Character Profiles - Places - Blüdhaven
A former whaling town, Blüdhaven tries, without notable success, to transform itself into a manufacturing and shipping centre. Both culturally and financially, it is always overshadowed by Gotham City; in fact, the city has a worse crime rate than Gotham. It is always dominated by organized crime syndicates, which are protected by endemic police corruption.
This changes when crime boss Blockbuster takes over organized crime in the city. He is pursued by Nightwing (Dick Grayson), who soon sets up shop in Blüdhaven, becoming its protector. After a few run-ins with corrupt cops such as Detective Soames and Chief Redhorn, Grayson decides to join the force himself and fight the corruption from within.
Several years later, Nightwing leaves Blüdhaven due to a crisis of conscience, apparently for good. He is replaced by Robin and Batgirl as its resident heroes.
Blüdhaven is destroyed by the Society when they drop the giant Chemo on the city, causing a devastating explosion and spreading chemical and radioactive fallout. Nightwing, Batgirl and Robin survive, each being out of the city at the time of the attack, but the fates of other Blüdhaven-based heroes such as Tarantula are unknown.
As seen in Adventures of Superman #648, the death toll in Blüdhaven currently stands at 100,068. This makes it the fourth highest number of casualties in terms of supervillain-related disasters in North America; exceeded only by Mongul's destruction of Coast City, Mister Atom's destruction of Fairfield, and Imperiex Prime's destruction of Topeka, Kansas.
Superman and other superheroes such as the Teen Titans enter Blüdhaven to save people from the radioactive fallout, but Chemo was reforming itself. Superman battled the monster with the plan that he would regenerate quicker as the battle ensued. While Chemo regenerated, he continued to suck the toxins and radiation out of the city, freeing the city of the remaining radiation and waste.After battling the regenerating Chemo, Superman picks the giant up and hurls him into outer space. Superman then leaves Robin and the Titans in charge of the remaining rescue efforts, while he turns his attention to the Crisis.
Following the Chemo disaster, the President declares a state of emergency and erects a wall around the city due to the threat to public health. A new government-sanctioned super team codenamed "Freedom's Ring" (an apparent spin-off of the Force of July) took charge of Blüdhaven and orders the Teen Titans and all other metahumans to leave the city.
One year later, "The Wall" has become a permanent structure and displaced Blüdhaven citizens compare the immediate area to the Gaza strip. Many of the citizens live in refugee camps that have sprung up around the wall. The superhero Monolith arrives from New York and is helping to keep the peace in the refugee camps.
Within the city, Father Time commands American forces, ordering his men to shoot and kill any heroes (referred to as insurgents) who enter the city. His forces also erect internment camps in which experiments are conducted upon American citizens. Also active in the city are the Atomic Knights, who run an underground railroad in an attempt to smuggle citizens out of the city. The Society dispatch the Nuclear Legion to discover the nature of the radioactive leak inside the city, but in a conflict with Freedom's Ring and the Atomic Knights, one member of the Legion is killed. The Society sends the Nuclear Family to assist, and they locate the leak, but engage the Atomic Knights under the city in a struggle that merges into a larger battle between the Titans and SHADE agents.
Increasingly concerned by the developments, Robin leads the Titans back into the city. The Black Baron, once a drug lord who was mutated by the blast, now styles himself as the leader and ruler of the inner part of the city. In a fight with the Titans, Monolith and Firebrand, the Baron is punched into the next state by Monolith. SHADE agents engage the Titans and Lady Liberty is killed by Ravager, who then defeats the SHADE officers sent to retrieve the Titans. The Green Lantern Hal Jordan arrives to square off against Major Force, and Major Victory tells Force to stand down. Force refuses and beats Victory to death using Victory's own arm, after which Force's subordinates and some of the SHADE agents refuse to stand by him. Monolith is shattered in the fight and Firebrand escapes, following a voice that urges him to come to the Mississippi River.
The Atomic Knights then place Captain Atom in a containment suit designed to limit his radiation output, similar to the armor worn by Monarch. Atom then kills Major Force by draining all of the radioactive energy out of him and delivers a warning, telling anyone who wants to live to evacuate the city. After the evacuation, Captain Atom unleashes a nuclear explosion, destroying what is left of Blüdhaven and leaving a radioactive crater in its place.
Meanwhile, the Atomic Knights retreat to an underground bunker known as Command-D.
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