"Goddammit!!" Reiger exclaimed as he accidentally stepped in a small puddle. "Fucking blood..."

"Well, well, well... we meet again, Detective."

"Yeah, yeah," Reiger said to the beat cop - the same one he met the previous night.* "Blow me, Johnson."

( *Last issue - Dino )

"Sorry Detective," Johnson replied. "The Department doesn't pay me enough for that."

"They don't pay you more than fifty cents?" Reiger stated with a grin. The other cops - including Johnson - couldn't help but laugh at the comment.

Reiger lit a cigarette and looked down at the body.

"So, what's the story?" he asked.

"According to his ID, he's David Wheatley," Johnson replied. "Same situation from the night before."

"Suspects?" Reiger asked.

"No one around here saw anything," Johnson stated. "So we're gonna see about getting in touch with the next of kin, see if they knew where he was."

Reiger bent down by the body and looked it over. He examined it with his eyes, careful not to get any ash from his cigarette on the body and thus, compromising the crime scene. He stood up and faced his coworkers.

"Well, the good news is that there are way too similarities between this murder and last night's," he began. "That means it seems like it was done by the same person. And since we have an artist's rendition of the killer, that means he'll be easier to find."

"And the bad news?"

Reiger took a long drag on the cigarette and glanced down at Wheatley's body once more before releasing the smoke into the air.

"The bad news is that we may have a serial killer on our hands. So I want to know everything about our friend over here. I want to know who his friends were, who his enemies were, where he lived, where he worked, the places he visited. I want to know where he takes his morning shit. You got it?"

The cops nodded. Reiger took a final drag on his cigarette before tossing it into the street.

"Fuck."

The Internet is an interesting tool. I must admit it is a bit strange to see it when it was still in its infancy. Yet, it is still far more advanced than I would imagine it be. In the future, it's evolved to the point where it's all controlled from an Earth-orbiting space station. The phone lines are non-existant - it's all controlled through satellite.

But, the only major difference is the speed. In the future, there are no delays. Why is it that such a tool can evolve so much in ten years, yet evolve so little in a hundred?

Regardless, it has been very interesting. Some of these websites offer more updates than the media. It surprises me how lax the Chicago law enforcement is in keeping information classified. After twenty minutes of searching, I've already discovered the details of the case.

Two murders in twenty-four hours. There are some very blurry images of the crime scenes - obviously whoever updates this site seems to have a lot of time on his hands as opposed to actually working on the case. These images must have been taken with a regular camera of some sort.

I can't make any judgements based on this. The website does provide a lot of information - yet it doesn't give me anything that I can use to solve the case. In order to find out more, I'll have to inspect the crime scene - as well as the bodies.

Shorty's

"God... I need an asprin..."

"What's wrong with you, Pam?"

"What's wrong with me, Mac?" Pam asked. "What's wrong with me is that you've had me working a double-shift for the past week. I've been around so much damn smoke, I'm gonna have to start wearing the patch."

She began to walk towards the door leading into the bar from the backroom before Mac spoke up.

"Hey Greenwood, in case ya didn't notice, people aren't exactly banging down the door for a job here. Until I get some more people, you'll continue to work double-shifts. Understood?"

"Yeah, I got ya," Pam stated, walking into the bar. "I've quit better jobs than thi--"

A sudden gasp escaped her throat when she saw Bishop in front of the door. She almost dropped the bottles she was carrying, but he quickly grabbed them.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"I need your help," Bishop replied.

"Well, you've got a nice way of showing it," Pam continued. "Y'know, this may come as a shock, but women aren't really flattered when a guy draws a gun on them."

"I apologized."*

( *Again, last issue - Dino )

"Sure, that makes it all better..."

Bishop stepped closer to her, bringing his mouth near her ear.

"I want you to do me a favor," he whispered. "Alcohol loosens tongues. And it's my understanding that quite a few officers frequent this bar. I want any information on this new serial killer they're talking about."

"THERE'S A SERI--"

Bishop covered her mouth quickly.

"I prefer a low profile to a public one," he said flatly. "Can you help me?"

Pam stopped to consider this for a moment. Afterall, this man did point a gun at her the other night - and that was because he mistook her for someone else. What would he do if she refused? She shuddered to think.

"O... okay... I'll do it..."

"Meet me at my office," he said, handing her a slip of paper with an address on it.

She slowly took it, and he exited the bar. A deep sigh escaped her, as if she was holding her breath the entire time. She didn't want to admit it, but that man intimidated her - even scared her. What other choice did she have?

"Excuse me, sir, you can't go in there."

"Detective Luthor Bishop," the man replied, holding out a badge. "I'm here to examine the body of the deceased."

"I thought the Police were through with their examination."

"We're not."

"I think I should call and check it out..." the man stated, reaching for the phone. While his head was lowered, Bishop stuck a small needle in his neck. He collapsed over the desk, and he walked through the door leading to the morgue.

Amazing... he thought. In my era, we paid little attention to the dead. The examination took place immediately, followed by incineration. But here, they keep the bodies in little more than a glorified meat locker.

He pulled open one of the drawers and checked the toe tag. He performed this task with a few bodies before finding David Wheatley's.

Odd technique. It's clean, almost... refined. The lines are almost perfectly symmetrical. But it takes time to craft wounds like this. What killer in his right mind would spend so much time in a kill - especially one performed out in the open? That increases the chances of capture. More importantly, why do I feel a tinge of familiarity?

"Okay, Mr. Lambert, which one of these men is the man you saw?"

Lambert looked at the line-up, then noticed who the obvious contender was.

"That one right there," he stated.

The cop turned on the intercom.

"Number three, could you please step forward? The rest of you are free to go."

He turned off the intercom, and looked at another officer in the room.

"Contact Reiger," he said. "Tell him we got the bastard."

Shorty's

"REIGER!!"

"How's it going, guys?" Reiger asked, shaking hands of several of the assembled cops.

"Off-duty, you know how it is."

"Yes I do," Reiger replied. He glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw that the waitress seemed to be watching them for some reason. But, he dismissed it. The guys were probably cracking crude jokes before he came in.

"How's the case, coming?"

"Eh, not much yet. We've got two victims so far, but we did have an eyewitness to the first killing. So, I just gotta wait until--"

*BREEEEEP*

"Reiger," the detective stated into his phone. "Yeah? A positive ID? That's great! I'll be right there! No, don't question him - I want to do it myself."

He turned off the phone and stood from the table.

"Sounds like we've got our man," Reiger announced. "The witness fingered the guy."

"...look, I've cooperated with you people as much as possible. I'm not sure what else I can say."

"The time of death is placed at around 1:30 AM. You said that the victim was here before then?"

"Yeah, that's what I told your buddies, too," the bouncer said. "I remember that the guy left with a hot blonde."

"What time was that at?"

"Umm... I think it was 1:15 or 1:20...?"

"And you say you heard no screams?"

"Kinda hard to hear screams over music, but no, didn't hear a thing."

"Who discovered the body?"

"Maintenance. They were cleanin' up some of the trash around the parking lot and found him."

"This was at...?"

"Not sure."

"You're not sure?"

"No, all I know is that the maintenance guys usually get here at around 9 AM. So it was probably around then."

"Thank you," Bishop stated, walking away from the club bouncer. This didn't seem to be getting him anywhere.

"Mr. Davis," Reiger said, standing in front of the suspect. "I'm Detective Jack Reiger. I assume you know why you're here."

"No, I don't," Davis replied.

"Then let me refresh your memory," Reiger began. "Currently, there are two victims. Both are males. The first victim was a Mr. Ereland Larson. The second was a Mr. David Wheatley. Tell me, where were you at... 1:30 this morning?"

"I was sleeping," Davis replied.

"Can you prove this?"

"I was at a hotel. I didn't leave until 9."

"What hotel?"

"The Renaissance."

"And what about Tuesday night at 11:00?"

"I..."

He stopped.

"I... can't remember?"

"Pardon?" Reiger asked.

"I... can't remember," Davis replied.

"You mean to tell me that you can't remember what you did that night?"

"I remember going to a bar after work and then I left. I ran into this guy on the street, but that's when everything goes black. I woke up the next day in my hotel room."

"Wait here," Reiger stated. He walked out of the interrogation room where a middle aged man stood as well as a beat cop.

"He claims no memory on the night of the Larson murder - despite the fact that we have an eye-witness who saw him enter the alley then leave a few minutes later."

"He's gotta be lying," the middle aged man stated.

"But he has an alibi for the Wheatley murder," Reiger noted. He looked at the beat cop. "I want you to find out if Davis had a room at the Renaissance hotel. Also, check out the hotel security tapes from the times of 11:00 PM to 11:00 AM."

The beat cop nodded and ran off. Reiger turned towards the older man.

"I don't like this case, Rob..."

"I don't like those damn childproof caps they put on my medication," Captain Robert Ward noted. "What's your point?"

"You're a regular comedian, Captain," Reiger muttered. "What do you want me to do with him?"

"Let's wait," Ward suggested. "We'll hold him here for now until we see those tapes. And if he claims that he doesn't remember, then a polygraph isn't out of the question."

Pam looked at the number on the door and reached her hand up to knock. Before she did so, the door opened up.

"You're late," Bishop stated.

"Sorry..." Pam muttered.

"Well?"

"The cop who's working on the case," Pam began. "Reiger, I think his name is. He got a call when he was in the bar, and he said that they caught the guy who's behind this."

"Guy?"

"Yeah, the guy. They caught him."

"No..." Bishop muttered. "Something's not right..."

"What do you mean?" Pam asked.

"The killer is a woman."

NEXT ISSUE: Bishop and Reiger meet for the first time - but will they be allies or enemies?

I'm not Chris Claremont.

And, after X-Treme X-Men #4, I consider that to be a compliment. I know this may be hard to believe for some of you, but Bishop is one of my favorite characters. He has been ever since his first appearence in Uncanny X-Men #382. He wasn't explored a lot by Scott Lobdell, so what really cinched Bishop for me was the brilliant work of John Ostrander on the Bishop and XSE limited series. Mark Waid did some good stuff with the character as well. But, the crown jewel was the ongoing Bishop series by Joseph Harris (the amazing writer who also wrote Slingers and X-Men: The Search For Cyclops).

With his current work on the X-Men, both in X-Treme X-Men and in his recent runs on Uncanny X-Men and X-Men, Chris Claremont has proven that he can NOT write Bishop. I'd be surprised if the man even read anything with the character in it.

Some eagle-eyed readers may notice that Bishop's assumed first name has been changed to Luthor - and last issue it was Lucas. I did this for one reason - I don't want to be compared to Claremont. Claremont decided to make Bishop's real name Lucas Bishop (this raises some other problems, particularly as to why people in his own family would refer to him by their last name - and does this mean that Shard is now Shard Bishop?).

When I first propped this title, I had one intent - to put Bishop in a new enviroment and tell some really kickass stories with that enviroment. Now, after Claremont has rewritten Bishop's character (dialogue, personality, even history - the man held nothing sacred), I have another, more compelling reason to write this series. And that reason is to prove to fans that you don't need to rewrite a character's dialogue, personality, and history just to make him quote-unquote "interesting." If you're a fan of Claremont's Bishop, then you might as well just stop reading right now. This series is going to completely contradict the slop that Claremont is responsible for. If you thought the Bishop of old was cool, then this is the title for you.

And before you Claremont supporters begin to flame me, remember this - every character is someone's favorite.

-Dino Pollard
September 7, 2001

There's really not much to comment on plot-wise in Dino's first issue of Bishop. A serial murderer is stalking the streets of Chicago and Bishop, having just relocated there and set up shop as a P.I., will soon find himself embroiled in the case. Given Bishop's past and the brief glimpses we've got of the killer, I've got a pretty good idea who it is (tho whether that's due to my powers of deduction or that Dino might have included it in the prop he sent me lo those many moons ago, I can't be sure). Still, there's not much to comment on in regards to the story.

What I will comment on is the character's change in direction. As Dino says in his afterword, this isn't a solo mutie book, and it's not a spin-off of X-Men Omega either, except in the most literal meaning of the term. Bishop has lost his powers and now he's an urban P.I.... tho a P.I. with a unique understanding of what the future will bring and a cache of futuristic weaponry to back him up.

This interests me a hell of a lot more than his old, angry (not to mention tired) "stop-the-Sentinels-cause-I'm-a-bad-ass-and-these-X-Men-shouldn't-worry-about-who-I-kill-and-how-bad-my-attitude-is-cause-they-can't-understand-what's-coming" schtick. And that's why I'm so pumped about this first issue, not because anything of true import happened in it (nothing really did, except for the intro of an interesting supporting character that fans of Bish will be scratching their heads over for a little while).

Here's hoping Dino can live up to the potential he's created in this series. If nothing else, it'll be cool to see another urban crime book at the site to compliment Ryan's Brimstone series.

-Russ Anderson

Thanks for the comments, Russ. You've got a point about Bishop's past - but he is more than that. Has been ever since John Ostrander's mini. It's just that the people who never liked Bishop in the core books don't realize that he has enormous potential as a character - and that has been proven in his solo appearences.

And not to downplay your powers of deduction, but I did reveal the identity of the killer in the prop.

Good start for Bishop. Bishop going through, cna't find a damn case. Meets that Pamela chick. I was wondering why she didn't remember who Fatale was. Curious indeed. Typical serial killer on the loose case is starting. That's cool. Anyawys, I guess this issue was okay, but one question....Does Bishop finally get laid by Pamela?!?

WarmDamn

-Adnan Khan

"Does Bishop finally get laid by Pamela?!?"

Heh, so much for tact, eh Adnan? Come to think of it, Bishop hasn't been laid ever since he came to this time (unless something happened on that ship with Deathbird - and I doubt if anything did). Hell, due to his childhood and training, I'd be surprised if Bishop has EVER gotten laid.

I was excited for this issue, just because I wasn't sure what to expect. I already knew it would be Bishop as a PI and he was powerless, but Dino has made him cool again for me. (Guess all mutants should go powerless, some of their best stories are during this time).

-Brad Horton

Glad I've made Bishop cool once more for you.