Fictional team history
The Blood Syndicate was formed in the aftermath of the "Big Bang", a large-scale conflict between Dakota City's gangs. The police attacked the gangsters with tear gas, which contained a radioactive marker intended to act as a tracker. Unbeknownst to the police, the tear gas was laced with a mutagen called "quantum juice". Many gang members and police officers who were exposed to the gas died, with the survivors gaining superpowers. The gang members agree to work together, and after a disagreement, choose the name Blood Syndicate (a combination of the names of the two rival gangs they came from, Paris Bloods and Force Syndicate).
The Blood Syndicate attacks a crack house to steal money for "operating expenses". Their raid killed many addicts and criminals, and gained them another member, Masquerade. He was hired to guard the drugs, but the new gang recruited him to join them instead.
Brickhouse and DMZ join the team at some point after their first crackhouse raid and the annihilation of the attack force. Their exploits attract the attention of Dakota's local media. The Dakota Chronicle, the city's most popular newspaper, sends reporter Rob Chaplik to score an interview with the Syndicate. Chaplik is killed by a drug dealer, but Flashback reverses her death by turning back time three seconds and pushes Chaplik out of the way of the blast. Holocaust burns the shooter to death before he can fire again.
Holocaust challenges Tech Nine for leadership of the gang, and by the rules they had set down, they enter a trial by combat to choose which of them would be the leader. Tech Nine is severely beaten, but wins the fight. Holocaust leaves the gang in anger rather than submit to Tech's leadership.
The Blood Syndicate takes in a new member, a rat-man called Boogieman, and seeks purpose. The gang does not have a true focus, but as their leader, Tech Nine tries to give them one. They discover and destroy a hidden lab under a local hospital where Bang Babies were being experimented on. However, the lab's head escapes to set up shop elsewhere. During a later celebration, Tech's body destabilizes due to side effects of the quantum juice and he dies after his flesh melts off his body. Wise Son takes over as leader, but proves to be less popular than Tech.
The Blood Syndicate ponders what to do for money when they ran out of crack houses to rob. Before they can plan, Chinese mobster John Wing sends his forces to kill the Syndicate. Wing is captured and humiliated after Wise Son urinates on him. Wing, desperate to get revenge, murders his wife to summon the Demon Fox. The Fox attacks the Syndicate in their headquarters and nearly kills them. Kwai, the Fox's mirror counterpart, appears and stops it.
In the aftermath of the battle, many of the Blood Syndicate's members learn each other's secrets. Flashback wakes up near Boogieman and learns that he is white. Fade wakes up before Masquerade and learns that Masquerade is transgender; shortly afterward, Masquerade learns that Fade is gay after the Fox reaches into Fade's mind. Fade promises not to tell anyone Masquerade's identity, and Masquerade threatens that if he does, he will expose Fade's sexuality in turn.
Wise Son embarrasses Boogieman by forcing him to reveal that he is white. This furthers dislike of Wise's leadership, particularly by Third Rail. Third Rail and Brickhouse enter a relationship and contemplated moving out on their own when Masquerade betrays the team. They choose to raid one last crackhouse to raise money. Kwai is shot during this raid and nearly dies, but manages to heal herself. As the rest of the Blood Syndicate make their way home, Masquerade steals some of their money and flees. This widens the growing rift in the team; Third Rail and Brick take the remaining money and leave.
Tensions
Kwai recovers from her injuries, but learns that she is on the last of a series of mystically granted lives. She travels to her home realm, Kwen Lun, the Wondrous Lands, in an attempt to gain at least one more life. During Kwai's troubles, Tech Nine seemingly returns from the dead.
Upon returning home, Kwai meets with her old friend, the Monkey King, and the two plead to her father, the Jade Emperor, for another life. The Emperor denies this request, declaring that she had grown too attached to the mortal world. He then sentences Kwai to death without reincarnation, stating that she had broken the blood contract between them by rebelling against him.
The Monkey King recruits most of the Syndicate to save Kwai, while Tech-9 and Flashback stay behind as backup. In the Kingdom of Ti Yu (Hell), Kwai is offered marriage to the Dog God to save her existence, but decides she cannot marry him and goes to meet the Grey Lady. Kwai then learns that her entire existence was nothing more than entertainment for the gods of the Wondrous Lands in the form of a never-ending battle against the Demon Fox. The Grey Lady offers Kwai another chance to live and marry the Dog God, but Kwai refuses, deciding that she would no longer allow those gods to control her existence, even if it meant her death.
Disbanding
After returning to Earth, the Blood Syndicate learns that the Demon Fox had dug up Tech-9's body and gave his essence to Masquerade. This enabled him to impersonate Tech so well that he actually believed he was him, and to wield his powers. Kwai destroys the Fox at the cost of reverting to a child form.
The Syndicate now knows that Masquerade was born female, and confronts him for his deception. He proclaims that, under his leadership, they became more efficient than ever before, and that with him, they could achieve their true potential as a team. However, Masquerade is unable to convince any of the Blood Syndicate members of his ideologies and leaves the team in disgrace. Wise Son disagrees with Masquerade's methods, but admits that he was right and that they "never lived up to the hype". He states that they all kept too many secrets from each other and that they fought each other more than their enemies. The team decides they were tired of the pain that they had endured and the constant violence around them and disbanded.
DC Universe
Following the death of Darkseid in Final Crisis, the space-time continuum is torn asunder, threatening the existence of both the Dakotaverse and the mainstream DC Universe. Dharma uses energy harnessed from Rift to merge the two universes, creating an entirely new continuity. Only Dharma, Icon, and Superman are aware that Dakota and its inhabitants were from a parallel universe. Holocaust, formerly a member of the Blood Syndicate, appears as an enemy of the Teen Titans.
Milestone Returns
The Blood Syndicate was revived as part of DC's 2021–2022 Milestone Returns initiative. The team received a new six-issue limited series, Blood Syndicate: Season One. The first issue was published in May 2022, with the series continuing through six issues before being collected in 2023. The new series retains the Blood Syndicate's basic concept as a group of Bang Babies associated with the streets of Dakota, while updating the team's relationships and circumstances for the modern Milestone continuity. Rather than presenting the members simply as a conventional superhero team, the series emphasizes their origins among rival gangs and the difficulties involved in transforming a group of people accustomed to violence and mistrust into a functioning alliance.
The modern Blood Syndicate continues to operate in the aftermath of the Big Bang, the event that created large numbers of super-powered individuals in Dakota. The team's history as a collection of people drawn from different factions gives it a markedly different dynamic from groups such as the Justice League. Internal disagreements, competing loyalties and differing ideas about how the Syndicate should use its powers remain important parts of the team's identity.
Blood Syndicate: Season One also expands the mythology surrounding the Bang Babies and the changing political and social landscape of Dakota. The series explores the consequences of people acquiring extraordinary abilities in a city already affected by poverty, organized crime and conflict. As a result, the Blood Syndicate's activities are presented as part of the larger social crisis created by the Big Bang rather than as an isolated series of supervillain battles. The revival was part of a broader attempt by Milestone to give the Dakota characters new stories while preserving the distinctive themes of the original line. DC launched Blood Syndicate: Season One alongside new series devoted to Static, Icon and Rocket and Hardware as part of the 2021–2022 Milestone revival.
The Blood Syndicate has subsequently been incorporated into the developing history of the modern DC Universe. The New History of the DC Universe: The Dakota Incident, published in February 2026, revisits the history of Dakota and establishes the place of the Milestone heroes within the broader DCU. Although Static, Icon, Rocket and Hardware are among the most prominent characters featured in the issue, the story establishes a wider history for Dakota's superhuman population and the events surrounding the city's transformation.
The Dakota Incident depicts a period in Dakota's history in which a murder escalates into a conflict involving the city's heroes and the U.S. government. The resulting confrontation places the city's superhuman population under extraordinary pressure and provides the historical background for the return of Dakota's heroes in the present day. DC characterizes the story as a pivotal piece of the modern Milestone/DCU continuity.
