A person chained into his wheelchair has been pushed into the center of a busy highway: somebody needs him lifeless, and needs a message to be hooked up to the dying. When Nightwing rescues the person (who has anyway died of an enormous coronary), a gun-woman makes sure of his dying earlier than escaping. The person was Leonard Holcomb, a former commissioner in Bludhaven. Nightwing later discovers that somebody had branded him with the quantity 1049. Whereas he and Oracle start to analyze, the masked lady manufacturers Frankie Deever, son of Lunchmeat Deever and ensures that he’s crushed by an incoming ferry. Then she sends a automobile over a bridge: with a branded ex-police chief aboard.

Murder chief Detective Addad apologises to Officer Grayson, who was the primary to recommend a message crime when confronted by the dying of Leo Holcomb, however neither is initially capable of work out what the branded numbers are. Till, that’s, Grayson sees his colleagues cowl their badge numbers in reminiscence of chief Frantini (the ‘crash sufferer’). He discovers that every of these badge numbers was worn by a member of the Riordan household, whose careers all ended on the identical day as one another. Hogan, his former-police good friend who’s now a bar-owner, tells him of this household: a protracted custom of law-enforcers in Bludhaven, whose latest cop recruit, Kate Riordan, grew to become a media sensation. A gaggle Riordan photo-call was organised, and targetted by Angel Marin and Lunchmeat Deever. All the Riordans and various reporters died in an enormous explosion. Properly, almost all, Kate was thrown clear, however her face was irreperably ruined. Now, years later, it appears that evidently she’s again, exacting revenge on all these with any connection to the slaughter of her household.

The one survivors, as soon as she kills present police chief Ebersol, are Deever (in witness safety), Dudley Soames (in Lockhaven, the native jail) and disappeared Chief Redhorn. Consequently, Nightwing and Oracle pull out all of the stops to discover out the place he may need gone, monitoring him all the way down to a fishing resort, Cosy Cay. Nightwing arrives shortly after Kate Riordan, who Redhorn assumes was despatched by Blockbuster (in revenge for betraying him, an act of which Blockbuster is unaware). Redhorn tries to escape from each Nightwing and Hella (Kate) – his boat explodes; Kate ought to as soon as once more be lifeless, however she’s survived explosions earlier than…

Nightwing means that the chief returns to Bludhaven.