#gumverse

okay so. this is kind of hypercomplex sorry. but i liked a lot of different elements from killer moth comics over the years and i wanted to capture all of it and i have a special fondness for him so he gets a lot of attention

essentially there are two (2) killer moths, each of which pull from different mythos of that villain, neither of which feature the fucked up moth mutant they do sometimes. sorry. i'm evil and i don't care about it as a killer moth thing. kirk is already turning himself into a bat go bother him if you want that we only deal with weirdo freaks who just really like moths here

but the first is prisoner 234026, our beloved cameron van cleer! he pulls from the original killer moth appearances in batman & gotham nights #7 a beautiful beautiful issue of an otherwise unremarkable series of one-shots. crucially cameron van cleer is NOT his real name bevause i do really like what thise first appearances did; i want cameron to be mysterious and this sort of myth that even batman can't get to the bottom off bevause like... i like jt. i'm sorry. this ties into larger ideas about batman as a hero in my beloved gumverse but i like what stories like long halloween do where batman signals a change in crime in gotham and with him come all of this weirdos becauze i think it's fun, and interesting, and has some like. metanarrative weight as cliché as that may be to say. and that's what i want to get at here. cameron as killer moth appears only shortly after bruce's original batman appearances; he's a prisoner from an undefined origin of crime (on some level i want to leave this continually ambiguous. i think bruce often gets this sort of awareness where what the reader knows he knows becauze he is the main character of sorts, and i kind of want to play off of that and establish something that is really clearly in the area of knowledge he doesn't get to have, and also because i want to mirror the joker in several ways with killer moth i LOL sorry), he hears about batman, and he decides to weave this second identity of Batman For Criminals, all the while pulling off actual jobs under the name cameron van cleer without involving this stupid persona. i want him to be a really intentionally overdone inverse of batman; killer moth is a goofy ass name, and he knows it, it's supposed to be that way. meanwhile bruce is kind of thrilled to have someone countering him specifically but he would NOT let that show no sir. so here's cameron, perpetually two steps ahead with bruce gleefully chasing because it's interesting, it's a mystery, and i think a lot of what cameron does seems free from real... malice, maybe? or like. harm towards people. it's kind of a game. and from the outside especially the longer it goes on this is completely inexplicable but it's what's happening

anyway. number of years in and the events of gotham nights #7 happen; cameron tries to fake killer moth's death, bruce catches him, puts him away for realsies, and there's this sense of mystery because cameron van cleer is such a flimsy identity if you pull away a couple of layers but that's fine, bruce is going to be content with it (or make himself be content eith it) only because of a prevailing sense of respect for cameron

and a couple more years pass

and then there's an asshole college student. drury walker. i have a niche little realm of rogues in college that exists in my mind here, a lot of it was comedic in nature but i do think i want to keep some because it was charming to me to havr that levity in mind. but anyhow. asshole college student. and he's kind of bricked in the head but that's fine, and he graduates gotham state university with an engineering degree, but oops now he's several thousand bucks in the hole and hey it's gotham where weird shit happens all the time and well

(sidebar: killer moth ii is explicitly pulling from more recent killer moth comics. batgirl year one, matthew rosenberg's series, & killer moth's short in gotham city villains all come to mind. i liked the serious and intentional killer moth from earlier appearances, but i also really like the pathetic liar who lives under a million layers and never learned to tell the truth and his life sucks. i couldn't articulate why. i suppose i split them into two to reflect the sense of characters changing over time, which is something i'm more hesitant to do sith characters with what i feel is a more established backstory/identity -- rich kid penguin, know it all puzzle freak riddler, tragic two-face, you get the gist -- and easier to do with a character who has undergone massive changes in perception & depiction. so here ww go. sopping wet drury walker)

maybe he becomes a supervillain? a little bit?

except he's not very good at it. he tries to steal cameron van cleer's identity and pretend he is the original killer moth, no one buys that for very long, and then he just kind of sublimates himself in lies. i really want to capture guy who is in over his head but not in an overwhelmed sense in a "i have all of these ideas and none of the drive organization or support to put them into motion" sense. he is a very solo character and i think he fundamentally does Not Get that killer moth i was a little bit of an inside joke; he tries to be serious and make it dark and intimidating and it doesn't work. he's just kind of greasy and weird. also i think he is a little bit obsessed with batman; he didn't come from gotham, he moved thefe "for the university" and incurred many atudent loans doing so, he jjst likes the batman mythos. i think a lot of the time he's operating from a sense of disillusionment, and especially the more he does this the idea that it's kind of too late for him just grows... he's on the surface a much more depressing character than killer moth i lol. i have a lot for him in my brain but this is the crux of it, more is just details

and then firefly is kind of an important part of this. i don't have ones after garfield lined up even though they exist in the comics just because i like garfield and haven't read much or any of the others and i'm not sure if i feel i need them here but we'll see

i'm doing a little bit of story merging here. garfield worked pyrotechnics for film & television and was kind of a grimy shitheel, he got in trouble with his bosses, wanted to do a little bit of arson in return, and gets interrupted by mere coincidence in the process by killer moth i. cameron takes a shine to him, takes him under his wing, and i think garfield's early days as firefly are a sort of half-hearted imitation of that -- light-hearted costumed villain persona while the actual guy is running around destroying property at every opportunity. he's not really nearly as devoted to the game as cameron though and sort of makes his own path, merges these two; he doesn't really care about his personal life and firefly as a costume & identity is also well-suited for burning shit down. so.

he has a peaceable departure from cameron, strikes out on his own, becomes a repeat attendee of blackgate & arkham, and continues doing so as cameron turns himself in. in my mind garfield evolves from a kind of nobody young adult to a genuinely terrifying force over this time and thag perception does extend to firefly. he has a sense of recklessness with life and nonchalance to most things. he's still on good terms with cameron however & visits him whenever able, so when the news starts reporting that killer moth is active again, garfield knows that that is a copycat and is not fucking pleased! he tries to set up a plan with cameron to give the impersonator something of a talking to after he gets arrested by batman and ends up in blackgate or arkham, cameron declines because i think he's largely amused by it and also doesn't want garfield to cause more trouble for himself (something garfield loves to do and would have done anyway), and garfield says fuck it and gets himself committed again anyway

and his plan does work to a degree because killer moth ii does end up in arkham, and garfield tries to have his talking to, but drury is just so... waves hands (derealized) fhag he doesn't really seem at all intimidated by it? which garfield is into. so he 180s and decides that instead he wants to be drury's mentor and confidante when they get out, and they do team up (drury frequentlg complains about this but i think crucially comes to kind of depend on him, not to mention plans are a lot easier to set into motion when you have someone perfectlh willing & able to do just about anything) but garfield is really bad at "mentor and confidante"ing. still. they're buddies they work together they kind of become codependent. it's a funny moment of ineffectual shithead who calls himself the brains and his buddy who is the only reason people ever listen to him (part of the reason drury initially tolerates him before kind of coming to just expect him being there). for garfield's part he's charmed and vexed by drury's inability to function like a normal person and kind of likes the excuse of someone telling him to set shit on fire, casualties be damned; it's easier to handle if someone else's finger is on the trigger, too.

spoiler & sirens. lore dumps for steph, a bit of edward, and some cluemaster under cut

oh man okay. bug guys. they exist really vividly in my head i'll have to break this down below a read more

tomorrow