Tag: corruption

Calling All Revengers…

Batman_gothamHello comrades, thank you all for coming. We’ve completed work on our first three missions and it’s time to take stock of what we’ve done. In our first sorties as a crime fighting justice league, we managed to take down a mob boss, a corrupt city counselor, a  notorious pimp, and a drug manufacturing operation that threatened to pollute our city. In the process, we also saved several lives and made the lives of many more better and safer.

Yes, the city sleeps more soundly tonight thanks to the work of hardened men and women who are willing to do what is necessary to put the scum and the filth where they belong. And yet, it seems that despite our recent efforts, the problems of crime, corruption and abuse goes far deeper than anyone thought. We’ve pulled back the surface layer of scum only to find that the infection runs deep.

DoubleMurderIt is as an old friend of mine used to say: “You dig a few feet, you’ll find five bodies. You dig ten feet, you’ll find a hundred.” And so it is time to consider what our next moves will be. And I can think of no better place than to consider what was learned from our first three engagements. During our first outing, we learned that Joey the Stare Keithly or Councilman Harlan. We noted the presence of a telepath at that engagement, and this requires some further investigation.

Second came the rather cryptic message discovered by Judgement while investigating the case of the DA’s office and the business tycoon. After finding both parties dead in the DA’s office, her uncovered a note with three words: “Princess” and “the Oracle”. Apparently, these names allude to positions of leadership in the N-Feed community. Naturally, Judgement considers this an internal matter, but our organization has several N-Feed members who are offering their help. We need to look farther into this at some point.

And finally, our interrogation of Billy Bob revealed that his operations are partly controlled by the Bratzsva, the Ukrainian mafia. The drug plant and his brothels are no free of his tyrannical influence, but they remain in effect. What’s more, the girls still need to be liberated and his lieutenants taken down. We don’t want one of them stepping up to fill the void left by Bob’s departure. It’s time to burn this infection out from the source!

And of course, the floor is open for further suggestions. Anybody know of some scumbags or crooked bastards that need to be taken down? Or perhaps there are some innocents who need a helping hand? Or, just a suggestion, a PR mission to let the public know exactly who we are and what we do? It aint all about hurting people, after all. Oh, and always remember to be careful out there!

Revengers Mission #2

Good evening, Revengers. Captain Smackdown here, hope you all had a relaxing weekend, because it seems were back in the thick of it. No sooner had we resolved our little problem with the Councilman and Joey “The Stare” Keithly, that I got another report from one of our field assets.

Our superhero Judgement, aka. Rami Ungar, discovered a link between a dirty business tychoon and a certain woman in the DA’s office. Asked to investigate, alongside Veiled Tsunami, to determine if there was a case for corruption or blackmail, he had this to say:

This is Judgement. I’m not going to mince words, so here we go: when we got to the DA’s office, the businessman was dead and the DA had OD’d. At first, I thought it was a lover’s quarrel gone wrong. But then I found something in the businessman’s shoe: a piece of paper with 3 words: “Princess” and “the Oracle”.

Those words have meaning to me. I’ll have to check in with some friends and see if there’s anything to worry about.

Not good news. Could we have some competition in town? Might this be the work of another crime-fighting superhero squad, one with a looser code of conduct? Or did the DA’s office seek to cover its tracks by eliminating a potential leak? Or was the businessman and the DA’s clerk just the tip of the iceberg?

We need to investigate. Which means putting more souls on this, the moment we have a break in this case. All hands, press your sources for info on the names “Princess” and “Oracle”. Whoever, or whatever, these things are, they are now the only leads we have in a double murder case. Meanwhile, I will get on my sources at the good ol’ PD and see if anyone has turned up anything…

Revengers out!

The Revengers Take The Field!

So… now that we’ve got a justice league ready and in place, we need a mission. Some suggestions have been made, some preliminary ideas spit-balled, but we should have some kind of consensus before we move! So to break things succinctly, I’ve taken the liberty of compiling our possible super-hero missions into the following list:

  1. Fight Crime: It has been suggested, largely by me, Captain Smackdown, that we address the growing concern of crime and violence in the inner city. People are crying out for help, wanting an end to the cycles of gang violence, drug dealing, prostitution, and intimidation. The police are largely ineffective, due to indifference, disillusionment and the vagaries of the law which prevent them from doing what needs to be done. Witnesses do not testify, and those who agree to soon wind up dead. What’s more, efforts to gain the people’s trust are hampered by incidents of police brutality and corruption that make them turn a blind eye. But we, the Revengers, are a force apart. We can go where the law cannot, find the evil-doers and bring them to justice! What’s more, we are incorruptible and cannot be bought! So we shall find the pimps, pushers, crime bosses and dirty cops, and make them all pay!
  2. Fight Criminal-Networks: This plan is a little more grandiose than taking down the scum in the inner city. For alas, all criminals and crime bosses are able to do what they do because of a large network that supports, funds and equips their activities. Drugs are being shipping in from around the country and abroad, drug labs operate all around town, and guns and explosives are brought in with the help of arms smugglers. At the top of these networks lie the worst kinds of criminal, the well-dressed, well-spoken sociopaths who make millions off of the suffering and deaths of others. They think themselves untouchable, but we will show them just how vulnerable they truly are!
  3. Fight Corruption: City Hall is a morass of decay and abuse of power. The Mayor is largely impotent, the Police Commissioner struggles to do his job, and much the elected representatives and appointees are on the take. We need to send a message and to do it now! Take down the bastards who have been getting richer off of a city in peril and make sure that all know that the people’s representatives are not for sale! What’s more, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that those in power are there because of voter fraud, smear campaigns, graft, cronyism and campaigns of intimidation. Ferreting out the individuals responsible and busting up their network of influence is paramount to straightening this city out!
  4. Fight Villains: As Police Commissions Jim Gordon once said: “What about escalation?” The presence of superheroes in the city prompts criminals to reach out to private “specialists” who, like us, are in the habit of concealing their identities and not playing but the usual rules. Their methods are unorthodox, and their aims rather grandiose, but they are very dangerous nonetheless! And unlike the criminal scum that hire them, they are not concerned with things like money. For them, it’s all about power, fear, and watching the world they so richly hate burn! And therefore, they must be stopped before they can make their maniacal visions a reality.

Well, that’s my list of ideas. Got any more, feel free to add them. But then again, after grouping the possibilities like this, we might consider tackling the problems of our beloved city and our world in this precise order. Let’s start small, work our way up to the big fish, take out the enemies within, and then be forced to confront the arch-nemeses that will make us question the very nature of what we do. Perhaps I’ve internalized all these superhero movies and comic books and outlined our group’s ongoing agenda without even knowing it 😉