Joker's Wild

Life, Crime

Surprisingly not about Gotham City's "Joker" nor about anyone from the Card Shark Syndicate!

Feral comes up with a plan to make one last try at stopping the Freak Murders serial killings: she'll take out a classified advertisement in a New York City tabloid, offering to let the killer go for her directly instead of making a "copycat". The first problem with her plan is that others besides the ((current)) killer show up to her proposed meeting. The second problem with her plan is that the Freak Murders were never the work of a single individual ... and evil, death-obsessed hypnotist villain Kadaver is ready to confront any idiot who dares challenge his "art".

Rissa takes a careful route into New York City with plenty of time to make it to her proposed meeting spot. In an alley between several warehouses, she finds a wild-eyed sadist about to kill a civilian woman and dress her as the leopard cat woman. They fight while the citizen flees; Rissa wins.

And a large blond biker arrives, barely five minutes late. Puma thinks the classified ad was aimed at him: that Feral was offering to let him kill her. He can't understand why she acts as though she doesn't remember him. She tried to murder him when he was at his most vulnerable! That has to be an act! And he's not about to cut her any slack for it.

But Puma is pursued and harried by Blackjack, who is trying to draw him away from the lethal confrontation.

Just when all three are at their most emotional, a gas attack knocks them all unconscious.

...

All three wake up in a basement that looks like the worst mix of "cheesy horror movie fan's dream studio apartment" and "storage for props from Vincent Price movies". Kadaver, who is dramatically rising out of a coffin, dramatically lowering them each into a death trap, and completely sneakily hypnotizing Feral into becoming a mass murderer among the people who trust her. Leaving an exasperated Puma to wiggle his way out of his current predicament, Blackjack rescues himself and Rissa, delivers her to the Gironde Institute, and immediately leaves.