Elements of this story are left ambiguous because I wanted to leave it up to the reader to decide whether it takes place in the Marvel Universe or the DC Universe. The choice is yours...

It matters not who I am, only the tale that I tell…

I live in a incredible world. A world where anything can happen. A world where the possibilities are as endless as the stars, where aliens and Gods reside. On Earth, that potential is manifested by our Heroes.

The superheroes of Earth are paragons of virtue. The people worship them as truth and justice incarnate. I know, because once I did the same. It never occurred to me that the world could need anything more, that our shining saviors could ever fail to live up to their ideals, that there was any weakness lurking under the surface.

I was wrong. One day, I found myself alone, with a knife at my throat, a knife held by a madman. Like many people, evil had always been an abstract concept to me, manifested in obscure, foreign threats in the paper or on TV, always distant and impersonal.

But when I looked into the eyes of the man who intended to kill me, I saw evil for the first time, pure and untainted, and I finally understood what the word truly meant. There was no hero to rescue me, no idol of justice to save the day. But someone else was there. Suddenly, the knife at my throat was removed, the madman lay dead on the ground, and the evil in those eyes was gone forever. Standing over him was a man well known to me, well known to everyone. His name is spoken with fear by villains, reservation by heroes, and scorn by the people. I myself had said things about him that now fill me with shame.

He is not a paragon of virtue, he is not a shining idol of the people, but in that moment when he saved my life, he was more of a hero than any of them. He was not worried about what people thought of him. He did not care how society would judge him for his actions. He did not take time to count the cost. His only concern was to preserve an innocent life, my life.

After it was over, he checked to make sure I was all right, then left. I never saw him again, I didn't even get to say thank you. I hope to rectify that one day.

Anti-hero… the very word makes my stomach roil in disgust. Perhaps it is a fitting title, but one I despise all the same. Over time I have come to realize the word, "hero" as understood by most, is in reality a hollow shell of its true meaning.

The truest mark of a hero is the ability to sacrifice anything for the greater good. But at the end of the day, how many can truly live up to that ideal? There are many admirable heroes who put themselves on the line day after day, risking their lives and their fortunes for the innocent and the defenseless. But how many of those same heroes are willing to sacrifice their honor, their reputations, their dignity, or their legacies? The answer is few… very… very… few.

Much of that is our fault, the people's. We demand unreasonable standards from our heroes, standards most of us fail to live up to everyday. We chain them to the grindstone of public opinion, and force them to swallow the lie that virtue alone can defeat evil.

But there are others. There are those who stare evil in the face and do not look away.

They soil their hands in the blood and filth of our broken world, the blood and filth most will not admit exists, for to admit the inherent imperfections of our world would be to admit the grim reality of good vs evil, a reality mankind does not have the stomach to face. But they do.

For their efforts...for their sacrifice… for their heroism… they are rejected by the world. They gain neither praise nor laurels, only derision and scorn. They are viewed as evil by those that they shield with their blood. How tragic that those who sacrifice the most are treated as the least.

But they don't give up. Because they believe in truly making the world a better place, in destroying evil rather than compromising with it.

That is the lesson I learned, that the world needs them, because, sometimes… sometimes heroes are not enough, and sometimes… we fail to see who the true heroes are.

Who do you think the unnamed anti-hero was?