Matt had already figured out that Maya had killed people. What he hadn't expected was how calm she was about it, as if those eight men had been no more to her than eight chickens.
Now, faced with Madam President's pointed question, his mind was a tangle. He didn't know what to say.
Wasn't this the perfect moment for her to pour out her worldview on him?
President Maya didn't wait for Matt to answer. She pressed on. "Batman's philosophy is correct. No one is above the law."
What? Batman is right—so does that mean you're wrong, Madam President? Matt's brain got even more tangled.
Madam President kept going. "Batman is right. The law stands above individual will. And I'm also right. Killing to save lives isn't wrong."
"Matt, don't you see? Batman and I aren't standing in the same place. Batman speaks from the position of a ruler maintaining social stability. I'm a street-level vigilante inside that society. The vigilante is just one part of society. He only needs to focus on what's in front of him. For him there's right and wrong, good and evil. But Batman's purpose in defending the supremacy of the law is, in the end, to preserve the peace of the whole society. He has to see the big picture. For him there's no right or wrong, no good or evil. Keeping society running smoothly—that's his responsibility."
Seeing Matt only half understood, Madam President made it blunter. "Put it this way. I'm a hero for ordinary people. Batman is a hero of the ruling class. We look at problems from different angles. Our positions clash, but neither of us is wrong. I killed eight bad guys and saved dozens of ordinary people. Nothing wrong with that, right?"
Matt nodded. Maya continued.
"But my killing broke the law. If the law can't punish me, then the law's authority weakens. Keep that up, and the whole point of having law disappears. Law exists to protect social stability. Without law, society collapses. Right? So Batman defending the dignity of the law is completely correct. He's not wrong either."
"If nobody's wrong, then who is wrong?" Matt asked.
Maya answered without hesitation. "Matt, when you look at any problem, the first thing to do is find your own position. I'm just an ordinary citizen. Saving people is the limit of what I can do. Batman is a son of Gotham. He can do far more than save people—he can save the whole city. I only need to handle what's right in front of me. Batman represents the ruling class. He has the power and the responsibility to maintain the peace of all society. My personal acts of heroism are one part of society's self-correcting mechanism. Batman is the one managing the whole machine."
"Matt, if you—as a commoner—tried to think through this country's stability, what would you come up with?" Madam President asked, guiding him.
"Nothing. Because I wouldn't have the power to carry out any of my ideas. Not unless I climbed out of my current class into a higher one." Matt was sharp—one nudge and he saw it.
Maya didn't skimp on praise. "Exactly right. If you only want to be one of the common folk, then saving people is enough—nothing wrong with that. But once your power grows strong enough to change society—whether that power is political or physical—you have to think about your responsibility. You can't just do whatever you want anymore. Simply saving people stops being the measure of right and wrong. You'll need a new standard of conduct. At that point, you become the new Batman."
Matt picked up the thread. "So as long as we know our own limits, we're fine? What restrains us right now is morality. Upholding the legitimacy of the law is something for those above us to worry about."
Madam President nodded. "Right here in Hell's Kitchen, if you can feed yourself without breaking the law, that's the biggest success there is. The line of the law is blurry in this neighborhood anyway. So me killing to save lives has almost no impact on society. If my power and influence ever reached Magneto's level, I'd start acting like Batman too. I'd follow society's rules. Because if someone with that much power doesn't follow the rules, the damage to the whole system would be catastrophic."
"So even if it's the same person doing the same thing, the consequences change based on their status and position. That's the foundation of my philosophy. Now—do you get it?"
Matt nodded. "I understand, Madam President. For someone like me, helping people is already a success. Whether it's legal or not doesn't enter into it."
Damn, recruiting a sidekick was hard work! Reshaping his worldview so it synced with hers was even harder!
Even as Maya steered Matt, she was also sorting out her own thinking—building a life philosophy that actually fit the Marvel universe.
This world had no shortage of people with the power to level a nation single-handedly. That had bred all sorts of extreme ideologies. You couldn't just apply the universal values of her past life and expect them to work here.
Madam President wasn't some thick-skulled brute. If anything, her thinking was delicate and sensitive. After killing eight thugs to save dozens of people, she'd given it serious thought. Making the world adapt to you was impossible. The best Maya could do was re-read this world from scratch and build a new moral framework that fit it.
The moment she picked up that kunai and killed her first man, the old mindset—lay low, farm quietly, grow strong in the dark—had to change. Once you took that step, you'd joined the bigger game—the whole messy Marvel world. You had a stake in every faction's play.
Keep your head down, but don't keep your heart down. That was why Madam President had been so active lately.
Right now her words felt aimed at Matt, but they were also aimed at herself. "Matt, it's just the two of us in this little club. The core principle of this organization is: help each other, and help more people, all within the bounds of morality and law."
"But how do we balance helping people against breaking the law? Like what happened to you before?" Matt asked.
"Hell's Kitchen. We draw the line at Hell's Kitchen. Talking about 'the law' in this place is a joke. Since the strong live and the weak die here, we'll restrain ourselves using ordinary people's morality. Outside Hell's Kitchen, we avoid breaking the law. Whatever the situation, we always have a line keeping us in check."
"Right now we're still young. Our understanding of this world is limited and one-sided. We can't form a correct, independent worldview yet. So society's current morality and legal code are the best chains we've got—they'll keep our actions from going off the rails, from crossing the line. What do you think, Matt?"
After that long stretch of speech from Madam President, Matt let out a long breath. His whole body relaxed.
"Madam President, you're much stronger than me. You've got a clear goal for this organization. The framework is reasonable. Bold and chivalrous, but restrained. I've made up my mind this time. I'm in!"
"What was the problem before?" Madam President asked.
Matt flushed with embarrassment. "I heard the cops say the eight guys from the Mary-889 case died at the hands of a ninja. I figured it had to be you, Madam President. You—you're really something fierce. I was scared if I said no, you'd—you'd just off me right there."
Madam President... could only stare.