Appearing in 1st story
Featured Characters:
- Grifter (appears in both flashback and main story)
Supporting Characters:
- Andre Gallows (First Appearance) (appears in both flashback and main story)
Villains:
- Hans Arp (First Appearance) (Death) (appears in both flashback and main story)
- Widows (First Appearance)
- Andromeda (First Appearance)
- Bonnie (Only appearance; dies)
- Cassia
- Julie (Only appearance; dies)
- Michelle (Only appearance; dies)
Other Characters:
- CIA (Main story and flashback)
- Montana (First Appearance)
- Polchow (Only appearance; dies)
Locations:
- Wildstorm Universe
- Switzerland (Main story and flashback)
- United States of America
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for 1st story
In a Washington, D.C. bar, Grifter watches as an ex-Soviet spy named Polchow picks up a young woman. Suspicious due to several recent murders of ex-spies, he follows the couple back to Polchow’s apartment and arrives just as the woman jumps out the window dressed in combat gear. Grifter realizes she is the killer, punches her, and takes her back into the apartment where he finds Polchow dead. She stabs Grifter in the arm with a poisoned knife, and he passes out. He wakes up days later as a captive of another former Soviet spy, cyborg Andre Gallows. Gallows explains how he found Grifter unconscious after the woman fled and that she belongs to a group of mercenary assassins called the Widows led by former CIA operative Hans Arp. Grifter recalls how Arp trained him and others before becoming a mercenary. The CIA declared Arp a traitor, tracked him to Switzerland, and sent a team including Grifter to kill him. Grifter caught him, but Arp fell off a cliff rather than be shot. Since then, Gallows explains, Arp founded the Widows and has sent them to kill other ex-spies so as to monopolize the mercenary market by eliminating the competition. Grifter agrees to team up with Gallows to stop Arp. Posing as the next ex-spy on the Widows’ hitlist, Grifter plants a tracer on the one sent to kill him and fakes his death. He and Gallows then track her to the Widows’ hideout, an abandoned steel factory. They crash their aircraft into the building and engage Arp and the Widows in a gunfight. They take out most of the Widows, but Gallows gets blown in half taking a shot meant for Grifter. Andromeda, the woman who killed Polchow, attacks and fights Grifter until he shoots her in the gut. He then tracks Arp to the roof where they exchange gunfire until they run out of ammo. Arp leaps at Grifter, but Grifter dodges him, and Arp falls over the side of the building to his death. Grifter goes back inside, finds that Andromeda has escaped despite her wounds, and leaves.