The storyline of the webtoon W starts with Kang Chul's younger years, when he gains popularity in Korea through his victory in a target shooting competition during the 2004 Athens Olympics. His fame gets ruined when his entire family was killed by an unknown Murderer and gets falsely accused of the crime. A corrupt prosecutor Han Cheol-ho, another of Kang Chul's archenemy, handles the case and pronounces in court to impose death penalty upon him. Nevertheless, he was pronounced innocent of the crime. Depressed over losing his family, he attempts to commit suicide over the Han River, but he stops himself and chooses to move on with his life.
Ten years later, Kang Chul becomes a multimillionaire. In his continuous efforts to apprehend and take vengeance against the real culprit behind his family’s death, he spearheads an anti-crime "Project W" and manages a television broadcasting company dubbed W, after the initials of the interrogatives “who” and “why” (hence, the title of the webtoon and the television series). One night, he receives a suspicious phone call and gets severely injured by the same mysterious Murderer at the rooftop of his penthouse.
