The Midnight Murk

The Midnight Murk is a pet project of mine, a comic series that will eventually be adapted into a television program. I provide a general summary of the story below.

A college student named Jay Sumner uses drugs to cope with the stresses in his life, including his screwed up family and abusive boyfriend. One day, he is “mistakenly” sold an experimental drug called The Murk. This drug enhances all of Jay's senses; makes him think more clearly; strengthens all of his body systems; and makes him stronger, more agile and more durable. Essentially, it turns Jay into a better version of himself.

The kingpin of the drug cartel that sold Jay the experimental drug by mistake is Alf, a mysterious and terrifying man with a dark past who leads the drug cartel known as the Firemen. At first, fearing the public being made aware of the drug's abilities, Alf sends an assassin to simply kill Jay. However, when Jay manages to defeat the assassin, Alf decides to let Jay live and turn him into a test subject. In exchange for a regular supply of the drug, Jay must perform a series of tasks for Alf and his cartel and cooperate with studies and evaluations of his performance on the drug. Ultimately Jay will become dependent on the drug and need regular doses of it to survive.

The drug has side effects. Jay starts to trip out and have flashbacks of incidents that occurred at home. Suppressed memories come back. Jay starts to lose his grip on reality and become unsure of what’s real and what’s a hallucination. Did his mother really kill his father? Or did Jay kill his own father to put him out of his misery? Is his mother really the abusive narcissist his brothers depict her to be? Or is she simply a victim of society, picked on by her sons despite all she has given up to be the matriarch of the family?

Jay’s first mission for the Firemen involves crossing the famous Highland Road. The left side of this road is the Icemen’s territory, and the right side is the Firemen’s territory. Crossing into a rival gang’s territory is an act of war. The mission ends in Jay killing a member of the Icemen, igniting a gang war between the Firemen and the Icemen.

Ultimately, Jay’s abusive relationship with his boyfriend Kieran goes awry and he blames his overly affectionate mother, who he believes has molested him in the past due to hallucinations caused by the drug. Jay tries to kill his mother, but can’t do it, realizing the real problem is Alf. Jay kills Alf and becomes the new leader of the Firemen. Under Jay's leadership, the group aims to become a benign drug vendor and create more of the drug for medical purposes and to enable others to harness the same power that Jay has and use it to fight crime as vigilantes,  since the police have been handicapped by rioters, gang violence, media coverage, societal disdain and new "reforms" passed by the government.

Now there are a lot of people who want revenge on The Firemen and on Jay specifically for the things he did while he was working for Alf. Jay has a lot of experiences blacked out of his mind and has done a lot of evil things under the influence of this drug. He continues to experience these blackouts and must reconcile with his misbehavior. 

This series has drama, horror, and action. Its target audience is young people who are involved in drug culture and/or enjoy violence, gore and horror.