Not a single day goes by where I don't grieve for what is happening. Not a single day goes by where I don't long for a better world. Not a single day goes by where I don't feel the pain of all the families, all the husbands and wives and the sons and daughters of the murderers and the murdered. Not a single day goes by where I don't cry for this wretched town. With every passing day more murders are committed, and more lifelong killers are born. With every passing day more children go cold, hungry and fatherless. With every passing day more unwanted and unloved babies are left crying in the streets. With every passing day more suicides are committed, and more drugs are given to those who feel...out of place, alone and helpless...Another day, another rape...another cry...another call for help. I feel, homesick. I long for the happy world I thought existed when I was a mere child. I long for those times when innocent thoughts ran through my head about superheroes and basketball teams and boxing champions. I long to gain back the time spent with my father, I long to regain the world I once knew. Before some mobster, some criminal decided to rip all of that away. And introduce to me the world I live in, a world where dead bodies found in a dumpster is just your average 6 O'clock news. A world where rape and murder are just another aspect of life. A world where kids don't even play outside anymore because of what's out there. That's the real problem with this rotten city, no one feels safe. And I don't blame them, there's nothing safe about this town. This town where organized crime is the number one employer. Where mobsters kill and extort whomever they please, and pay off the judges to let them go free. This town where rapists and psychopaths run amok, and no one does anything to stop it. Where there is even talk of a skull bearing madman who roams the streets brutally murdering whomever he feels deserves it. There is no safety here....but that's why I've risen up, I've come to grips with who I am. I've come to give them hope where there was none, to give them hope that one day this town might actually be a safe place to live. I have come to bring all the frightened people something they have never had before: peace of mind. I come to give them the hope that there is someone out here, watching out for them, protecting them. I am their guardian angel...or should I say their guardian devil.
Who am I? My name is Matt Murdock, and this town I speak of is Hell's Kitchen. Do you wanna hear my story? Well I'll tell you if you'd like...As a young boy I was the victim of having the best father in the world. And I truly do mean that from the bottom of my heart. The man was the best boxer I've ever seen. We would spend hours together, me, him and my brother Joeseph. We used to spend hours wrestling with one another like all sons and fathers do. We would have our own boxing matches, and play basketball for hours on end. We used to stay up all night watching cartoons about the famed hero Captain America and pretending to be just like him. Our relationship we had with our father was unlike any we will ever have again. When he had to leave for work, and we had to leave for school. We respected him, we trusted him. Because he was one of the most noble and upstanding citizens of Hell's Kitchen. Or so we thought...turns out he was actually a gangster, a mobster. But he could never let us know, because to us he was as noble as Captain America. My dad was a mobster and an extortionist, but not a bad person. That in and of itself is the only reason I think there is any hope for this town. Because if there is one thing I learned from this terrifying experience. It's that good people are out there, they are everywhere waiting for a time when doing right is no longer considered unacceptable. Sure some men are desperately, incurably evil and corrupt but many (like my father) are products of the world around them. Dozens of men in this town do wrong every day because doing right isn't acceptable anymore. My father did many terrible things in his time, but at the core he was never a bad person. I know this for a fact, because he loved us unlike any one else ever has. Until that fateful day, oh, such a bad memory, being in school when our father's legal advisor Foggy Nelson picked us up from school and drove us to the hospital. On the way there we begged and begged for him to tell us what had happened, but all he did was turn his face and begin to weep. Weep long, heartfelt teardrops that came flowing down from his eyes. As we arrived at the hospital, he took us up to the fifth floor, room 507 and inside...oh, the horror, the pain, the agony whipped through my body like an electrical current. All I could do was cry, cry until the sorrow soon faded into rage. I demanded to know who killed him, I swore that one day I'd find him and kill him. A few days later at the police station, they told us everything that our father had been a part of. And that was why he had been shot. My brother Joeseph didn't believe it, couldn't believe it. The one man we looked up to, the pure symbol we held on to, now tarnished with more criminal filth. We went home that day, our hearts full of despair. I was just a kid, I ran to my room and cried. Until the tears could come no more.
I heard a door slam and turned my head to see my enraged little brother with shoes on and backpack ready to go. I told him no, not to run away. And that we'd stick together and figure life out...he turned his face with a scowl and ran out the front door. I quickly raced after him, I couldn't let him go. He was the only family I had left...and I cared about him. I chased him for a long, long run around Hell's Kitchen. Until he turned a corner into a place called "Devil's alley" a dark part of town, as if the whole city wasn't bad enough already. Devil's alley was where all the toxic sewage and leftover drugs were blended together and dumped. I was tired, I was sweating like an animal, I was scared. But I wasn't going to stop running. I had to keep my brother, I loved him. I continued to chase him through the alley until some careless worker knocked over a barrel of toxic waste from above the buildings. Right on me, it ran down my face and arms and burned like a flame. I saw my brother turn back for a split second and then disappear into the darkness. Then suddenly, I could see no more. I woke up in the hospital horrified and wondering what happened. I could hear voices all around me with their incessant chatter, I could smell everything you can think of, all kinds of strange sounds and smells all moving around and reacting in my head. It was like a living hell, all I could do was cry out in hopes that all the sounds might stop. But to my disdain they could not, I was given a walking stick. And friend Foggy Nelson drove me home...what home? I asked myself. I had nothing left, I longed for the world I had a few weeks before and I still long to bring those days back...
Well, what do ya think?