DEVIL IN THE DARK CITY #1 (of 6)
Prelude to INCORPORATE
Written by ED BRUBAKER
Plot by GLOBAL HONORED
Art by JOCK
"Born Again...Again"
40 PGs./Rated T+...$3.99
- He doesn't remember how he got here, to this city, to Gotham. He left Foggy at Josey's before last call and went home to his brownstone. The next day he awoke to different surroundings, unfamiliar, out of sorts. Were his senses on the fritz? Was this some sort of practical joke, everything shifted and moved while he slept? Josey's replaced by Noonan's, his father's old gym is now called Grant's? The muscle memory, the building structures, everything must be relearned. At first he hid out, tried to understand. Had he traveled through time? Or perhaps space? Such is the mystery, to a man who has always had to overcome the odds. It's taken him a few months to settle in to his new town, new world, new life. But the sounds, the smells, the stench of crime and fear are all too familiar. And that shroud of darkness is clear to see even to a blind man. His name is Matt Murdock. He is an attorney by day, a crime-fighter by night. But he isn't Daredevil. Daredevil doesn't exist here. This isn't Hell's Kitchen. This is Gotham f'n City!
- They say justice is blind. Here justice wears a cape and a cowl, and has a signal that lights up the black sky. But the Batman legend, of a vicious vigilante that owns the night and frightens evildoers into submission, is slipping away. It seems the Bat has been preoccupied lately with international concerns, his services have expanded to a global scale, leaving the myth a bit hollow back home. You give crime an inch, it takes over Arkham Asylum, so to speak. There is a void. Luckily there's a new ass-kicking ninja with super senses on the scene. All he needs is a black mask, black tights...and a billy club wouldn't hurt.
- Day job. It's hard to find work for a fresh independent lawyer in Gotham, especially since he seemingly came with no case history. It is as if everyone here has ties, to everything. That is the power structure. It's equally difficult to decipher right or wrong, good or bad, who isn't on the take. This is a city of dark grays. So when a can't miss, cash paying client came knocking at his door, he should have seen it coming. An open and shut case of police brutality, so it seemed. A gung ho cop named Flass got carried away and left the client, an alleged arsonist named Garfield Lynns, a broken heap. Despite a formidable reputation, the D.A. Harvey Dent all but handed his client a free acquittal. Then, before he could celebrate his first big win in his new town, Murdock ran into the police commissioner, a fellow red head named Gordon, who had a simple but stark warning, "Be careful Murdock. You're swimming in deep waters without a life vest." Was that a threat? Somehow, from reading his heartbeat, it seemed to be coming from a point of concern.
- Moonlighting. The Gothic architecture of Gotham is a playground for an acrobat in a mask. He's been doing nightly patrols, stopping small crimes, break-ins, muggings, assaults, which considering the vigilante history of the place, doesn't raise any alarms. But this time he has discovered a murder. A scream, then a single gunshot rings out a few blocks away followed by the smell of smoke. His radar picks up four warm bodies in masks leaving the scene in opposite directions. One is limping, possibly shot in the leg and is headed in his direction. When he meets up he is surprised by the abilities of his wounded murder suspect. He's quick, he's been trained. Are those talons on his glove? Is he supposed to be some sort of Owl persona? Surely, Owlsley isn't behind this!?! Just as Matt has the perpetrator subdued, his three friends come to his aid. Murdock is outnumbered and the Owl people are able to escape. He rushes back to the burning crime scene only to pull out a dead body, which happens to belong to one Garfield Lynns. Welcome to Gotham, Mr. Murdock!
- Ed Brubaker is bringing along some friends (who happen to be the world's finest creators) for a game-changing event that will shake the very foundations of CBR's DC New Dawn Universe and set our favorite heroes and villains on a course that will forever change their world and their place in it. It is time to INCORPORATE!