[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/lH5OIM6.jpg[/img][/center] [hr] [indent][i]"New York City, Center of the Universe. Times are shitty, But I'm pretty sure they can't get worse."[/i] 'Superheroes.' Vigilantes and mutants and alien gods, jumping across rooftops and cracking skulls in the name of the greater good. Sure, it was dangerous, but it was all in good fun, right? They were our friendly neighborhood watchmen, pulling cats out of trees and keeping the bad guys in check. You might get some broken windows, maybe lose a building here or there, but unless it was a full-blown alien invasion or cosmic demigod or something along those lines, your Iron Men and Thors and Spideys always made sure nobody really got hurt. That's how we saw it-- cops and robbers on a bigger scale. It was all just a game to us. Until last year, anyway. It looked like your average showdown between Spider-Man and his arch-rival, the Green Goblin, on the George Washington Bridge. People were recording it on their phones, streaming it on YouTube and sharing the fight on Facebook. Millions watched and reacted when the Goblin was unmasked and revealed to be OsCorp CEO Norman Osborn. Social media lit up as a crowd-favorite hero grabbed his nemesis and impaled them both upon the Goblin's glider. The whole world saw the age of the harmless, fun-and-games heroes come to an end with the murder of an innocent 19-year-old girl named Gwen Stacy. People had died in the action before, but never that deliberately, never in front of so many eyes and cameras. The shock of it all turned the City against the costumed heroes, and the Feds began to crack down. SHIELD stepped up its surveillance, and now you can't walk a block without hearing one of their drones buzzing overhead. After anti-cape protests broke out into full-blown riots in front of the Avengers Mansion, the team closed up shop and moved to a secluded compound far away from the city. Reed Richards and his team have started finding more and more excuses to be on other planets, other dimensions, anywhere but the often-vandalized Baxter Building. Charles Xavier's kids can't set foot in the Big Apple without setting off a fight, either with SHIELD operatives or just your average disaffected New Yorkers. No one even [i]knows[/i] what happened to Spider-Man-- given how badly he was injured that night on the Bridge, most people assume he died later that night, but others claim he's still out there. Either way, he hasn't been seen in over a year. Even if the major players are gone for one reason or another, though, that doesn't mean there's nobody left in the game. Spider-Man had been New York's most active defender, and without him, other men and women have started braving the SHIELD crackdown to fill the void he left. Norman Osborn had left a major power vacuum behind-- both in the corporate world and the criminal underworld-- and there's no shortage of stuffed-suits and crime bosses looking to grab their share of the Goblin's empire. Neighborhoods are being carved up into territories, Hell's Kitchen and Harlem and Soho being claimed as the domain of one hero or villain or another, like the knights of feudal Europe. And New Yorkers, like the serfs and peasants of olden times, are feeling more and more powerless, keeping our heads down and quietly wondering when the rules stopped applying to everyone. A knight might protect you and your family, but they might also chop your head off if they're in a bad mood. No one ever had to worry about Captain America doing something like that, but who can say the same about the Punisher, or the Ghost Rider, or any of the so-called 'Defenders' now? Things are dangerous now, sure. Everything's up in the air. The city feels like a pressure cooker, ready to blow. Walking around the city, it doesn't take long before you get the feeling that we're all holding our breaths, waiting for the spark that sets it all off. When that happens, if these new capes really are the new knights of New York, it won't be long before we see if they're worthy of it. -Ned Leeds, [i]Daily Bugle[/i][/indent] [hr] [h3][center][u][color=RoyalBlue]Central Arc:[/color][/u][/center][/h3] [h3][center]A BROKEN WEB[/center][/h3] Norman Osborn, CEO of the multi-billion-dollar science firm OsCorp, is dead. In a scandal that rocked the corporate sector, Osborn's death came moments after he was revealed to have been the criminal mastermind and terrorist lunatic known as the Green Goblin. His killer, the controversial vigilante known as Spider-Man, has not been seen in over a year, and is presumed dead from the wounds he sustained during the battle. In the wake of Osborn's death, companies like Stark Industries, Rand International, Fisk Financial, Alchemax, and the Roxxon Corporation have been vying for OsCorp's assets, while the deceased madman's son Harry tries to keep the proverbial vultures at bay and salvage what is left of his father's empire. The fall of the Green Goblin has also left a tremendous power vacuum in the criminal underworld. The Maggia Crime Syndicate, who had lost much territory to the Goblin, is on the rise again, as are prominent crime lords like Tombstone and Hammerhead, while smaller gangs like the Kitchen Irish and outsiders like the Yakuza and Triads mean to carve out territories of their own. As syndicates and street thugs begin to clash, assassins and hitmen are finding no shortage of dirty work, and the police find themselves overwhelmed, leaning harder and harder on the new SHIELD authorities to keep the city from breaking out into all-out chaos. While full-scale war has thus far been avoided, New York has become a powder keg, and a new player threatens to spark things off. A mysterious and brutal new vigilante has been spotted in recent nights, ripping his way through criminal lairs and SHIELD checkpoints alike. Wearing all black and seemingly indestructible, this new player looks at first glance like the long-lost Spider-Man, but fights like a vicious animal, and thus has been given the code-name "Venom." [hr] [h3][center][color=RoyalBlue][b][u]Roster:[/u][/b][/color][/center][/h3] [center] [color=B22222][b]Elektra[/b][/color] Queentze [color=RoyalBlue][b]Flint[/b][/color] Hound55 [color=Violet][b]Hawkeye[/b][/color] Eddie Brock [color=Yellow][b]Luke Cage[/b][/color] Byrd Man [color=RoyalBlue][b]Nightcrawler[/b][/color] HenryJonesJr [b][color=Red]Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu[/color][/b] DC The Dragon [color=Teal][b]The Shocker[/b][/color] The Bork Lazer [b][color=DarkOrchid]Venom[/color][/b] AndyC [/center]