HELLFIRE IN GOTHAM: A Spirit of Vengeance Crackfic
Marcus Chen was having a perfectly ordinary day until a bus disagreed with his continued existence.
One moment he was a twenty-something data entry clerk with strong opinions about comic book power scaling and a seven-dollar latte he never got to finish. The next moment he was dead, floating in cosmic darkness, and being informed by an apologetic universal bureaucracy that his death was a "clerical error" and that compensation would be provided.
The compensation? Rebirth in the DC Universe with the full powers of the Ghost Rider—the Comic Ghost Rider, not the nerfed movie version, meaning he's approximately as overpowered as a being composed entirely of hellfire and divine vengeance should be.
The location? Gotham City. Of course.
Marcus tries to keep his head down. He really does. He gets a crappy apartment, a soul-crushing night job, and a firm resolution to avoid the cape community entirely. But when the Joker decides to throw a murder party right outside his window, the Spirit of Vengeance awakens, and Marcus does what any reasonable comic book fan would do when confronted with DC's most unkillable villain:
He permanently solves the problem.
What follows is a gleefully unhinged tale of supernatural vigilantism, traumatized supervillains, and one man's increasingly futile attempts to maintain a secret identity while his alter ego systematically dismantles Gotham's criminal ecosystem. The Joker gets Penance Stared into oblivion. Bane learns that chemical enhancement means nothing against eternal hellfire. Ra's al Ghul discovers that six hundred years of sin makes for a VERY long judgment. Batman gets lectured about his prep time delusions and why Superman is objectively better than him in every way. Harley Quinn develops an extremely unhealthy obsession with "Bone Daddy." Catwoman gaslights herself into romantic feelings for a flaming skeleton. And Poison Ivy, of all people, decides to quit villainy and take up therapeutic gardening.
Meanwhile, Marcus just wants to eat his Hot Pockets in peace and maybe buy a new coffee maker.
Featuring:
A protagonist who is canonically too powerful to be stopped and knows it
Batman finally being told that his "no killing" rule has consequences
The complete destruction of the "Batman can beat anyone with prep time" argument
Multiple villains experiencing genuine character development through sheer terror
Constantine showing up and immediately regretting every life choice that led him to this moment
Damian Wayne getting the humbling he desperately deserves
A secret identity that actually STAYS secret (because Marcus refuses to be one of THOSE protagonists)
harems, because Marcus has standards and also no social skills
HELLFIRE IN GOTHAM is a love letter to overpowered isekai fiction, a gleeful takedown of comic book plot armor, and a surprisingly heartfelt exploration of what happens when someone with actual cosmic authority shows up in a universe where the villains keep escaping and the heroes keep letting them.
The Spirit of Vengeance has come to Gotham.
The monsters should start running.
"I just wanted to eat my pizza and not die again. The universe had other plans."
— Marcus Chen, reluctant vessel of divine judgment and former data entry clerk
