| Synopsis | - As a young boy, Werner Zytle escaped with his mother from the European country of Vlatava to Vancouver, after his father was murdered by rebels. His mother blamed him for her having to leave - had she been childless, she could have stayed behind and died with her compatriots, honourably. His birthright lay in Vlatava. His father had been next in line to be king, and Werner himself was a Count, even at that young age, and she had to protect him. Since moving to Canada, though, they had lost everything, and she was forced to prostitute herself, insisting that Werner hide in his room while she worked. Eventually, though, she took a payment from Crius Mental Health and Research Hospital to let Werner be taken and experimented on under the name of Warren. There was something special about him, and they wanted it.
After two years at the research hospital, Werner was picked on by the other boys, who mocked his attachment to a stuffed bear and called him "Weiner." On one such occasion, he had become angry, and used a device he had been fitted with to affect everyone's inner ears and cause them to experience .
Ten years ago, Dr. Witchell at Crius had praised Werner's progress, having designed a new model of his vertigo device. Despite all the power Crius bestowed on him, Werner had decided it was time to leave - and that Witchell must be punished for what was done to him. Desperately, Witchell attempted to activate the failsafes against such an attack, but Werner had disabled it in advance. As his head throbbed, Witchell begged to know how Werner could turn on them after all they did for him. Angrily, Werner responded that they had made him a weapon, and only he would be allowed to wield it. The force of Werner's power caused Witchell's head to explode, and the young man left unobstructed.
Within a year, he was back in Vlatava, and met opposition when he attempted to simply walk into the castle that was his birthright. In response, he used his power to bring them to their knees, explaining that while he was once Werner Zytle, Count of Vlatava, he had since become something more: Count Vertigo.
Now, Vertigo returns to Vancouver, where his scientists have already built him a new amplifying device to replace the one that Green Arrow damaged. While his Zytle Foundation has a reception in order to reaise funds for schools in the war-torn Baltic states later that evening, Vertigo has other plans in the interim. He returns to Crius, where an elderly man called Edvin scrambles to do his bidding. Edvin had been tasked with finding Werner's mother, and while the man had nearly given up hope, he had finally located her in a brothel outside Calgary.
The woman is sick and mad, but she is glad to see her son, thinking he has come to save her. Coldly, Werner admits that it has been he keeping her there to punish her for what she did to him. She is confused, and he responds that though her mind has been addled by drug abuse, he knows she must remember what she did. Distraught, she admits that she had nothing, and thought that Crius would take care of him.
Sighing, Werner decides that it is time to forgive and forget, but she will not be going back to Vlatava. As a junkie and a whore, she does not deserve to go back to her homeland. Gripping her face in his hand, he kills her with the abilities that her failures bought him, and then orders Edvin to burn her body and the hospital to the ground.
With the past behind him, Vertigo decides it's time to go back to Seattle and face the fight that's waiting for him there.
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