The City of Hugo
Past / Present / Future
When Jason Cox (Crimson Stalker) arrived in the City of Hugo, it was a very grim and bleak place. A once thriving metropolis, now laid low by the flight of the industries that once enabled its ascension. Schull Electric, A.R.M Laboratories…now just distant memories of a bygone era. All that remains from the once mighty, now defunct, Schull conglomerate is an empty husk of a skyscraper that once served as part base of operations and part beacon of prosperity for the city…Schull Tower. Now the obnoxious monolithic structure marks the city skyline like an unhealed wound from a long forgotten battle. So prominent in the cityscape, it seemingly mocks the citizens of Hugo…a reminder of what was and what will never be again.

The A.R.M Laboratories facility in Hugo once represented scientific excellence and achievement. A.R.M Labs came in making big, bold declarations of making Hugo ground Zero for their innovation…its flagship facility. They promised to make Hugo, ‘The City of the future’. Those promises became woefully unfulfilled on a bitterly cold November night 30 years ago as the A.R.M staff packed up the facility and abandoned it. They skulked off like thieves in the night and never looked back. All that remains is a boarded up building on the east end of the city that once served as their base of operations. A.R.M Labs has since relocated and is bigger than ever before but when asked about why they left Hugo so suddenly and abandoned the ‘Future City’ project, the only answer given is that…they deeply regret leaving the city so abruptly but the move was what was best for business at the time.

The departure of Schull Electric and A.R.M Labs was devastating for the city. Jobs were loss…so many jobs. People became hopeless. And we know who preys on the hopeless. After a few years of rapid economic decline, Hugo, became barely recognizable from the city it once was. A shadow of its former self, ‘The Electric City’…the moniker became an oxymoron. The electricity, the spark of a once great city was now gone.

The heads of local crime families used the decline as an opportunity to takeover…thus the reign of the Crime Bosses began.  The Crime Bosses eventually corrupted every corner of local gov’t and law enforcement. It was hard to a find a city official or cop who wasn’t on the take. Things got bad and stayed bad for a long time.

Then he came.

The Crimson Stalker

The mysterious red cloaked vigilante came out of nowhere in Hugo’s greatest hour of need and took on the Crime Bosses…and won. Crimson Stalker restored hope to the city at a time when its citizens had none. The afraid became unafraid and before long…things started getting better. Hugo now had a champion, a symbol to rally around. Eventually, even the Gov’t got cleaned up, the people took their city back and prosperity slowly began to make its way back to Hugo.

That was nearly 20 years ago. Crimson Stalker still stands vigilant, watching over Hugo, protecting its citizens, defending the weak and innocent against those that would do them harm…to the citizens of Hugo, Crimson Stalker is an Icon, a hero. But the question must be asked…how much longer can he go on? It’s been nearly 2 decades since he first began his crusade against crime and people are beginning to wonder…how old is he? Is there more than one Crimson Stalker? Is he immortal? What will happen when he is gone…will things go back to the way they were before he came?

Hugo is changing. Much of it for the better, but there is an undercurrent of change occurring that is unsettling.  More and more, Crimson Stalker is being challenged by a new breed of villain threatening the city. Some possess high-tech weaponry that rivals Crimson Stalker’s own, while others have genetic mutations or display strange powers and abilities that defy belief. Yes, strange things are starting to happen in Hugo and no one knows why. And the question on everyone’s mind is…will even Crimson Stalker alone be enough? Even though he has been a steadfast defender of the city, are even his days of crime fighting numbered? And if so, who will pick up the mantle to battle this new breed of criminal?

There is a buzz around the city of Hugo again…the spark has returned. The city has risen from the ashes and there is now even talk of re-commissioning the ‘Future City’ project. A project so ambitious, that if successful, would stand to transform Hugo into a modern marvel, a technological wonderland. Hugo would become a futuristic metropolis that could usher in a new age of city planning that would be the benchmark for the whole world.

Will the city of Hugo finally fulfill its destiny as ‘City of the Future’? And can Crimson Stalker continue to battle against the dangerous new breed of criminals that threaten to derail the hard-won progress of the city? Will a new champion arise? Find out in the pages of…

Fierce #1