Issue #1 summary esmp "the pitch that never lands"

A Note Before You Read

I’m proud to share something I’ve been building toward for a long time.

Below is the first full issue summary with a soft intro to the Evany Starr & Midnight Penn world — the story I’ve carried from dream to sketchbook to script. It’s ready for the next stage, but for now, this is the clearest look at where it all begins.

If you’ve come this far, you might as well stay for the read. It won’t take long - YG

BEFORE ISSUE #1 — A GLIMPSE INTO NEW VERANCE CITY™
Welcome to New Verance City™.
Its 2029. On the surface, it looks like any other modern metropolis. Neon signs, crowded streets, tall modern day buildings, 24 hour bodegas. But beneath that familiar vibe, something is off. Time doesn’t always move forward. Pockets of the city are frozen in the 1970s or 80s — old phone booths, yellow cab stations, half‑burnt neon signs still inhabit when they should not. Most people walk past them without noticing. Their minds not aware of the inconsistency, forgetting what they just saw.
But the cracks are spreading.
The Coda Network runs the underground. They move stolen tech, rare artifacts, contraband and things most people wouldn’t believe. On the street, they look like your security and private investigator firms, pawn/jewelry shops, night clubs and vip lounges, antique shops, electronics & repair, logistics warehouses, financial consultancies, high end auction houses and art galleries, all with hawkers and thieves who are under Coda employ or influence. But someone higher up is pulling strings, collecting items that shouldn’t exist — Vein Cores, ancient relics that warp reality just by existing.
And then there are the three women who never asked to be at the center of it.
Midnight Penn™ Known as Penn
She owns a small relics shop, but that’s just the cover. Her bloodline is old, powerful, and mostly forgotten — even by her. She has flashes of a hidden vault, a family museum, a legacy erased. She doesn’t chase power. She chases a sense of safety and structure around her. When things start breaking, she’s the one who tries to put them back together.
Evany Rae™
An orphan, former baseball player, and part time engineer who once dreamed of inventing a new sport. When the Inventors Guild rejected her, she kept her prototype bat anyway and it became her protection. Then she found a Coda “battery” — a Vein Core Relic™ — and built a regulator for it. The bat started doing things she never designed. Now it’s the only edge she has, and she refuses to let it go.
Emma Rae™
Evany’s twin sister. She can walk into her own memories — literally. Anyone can see the memory if you walk into one with her. She rebuilds them as physical places, searching for clues about their missing parents. Each time she does, she loses a piece of the present. And something inside those memories is watching her. This faceless figure that mimics her and pushes her out before she can find the truth.
“The Pitch That Never Lands”
A championship they won. A trophy that no longer exists. A father whose face is only a photograph.
This is where the story begins. Not with a hero answering a call, but with a stolen knife, a library explosion, and two sisters running from a reality that’s already starting to crack.
Turn the page.
Issue #1 summary follows below.

EVANY STARR & MIDNIGHT PENN – ISSUE #1 "The Pitch That Never Lands"

Cold Open -Memory Break
On a pitcher’s mound inside a memory construct, Emma Rae prepares to throw. Evany stands in the outfield, waving. Emma throws – the ball stops mid‑air, spinning, pulling air and sand into a vacuum. The field freezes. In the stands, a faceless figure mirrors her throw. The ball tears open a portal that drags Emma through; her body disintegrates. The memory detonates. Cut to black.

Less Than One Hour Earlier – The Theft
A young thief breaks into Penn's relics and antiques shop and steals a mysterious artifact. Penn (Midnight Penn), chases him through alleyways until the thief slips into a Coda hardware storefront. Penn corners him inside, frisks him and finds a shard of glass wrapped in cash – evidence the boy is a hired hand, likely not acting alone.

The Explosion
A violent explosion erupts at the neighboring library and Penn's search is quickly interrupted.  As if on cue, the thief breaks free and escapes into the back of the shop, he leaves with the stolen item. Penn rushes outside, sees debris raining down, and enters the library next door to help survivors. Upstairs she discovers two sisters – Evany and Emma – at the epicenter of the strange blast. On the floor, Emma is limp with Evany behind her trying to gather her up, convinces Penn to help them get out before authorities arrive.

Escape
Using a back door passage they head down and into an alley, Penn leads the twins to her vehicle. As they flee, a shadowy figure – an Acolyte (later known as the Power Broker) – watches from a shattered library window. He speaks a single caption: “Similarity is here.”

The Car Conversation
Penn drives off, intending to go to a hospital. Evany insists that Emma just needs rest and that hospitals are dangerous. The twins offer fragments of the truth in exchange for passage. Penn learns they are low‑level street vendors for Coda who have eyes everywhere in New Verance City. She agrees to take them to a hidden warehouse loft on the outskirts.

The Aftermath
At the destroyed library, the same Acolyte (Power) blends into the crowd, calmly observing the damage and measuring the residual pattern left by the disturbance.

Regroup – The Warehouse
Penn takes the twins to the warehouse. Emma collapses from exhaustion. Evany explains that Emma can walk into memories. Penn mentions that this is the third incident involving her shop – the thefts are organized. Evany drops her a lead: a secret rooftop auction run by a Coda Delegate named Ledger. Penn agrees to investigate but tells the twins to lay low.

Dark Revelation – The Blade
Later, in the Coda hardware shop basement, a Coda Technician Delegate examines the stolen knife ornament – a latent shell housing built for something powerful. He produces a Vein Core and, after receiving instructions from another Acolyte (Architect), joins the two pieces. The ancient Milican Blade is restored.

Awakenings
The Milican Blade pulses with energy, it is somewhere in transit again. Elsewhere, (not very far away) inside a locker at an orphanage sports clubhouse, Evany’s black bat (STARR) begins to glow and pulse in response.

Final page & Splash – Penn Witnesses the Collapse
Flashback: The Library. Penn enters the ruined library and finds herself inside of Emma's collapsing stadium memory. Evany holds a collapsed Emma as the illusion dissolves. The spinning baseball portal still hangs in the air. Then it's all gone.

​Penn alone witnesses the impossible overlap of the memory – something familiar, something wrong.

End of Issue #1