We’ve hinted at a bit of this in the main title, but I have this whole mythology that lives in my head about the GCPD that I’ve always wanted to make canon because it just makes absolute sense that it would be this way. Basically, when Jim Gordon was made Police Commissioner, he would have purged the entire department of a whole bunch of the most obviously corrupt officers. And the families of those officers would have developed a deep-seated grudge against how Gordon ran the GCPD, and his relationship with Batman.
Sean Mahoney came from a family of corrupt cops. The sort of folk who moonlit as armed security for the Falcone Crime Family in the pre-Batman days, and who were all on the take, but they were embedded enough in the power structure of Gotham that they were untouchable until Gordon took the top job. That would have happened right around when Sean Mahoney was looking to sign up. He was raised believing that he would be one of the finest officers in the history of Gotham, but Gordon wouldn’t let a member of such a corrupt family join up… So Sean ended up as a prison guard at Arkham Asylum, and the resentment started to grow, until it all boiled over at A-Day, and then Simon Saint had the clever idea of putting him in one of the most advanced suits of Police Armor the world has ever seen! What could go wrong?!
This Secret Files one shot tells a bit of that story, and I got the amazing Ed Brisson to help me write it. Ed is one of the best crime writers in comics right now to put it all down on paper. (Seriously, if you haven’t read MURDERBOOK, you are cheating yourself out of some very good crime comics). This is the first time we’re getting to work together since we were on team BATMAN & ROBIN ETERNAL, and I’m very very excited for you all to see what we’ve cooked up for you. We’ve also got the phenomenal Joshua Hixson on art here… I’ve loved Josh’s work for years and years, and we might have a TOP SECRET thing in the works for you on the back-burner. Also want to give a special shout out to Rafael Sarmento for the amazing cover above!
I’ve got one more Secret Files one-shot to go in and around Fear State, and I’m very excited to announce who I’m collaborating with on that…
But all of that will come next month.