#dc chemo

The Justice League and the United States Government never gave a clear answer as to why the city was destroyed. They claimed it was “an act of immense cruelty and devastation perpetrated by a supervillain with a grudge,” but refused to clarify further, claiming it would bring dangerous attention to some of their operatives.

Chemo drops on Bludhaven, decimating the city. (Image Credit: Clem Dillon, Bludhaven Times)

This attack was so devastating that heroes such as Superman, with a natural immunity to dangerous amounts of radiation, were called in to investigate the ruins and search for people’s bodies. Not to search for survivors, but for corpses. Anyone left in the inner city by the time they arrived on the scene would have already perished. They were able to rescue the few people on the edges of the initial blast zone who survived, but there were only a handful of these. 

The only reason we have a true explanation of the reason for the sheer destruction was because the elusive Nightwing, in one of the few confirmed appearances of the hero and one of the only moments undeniably proving his existence, stepped forward two days after the attack and took the blame. He explained that the bombing had been perpetrated by a villain named Deathstroke, who had been obsessed with him for most of his career, and decided to take revenge on Nightwing. Deathstroke then dropped another supervillain, named Chemo for perhaps obvious reasons, on the heart of Nightwing’s city. The hero refused to explain the exact reason this ‘Deathstroke’ wanted revenge badly enough to destroy an entire city, but restated multiple times that it was “an extreme over-escalation,” and that he had never expected the villain to take their battles so far. Nightwing assumed full responsibility for the attack and vowed to dedicate himself to hunting down and bringing Deathstroke to justice, a promise that was never reported on further.

Despite the best efforts of the heroes who came to help, Bludhaven was eventually placed under quarantine by President Jonathan Horne. A massive wall was constructed around the infected areas, isolating them and preventing everyone from entering. The government-sanctioned super-team named Freedom’s Ring took control of the inner city, ordering all remaining metahumans to leave the city limits. This Freedom’s Ring committed despicable crimes against the people remaining within “the Wall,” including internment camps, human experimentation, and executions of anyone deemed “an insurgent.”

In the wake of the attack, many citizens moved away from Bludhaven and restarted their lives elsewhere. But many more remained in the city, living on the edges of the infected territory, beyond “the Wall”, until the radiation dissipated enough for them to begin rebuilding.

After the discovery of these actions by the Teen Titans, who snuck back into Bludhaven, the sole surviving member of Freedom’s Ring, Major Victory, was prosecuted and charged with crimes against humanity. He is now imprisoned in Belle Reve Penitentiary. But before the wall could be dismantled, the superhero Captain Atom, abducted by the Freedom’s Ring, exploded in another nuclear explosion that destroyed the city for a second time. This further delayed the return of the public to Bludhaven, but eventually the wall was mostly torn down and the borders opened again. People began to return and rebuild their city.

The former members of Freedom’s Ring. Only Major Victory, center, survives. (Image Credit: Office of President Horne)

Rumors and a handful of police reports and blurry photos indicate that Nightwing himself moved away from Bludhaven in the wake of the destruction, choosing to operate in New York City instead for roughly three years. However, he appears to have recently returned to Bludhaven and reclaimed his position as the city’s primary vigilante.

Many residents of Bludhaven have not forgiven Nightwing for the tragedy. But many others have, and it is not the place of the Daily Planet to comment on this.

It is our place to comment on the government of Bludhaven’s massive coverup of the initial victim’s bodies and their egregious desecration of the dead.

Earlier this morning, Nightwing released a report to the wider public via the official Titans social media accounts, describing the details of an investigation he has been conducting for the last month and a half. His report revealed the long-standing coverup the Bludhaven government has conducted by lying to the public by keeping the bodies of those killed in the initial attack from their families and storing them in a charnel house just outside the city.

Three months after the initial attack, the United States government announced that they would be releasing the bodies recovered by heroes such as Superman back to their immediate family members. The family members were allowed to conduct normal death rites according to their beliefs, but they were expressly ordered to not open the caskets.

“Chemo’s radiation is different from most radiation,” President Horne explained at the time. “It’s different. As far as we can tell, it sinks into the human body and continues to produce dangerous particles. The coffins provided contain the radiation, keeping everyone safe.”

That was a lie. The documents that Nightwing just released online explain how the coffins were instead filled with weighted bags in order to simulate a human body. Those who requested for their loved ones to be cremated instead received regular fireplace ashes.

Every single body was kept and stored in a charnel house. Countless people buried an empty coffin, one they believed their loved ones were in. Instead, hundreds of thousands never received proper burial rights. They were stored in fancy filing cabinets, each one carefully labeled with a name.

The charnel house where the victims of Chemo’s attack have been stored without the knowledge of their families. (Image Credit: Nightwing)

“The space is almost endless,” Nightwing wrote in his description of the charnel house. “There’s thousands of bodies, just abandoned and left to rot. It’s horrific.”

But, not only were the public lied to in a devastating betrayal by their government, but these bodies have affected people even today. The Flyboiz recently moved into the charnel house, believing it to be empty. Unfortunately for them, as Nightwing explained, the bodies were radioactive enough to mutate Flyboiz further than they already were.

“The radiation reacted with their mutant physiology, changing them into mindless, raging monsters,” Nightwing recounted. “They were dying. If I hadn’t arrived when I did, they would all be dead.”

Current Bludhaven Mayor Grayson-Lin has refused to respond to our request for a comment, consistent with her two-week absence from any public events. Former president Horne has also refused to comment. People have begun to rally on the streets of Bludhaven, surrounding the mayor’s office and demanding an explanation for the lies they were fed.

Everyone deserves to know the truth of their loved ones’ fates. Everyone deserves the chance to perform their respective burial rights. Everyone deserves honesty from their government.

Nightwing has brought the truth forward. Now, it is up to us to ensure this horrific wrong is corrected.