NEW GOTHAM - ISSUE #1: A Moth to the Flame

My name is Richard "Dick" Grayson, and I am the orphan of two acrobats and a former ward of one of the most brilliant detectives this world has ever known.

When I was 10 years old, my family was the main attraction for a travelling circus. Even though I was young, I was a marquee part of the performance. I loved swinging through the air. I love swinging until, well, tragedy struck.

I'm really not one for dramatics….even though I patrol New Gotham in a skin tight body suit and hide in the shadows. I look at my parents death as a defining point in my life, but I refuse to let it define me. During one of the shows, the Joker made an unscheduled appearance, and with the distraction of Batman and the Clown Prince of Crime fighting, my parents slipped and fell to their deaths. I was gutted.

Bruce Wayne, the mysterious billionaire philanthropist adopted me after that. It didn't take me too long after to figure out why. He was The Batman. Criminals of every degree feared him, well, besides the Joker. He loved having Batman around. They were two sides of the same coin, even if Bruce never wanted to admit it.

When I joined the Caped1 Crusader, he was only a few years into his tenure as a costumed vigilante. He made me his sidekick, Robin. We took on everyone. The Penguin, Joker, Mr. Freeze, Bane, Catwoman, anyone who stepped up and crossed our path. That is until the night 7 years ago at Ace Chemical.

It was a pretty fierce showdown. I was 18 at the time. Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd, Dick Grayson, and the Joker all hanging out in a chemical plant. At this time, I had taken over the moniker of Nightwing, and JAson Todd, who was only 15, took over as Robin. We were pinned down behind some industrial barrels as some of Joker's thugs shot at us. We had no idea what was happening above us on the metal pathways above the giant vats of chemicals. We had no idea why we heard Bruce scream no. We had no idea what had just taken place.

Jason and I were in sync as soon as we heard. The blonde boy blunder and I sent batarangs flying at the thugs, incapacitating them as we ran to the nearest ladder. When we got up to Batman, his mask was off, he was on his knees with his arms hanging over the railing. In his hand was a purple sleeve ripped off a suit jacket. The Joker, the yin to Bruce's yang, the face staring back from the mirror, had slipped right through Bruce's fingers.

I wouldn't say Bruce was crying. I think all the tears he could ever produce flowed from his ducts when his parents died, but the look on his face, it was like he had just mourned their death again. The relationship between the two was always complicated. No matter how devious or shitty the Joker was, Bruce couldn't bring himself to break his one rule. No killing. Ever.

After that, things were different. It wasn't like we were a little family or anything, but we had dinner together and we patrolled the streets of Gotham City together. That's what the city was called back then, before Mayor Bruce came into the picture.

Bruce started prowling at night by himself, and turned off all communications and tracking. No one, not even his deepest confidant and butler, Alfred, could get through to him. This went on for about a year, until one day he held a press conference at Wayne Manor.

"As a citizen of Gotham City and a member of Gotham's first family, I am sickened by how this city has turned into a dark pit. My parents did everything they could to turn this place around, and that has fallen on deaf ears. It is time to reform Gotham. It is time for a New Gotham."

I remembered every word of that short speech. I also remember the last thing he said to me on patrol two night's later. "It's time for me to hang up the cowl, close down the Asylum, and really start cleaning the streets, Dick. I can't keep tossing these animals back in Arkham just for them to escape. It's time to really step up." Those were the last words he ever said to me as Batman. From now on, he would only ever speak to me as Mayor Bruce.

I had no say in anything that was going on. Bruce won in a landslide, and appointed Barbara Gordon, the daughter of retired police chief Jim Gordon, the chief of police and Harvey Dent as Gotham's new DA. Barbara was one of us. She started as Batgirl and eventually became our main go to as Oracle. She was our rock, and now she was the head of the most corrupt force to ever grace the Earth. Dent was squeaky clean, and ready to make something new out of this shitty little city. It took two months for them to rebrand Gotham City as New Gotham. Dumbest name ever.

The change wasn't slow and gradual, it was hard and fast. Most of the corruption in the GCPD was vetted out. All the criminals from Arkham Asylum were put in the new " Alfred Pennyworth Super Secure Wing" at Blackgate Prison, funded by Wayne Technologies. Bruce even moved the mayoral office to the former Asylum, which was about a mile outside of town. Everything was finally starting to look up….for Bruce.

What Bruce wasn't seeing was the immense amount of violence happening in the streets. Now that all the mob bosses were gone, there was no one to reign in the animals. The GCPD was spread thin, Jason and I were getting our asses kicked, but as long as Bruce knew that the "super criminals" were locked up at Blackgate and crime was down by "70%', he could give a shit less. He refused to believe Jason and I, and eventually, Jason grew tired.

He had picked up the moniker Red Robin after Bruce retired. He dropped the cape and wore a black mask with two eye holes, a red jumpsuit with black legs and arms. He was different. Bruce was like a father to him, also being adopted. He had lost his family twice in his mind, and it was taking over.

Jason was destroying people, almost literally. More than once I had to pull him off of a thug that was almost dead. It was brutal. He was turning into something I couldn't control. For so long we had guidance, and now we had nothing. Bruce asked neither of us to pick up the cape and cowl. Hell, he even asked both of us to stop being Nightwing and Red Robin. How could we though? He left us the mansion and the batcave, and we needed to do what was right. We needed to protect the city. But who was there to protect us?

Eventually, about two years ago, Jason hung up the mantle of Red Robin and went to live with Bruce at the former asylum. He went through the training and became a GCPD cop, and even passed the tests to become a detective. He kept saying he was doing it the right way nowe, but he was lying. He was doing it Bruce's way.

Now that I've explained to all the drama of the bat family, let me introduce you to New Gotham. Join me as I attempt to take on a rising star in the New Gotham underworld, and how the betrayal from my former family never stops. Join me as I continue to fight for Gotham City, it's people, and it's soul.

June 16th, 2016. Parking garage in downtown New Gotham.

The skies were pouring rain down faster than Dick had ever seen. He sat on his motorcycle, listening to the police scanner that he illegally built, and was trying to focus on reports of men dressed as moths. What a thrilling way for a 25 year old man in his prime to spend his evening.

A man by the name of Drury Walker was attempting to climb the ranks in the underbelly of Gotham. He was a lowly janitor at Star Labs New Gotham location, and had the idea to steal a gun that could shoot extremely compressed air, even in some tests stopping a bullet in mid air. From that moment on, he started wearing a large moth mask that was made for raves and started wearing a purple and orange jumpsuit with a cape. He drove a 1997 Nissan Altima and called it the Mothmobile.

Dick found the mirror between Drury and Bruce to be amusing. The man was a criminal, nothing but low level scum, but was attempting to become a hero to scum like him using the things he had in his arsenal, stolen or otherwise. It was like he was a dirtbag Batman, but unfortunately, as of last week, this low down crook made a statement to the underworld. Mothman had killed Harry Cobblepot, the son of crime lord and resident of Blackgate Oswald Cobblepot, also known as the Penguin.

Harry was running his father's business, the Chill Lounge, and had nothing to do with Oswald's former criminal empire, but that didn't matter to Drury. He wanted to make a statement. This statement, though, had caused the underworld of New Gotham to start popping off and Dick needed to put an end to this now.

"Dick, are you there? I'm picking up some chatter about a possible moth sighting," Harper Row, aka Oracle II, spoke into Dick's headset. To be honest, if Dick wasn't zoning out, he would have heard it himself.

"Uh yeah, I'm here Oracle. You've gotta stop calling me that though." Dick was stern but had a little levity in his voice. Harper was new, and was extremely enthusiastic to help. Like Dick, she was an Orphan, but grew up in the Narrows, a terrible part of Gotha City. He had found her a year ago after stopping her from committing a B&E.

"Ugh, damn. Major bat-fail, sorry Nightwing. But listen, Moth man and his goons were supposedly spotted down near the docks. Probably up to no good."

Dick turned his bike on and stared down at the green screen in front of him behind the glass plate on the front of his bike. "Throw the address onto the GPS, and thank you Oracle. Nightwing out."

Dick's bike roared as he exited the parking garage. Besides the rain coming down, New Gotham was silent. More silent than he could ever think of. For some reason, Dick knew tonight would be a defining night. It would be the night he would grab Drury and put an end to his rise in the underworld. It would be the night he could show Mayor Bruce that the vigilante model still worked. Dick would show everyone the city still needed a protector, a knight, a symbol.

Down in Fishville, the neighborhood parallel to the docks, an older gold colored Nissan Altima pulled up in front of an abandoned apartment building. Five men exited the vehicle. Four of the men were wearing ski masks and track suits, but the fifth, he was wearing a large white moth head and a purple and orange jumpsuit with a purple cape. While the other men were all holding handguns, this man was carrying around a large compressed air gun. The fifth man was Drury Walker, the Killer Moth, and according to his sources, tonight would be the night he would be crowned the king of New Gotham.

"Uh….boss, are you sure this is the right place and everything? Place looks like crap."

Drury sighed. "What the hell do you expect the place to look like, Frank? Caesar's Palace? Why the hell would we want to draw attention to ourselves. Every cop in the GCPD is looking for us after I took out that little weasel Cobblepot." Drury laughed as he looked up at the large dark building. "You better have lost that police tail Frank, or it's your ass."

"Don't worry boss," Frank said as he smiled through the ski mask, "No one followed us here."

Across the alley, Dick hid behind some old garbage cans as he listened in on the conversation using a high end microphone in his ear. He could hear everything they were saying, and tonight was the night he was going to bring this bastard down, and maybe some more too.

Nightwing tapped the side of his eye mask, and a lens came down as he started scanning the building using thermo radar. He was tracking heat signatures, and on the third floor, saw quite a few bodies. He needed to get higher. He tapped his eye mask again, took out his grappling hook and shot it to the top of the building he was leaning against. Once he got to the top, he waited a few moments for Moth and his men to enter the building and shot his way over the abandoned building.

Once he landed on the roof, he looked for a way into the building. About four feet down from him hung a window that would get him on the fourth floor. He took a few steps back and ran towards the edge of the building. As he got to the edge, he turned around and fell off the building, shooting his grappling gun to the edge and sailed right into the window. The landing was a little loud, and as soon as he landed he hit his ear piece, seeing if he could pick up any chatter of the noise, but there was none.

Down below on the second floor, Drury was starting to get nervous. The man he was going to meet went by the name Polar Bear, and was the head of Oswald's security, and in turn, Harry's. He had sent Frank, Walker's closest friend and best henchman an olive branch, saying that PB and the rest of Oswald's men wanted to join the Mothmen and take over New Gotham's underground with Killer Moth at the helm. Honestly, he thought his hubris was getting to him, and refused to acknowledge the fact that he knew Oswald's men were extremely loyal. Maybe, just maybe though, they were sick of taking orders from the Penguin, and were ready to take the city over by storm.

Dick snuck his way down to the third floor and his around the corner from the room where the meeting was set to take place. He touched his ear piece to see what he could pick up….and it didn't seem good.

"PB, what's the plan again?"

"Man, I told you, those fools are gonna come in here, and we're just gonna lay em out. I'm gonna take that dumbass moth head of his and put it behind the bar at the Chilly."

Dick sighed. This was going to get more messy than he intended. Morgan "Polar Bear" Jackson was a 6'7" African American man that was built like a truck and had metal hands. After "betraying" Cobblepott, the Penguin had the man's hands cut off but then paid for the surgery in return for loyalty. That was thirteen years ago, and Dick was confused. Moth knew how loyal Cobblepot's men were, and here he waas, about to take on a meeting with them in a shady building in Fishville.

It was going to be a massacre.

Before Dick could do anything, he felt something heavy hitting the back of his head. A few minutes later, he was in a separate room, surrounded by men in ski masks and a man with a moth head.

"What in the hell are you doing here, Dickwing?" Drury had his air gun in Dicks face. Dick sighed as he felt the lump on the back of his head.

"I guess now I'm here to save you, dumbass."

Next Issue - #2 - My Moth is on Fire