sees him walk into an alley, and lay two roses on the pavement. She soon after calls Knox, asking to find any information regarding the street location.
Eventually, one of the crime lords attempts to go public, holding a press conference saying that Grissom has left him and his associates (not including the Joker) control of Grissom's Empire. It is then that the Joker appears, and stabs the crime lord in the throat, before driving off.
During the press conference, the joker dispatched one of his men known as Bob, to snap pictures of people there. One of them is of Vicki Vale, whom the Joker soon grows infatuated with. Also of interest to the Joker is the Axis Chemicals plant. Using an unknown (to the viewer) combination of chemicals, the Joker creates a chemical known as 'Smilex.'
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