Bludhaven Well, if we're going to cover the Bludhaven alert, I reckon we'd have to start with the place it all takes place in, won't we? Bludhaven- for typing's ease, I will be forgoing the umlaut in this article- first appeared in Nightwing v.2 #1 in October 1996, wherein Nightwing trails the second Blockbuster, Roland Desmond, to Bludhaven during the investigation of the murder of twenty-one Gotham gangsters.
Realistically, Bludhaven was introduced in an attempt to differentiate Nightwing from his mentor Batman. Since Nightwing was introduced, writers have gone back and forth on how to get Dick out of Batman's shadow- or if they even need too.
In story, Bludhaven was shown to be pretty much Gotham Lite, but even more corrupt. Every level of law enforcement was eaten through with corruption, the city was made of failed housing projects filled with addicts and more. It started out as a whaling town in the early 20th century, and was incorporated into a commonwealth in 1912. Owing in no small part to failed attempts at turning it into a shipping and manufacturing center, Bludhaven became a poverty stricken city. Thanks to high poverty rates and being overshadowed in all respects by nearby Gotham City, Bludhaven became a completely corrupt city. From top down crime ruled the city.
Note that several locations in the Alert are taken directly from the comics, such as the Spine, Mealtide Park and others. Y'all can consult the map I posted from Nightwing Secret Files and Origins if you want to see it closer.
When Nightwing chased Blockbuster to Bludhaven, he set up shop in the city, becoming its own protector. Over the next several years, Nightwing lived in Bludhaven and fought against Blockbuster, who essentially set himself as DC's Kingpin. Dick became Bludhaven's only honest cop and lived in an apartment complex also used by Golden Age hero Tarantula and former Batman villain Amygdla. In general, Bludhaven was pretty frickin' important for quite sometime. Probably due tot he concept of "Gotham... but poorer and more crime ridden." It works well enough, I suppose.
Anywho, it goes without saying that it got nuked, since it appearances as a chemical wasteland in DCUO.
That happened in Infinite Crisis #4, January 2006, the Brotherhood of Evil, acting on orders from the Secret Society of Supervillains, dropped chemical bomb Chemo on Bludhaven, killing most people involved. In Infinite Crisis proper, this wasn't used too much. However, one of the Crisis Aftermath miniseries, Battle for Bludhaven (June 2006), dealt hugely with the ruined city. In said mini, it was revealed that people had indeed survived the explosion and were forced to live in the ruins, quarantined by government agencies like the Superhuman Advance Defense Executive (SHADE). The city was also quarantined with a massive wall, creatively called the Wall. Of note, the concept of mutants arising in Bludhaven come directly from this- several humans were mutated into a group that would eventually become the new Freedom Fighters, used by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Grey in two minis and a short ongoing series. However, the mutants weren't nearly as prominent as the mutants in the Alert, due in no small part
Lots of stuff happened in the Battle, including a new group of "Atomic Knights" being loosed, as well Major Force being set loose on the city, as you'll read...now!
Major Force
Major Force is one of those evil versions of good characters, like Sinestro, Bizarro or Professor Zoom. In Force's case, he is the twisted mirror of Captain Nathanial Adam, alias Captain Atom.
Force first appeared in Captain Atom #13 back in February 1988 and was created Cary Bates, Greg Weisman (of Gargoyles and Young Justice fame) and artist Pat Broderick. Force was the product of the Captain Atom Project that turned court martialed Vietnam soldier Nathanial Adam into Captain Atom. Clifford Zmeck was court martialed on charges of rape and murder and sentenced to life in prison. During the time he was locked up, Nathanial Adam got locked up in an alien ship and nuked to see what would happen, bonding the alien metal known as Dilustel to him and throwing him through the timestream.
So they took the murdering rapist and did the same thing with him. Comics, eh?
Zmeck emerged from the timestream a year after Captain Atom did. The government decided that they wanted a more servile quantum powered metal man and, in a move prescient of both the Suicide Squad and the Ellis Thunderbolts, stuck micro explosives under the Dilustel while it was still molten. Voila, instant government monster. Major Force became at first an ally and then, when his brutality went unchecked, an enemy. Throughout the Bates/Weisman series Zmeck was a hired gun for Captain Atom's corrupt handler, General Wade Eiling.
In Green Lantern vol. 3, #54, August 1994, Major Force commited the act that is not only his main claim to fame, but coined a new term. In said issue, Major Force kills Alexandra DeWitt, girlfriend of new Green Lantern Kyle Raynor. Major Force stuff her body into a refrigerator. Writer Gail Simone coined the term "Women in Refrigerators" after this, to be used when a (usually female) side character is injured/killed/etc. to make cheap drama for the protagonist. So, while Force isn't exactly a major villain, he HAS had a pretty big effect on the face of comics, albeit somewhat secondarily.
Force then sort of fluttered around comics for a while. In the Guy Gardner: Warrior series, (Issue 43, June, 1996), he killed Green Lantern Arisia, who later got better. Then Guy cut his head off. But then it turned out that as energy he can't die. Kyle later did the same when it looked like Force had killed his mother, but then that was retonned, presumably because seriously?
Force is in the Bludhaven alert, however, because of the aforementioned Battle for Bludhaven series. In it, he's the field leader of SHADE, a black-as-a-red-door ops group that specializes in metahuman affairs. Over the course of the mini, he kills Major Victor, an underling in a group called Freedom's Ring, and comes to blows with Hal Jordan. In the end, Force is "killed", inasmuch as an energy being can, by Captain Atom, who had been held under Command D, a special bunker underneath Bludhaven. Atom had been punctured during the Infinite Crisis and was leaking radiation. The Atomic Knights built a containment suit for him, but to their chagrin, Atom became unbalanced and became the much maligned Monarch. Speaking of Monarchs...
Ace Chemicals (Plus Monarch Playing Card Company) Ace Chemicals is one of those things that doesn't really ever appear. It gets name dropped, sure, in no small part due to whose origin story happens in his fluorescent vats. But actual appearances? Those are much rarer.
Ace Chemicals and its next door neighbor, Monarch Playing Cards, both first appeared in Detective Comics #168, February 1951. This issue, "The Man Behind the Red Hood!", is rather important issue all told. In said issue, Batman discovers the Joker's identity: a crook from "ten years ago" called the Red Hood! See, the Hood had been a common thief in a fancy suit that had decided to rob the cashbox in the Monarch Playing Cards Company, which is right next door to the Ace Chemicals Processing Plant. Batman ends up knocking the Hood (or maybe he just fell) into the chemical vats of Ace Chemicals, causing his skin to be bleached and his hair to turn green. This turned out to be the One Bad Day that the Hood needed to turn him into the maniacal mirthful murderer called the Joker.
The next time the plant was shown in any sort of actual import was in the prestige format oneshot Batman: The Killing Joke, March 1988. Note that this is NOT an official origin, since the Joker in-story awknowledges that he doens't remember his past. "I prefer multiple choices!", he says. Anywho, the Joker was (maybe) a failed comedian who wanted to pull one robbery in order to help him, his wife and unborn child move up in the world, and ended up helping the Red Hood Gang into robbing Monarch Playing Cards, next door to a place he used to work at as an engineer, Ace Chemicals. Unfortunately, newly hired security and Batman show up, and the Joker ends up tumbling into chemicals and becoming the Joker.
That's pretty much it, actually. Last Rites, a story from late 2009, introduced the idea that it was Ajax Chemicals, part of Kane Chemicals, a chemical plant owned by Bruce Wayne's mother's family. It was also the source of the chemicals used by many villains early in Batman's career, explaining the various chemicals encountered back then, such as Dr. Death.
It was also important in the 1989 Batman movie, wherein it was Axis Chemicals. In said appearance, it was a plant owned by Carl Grissom, a gangster "Jack Napier" worked with. It was raided by police and Batman, ending with Napier getting shot in the face. Said wound caused his distinctive rictus. In the later parts of the film it was where the Joker manufactured his Smilex toxin. The use of it as a place where the Joker made his toxin is pretty clearly alluded to in the Alert.
Yup, that's pretty much it.
Chemo
Chemo is, for whatever reason, one of my favorite villains in the DC Universe. Seriously, I can't exactly pin down why I love the not-so jolly gelatinous green giant so much, but I do. Perhaps because he's such a distinctive character: A giant, transculscent green plastic humanoid filled with bubbling liquid. It just looks rad as hell.
Chemo has historically been an antagonist to the Metal Men, and as such, was created by Bob Kanigher and Ross Andru. He first appeared in Showcase 39, July-August 1962, the third of four issues the Metal Men had in Showcase, and their third overall. In the first appearance, scientist Ramsey Norton, in one of those complete lapses of genres that only occurs in comic books, decides to dispose of failed chemical experiments in a massive humanoid plastic shell. Why? Because why not. Anywho, the different chemicals somehow bring the shell to life. It, like many artificial creatures before it, kill its creator and goes on a rampage. It's stopped by the Metal Men and becomes possibly the closest thing to an arch nemesis the team had. They really didn't have many other recurring antagonists, especially in the early days.
Chemo returned to menace the team several times, in both the 1963 and 1973 series. It even fought Superman in DC Comics Presents #3, December 1978. The first time Chemo did anything big, however, wasn't until January 1986, in Crisis on Infinite Earths #10. It had appeared in the previous issue, attacking Earth-4's New York Harbor by spewing radioactive waste into the water. Issue 10, however, had the Silver Age Aquagirl, Tula, succumb to poisoning from the toxic beast. The fact that he managed to kill a character, however minor, was quiet impressive for this era. Chemo was destroyed immediatly afterwords when Valentina Vostock, Negative Woman, constricted around him with her N-Woman entity, shattering his plastic.
Although he next appeared in Action Comics #590, July 1987, his next semi-important appearance was in Peter David and Gary Frank's Supergirl #5 from January 1997. In said issue, Chemo menaced Leeburg, home of the Iron Age Supergirl, Linda Danvers. Interestingly, Danvers was able to destroy Chemo by telling the thing it wasn't human, causing it to essentially kill itself. This issue is important for one reason, however: the metal attachments that allow tubes to be attached to Chemo (See the Ace Chemicals alert) originate in this issue. This has been Chemo's design ever since, giving it a nice balance that the solid green original didn't have. This depiction has even made it into actoin figures, with the Collect and Connect in DC Universe Classic's Wave 9.
Chemo appeared here and there over the next few years, including a stint in the Suicide Squad during 2001's Our Worlds at War event. It wasn't until Infinite Crisis #4, December 2005, that Chemo had the appearance that solidified him as an important object in the DCU. In said issue, a Secret Society of Supervillains group (The Brotherhood of Evil from the Doom Patrol, actually) and Deathstroke drop Chemo as a makeshift chemical A-Bomb on Bludhaven, killing the majority of people inside and rendering it a mostly uninhabitable chemical wasteland. This is why Chemo is the boss of the Bludhaven alert, obviously.
Chemo has been used a few times since, including an appearance in Duncan Roulou, of Ben10 fame,'s great Metal Men mini. But for the most part, he's mostly remembered by DCUO, DC proper and the fanbase for his role in Infinite Crisis, a role which quite literally changed the face of the DC Universe.
Chemoids
J'onn rightfully says that Chemo isn't known for reproducing, but there have indeed been smaller Chemos. They were aptly, and somewhat adorably, called Baby Chemos. The Babies first, and only, appearance was in Superman #663, by Kurt Busiek and Carlos Pacheo. The gist of the issue involved Lightray, of the New Gods, bringing the so-called "Young Gods" to Metropolis. Whilst in the city, they helped Superman fight against the Baby Chemos. By the end of the issue, they were revealed to be a product of a Lexcorp project involving chemical samples of Chemo left over from the Bludhaven ruins.For the most part, the Chemo Babies are scenery for the issue, a footnote in a larger story. But for whatever reason, they seem to clearly be the inspiration for the Chemoids in the Bludhaven and Ace Chemicals alerts.
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