A World Darker Than DC

The fight with Daredevil began quickly and ended just as quickly.

As someone at the peak of human physical capability, Daredevil possessed combat abilities roughly on par with Hawkeye and Natasha. The difference was that he specialized in using sticks.

What they had in common was that the limits of peak human beings like them were all about the same.

If someone wanted greater strength, they had to be like that monster Kingpin—looking like a fat man, while actually possessing terrifying power!

At thirty percent strength, Jack had been left with only Blink available!

So after Jack subdued Daredevil without much effort, the latter shouted in disbelief, "Impossible! How can a Level Six Agent from S.H.I.E.L.D. possibly have this kind of strength?!"

Jack glanced at Daredevil, who was handcuffed beside the table. He shrugged, then mocked him. "My boy~ You have no idea what possibility means!"

After going to the bathroom, Jack saw Daredevil still where he had been and asked in confusion, "You should've had enough time to escape while I was in the bathroom. Why didn't you?"

Daredevil lay on the floor without saying a word. He was currently in a daze.

Jack's final words before entering the bathroom had been like a knife plunged into his heart.

He had been abandoned as a child and raised alone by his father, Jack Murdock. Growing up under the guidance of his boxer father, he had learned some fighting skills.

Later, he trained under Stick, graduating from his tutelage after training methods that had been practically cruel.

Then, because his father refused to throw a fight, he was murdered by the gangs of Hell's Kitchen. That was why he had put on this suit and ventured deep into Hell's Kitchen to fight crime.

Over the past six months, he had stopped countless evils and believed his strength was enough to rival his second childhood idol—Captain America.

Then he encountered a monster like Jack.

Jack's grip was so powerful that he felt as if a tank had rammed into him!

That arm strength, no less than a ton, made every punch feel like a sledgehammer smashing into his bones!

If Jack had been some alien, that would have made sense.

But Jack was just a white man living in Flushing!

Having suffered such a blow to his understanding of strength, Daredevil simply could not believe any of this was real...

Jack looked at the clearly shaken Daredevil, then at the system prompt he had received, and let out a long sigh. He really had gone too far.

"Successfully shattered Daredevil's confidence. Evil Points +3,000,000"

Although he had set a new record for his highest single Evil Points gain in less than an hour, Jack found that he could not feel happy about it at all.

He really did want to become Homelander, but he sincerely admired superheroes like these, who bravely devoted their lives to fighting evil every day.

This was New York, after all—the place with the most widespread gun ownership in all of Marvel. They were ordinary people without Iron Man's armor or Hulk's tough flesh, yet they took on high-risk work where they could be shot every day.

Jack was not someone driven by conviction, so he never looked down on people who were.

Not just anyone could work during the day without earning a cent, then risk their lives at night to stop crimes from happening.

So when he saw Daredevil so despondent, Jack did not feel very good either. He realized that what he had done over the past twenty-four hours might have ruined a fledgling superhero.

These Evil Points had brought Jack no joy at all.

So instead of going to work, he sent Marian a message, then took a bottle of whiskey and two glasses from the liquor cabinet.

After removing Daredevil's handcuffs, he poured him a glass of liquor and poured one for himself as well.

"Come on, let's have a drink and sort this out."

"First, let me make something clear: I never intended to hurt you."

Daredevil nodded slightly, then picked up his glass and drained it in one gulp. After putting it down, he pointed at the empty glass, signaling for Jack to refill it.

After three or four glasses, Daredevil finally stopped drinking. He then began speaking in his usual voice.

"Sigh... To be honest, I don't know why I suddenly became so discouraged."

"But... but... I thought about it. More precisely, when I realized that even a Level Six Agent from S.H.I.E.L.D. could subdue me alone, I felt like everything I've done has been meaningless..."

"I know there can't be many strong people like you in S.H.I.E.L.D., but as long as there are one or two, along with some elite forces, you'd be enough to wipe out Hell's Kitchen."

"But when you cracked down on organized crime in Hell's Kitchen last time, you didn't touch Kingpin or The Hand at all. Thinking about it now, I finally understand what was really going on."

"You at S.H.I.E.L.D., along with the NYPD, the DEA, and the New York City government, never wanted to eliminate Hell's Kitchen from the start. It was you... you! You've been allowing Hell's Kitchen to exist all along!"

"Only now do I realize how ridiculous I've been!"

"I thought I was fighting evil!"

"But in reality, I was fighting the system!"

Growing more and more emotional, Daredevil rose to his feet, smashed the glass in his hand against the floor, then collapsed onto the sofa as though all his strength had been drained away.

Jack, who had remained silent the whole time, looked at the tears beneath Daredevil's mask and felt sorry for him.

Sometimes, being a foolish superhero was actually quite nice.

People always said that the worldview of the DC universe was darker, but Marvel's dark worldview was not inferior to DC's at all.

Or perhaps Marvel simply lacked a representative figure like the Joker, making people think the Marvel Universe was filled with sunshine everywhere...

Think about the superhero registration plan!

Think about the social status of mutants at the bottom of society!

Was there any one of those things that was not far darker than Gotham City?

Gotham City's evil originated from Gotham's capitalists. To restore Gotham's innocence, all it needed was mysterious power from the East.

A little red book would be enough.

But Marvel's dark problems could not be solved by anyone.

Would getting rid of Kingpin and flattening Hell's Kitchen solve New York's massive cancer?

What a joke. Superheroes had run the Kingpin dungeon so many times they were practically sick of it, yet they still could not send Kingpin to prison. Did anyone really think he was alone?

Countless people stood behind him!

If the Joker represented individuals at the bottom...

Then Kingpin represented the bloodsucking monster on America's body. This interest group, made up of countless people, could not be dealt with through conventional means.

Even if Batman came here, facing this Marvel Universe, he would have no way to begin unless he broke his rule and started killing.