Nightwing, Issue #51
I am writing this down so you will know. It is my story. Who I am. How I got here. Why I did what I did.
My name is Tad Ryerstad. And I am a Superhero.
I did not come from some other planet or like that. I can not fly and I am damn sure not bulletproof. I did not get bitten by some animal and then get their powers and scare the snot out of bad guys. I did not find out my dad was ssome kind of intergalactic warrior or like that. And nobody gave me a magic ring or a magic word or magic squat. Axually, my story starts just like anybody else.
I was just born. In a hostpital right here in Bludhaven on Planet Earth. I do not remember being a baby. I do not know what my first memory was. Maybe that is a good thing. I do not know. With my parents I figure the less I remember the better.
The first thing I remember was comic books. They seemed real to me. Realer than real. I wished the whole world was like it was in the comic books. Everything was better in comic books.
My dad said he had a job. He was a salesman. But I never saw him go to work. My mom spent the day smoking and talking on the phone. Dad's customers would come to the house and he's sell them stuff. His customers always had lots of money. He'd sell them watchs or TVs or sterios or anything. But there was one little problem. None of this stuff belonged to Dad. It was all stolen. And even though he didn't steal it himself, Dad got arrested anyway. It was against the law to sell stolen stuff. I learned all this from Mom talking on the phone with Dad's lawyers.
But it was not like on TV when they caught a bad guy. Dad was always home in just a few days. Moom was always mad when he came home. Not because he stole and id bad things. But he always got caught. And the cops always had to come back. The good thing was they did not care if I read comic books. They did not care if I played in the middle of I-66.
But comic books cost money. Mom already handed me a beating for taking money from her pocketbook. So I did a bad thing. And I paid for it right away. The farmacist's son was on the football team at Avalon High. But it was not the beating he handed me. I could take a beating. It was the laughing. I could not stand them laughing at me. They thought they were better than me. They thought I was just some stupid punk. They thought I was like my dad.
I did not want to be like my dad. I did not want to steal. I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to do whatever a hero would do. I wanted to punish people like my dad. I would punish everybody who ever hurt me or laughed at me.
The cops were not heros. They were like my dad's buddies. They come and see him and talk and laugh. That is when I found out why my dad got back from Jail so fast. He was working for the cops. That is how he got out of being punished.
Everybody in the neighborhood knew Danny Zap. His name was Zapirados. He would deal crack and stuff like that. Junkies and huffers and crackheads wolud pay him sometimes with stuff instead of money. Then The Zee would sell the stuff to my dad. I thought maybe Danny would like to know my dad was working for the Man nowadays. So I told him.
That is the way it happened in the comic books. No deals. No working both sides of the street. Justice caught up with everybody who did wrong. But Justice in real life was messier than in the comics. It caught up with everybody. Even the innosent. Those cops said my mom was an exsessory to my dad. So Justice touched her too.
Mom went to prison. I went into Foster Care. I still wonder who got the sitffer sentense. It did not go so great. They said I had "unsolved issues of rage". I had a lot of mommies and daddies. Nobody kept me long. That was fine by me. They were all jerks anyway.
When I got older I desided enuff was enuff. I was going to be on my own. They did not look for me too hard. They did not want to find me. I was a "problem". I did not know what I was going to do out on the street all alone. But there was plenty of work to do. There was bad guys lurking everywhere. There was Justice to be served.
I was not some war hero or some milyunaire playboy. I was on the street with no money. I had no job. I had no place to live. I was like the bums I saw digging inthe garbage behind Boomer Burger. There was lots of money on the street. You just had to know where to look. I knew where to look. The wicked were gonna pay all right. They were gonna pay cash.
There was a lot of work to be done. Perverts and killers and miskreants were running wild. It was a war against evil and I was a soldier. But I was only one soldier. The cops in the 'Haven were no help. It was going to take a lot of work if the job was going to get done. It was going to take muscle. And Reserch. And maybe Recroots.
I thought I had found some guys who thought like me. They knew society was going down the toilet. But they had lots of other crazy ideas. Just a bunch of losers trying to find somebody to blame for the fact that they were losers. It was all pollitics to them. They were good for a few things. A little payback in their name. One little phone call led the cops to them. I wonder how they got along in the Jug with all their big talk.
That was what was wrong with all these clowns calling themelves crimebusters and superheroes -- They were bleeding-heart nancys. They catch the supercreeps and the psycos over and over again. And the cops juts lock them up. Catching thems not good enough. You have to break them. All the superpowers and magic rings and cool costumes in the world were no good -- unless you were willing to hurt somebody. That's what these super-do-gooders forgot -- sometimes Justice has to hurt.
They have me in solitarie. They say it is to protect me from the cons. I know it is to protect the cons from me. They do not know my real name. I'm not here because of who my parents were. I am here because I did not fight evil by their rules. I did not play nice. I did not play fair.
But it is so easy for them to call themselves heroes. They can fly and bend steel and see through walls and become invisibel. I only have my "unresolved issues of rage." But I know what they do not know. I know that evil is evil. And evil must sometimes be battled with greater evil. So that in the end good can triumph.
I know now that if you do not battle evil with all the power at your disposle then you are a part of the evil. And so you must be destroyed. And when I am free of this place, the weaklings and traitors and cowards will die first.
And I will start with Nightwing.
My name is Tad Ryerstad. And I am a Superhero.
I did not come from some other planet or like that. I can not fly and I am damn sure not bulletproof. I did not get bitten by some animal and then get their powers and scare the snot out of bad guys. I did not find out my dad was ssome kind of intergalactic warrior or like that. And nobody gave me a magic ring or a magic word or magic squat. Axually, my story starts just like anybody else.
I was just born. In a hostpital right here in Bludhaven on Planet Earth. I do not remember being a baby. I do not know what my first memory was. Maybe that is a good thing. I do not know. With my parents I figure the less I remember the better.
The first thing I remember was comic books. They seemed real to me. Realer than real. I wished the whole world was like it was in the comic books. Everything was better in comic books.
My dad said he had a job. He was a salesman. But I never saw him go to work. My mom spent the day smoking and talking on the phone. Dad's customers would come to the house and he's sell them stuff. His customers always had lots of money. He'd sell them watchs or TVs or sterios or anything. But there was one little problem. None of this stuff belonged to Dad. It was all stolen. And even though he didn't steal it himself, Dad got arrested anyway. It was against the law to sell stolen stuff. I learned all this from Mom talking on the phone with Dad's lawyers.
But it was not like on TV when they caught a bad guy. Dad was always home in just a few days. Moom was always mad when he came home. Not because he stole and id bad things. But he always got caught. And the cops always had to come back. The good thing was they did not care if I read comic books. They did not care if I played in the middle of I-66.
But comic books cost money. Mom already handed me a beating for taking money from her pocketbook. So I did a bad thing. And I paid for it right away. The farmacist's son was on the football team at Avalon High. But it was not the beating he handed me. I could take a beating. It was the laughing. I could not stand them laughing at me. They thought they were better than me. They thought I was just some stupid punk. They thought I was like my dad.
I did not want to be like my dad. I did not want to steal. I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to do whatever a hero would do. I wanted to punish people like my dad. I would punish everybody who ever hurt me or laughed at me.
The cops were not heros. They were like my dad's buddies. They come and see him and talk and laugh. That is when I found out why my dad got back from Jail so fast. He was working for the cops. That is how he got out of being punished.
Everybody in the neighborhood knew Danny Zap. His name was Zapirados. He would deal crack and stuff like that. Junkies and huffers and crackheads wolud pay him sometimes with stuff instead of money. Then The Zee would sell the stuff to my dad. I thought maybe Danny would like to know my dad was working for the Man nowadays. So I told him.
That is the way it happened in the comic books. No deals. No working both sides of the street. Justice caught up with everybody who did wrong. But Justice in real life was messier than in the comics. It caught up with everybody. Even the innosent. Those cops said my mom was an exsessory to my dad. So Justice touched her too.
Mom went to prison. I went into Foster Care. I still wonder who got the sitffer sentense. It did not go so great. They said I had "unsolved issues of rage". I had a lot of mommies and daddies. Nobody kept me long. That was fine by me. They were all jerks anyway.
When I got older I desided enuff was enuff. I was going to be on my own. They did not look for me too hard. They did not want to find me. I was a "problem". I did not know what I was going to do out on the street all alone. But there was plenty of work to do. There was bad guys lurking everywhere. There was Justice to be served.
I was not some war hero or some milyunaire playboy. I was on the street with no money. I had no job. I had no place to live. I was like the bums I saw digging inthe garbage behind Boomer Burger. There was lots of money on the street. You just had to know where to look. I knew where to look. The wicked were gonna pay all right. They were gonna pay cash.
There was a lot of work to be done. Perverts and killers and miskreants were running wild. It was a war against evil and I was a soldier. But I was only one soldier. The cops in the 'Haven were no help. It was going to take a lot of work if the job was going to get done. It was going to take muscle. And Reserch. And maybe Recroots.
I thought I had found some guys who thought like me. They knew society was going down the toilet. But they had lots of other crazy ideas. Just a bunch of losers trying to find somebody to blame for the fact that they were losers. It was all pollitics to them. They were good for a few things. A little payback in their name. One little phone call led the cops to them. I wonder how they got along in the Jug with all their big talk.
That was what was wrong with all these clowns calling themelves crimebusters and superheroes -- They were bleeding-heart nancys. They catch the supercreeps and the psycos over and over again. And the cops juts lock them up. Catching thems not good enough. You have to break them. All the superpowers and magic rings and cool costumes in the world were no good -- unless you were willing to hurt somebody. That's what these super-do-gooders forgot -- sometimes Justice has to hurt.
They have me in solitarie. They say it is to protect me from the cons. I know it is to protect the cons from me. They do not know my real name. I'm not here because of who my parents were. I am here because I did not fight evil by their rules. I did not play nice. I did not play fair.
But it is so easy for them to call themselves heroes. They can fly and bend steel and see through walls and become invisibel. I only have my "unresolved issues of rage." But I know what they do not know. I know that evil is evil. And evil must sometimes be battled with greater evil. So that in the end good can triumph.
I know now that if you do not battle evil with all the power at your disposle then you are a part of the evil. And so you must be destroyed. And when I am free of this place, the weaklings and traitors and cowards will die first.
And I will start with Nightwing.
