Bio: The Osprey

Crime in Gotham is nothing new. Corruption? An old cliché. The power and will to take on both has for too long been a pipe dream at best and at worst a road traversed on the way to madness.



Few indeed are those, save the Bat, who have dared the criminal-night in Gotham. Fewer still are those who have done so and survived. Maybe that is changing. Maybe Gotham deserves more than one Silent Protector.

I thought a badge and a conscience would be enough. I was wrong. I joined the GCPD’s Special Crimes Unit hoping to effect change, but that didn’t happen.

One night a call came in. The Joker was holed up in some rotting candy factory in The Narrows and he had hostages. Dispatch put the count at somewhere around a half-dozen kids. My partner and I were the first on scene. He talked me into going in without backup. After all, who wants to let a sociopathic-sycophant like the Clown Prince of Crime put his velvet gloves on some poor kids. Innocence is rare enough in this town. Hard to hold on to. I wanted them to have the chance.

In a city this broke it shouldn’t have been a surprise when my partner put two in my chest, and maybe it wasn’t. Maybe the surprise was his cold-grin stretching from ear-to-ear and the way he just started laughing, uncontrolled, unreserved, hysterically.

That should have been the end of me. I can’t remember what Joker said to him when he stepped out of the shadows and handed him a wad of cash, but apparently he had an inside joke. The muzzle-flash filled my eyes and acrid powder smoke filled my lungs as the maniacal clown delivered his punch line and my partner’s lifeless form toppled onto me. I couldn’t hear anything but the dwindling sound of my own heart as the Joker started dancing and shouting.

Bleeding. Broken. Dying. Memories came unbidden. The fishing town in Oregon that my folks would take me to as a kid. Amidst the blood and the pain all I could see where the birds. Sea hawks, fish eagles, the osprey, diving and swooping—snatching up their prey for a quick meal before disappearing back into the darkness.

I should have died that night. In some ways I did, but somewhere along a slow and lonely road to recovery my purpose became clear, and my focus unwavering.

Gotham is a town rotting with the stink of corruption—in a sea of crime. The gangs are populated by the druglords, sadists, and killers. They feed on the innocent and the helpless.

Therefore, when corruption and anarchy rear their scaled head, The Osprey will be there. . . Protecting the Innocent, Preserving Justice, Preying upon the Predators. This is my oath. This is my mission. This is my life. So says the Osprey.