Stark
warily traverses ruins near the Empire State Building. Detail
of the Dark Horse 100 cover of Issue 1. |
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On October 23rd,
1973, the world ended. The Yom Kippur War between Israel and
her Arab neighbors escalated into a global thermonuclear exchange
between the United States and the Soviet Union, an event known
as Zero Hour.
The nukes that destroyed New York City triggered liquefaction
of the Manhattan Island bedrock, causing the ground to sink
about one hundred feet below the waters of New York Harbor.
All that remains are the colossal ruins of the great skyscrapers,
poking out of the irradiated waterline like giant skeletons.
Vicious gangs inhabit each tower
and engage in brutal turf warfare in the teetering necropolis.
Few human beings survived the destruction of New York. Those
who did are very tough, with a natural, genetic resistance
to radiation. Still, the number of people living in the towers
is fewer than 10,000, and the population is dwindling.
A monastic community devoted to the indigenous religion known
as La Via inhabits the Cloisters
Museum, located on the northernmost tip of Manhattan.
Above (and below) it all hovers JOCOM,
a militarized vestige of the United States of America. JOCOM's
brutal soldiers periodically launch kidnapping raids on the
towers. The abducted never return…
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