While many nonviolent offenders have been released due to COVID-19, President Trump has pardoned a rogues gallery of supervillainy. He’s put maleficent metahumans, supernatural sadists, and lavish lunatics back on the streets.
It started when Trump granted clemency to the serial killer Cletus Kasady from a life sentence at the Ravencroft Institute. Kasady is a host to an alien symbiote known as Carnage. Trump reasoned the symbiote held the key to curing the corona virus. Carnage escaped. Trump released Killer Croc from Belle Reve Penitentiary, reasoning Croc’s regressive atavism held the key to curing the corona virus. Croc escaped. Trump freed the Joker from Arkham Asylum, reasoning the Joker’s blood contaminated with the Titan disease held the key to curing the corona virus and… you see the pattern.
Trump’s attention then shifted to supervillains with accelerated healing.
He brokered the extradition of Sabretooth from the island nation of Genosha. He released Dr. Victor Von Doom, Dr. Michael Morbius, and Dr. Nathaniel Essex from the Raft Prison Maximum Security Prison. He released the Juggernaut from the Vault beneath the Rockies, Solomon Grundy from a bubble orbiting the Earth, Taskmaster from the Negative Zone, and General Zod from the Phantom Zone.
The White House maintains every pardon was to help fight COVID-19, but the House Intelligence Committee believes they were part of an elaborate effort to bury one particular pardon.
The Penguin is back on the streets of Gotham
This Friday, President Trump commuted the sentence of former adviser Oswalt Cobblepot, the aspiring aristocrat turned monocle modeling mobster known as the Penguin.
Cobblepot was convicted on seven charges including:
- intimidating federal witnesses with a cassowary (a giant bird capable of severing limbs with a single stroke of its talon).
- fitting hummingbirds with surveillance equipment to spy on political opponents.
- wrapping a political rival in tree bark and setting woodpeckers on him.
- converting the Cornell Lab of Ornithology into a weapons facility.
- accepting Fabergé eggs from the Russian government.
- exchanging carrier pigeons with WikiLeaks.
- And riding an ostrich down Pennsylvania Avenue.
When Robert Mueller investigated electoral interference from Planet Apokolips, he indicted several members of Trump’s cabinet. Cobblepot was the most defiant, publicly denouncing the charges, “I don’t give a hoot what allegations this court of owls regurgitates. They’re vultures picking at the First Amendment. Mueller is quack bureaucrat parroting the dodos on capitol hill.”
One such dodo was top House Democratic Apokolips investigator Rep. Adam Schiff. Schiff grilled Cobblepot throughout his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee.
“Yes or no, did the Trump campaign correspond with the extraterrestrial tyrant known as Darkseid?”
“There is no evidence there was collusion.”
“What about the Omega Beam burns throughout the remains of the Clinton estate?”
“Coincidence.”
“What about Mother Box plugged into Trump’s teleprompter?”
“Coincidence.”
“What about the president’s personal parademon security detail?”
“Coincidence.”
While Schiff wasn’t able to crack the Penguin on the stand, Mueller’s charges stuck. It wasn’t long until Cobblepot was confined to his own private aviary in Blackgate Penitentiary.
The Penguin sprung the coop
This Friday Cobblepot waddled out of prison in his signature top hat, purple paisley vest, and coat tails. He modeled his ensemble for the press. “I thought you’d all like to see a Neil Richards original up close.”
The reporters were quick to flock around him.
“Vicki Vale, Gotham Gazette, does this mean the president has forgiven all of your past crimes?”
Cobblepot screwed a cigarette holder into his lips. “What crimes?”
“You programed an army of penguins to bomb the city.”
“That didn’t stick. I was illegally detained by a vigilante.”
“Lois Lane, Daily Planet, are you concerned your release might reignite interest in the Apokolips investigation?”
Cobblepot opened his umbrella. “The bird-brained Apokolips Hoax is coming to an end and the buzzards behind it are fleeing the nest. Parademons can smell fear and I have no doubt they’re coming for the members House Intelligence Committee.”
He flicked a switch on his umbrella and a foothold jut out from the bottom. The umbrella spun until the canopy broke off and the frame became a set of helicopter blades. The Penguin bid the press adieu and flew to his penthouse above the Iceberg Longue in Washington D.C.
Meet Noelle, a Hollywood transplant that’s been subsisting on instant ramen and false hope. She’s on the verge of moving back into her mother’s trailer when her agent convinces her to take a meeting at the Oralia Hotel. Enchanted by the art deco atmosphere Noelle signs a contract without reading the fine print.
Now she has one month to pen a novel sequestered in a fantasy suite where a hack writer claims he had an unholy encounter. With whom you ask? Well, he has many names: Louis Cypher, Bill Z. Bub, Kel Diablo. The Devil.
Noelle is skeptical, until she’s awoken by a shadow figure with a taste for souls.
Desperate to make it Noelle stays on, shifting the focus of her story to these encounters. Her investigations take her through the forth wall and back again until she’s blurred the line between reality and what’s written. Is there a Satanic conspiracy, is it a desperate author’s insanity, or something else entirely?