¡A luchar por la justicia!

Originally posted: http://www.semana.com/noticias-gente/luchar-justicia/152468.aspx
rlshprojectmontageA phenomenon in the streets of the various cities, walking the line between reality and fiction. These are the Superheroes, 100’s of average citizens who fight against evil, dressed in trousers, capes, and mask.
It’s one o’clock in the morning, two drunken gang members are exchanging insults, punches and kicks in a park in Milwaukee, USA. Then suddenly someone who was hidden behind the trees steps out of the shadows and shouts “Stop what you are doing!” The two youths remain frozen, suspended staring at the man dressed in black wearing a red mask with “W” on his chest, who with hands on his waist, threatening to intervene if they don’t stop the fight. The scene isn’t from a comic nor from a movie, it’s any day in the life of “The Watchman,” an average, big guy who is currently 35yrs old, who by day works in an office and by night walks the streets of his neighborhood to “fight against crime”.
Watchman (vigilante) is a part of a movement known as the Real Life Super Heroes, a well organized 400 mortal men and women, who, like the business card for www.reallifesuperheroes.com says, an internet page that is used to connect them, choose everyday to mark a difference. They are not crackpots in costumes as it might seem at first glance. These modern heroes are our neighbors, our friends, our family members. They are artist, musicians, athletes and yes, politicians. The majority patrol the streets of their cities looking for thieves, rapist, and drug traffickers. Others hand out food to homeless, donate toys to sick children in hospitals or hand out copies of the constitution to transients so that they learn about their country. There are also others who care for prostitutes; protect drunken women in bars to prevent men from taking advantage of them.
All of them create their identities and costumes, which generally include a cape and mask. They also have their accessories to help them complete their missions, like a 1st responder’s first aid kit, pepper spray to drive off bad guys, and a cellular phone to call police in case of problems. Some go out alone and others in groups similar to the Justice League of Superman, Flash, the Green Lantern and company.
“It’s an incredible movement” a week ago commented Dark Guardian, superhero and administrator of reallifesuperheroes.com. “We help people, and fight crime, and do it with our own money”. Chirs Pollak is the real name of this New York teacher of martial arts who at night patrols the city to look for drug dealers who work in the parks. Chris feels he was a kid with lots of problems until he started to read comics and discovered what he wanted to be like the protagonist in these adventures. And so he bought a bullet proof vest, cut proof gloves, boots, shades, flashlight, and a megaphone, and went out to pursue delinquents.
The phenomenon of the superheroes that don’t fly and don’t have x-ray vision has grown during the last few years so much so that it has expanded into some European countries. In England, for example, the famous Statesman, a banker who cleans up the streets of London, and says the he has helped the police catch more than a few bad guys. It’s has been four years since publications like The New York Time or the magazine Rolling Stone started to publish articles on this theme. At that time it was calculated that there were approximately a 100. Two years later there was talk of 250, and today they say 400. Though they admit it is almost impossible to get an accurate number, for many youths join the movement week after week.
These superheroes of flesh and bone have become so famous that they already have a documentary movie, which premiered at the most recent Sundance film festival. They have also received photographical exposure thanks to Peter Tangen, who fell in love with the stories like that of Knight Owl, an anonymous EMT who served in Iraq and who after becoming a superhero decided to write a manual so that his colleagues could learn from firsthand knowledge. Peter has also covered the life of Mr. Xtreme, who after he was abused as a child decided that he needed to protect the defenseless and had been patrolling for some ten years now. Also that of Life, a film producer who every night wears his tie, mask and hat to food, soap, shavers and tooth brushes to the homeless in New York.
“I believe that the phenomenon has grown due to interest in comics, movies and TV series base on the theme. Also because many of us want to change the world and since we have always seen superheroes as powerful beings who can get the job done, who we try to emulate” commented Life to this publication. He organizes meetings for superheroes through the net site www.superheroesananymous.com, and who real name is Chaim Lazaros. “The Heroes have always been there, but only started to network with each other after the “hero boom” on the internet. In 2007 I united them to make a documentary and complete my transformation into one of them.”
Tea Krulos is an independent journalist who writes a blog called “justice seekers without superpowers,” and is finishing a book on the same theme he’s planning to call “Heroes in the Night”. Krulos says that the first real superheroes he found during his investigation was active during the 70’s. He was a fat man with a beard who was called Captain Sticky, and he was devoted to uncovering scandals. Years later, other appeared. Like the Mexican born Superbarrio, an ex-masked luchador who defended the housing rights of those injured in the earth quake of 1985 who participated in the presidential elections. Then the phenomenon kept growing until it became what it is today.
“One of the most amazing things about these superheroes is the range of people who participate in this is varied. There are rich, poor, Christians, Atheist” said Krulos about a week ago. But when they put on their outfit they are all the same. They see the wrong that is happening and say this nigh I will go out to help instead of staying home and watching TV.
But not all of them have had good luck in this. Like Dark Guardian who accounts to being threaten and having a gun pointed at him, even though nothing has happen to him yet. The British Newspaper, The Times, published a few years back a story about Mr. Invisible, a Californian who took years getting ready to hit the streets. When he finally did, he found himself confronted with a man yelling at his wife. He wanted to intervene, but the woman punch him in the face and broke his nose. Then he sat on the sidewalk and a beggar urinated on him. The publication commented, what has been done to confirm his invisibility.
For other the hardest part isn’t confronting delinquent but confessing to their love ones that they are superheroes. They explain that not everyone likes the idea of them going out dressed up at night. “Hey today isn’t Halloween!” someone yells at Watchman, he takes it with a sense of humor, it’s precisely his look that has saved him. “In general, Gang members get distracted with my outfit”, he says. “They laugh and they ask me what the hell I am. In a short while they forget they were fighting or causing problems”. And so he is satisfied that he completes his mission to “Make the world a safer place”.

Zeroes

By DAVE MASTERS

IS it a bird, is it a plane ? No, it’s a REAL superhero.

This Spandex-clad chap is one of a growing number of Clark Kent wannabes battling bad guys on America’s mean streets.
And the amateur crime fighting craze is taking off faster than a speeding bullet across the Pond.
There’s Mr Invisible, who patrols Los Angeles dressed in a homemade grey “invisibility” suit, and Dark Guardian, who dons a black cape to target New York nasties.
Red-caped superheroine Terrifica manhandles drunken girls away from heavy-handed dates in the nocturnal Big Apple.
Meanwhile, The Eye doesn’t blink in his quest to conquer crime in California and The Queen Of Hearts patrols Michigan.
An online World Superhero Registry has even been set up with almost 300 members – or “Reals” as they call themselves.
Volunteers must shun guns and knives to avoid being arrested as vigilantes. Some don body armour, while others just wear a smile.
It is up to each individual how they use their powers, from a citizen’s arrest to just helping old ladies across the road.
But like all good superheroes, the true identities of those taking part remain a closely-guarded secret.
To become a Real you must come up with a brand new superhero character for yourself and then design and make an outfit.
One businessman in Arizona who transforms himself into Citizen Prime spent £2,700 on his get up.
He says: “This is a more serious business than it looks.”
But taking to the streets can be dangerous. One Real called Black Owl was thrown into a psychiatric ward when cops got the wrong end of the stick.
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Swelled

And Mr Invisible came under attack himself – from a young girl.
He revealed: “This tiny girl did not like me trying to calm down her screaming boyfriend. She blindsided me, I’m still bruised. It’s dangerous out there.”
The Reals movement was born in reaction to the 9/11 attacks but recruitment has swelled recently with many pointing to Barack Obama’s calls for “active citizenry”.
Dark Guardian says: “Some may call me a hero, a superhero, a vigilante or a nut job.
“But I fight for all that’s right and just. I will drive myself into the ground to make this world a better place.”
The peaceful vigilantes are determined to make a difference and promise they won’t be going up, up and away any time soon.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/article2084827.ece

Amateur crimefighters are surging in the US

John Harlow in Los Angeles
For Mr Invisible, the first and last blow to his burgeoning career as a superhero was an unexpected punch that flattened his nose.
“After months of designing my costume, getting my street moves just right, it was my first week out as a Real Life Superhero – and probably my last. This tiny, tiny girl did not like me trying to calm down her screaming boyfriend. She blindsided me, I’m still bruised. It’s dangerous out there,” said the deflated would-be crime fighter last week.
Mr Invisible is cheered that at least his grey one-piece “invisibility suit” works, proven when a drunk urinated on him in an alley. But he is weary of lurking in dark, down-town Los Angeles after dark.
The 29-year-old graduate is “refocusing” on his day job as an insurance salesman. His farewell appearance will be at a New Year’s Eve party.
Mr Invisible may be living up to his name but his spray-painted “supershoes” will quickly be filled by another Real Life Superhero eager to save America from itself. There are, according to the recently launched World Superhero Registry, more than 200 men and a few women who are willing to dress up as comic book heroes and patrol the urban streets in search of, if not super-villains, then pickpockets and bullies.
They may look wacky, but the superhero community was born in the embers of the 9/11 terrorist attacks when ordinary people wanted to do something short of enlisting. They were boosted by a glut of Hollywood superhero movies.
In recent weeks, prompted by heady buzz words such as “active citizenry” during the Barack Obama campaign, the pace of enrolment has speeded up. Up to 20 new “Reals”, as they call themselves, have materialised in the past month.
The Real rules are simple. They must stand for unambiguous and unsponsored good. They must create their own Spandex and rubber costumes without infringing Marvel or DC Comics copyrights, but match them with exotic names – Green Scorpion in Arizona, Terrifica in New York, Mr Xtreme in San Diego and Mr Silent in Indianapolis.
They must shun guns or knives to avoid being arrested as vigilantes, even if their nemeses may be armed. Their best weapon is not muscle but the internet – an essential tool in their war on crime is a homepage stating the message of doom for super-villains.
This is more than bravado, say veterans. It may help as evidence after a Real has been arrested or even committed to a mental health hospital for evaluation. That happened to Mr Invisible’s equally short-lived predecessor, Black Owl, who last summer had to be sprung from a psychiatric ward by his teenage daughter who told doctors: “Dad forgot for a moment, when faced with police, just for a moment, that he did not have real superpowers. He could not just fly away.”
“This is a more serious business than it looks,” said Citizen Prime, whose $4,000 (£2,700) costume disguises an Arizona businessman and father of a toddler who thinks his cape, mask and stun-gun are cool.
Prime patrols some of the most dangerous streets in Phoenix but, like most Reals, is reluctant to speak about the villains he has dispatched with a blow from his martial arts-honed forearm. He does admit helping a motorist change a flat tyre.
“Kids love the costume, so I seek to keep them out of the gangs today rather than take them on tomorrow,” said Prime who, at 41, regards himself as on the mature wing of the Real community.
He is worried about lunatics and hotheads. He says he would never act like the Black Monday Society in Salt Lake City who interrupt drug deals in public parks and face off against armed thugs.
Utah police officers say they appreciate Ghost, a 33-year-old concrete worker, and his colourfully costumed cohorts Insignis, Oni, Ha! and Silver Dragon. But other police departments recall that America’s most feared gangs, the Crips and the Bloods, were also born as idealistic “community defenders”.
It can be dangerous. Master Legend of Florida, who arms himself with a pepper-spraying cannon powered by cans of antiperspirant, was attacked by a man with a hammer.
There is a high burn-out rate. Terrifica, a 5ft 9in redcaped superheroine, who would manhandle drunken girls away from heavy-handed dates in nocturnal New York, spoke about how she despised her “weak, needy and dumped” alter-ego Sarah.
Artemis of San Diego reported on his blog that he had heard a woman screaming outside his home but by the time he had dressed up in his costume the police were already there. Kevlex, 47, who runs the Superhero Registry, says he patrols more in winter than summer in Arizona, when his Kevlar and Spandex kit itches. But the deadliest kryptonite against a superhero is boredom.
“I was out every night, 8pm until 2am, hanging about all the bad corners and nothing happened, nada, zip,” recalled Mr Invisible. “It was raining: even the drug dealers were at home. And often cops are just too good at their jobs.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5404186.ece