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In Daredevil #34, Matt Murdock finally learns the horrifying, dark truth about the prison where he is serving out his sentence.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Daredevil #34, on sale now from Marvel Comics.
Matt Murdock has been sentenced to prison before for his unauthorized vigilante activities in New York City, but there has been something particularly sinister about Murdock’s most recent incarceration. As Murdock began to fulfill his sentence for a manslaughter charge, there was an unusual amount of prison yard animosity towards him, with what happening behind bars even attracting the attention of the FBI. As all hell breaks loose in the prison, dark secrets are poised to affect Matt Murdock when his city needs him the most.
The penitentiary where Murdock was being held featured plenty of unethical activities, from fighting rings to an attempt on Murdock’s life in the middle of the prison yard. As the prison reaches a tipping point, Murdock emerges as the de facto leader of the chaotic facility, entering into a police standoff when his FBI informant Cole North enters the prison to negotiate. And in Daredevil #34 (by Chip Zdarsky, Stefano Landini, Marcio Menyz and VC’s Clayton Cowles) Murdock reveals to Cole how the situation became so bad.
The prison’s warden secretly oversaw many of the inmates being dosed with an illegal street known as RE-CID that made them erratically violent. More than just stirring up violence within the prison, which the guards used to their advantage and entertainment, the effects of the drug stay with the users after they leave prison, with their continued, heightened tendencies towards violence virtually guaranteeing that they will be arrested and convicted again for the warden to exploit as part of his for-profit prison labor. Heavily dosed with RE-CID, Murdock rejects an offer to end the stalemate with the authorities, more eager to burn the facility and its mockery of the justice system to the ground.
Murdock has been on a spiral of self-destruction and guilt ever since he first learned he had inadvertently committed manslaughter while breaking up a simple larceny back in Hell’s Kitchen. Despite his legal counsel believing he could avoid a conviction, Murdock entered a guilty plea in exchange for a reduced sentence and the right to maintain his secret identity. This persistent sense of remorse, manifested by this institutionalized punishment, will likely only be exacerbated by Murdock’s exposure to RE-CID. Murdock comes to senses long enough to see the greater threat in a rampaging Bullseye on the loose in Manhattan, but he is also keenly aware that the mood-altering drugs still run through his veins.
Having broken out of prison in order to stop Bullseye before the serial killer adds to his growing body count, Daredevil is going in at a complete disadvantage thanks to the RE-CID coursing through him.
Even worse than his compromised mental facilities, Daredevil is charging into a showdown that also has him outnumbered, with Bullseye now leading a small army of clones of himself. Even beyond the upcoming confrontation with his old nemesis, the dark secrets of Matt Murdock’s recent prison stint may have untold long term effects that may haunt him for years to come.
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