"Breaking the spell" of Bystander effect???

So follow me on this one… “Bystander effect” where something happens & people stand around and watch…or worse Video a drowning person for their youtube channel.
Sunday I was headed home up McMullen Booth when all the traffic in my lane slows to a dead crawl & gets all swervie up ahead…when I finally get up there there is a Damn BOX SPRING off a King or Queen size bead laying across the lane! No body is doing anything accept trying to get around it. I stop & dive out to grab it, and suddenly the guy behind me does the same thing. We grab it together, toss it in the grass, & take off.
So…did my stopping “Break the spell” of Bystander effect? This is not the first time this has happened to me, just the first time I’ve realized it fully that people act after I do. Has this happened to any of you? does this make what we do actually more important? Opinions? Thoughts?

Shazam! Real-life superheroes to the rescue

Originally posted: http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Shazam+Real+life+superheroes+rescue/5740438/story.html
By Douglas Quan, Postmedia News     November 20, 2011

By day, they are regular folks with full-time jobs, bills to pay and mouths to feed.
By night, they are masked and sometimes-caped crusaders, who troll the streets looking to help the needy, stamp out crime and fulfil their comic-book inspired dreams.
But lately the mostly anonymous members of the so-called Real Life Superheroes movement (known as RLSH) in Canada and the U.S. have been feeling a bit of angst and more than a little misunderstood after a bout of bad publicity.
First, there was the arrest last month of Seattle’s high-profile crime fighter Phoenix Jones (whose real name is Ben Fodor) over an alleged assault. Jones, who wears a black-and-gold uniform complete with Batman-like fake abs, says he unleashed a canister of pepper spray to break up a fight.
Then last week, Canadians learned about a group of B.C. teens who posed as underaged girls online, lured men into encounters and then confronted them at designated meeting spots in Batman and Flash costumes while video cameras rolled. Police immediately rebuked the sting operations, saying the teens put themselves at risk.
“I’m sorry if I am being cautious, but you do understand … we are in a fragile state because a few of us have been seen as, well, vigilantes or worse,” said Ark, a Toronto-based superhero in an email.
“Media is a powerful thing, and I honestly don’t want you or any other kind of reporter dragging the Canadian RLSH down.”
Members of the movement, which was the subject of an HBO documentary earlier this year, insist their mission is simple: to do good deeds and inspire others to do the same. That includes participating in neighbourhood patrols, working with charities and helping the homeless.
Sure, their costumes are gimmicky, but the shtick sticks in people’s minds and draws attention to their causes, they say. Vigilantism, they insist, is not condoned.
“They’re not vigilantes. They’re not doing anything against the law. They may be using unusual methods, but they’re using symbolism to market good deeds,” said Peter Tangen, a Hollywood movie poster photographer who has done photo shoots with dozens of real life superheroes across the U.S.
There are more than 600 people worldwide listed as members on the website reallifesuperheroes.org. Most are based in the United States.
They include New York City’s Dark Guardian, who flushes out drug dealers in Washington Square Park; red-white-and-blue-uniformed DC Guardian, who patrols the nation’s capital while dispensing copies of the U.S. Constitution; Super Hero in Clearwater, Florida, who drives around in a Corvette Stingray and helps stranded motorists; and Urban Avenger, who breaks up fights outside bars in San Diego.
There are at least a handful of real-life superheroes scattered across Canada. In Vancouver, there’s Thanatos, a married 63 year-old ex-U.S. military officer and self-proclaimed “comic book geek,” who is named after the Greek god of death.
Thanatos, who works in the death industry – he declined to say what he does exactly – says he acts as an extra set of eyes and ears for the police in the Downtown Eastside and also hands out food, blankets and socks to the homeless every month.
He cuts a creepy look, dressed in a black trench coat, black and green skull mask and flattened Australian bush hat. The getup, he admits, can freak out some people.
But accompanying each care package is a slip of paper bearing the words “Thanatos – Real Life Superhero” on one side and “Friend” on the other.
“They know they have a friend out there, even if it’s a crazy guy with a mask,” he said.
Toronto’s Ark is a 26-year-old guitar-playing security guard, who says he feels compelled to jump in to help the “less fortunate, the troubled and the weak.”
“I, for some reason, care for the unfortunate, and I don’t tolerate people who take advantage of other people,” he said.
Though he has broken up fights over the years, Ark says he’s “not really a crime fighter. I don’t go out of my way to find trouble.” He prefers walking around handing out sandwiches and coffee to the needy.
His uniform is simple – “I don’t dress to impress,” he says – consisting of black tactical pants, black tactical jacket, black military hat and partial face mask.
He also wears a bulletand stab-proof vest and brings along his “tactical hard knuckles and soft padded gloves” – for “deterrent” purposes.
One of the newer members to the movement is exreservist Crimson Canuck, a married, 24-year-old father, in Windsor, Ont., who works as a telephone technician.
He says he was drawn to the movement out of a desire to make the city better. “I don’t want my daughter to be afraid to go downtown,” he says.
Crimson Canuck, whose outfit consists of a crimson shirt, red tie, black vest, grey slacks, combat boots, black fedora and partial face mask, recently blogged about his first-ever downtown street patrol.
Before he left the door, his wife “called me a fool and made sure I brought mace, in case things got hairy,” he wrote.
But things didn’t get hairy. In fact, it was a quiet night.
“No action,” he wrote. “Not even a car alarm.”
He ended the night instead by grabbing some food from McDonald’s and sharing some of it with a homeless man in a wheelchair.
“I’ve done my share of bad things,” he wrote. “But now might be a good time to make up for it all. I’m not a clean-cut good guy. I’m just a guy who wants to do good.”

© Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist

Real-life superhero movement growing, but not getting warm reception from police

Originally posted:

When Seattle-based masked crusader Phoenix Jones was arrested last week for pepper spraying a group of people he claims were fighting, he piqued the curiosity of thousands across the nation. A real-life superhero? Stopping crime in the dark of night? Suit, boots, mask and all?
It turns out Jones isn’t the only ordinary guy whose nighttime is filled with crime-fighting, caped adventures. The Web site RealLifeSuperheroes.orgboasts 720 members. Posts on the site suggest there are dozens, if not hundreds, of real-life superheroes currently in action in St. Petersburg, Fla., New York City and Milwaukee, among other cities.
But though these superheroes have attracted thousands of adoring fans, city cops don’t count themselves among them.
“Just because he’s dressed up in costume, it doesn’t mean he’s in special consideration or above the law,” Seattle police spokesman Detective Mark Jamieson said of Jones.
Other police say vigilantes like Jones risk hurting themselves and others.

Batman

Mark Wayne Williams, a.k.a. Michigan’s “Batman.” (Image via YouTube)


When Michigan resident Mark Wayne Williams was caught in May hanging from a building wearing a Batman outfit, police promptly arrested him for trespassing and possession of dangerous weapons, according to Michigan’s Petoskey News-Review.
As part of his probation, Williams, a member of the so-called “Michigan Protectors,” is not allowed to wear any more costumes. That includes his baton, chemical spray, and weighted gloves.
And yet the movement keeps growing. Last year’s hit movie “Kick-Ass,” which follows a kid without special powers who decides to be a superhero, and the recent HBO documentary called “Superheroes,” may have given the movement a push.
The drama that accompanies real-life superheroes has likely also helped the cause. When summoned to court last week, Jones whipped off his normal clothing to reveal a flashy gold and black costume beneath. He also gave an impassioned speech outside the court, designed to appeal to any citizen with a sense of justice:

I will continue to patrol with my team, probably tonight. … In addition to being Phoenix Jones, I am also Ben Fodor, father and brother. I am just like everybody else. The only difference is that I try to stop crime in my neighborhood and everywhere else.

As the movement has grown, it has also sought to become more organized, with some members proposing a uniform set of standards, others publishing tutorials on how people can join, and a few even considering a sanctioning body to oversee it.
There are now many sub-movements within the movement, such as the Rain City Superhero Movement in Seattle, of which Phoenix Jones is the leader.
“The movement has grown majorly,” Edward Stinson, a Florida-based writer who advises real-life superheroes, told MSNBC. “What I tell these guys is, ‘You’re no longer in the shadows. You’re in a new era. … Build trust. Set standards. Make the real-life superheroes work to earn that title and take some kind of oath.’ ”

Arrest marks growing pains for superhero movement

Originally posted: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ix-PXiZOo4Z-N_Jx8NWWWs0zkwvQ?docId=a51a823c485c4474a79aa1c01b22ae96
By Gene Johnson, Associated Press
SEATTLE (AP) — Fabio Heuring was standing outside a Seattle nightclub on a Saturday night and smoking cigarettes with a friend when a man bolting from a bouncer ran into them. The enraged man ripped off his shirt in the middle of the street and prepared to give Heuring’s buddy a beating.
Just then, in swooped a bizarre sight: a self-proclaimed superhero in a black mask and matching muscle-suit. He doused the aggressor with pepper spray, much to Heuring’s shocked relief.
A couple hours later, though, the superhero ended up in jail for investigation of assault after using those tactics on another group of clubgoers, sending pangs of anxiety through the small, eccentric and mostly anonymous community of masked crime-fighters across the U.S.
The comic book-inspired patrolling of city streets by “real life super-heroes” has been getting more popular in recent years, thanks largely to mainstream attention in movies like last year’s “Kick-Ass” and the recent HBO documentary “Superheroes.” And as the ranks of the masked, caped and sometimes bullet-proof-vested avengers swell, many fret that even well-intentioned vigilantes risk hurting themselves, the public and the movement if they’re as aggressive as the crime-fighter in Seattle.
Some have gone so far as to propose a sanctioning body to ensure that high super-hero standards are maintained.
“The movement has grown majorly,” said Edward Stinson, a writer from Boca Raton, Fla., who advises real-life superheroes on a website devoted to the cause. “What I tell these guys is, ‘You’re no longer in the shadows. You’re in a new era. … Build trust. Set standards. Make the real-life superheroes work to earn that title and take some kind of oath.'”
It’s not clear how many costumed vigilantes there are in the U.S. The website www.reallifesuperheroes.org lists 660 members around the world. They range from members of the New York Initiative in New York City and the Shadow Corp in Saginaw, Mich., to a character named Nightbow who says he has patrolled the streets of Carlisle, England, for three years.
Some take on their fictional identities while doing charity work.
Benjamin Fodor, better known as Phoenix Jones, is the most prominent face of the Rain City Superhero Movement, a collection of vigilantes who appeared in Seattle over the past year. Early on Oct. 9, about two hours after he saved Heuring and his buddy, the 23-year-old man charged a group of people leaving a downtown nightclub as a videographer trailed him.
From the shaky camera work, it appeared there may have been some kind of disturbance in the group. Fodor insists he was breaking up a fight when he hit the crowd with pepper spray; the people who got sprayed told police there had been no fight. He was briefly booked into jail for investigation of assault, but prosecutors haven’t charged him yet. He appeared in court last week while wearing his superhero costume under a button-down shirt.
“Recently there have been increased reports of citizens being pepper sprayed by (Fodor) and his group,” the police report noted. “Although (Fodor) has been advised to observe and report incidents to 911, he continues to try to resolve things on his own.”
Fodor remained unapologetic after the court appearance, saying he’s just like anyone else except that “I decided to make a difference and stop crime in my neighborhood.” He invited members of the public to join him on patrol Saturday night.
Heuring, a 27-year-old shuttle driver from Auburn, is a fan.
“Without a question, there was a fight going to happen,” he said. “It could have ended ugly had he not come in. He used good judgment in our case. He saw who was instigating it and who he needed to defend.”
But many in the vigilante community point to Fodor’s arrest as a watershed moment: As more people — often, young people — fashion themselves into superheroes, they risk finding themselves in similar situations where they wind up hurting innocent members of the public or being shot, stabbed or beaten themselves. Such negative attention could doom the movement, they say.
Stinson, who is 40 and says he has a military background, said that if the movement is to continue to grow, it needs to do a better job policing itself. He envisions a nonprofit organization that would have departments devoted to fundraising and building community trust and alliances. He also thinks there should be tactical superhero training — including how to take control of a volatile situation and defuse it.
Filmmaker Michael Barnett followed 50 real-life crime fighters for 15 months for his documentary “Superheroes.” Many have great intentions, he said, but that doesn’t mean their methods are proper.
“The police by in large appreciate an extra set of eyes, but they really, really want these guys to do it according to the law,” Barnett said.
Masked crusaders began appearing in the 1970s with San Diego’s Captain Sticky, who used his Superman-like costume to fight against rental car rip-offs and for tenant rights, Barnett said. They spread throughout the country in the 1980s and 1990s, and became more popular thanks to the faster communications and online support communities of the Internet.
Barnett said he met plumbers, teachers, cashiers and firefighters who leave their day jobs behind every night in the name of security. Their weapons include pepper spray, stun guns and batons. Relatively few have any combat training or any formal knowledge of how to use their arsenal, he said.
That concerns the professional crime-fighters.
“If people want to dress up and walk around, knock yourself out,” said Seattle police spokesman Mark Jamieson. “Our concern is when you insert yourself into these situations without knowing the facts, it’s just not a smart thing to do. If you think a situation warrants calling 911, call 911.”
Not all of the vigilantes take a confrontational approach. A 53-year-old man in Mountain View, Calif., who calls himself “The Eye,” keeps a low-enough profile that officers there have never booked anyone arrested with his help.
“The only reason I know him is because he’s my neighbor,” said police spokeswoman Liz Wylie. “He’s a neighborhood watch block captain, a very good one at that.”

New York City ‘Superheroes’ React To Arrest Of Crime Fighter ‘Phoenix Jones’

Originally posted: http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/10/11/new-york-city-superheroes-react-to-arrest-of-crime-fighter-phoenix-jones/
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – New York’s burgeoning amateur “superhero” community take notice: Don’t try breaking up a fight in Seattle.
The Big Apple is home to countless comic book superheros – and a few self-styled “real” ones.
The New York Initiative is a group of folks who wear costumes and say their goals are patrolling for criminals, public security, humanitarian outreach and more.
Their mission statement, found on their Facebook page, says “We are individuals organized towards achieving peacekeeping objectives and humanitarian missions. This will translate into a variety of non-monetary services as unfolding events demand. Our primary goal will always be to help those in the most need to the highest ethical standard and to the maximum effect.”
News of the arrest of one of their costumed colleagues in Seattle – a man who guys by the name Phoenix Jones – has their Facebook page humming.
The arrest came after a confrontation that was caught on video and is embedded below.
Phoenix Jones Stops Assault from Ryan McNamee on Vimeo.
Jones, whose real name is Benjamin Fodor, allegedly used pepper spray on four people. They say they were dancing in the streets; Jones says they were fighting and tried to break it up.
His actions have prompted a response within New York’s superhero community.
“I believe he acted inappropriately in this instance,” Chris Pollak, aka Dark Guardian, told CBSNewYork.  The Dark Guardian was featured in a documentary on real life superheroes, and he was seen rousting alleged drug dealers in Washington Square Park.
“He rushed into a situation and reacted with very poor judgement. He maced a group of people who were not attacking him. He was not acting in self defense and the police have rightfully charged him with assault,” Pollak said.
He added that he hopes Phoenix Jones’ actions don’t reflect on the superhero movement.
“This is an example of what not to do as a community crime-fighter. It should be a priority to deescalate situations and work hand in hand with the police to garner the smartest and safest outcome. I stand with the police and want everyone to know he is not a true reflection on what others like myself do in our communities to help,” Pollak said.
Reaction on the Intiative’s Facebook page was also intense.
“That’s what happens when you react the way he did,” self-styled hero Short Cut wrote. “Despite popular belief, you do not fight fire with fire. You are supposed to cool things down.”
“I’m pretty sure he just screwed it up for everyone,” wrote Jack Cero, another self-styled hero. “They now have precedent if his conviction goes through, and what’s more is that his charges will be double due to his body armor and mask.”
However, fan response on Jones’ Facebook page has been pretty massive, with scores of folks leaving messages of support.

Superheroes to attend IFC Screening in New York

Dark GuardianOriginally posted: http://www.slamdance.com/2060786/Superheroes-to-attend-IFC-Screening-in-New-York
Los Angeles – September 26, 2011 – The IFC Center will launch Slamdance’s 2011 On The Road tour on October 7th 2011 for a weeklong engagement. The traveling theatrical showcase will feature the critically acclaimed documentary Superheroes directed by Michael Barnett as well as the award winning short film Hello Caller by Andrew Putschoegl.
This year’s On the Road launch represents a well-established relationship between Slamdance and The IFC Center. Soon after opening, the Center found success with Mad Hot Ballroom, a documentary that premiered and was acquired from Slamdance in 2005. As an advocate for independent films, The IFC Center serves as the ideal starting point for the Festival whose mantra is ‘By Filmmakers For Filmmakers.’ Slamdance’s president and Co-founder Peter Baxter explains “On The Road brings popular Slamdance films to audiences that otherwise would not have the opportunity to see them on the big screen and provides our filmmakers commercial benefits that they otherwise would not receive.”
Superheroes is a profoundly funny, eccentric and inspiring film that chronicles the extraordinary lives of real-life superheroes as they take to the streets to protect and support their communities. Perhaps the most intimidating of the heroes featured in the film are a group of Brooklyn-based vigilantes. Life, Dark Guardian and other superheroes from the New York initiative will be in attendance and participate in a Q&A which will immediately follow the screening.
Eight months after the world premiere of Superheroes at the 2011 festival, the Slamdance team continues to demonstrate a commitment to their alumni. As director Michael Barnett puts it, “The tremendous exposure our film gained from Slamdance helped us sell Superheroes to HBO. Partnering with Slamdance for a theatrical release shows how forward thinking they really are.”
Each screening will begin with Hello Caller about a suicidal woman who makes a call for help with unexpected and hilarious results. “We’re still in shock that Hello Caller is getting a theatrical release,” admits director Andrew Putschoegl. “Short films are hard enough to make, let alone find distribution.”
After the IFC Center, Slamdance’s On the Road tour will travel to Dublin, Ireland; Omaha, Nebraska; Salt Lake City, Utah; Houston, Texas; Seattle, Washington; Juneau, Alaska; Atlanta, Georgia; Los Angeles, California; Vancouver, BC; and Minneapolis, Minnesota.
About Slamdance – As a year-round organization, Slamdance serves as a showcase for the discovery of new and emerging talent and is dedicated to the nurturing and development of new independent artists and their cinematic vision. For the 2011 Festival, Slamdance received a record number of over 5,000 submissions and is well on the way to surpassing that record with the 2012 festival submissions. No other festival is fully programmed by filmmakers. Slamdance counts among its alumni many notable writers and directors who first gained notice at the festival, including Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight), Marc Forster (Monster’s Ball), Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite) and Oren Peli (Paranormal Activity). New filmmakers and writers today realize Slamdance is a great place to launch their careers. In 2010, Slamdance began a Video on Demand partnership with Microsoft and has continued to expand its exhibition efforts theatrically through Slamdance On The Road. New filmmakers and writers today realize Slamdance is a great place to launch their careers. Slamdance 2012 takes place January 20th-26th in Park City and is currently calling for festival entries.

October 28-30- Superheroes Anonymous 5

Superheroes Anonymous LogoOriginally posted: http://plancast.com/p/7nxk/superheroes-anonymous-year-five-new-york-city
Five years ago, Superheroes Anonymous launched the first large scale meeting of Real Life Superheroes. Since then we’ve been able to help over 5,000 homeless people, do missions all over the world including hospital visitations, public safety patrols, workshops and we have been featured in over 200 publications (such as NYT, CNN, FOX, BBC, 60 Minutes) from over 45 countries with a message of inspiration and empowerment.Following the launch of our first event, we visited New Orleans and rebuilt with Habitat for Humanity where Mayor Nagin declared it “The Day of the Superheroes,” in New Bedford, MA we had a benefit concert for a homeless shelter and lifesaving and self-defense courses and last year in Portland we Raced for the Cure against breast cancer and gave blood with the Oregon Red Cross.
This year, we’re giving back to the city where it all started: New York. We are holding a giant event during the weekend of October 28-30th that will incorporate the best of of the charitable, fun and community-outreach programs that we have been involved with in the years past.
About Year Five
Superheroes Anonymous Year Five is an event taking place in New York City from Friday Oct 28th culminating on Sunday, October 30th, 2011. Real Life Superheroes will convene from around the world, promoting public acts of charity and community outreach through workshops, classes, patrols, a benefit concert and a press conference. Superheroes Anonymous Year Five will globally empower people all over and support our goal of saving the world.
www.superheroesanonymous.com
www.facebook.com/superherolife
www.twitter.com/superherolife

 

It's a bird, a plane …

Originally posted: http://www2.tbo.com/news/breaking-news/2011/sep/21/menewso1-its-a-bird-a-plane-ar-259350/
Photo by Peter Tangen

Photo by Peter Tangen


By RAY REYES | The Tampa Tribune
Published: September 21, 2011A car was engulfed in flames on the highway, so he extinguished it.
Another vehicle veered off the road and into a lake, so he dove into the water to make sure no one was trapped inside.
He gives food to the homeless, toys to needy children and patrols the streets searching for criminal acts to foil.
He does it all in a cape and bright red-and-blue tights. He calls himself Super Hero and, yes, he’s for real.
His actual, not-so-secret identity is Dale Pople. He wasn’t bitten by a radioactive spider, accidently bathed in gamma rays or launched from a dying alien world toward Earth.
He’s a just a normal guy who aspires to make a positive impact on the world. And he’s not going at it alone.
Pople, 42, is a participant in the Real Life Superhero Movement, a group of about 200 across the nation who commit good deeds in costumed personas inspired by comic books.
While the masked Master Legend dons body armor to patrol parts of Orlando, a martial artist named Dark Guardian confronts drug dealers in New York City and others in major cities organize drives for charities, Pople’s base of operations is Clearwater.
He’s gotten odd looks from passersby, he said, and people have asked him why he wears a costume to perform charitable acts when so many ordinary volunteers or crime watch members don’t.
“You know, back in the day I used to justify it,” said Pople, 42, who invented his Super Hero identity 13 years ago after a knee injury derailed his plans of becoming a pro wrestler. “Nowadays I just admit to myself it’s a hell of a lot of fun. It’s rewarding.”
Peter Tangen, a professional photographer from Los Angeles, has taken portraits and produced profiles of dozens of caped crusaders for his website, The Real Life Super Hero Project. He said the real-world crime fighters he’s met use the modern mythos of comic books to be remembered for making positive contributions to society.
“There are millions of people who do good in this world, but the media doesn’t pay attention to them. This is the marketing of good deeds,” said Tangen, who also is the consulting producer of the documentary “Superheroes.”
The film premiered on HBO in August and featured Super Hero, Master Legend, Life from New York, Mr. Xtreme from San Diego and others.
“Really, who decides, ‘I’m going to put on spandex and save the world?’ ” Tangen said. “In a world somewhat apathetic, these people are a model for making a different choice.”
Ben Goldman, the co-founder of Superheroes Anonymous, a website that advocates the acts and community outreach of real-life heroes, said to think of the costumes as colorful spandex versions of police or firefighter uniforms.
“When you put on a superhero costume, you’re expected to live up to an ideal,” Goldman said. “You’re following in the footsteps of fictional predecessors. If a person sees somebody hand food to a homeless person dressed normally, it’s ordinary. In a costume, it’s extraordinary.”
Goldman’s website features blogs and other resources to help fledgling heroes join the movement. Superheroes Anonymous offers tips on creating costumes and posts notices of real-life superhero meetings and conferences.
Tangen said his website showcases the idea that one person can make a difference, that the morals of iconic characters such as Superman and Captain America can be upheld in the real world by those dedicated enough to do so.
“It’s a reflection of our times,” he said. “It’s a rejection of apathy.”
The real-life superheroes and those who’ve documented them say they’re not sure when or how the phenomenon started. No one knows for sure who made the first public appearance.
One thing that’s agreed on is this: about 10 years ago, a few people in cities separated miles apart felt compelled to avenge injustice in their communities. Turning to comic books and movies for a code to live by, they seemingly donned masks and costumes around the same time.
“At the time, we knew these superheroes existed,” Goldman said. “But they were widely scattered. They communicated only through the Internet.”
Pople said that’s how he discovered and contacted other heroes — and how they found out about him.
“The first time I did this, I was like, ‘Am I the only guy who thinks this is worth doing?’ ” he said. He created a profile on social networking site MySpace, which he and Goldman credit with spreading the movement, and found out about other heroes across the country.
“They come from different backgrounds,” Goldman said. “The Real Life Super Hero Movement proves that they could’ve either wallowed in suffering or become inspiring.”
Some toe the line of vigilantism, preferring to thwart violent crimes themselves instead of calling police to the scene.
“We don’t endorse the crime-fighting element because it’s dangerous,” Goldman said. “Being an engaged citizen is fine. Safety patrols are fine. But don’t engage in vigilantism.”
Elizabeth Watts, spokeswoman for the Clearwater Police Department, said the officers in her agency are familiar with Pople and his alter-ego, Super Hero. He’s never caused them problems and has obeyed the laws.
“We have cautioned him to not go into certain areas, for safety reasons,” Watts said.
Goldman said these days the movement targets “more concrete, realistic goals,” such as holiday drives and annual summits where real-life superheroes can meet one another and their fans.
“Almost universally, they’re all comic book fans or have an appreciation for the superhero persona,” Goldman said.
Pople said he was a “sickly, nerdy kid” who grew up on a “steady diet of action movies and comic books.” When his pro wrestling career ended prematurely, he decided to keep the Super Hero persona to “see what would happen if I did this for real.”
He’s a member of Team Justice, Inc., an Orlando-based nonprofit group of real-life superheroes who donate items and volunteer for central Florida charities.
According to Tangen’s website, Mr. Xtreme was attacked by gang members and bullied as a boy. He donned a costume to “protest against indifference in society. People are being victimized, and I feel that someone has to take a stand.”
With more widespread attention, the heroes have found themselves in unfamiliar territory: becoming celebrities and influencing the mediums that influenced them.
The comic book “Kick Ass,” about a normal teenager who decided to become the titular, costumed hero, was inspired by the Real Life Superhero Movement, Goldman said. The comic was later adapted into a movie starring Nicholas Cage.
Real-life heroes are now fixtures at Comic-Con International, the world’s biggest comic book, science fiction and movie convention, held every year in California. They have been featured not only in HBO’s “Superheroes,” but also other documentaries, news programs and numerous YouTube clips.
The movement continues to gain momentum, Goldman said, because the core group of 200 believes that the battle for truth, justice and the Real Life Superhero Movement never ends.
“A superhero’s biggest enemy is apathy,” Pople said. “I don’t expect to change the world, but I think I’m making a dent.”

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's…Some Dude?!

Originally posted: http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201108/real-life-superheroes-phoenix-jones

They are ordinary men in extraordinary costumes, and they have risen from the ashes of our troubled republic to ensure the safety of their fellow citizens. Jon Ronson goes on patrol with Urban Avenger, Mr. Xtreme, Pitch Black, Knight Owl, Ghost, and the baddest-ass “real-life superhero” of them all, Phoenix Jones

August 2011

I am rushing to the emergency room to meet a real-life superhero called Phoenix Jones, who has fought one crime too many and is currently peeing a lot of blood. Five nights a week, Phoenix dresses in a superhero outfit of his own invention and chases car thieves and breaks up bar fights and changes the tires of stranded strangers. I’ve flown to Seattle to join him on patrol. I landed only a few minutes ago, at midnight on a Friday in early March, and in the arrivals lounge I phoned his friend and spokesman, Peter Tangen, who told me the news.
Hospital?” I said. “Is he okay?”
“I don’t know,” said Peter. He sounded worried. “The thing you have to remember about Phoenix is that he’s not impervious to pain.” He paused. “You should get a taxi straight from the airport to there.”
At 1 a.m. I arrive at the ER and am led into Phoenix’s room. And there he is: a young and extremely muscular black man lying in bed in a hospital smock, strapped to an IV, tubes attached to his body. Most disconcertingly, he’s wearing a full-face black-and-gold rubber superhero mask.
“Good to meet you!” he hollers enthusiastically through the mouth hole. He gives me the thumbs-up, which makes the IV needle tear his skin slightly. “Ow,” he says.
His 2-year-old son and 4-year-old stepson run fractiously around the room. “Daddy was out fighting bad guys in his super suit, and now he has to wait here,” he tells them. Then he makes me promise to identify neither them nor his girlfriend, to protect his secret identity.
He looks frustrated, hemmed in, fizzing with restless energy. “We break up two or three acts of violence a night,” he says. “Two or three people are being hurt right now, and I’m stuck here. It bothers me.”
By “we” he means his ten-strong Seattle crew, the Rain City Superheroes. A few hours ago, they were patrolling when they saw a guy swinging a baseball bat at another guy outside a bar. “I ran across the street, and he jabbed me in the stomach,” he says, pointing at a spot just below his belly button. “Right under my armor.”
Unfortunately the head of the bat landed exactly where he’d been punched a week earlier by another bar brawler holding a car key in his fist. That attack had burst a hole right through Phoenix’s skin.
“A few hours ago I went to use the bathroom and I started peeing blood,” he says. “A lot of it.”
I glance over at Phoenix’s girlfriend. “There’s no point worrying about it,” she says with a shrug.
Finally the doctor arrives with the test results. “The good news is there’s no serious damage,” he says. “You’re bruised. Rest. It’s very important that you go home and rest. By the way, why do you name a pediatrician as your doctor?” “You’re allowed to stay with your pediatrician until you’re 22,” Phoenix explains.
We both look surprised: This big masked man, six feet one and 205 pounds, is barely out of boyhood.
“Go home and rest,” says the doctor, leaving the room.
Phoenix watches him go. There’s a short silence. “Let’s hit the streets!” he hollers. “My crew is out there somewhere. I’ll get suited up!”
···

Phoenix didn’t know this when he first donned the suit about a year ago, but he’s one of around 200 real-life superheroes currently patrolling America’s streets, looking for wrongs to right. There’s DC’s Guardian, in Washington, who wears a full-body stars-and-stripes outfit and wanders the troubled areas behind the Capitol building. There’s RazorHawk, from Minneapolis, who was a pro wrestler for fifteen years before joining the RLSH movement. There’s New York City’s Dark Guardian, who specializes in chasing pot dealers out of Washington Square Park by creeping up to them, shining a light in their eyes, and yelling, “This is a drug-free park!” And there are dozens and dozens more. Few, if any, are as daring as Phoenix. Most undertake basically safe community work: helping the homeless, telling kids to stay off drugs, etc. They’re regular men with jobs and families and responsibilities who somehow have enough energy at the end of the day to journey into America’s neediest neighborhoods to do what they can.Every superhero has his origin story, and as we drive from the hospital to his apartment, Phoenix tells me his. His life, he says, hasn’t been a breeze. He lived for a time in a Texas orphanage, was adopted by a Seattle family around age 9, and now spends his days working with autistic kids. One night last summer, someone broke into his car. There was shattered glass on the floor, and his stepson gashed his knee on it.
“I got tired of people doing things that are morally questionable,” he says. “Everyone’s afraid. It just takes one person to say, ‘I’m not afraid.’ And I guess I’m that guy.”
The robber had left his mask in the car, so Phoenix picked it up and made his own mask from it. “He used the mask to conceal his identity,” he says. “I used the mask to become an identity.”
He called himself Phoenix Jones because the Phoenix rises from the ashes and Jones is one of America’s most common surnames: He was the common man rising from society’s ashes.
It’s 2:30 a.m. by the time we reach his very messy apartment, where he quickly changes into his full superhero costume: a black-and-gold rubber suit complete with stab plates and a pouch for his Taser and Mace. “It’s bulletproof,” he tells me.
We head downtown and park in the business district, a bunch of empty office buildings in a nice part of Seattle. Other than some junkies and drunks wandering around like zombies, the place is deserted. We see neither his crew nor any crime.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“I’m in a lot of pain,” he says. “The cut’s still bleeding, internally and externally. A couple of my old injuries are flaring up, like some broken ribs. I’m having a rough night.”
“Maybe you’re going too hard,” I say.
“Crime doesn’t care how I feel,” he replies.
Just then a young man approaches us. He’s sweating, looking distressed. “I’ve been crying, dude!” he yells.
He’s here on vacation, he explains. His parents live a two-hour bus ride away, in central Washington, and he’s only $9.40 short for the fare home. “I’ve asked sixty people,” he pleads. “Will you touch my heart, save my life, and give me $9.40?”
Phoenix turns to me. “You down for a car-ride adventure?” he says excitedly. “We’re going to drive the guy back to his parents!
The young man looks panicked. “Honestly, $9.40 is fine…,” he says, backing away slightly.
“No, no!” says Phoenix. “We’re going to drive you home! Where’s your luggage?”
“Um, in storage at the train station…,” he says.
“We’ll meet you there in ten minutes!” says Phoenix.
Thirty minutes later: the train station. The man hasn’t showed up. Phoenix narrows his eyes. “I think he was trying to scam us,” he says, looking genuinely surprised.
Does this guilelessness make him delightfully naive, I wonder, or disturbingly naive? He is, after all, planning to lead me into some hazardous situations this weekend.
At 4 a.m. we finally locate his crew on a corner near the station. Tonight there’s Pitch Black, Ghost, and Red Dragon. They’re all costumed and masked and, although in good shape, smaller and stockier than Phoenix. He stands tall among them and does most of the talking, too. They’re monosyllabic, as if deferring to their leader.

They have a visitor—a superhero from Oregon named Knight Owl. He’s been fighting crime since January 2008 and is in town for a comic-book convention. He’s tall, masked, and muscular, in his late twenties, and dressed in a black-and-yellow costume. It is similar to, but less awesome than, Phoenix’s sculpted and buffed one. The crew briefs Phoenix on a group of crack addicts and dealers loitering at a nearby bus stop. A plan is formed. They’ll just walk slowly past them to show who’s boss. No confrontation. Just an intimidating walk-by.We spot them right away. There are ten of them, clustered in a tight group, looking old and wired, talking animatedly. When they see us, they fall silent and shoot us wary glances, probably wondering what the superheroes are talking about.
This is what the superheroes are talking about:

Knight Owl: I’ve discovered a maskmaker who does these really awesome owl masks. They’re made out of old gas masks.
Phoenix: Like what Urban Avenger’s got?
Knight Owl: Sort of, but owl-themed. I’m going to ask her if she’ll put my logo on it in brass.
Phoenix: That’s awesome. By the way, I really like your color scheme.
Knight Owl: Thank you. I think the yellow really pops.

We’re ten feet away now. The superhero chatter ceases, and the only sound is the squeak of my luggage wheels as I roll them down the street. Up close, these dealers and addicts look exhausted, burnt-out.
Leave them alone, I think. Haven’t they got enough to deal with? They’ll be gone by the time any daytime people wake up. Why can’t they have their hour at the bus stop? Plus, aren’t we prodding a hornet’s nest? Couldn’t this be like the Taco Incident times a thousand?
The Taco Incident. Ever since Phoenix appeared on CNN in January in a short segment extolling his acts of derring-do, the superhero community has been rife with grumbling. Many of them, evidently jealous of Phoenix’s stunning rise, have been spreading rumors. The chief gossips have been N.Y.C.’s Dark Guardian and Seattle’s Mr. Raven Blade. They say Phoenix is not as brave as he likes people to believe, that he’s in it for personal gain, and that his presence on the streets only serves to escalate matters. To support this last criticism, they cite the Taco Incident.
Phoenix sighs. “It was a drunk driver. He was getting into his car, so I tried to give him a taco and some water to sober him up. He didn’t want it. Eventually he got kind of violent. He tried to shove me. So I pulled out my Taser, and I fired some warning shots. Then the police showed up….”
“I didn’t realize he was a drunk driver,” I said. “The other superheroes implied it was just a regular random guy you were trying to force a taco onto. But still—” I gesture at the nearby crack dealers—”the Taco Incident surely demonstrates how things can inadvertently spiral.”
“They’re in my house,” he resolutely replies. “Any corner where people go, that’s my corner. And I’m going to defend it.”
We walk slowly past the bus stop. Nothing happens. Everyone just mutters angrily at one another.
It is now 5 a.m. Our first night’s patrolling together ends. I’m glad, as I found that last part a little frightening. I am not a naturally confrontational person, and I’d really like to check into my hotel and go to bed.
···The real-life-superhero movement began, the folklore goes, back in 1980, when someone by the name of the Night Rider published a book called How to Be a Superhero. But the phenomenon really took hold a few years later when a young man from New Orleans (whose true identity is still a closely guarded secret) built a silver suit, called himself Master Legend, and stepped out onto the streets. He was an influential if erratic inspiration to those that followed.
“Ninety percent of us think Master Legend is crazy,” Phoenix told me. “He’s always drinking. He believes he was born wearing a purple veil and has died three times. But he does great deeds of heroism. He once saw someone try to rape a girl, and he beat the guy so severely he ended up in a hospital for almost a month. He’s an enigma.”
So what happened next? How did the RLSH movement grow from one visionary in Louisiana to 200 crusaders and counting? Well, the rise of the mega-comic conventions has certainly helped. I remember a friend, the film director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World), returning from his first San Diego Comic Con saucer-eyed with tales of hitherto reclusive geeks wandering around in elaborate homemade costumes, their heads held high. “It was like Geek Pride,” he said.
The community continued to blossom post-September 11 and especially during the recession of the past few years. Inspired by real-life-superhero comic books like Watchmen and Kick-Ass, both of which became movies, RLSHs have been cropping up all over the place. There’s no national convention or gathering, but Peter Tangen is doing all he can to make them a cohesive community with a robust online presence.

Tangen’s origin story is as remarkable as any of the RLSHs’. By day he’s a Hollywood studio photographer, responsible for a great many movie posters—Spider-Man, Batman Begins, Thor, Hellboy, Fantastic Four. But he’s always felt like a cog in the machine. “I’m one of those guys who toils in obscurity,” he says. “Nobody knows my name, because you don’t get credit on a movie poster.”When he learned there were people doing in real life what the likes of Tobey Maguire and Christian Bale pretend to do on a film set, it inspired him. So he approached the RLSHs, offering to photograph them in heroic, unironic poses. His hope is to make them seem valiant and worthy of respect, not just the goofy story about the crazy nerd at the end of the local newscast. His portraits are all displayed on his website, The Real Life Super Hero Project. The site has become Peter’s calling in life—his attempt to be, like the men he celebrates, exceptional.
···The morning after my first night with Phoenix, I have coffee at a downtown Seattle café with Knight Owl, a former graphic designer who joined the movement because “I wanted something more with my life.” He tells me about common rookie mistakes, such as adopting a superhero name that’s already in use. “It’s a general faux pas—anything with the words night, shadow, phantom… Those dark-vigilante-type-sounding names tend to get snapped up pretty fast.”
“Have there been any other Knight Owls?” I ask.
“There was an Owl,” he says. “The Owl. But he ended up changing his name to Scar Heart, since he’d had a heart transplant.”
He says he chose his name before he knew there was a Nite Owl in the Watchmen comic, so when people online tell him, “You’re a fucking pussy, and by the way, Knight Owl’s taken—haven’t you seen Watchmen?” they don’t know what they’re talking about.
The second rookie mistake is to “get caught up in the paraphernalia. People should think more about the functionality.”
“I assume capes aren’t functional,” I say, “because they can get snagged on things.”
“If you’re going to do some serious crime fighting, there’d better be a good reason for a cape,” he nods. “And grappling hooks—no, no, no, no, no! What? You think you’re going to scale a building? What are you going to do when you get up there? Swoop down? Parachute down? You’re not going to have enough distance for the parachute to even open.”
Knight Owl seems to regard Phoenix as the real thing in a community rife with wannabes. That’s how Phoenix sees himself, too. When I asked him why he seems to be capturing the public’s imagination in a way that the other RLSHs haven’t, he attributes it to his bravery. Others, he says, talk the talk but in reality just hand out food to the homeless and would probably run shrieking from danger if they ever chanced upon it.
“When you wake up one day and decide to put on spandex and give out sandwiches, something’s a little off,” Phoenix says. “I call them real-life sandwich handlers.”

I want to see another superhero operation to compare to Phoenix, so I fly to San Diego to meet Mr. Xtreme. He’s been patrolling since 2006, the past eight months with his protégé, Urban Avenger. They pick me up at 9 p.m. outside my hotel. Both are heavily costumed. Mr. Xtreme is a thickset man—a security guard by day—wearing a green-and-black cape, a bulletproof vest, a green helmet, and a visor upon which fake eyes have been eerily painted. His outfit is covered with stickers of a woman’s face: Kitty Genovese. In March 1964, in an infamous incident that shamed New York City, Genovese was stabbed near her apartment in Kew Gardens, Queens. Her attacker ran away. During the next half hour, several of her neighbors saw her or heard her screaming and did nothing. Then her attacker returned and killed her. She has become a talisman for the RLSH movement.

You cannot see an inch of Urban Avenger’s body. He’s wearing a weird customized gas mask, green-tinted sunglasses, a red full-length hoodie, and long black leather gloves. Underneath it all he looks quite small and skinny. He says he’s in his late twenties, has children, and works “in the food-service industry.” That’s all he’ll reveal to me.He says he loves being covered from head to toe. “When I wear this, I don’t have to react to you in any way. Nobody knows what I’m thinking or feeling. It’s great. I can be in my own little world in here.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” I say. “I was once at a Halloween party and I didn’t take off my mask all night. It completely eliminated all social anxiety.” “Sometimes I wish I never had to take the mask off,” says Urban Avenger.
We begin our patrol through the clean, well-to-do streets of downtown San Diego. We pass bars and clubs filled with polite-looking young drinkers. A few take pictures of the superheroes on their phones. Others yell, “It isn’t Halloween anymore!” from car windows. Urban Avenger says he doesn’t understand how Phoenix is forever chancing upon crimes being committed. He’s just lucky.
“What are the odds?” he sighs. “I almost never see anything.” He pauses. “Last October we got involved in breaking up some street fights.”
“Five months ago?”
“It’s been really quiet around here ever since.”
He says Phoenix is fortunate to have the scary district of Belltown on his doorstep. “Google ‘gunshots in Belltown’ and you’ll come up with a hundred stories of gunshots being fired in, like, the last year,” he says wistfully.
Some boys pass us. “Want some reefer? Ganga? Weed?” they say, sotto voce.
“No,” says Urban Avenger, walking quickly on. The boys shrug and continue on their way.
“Good thing I got all that on video,” Urban Avenger eventually calls after them, indicating a small camera attached to his shoulder.
“Crack? Heroin? PCP?” the boys call back.
“Did you really film it?” I ask.
“No,” he says.
“I noticed you didn’t attempt a citizen’s arrest,” I say.
“We didn’t have probable cause,” explains Mr. Xtreme. “All they did is say something. If they’d shown us crack rocks or marijuana, it might have been a different story.”
“You could have said you wanted to buy some, and then they’d have produced the drugs and you could have arrested them,” I say.
There’s a short silence. “That’s true,” says Urban Avenger.
···Back in Seattle, we start our second patrol at 1 a.m. on Saturday night. Phoenix is in a bad way. He’s still ailing from the key-punching and the baseball-bat incidents and has now developed a fever of 102.5.
“I found out this morning I have tetanus,” he tells me.
“You have to sleep,” I say.
“No sleeping for us,” says Phoenix.
I’m starting to like Phoenix a lot. For all his naïveté, there’s something infectiously upbeat about him. He’s forever cheerful and positive and energetic. I ask him if he’s addicted to crime fighting, and he says, “I guess you could put it in the addiction category. It’s the highlight of my day. Addictions are normally detrimental to health. This is detrimental to my health.”
He puts his positive spirit down to a stable home life: “I’ve been with my girlfriend since I was 16. I make my own money. To be a successful superhero, you’ve got to have your life in line.”
We begin in Pioneer Square. We’re a small team tonight; Pitch Black and Ghost are Phoenix’s only companions. The bars are closing, and drunk kids are piling onto the streets, but there’s still a frustrating absence of crime. But then, from somewhere up the street, we hear a shout: “I’m going to fuck you, bitch.”

“Let’s go!” yells Phoenix. He, Ghost, Pitch Black, and I start to run frantically toward the mystery commotion.”It’s the YouTube guy!” a nearby teenager shouts delightedly. “Can I get a picture?”
Phoenix screeches to a halt. “I’ll be right with you guys!” he calls to us. He poses for the girl.
“Phoenix!” I sigh.
The real-life superheroes like to portray their motives as wholly benevolent, but if they were driven purely by altruism, they’d have become police officers or firefighters or charity volunteers. Something else is evidently propelling them—a touch of narcissism. It’s an odd sort of narcissism, of course, when the narcissist disguises his face, but the lust for fame and glory is unmistakable. By the time Phoenix has had his picture taken, the potential criminal and victim are nowhere to be seen.
Two uneventful hours pass. By 3 a.m. we are losing hope. Phoenix is reduced to suggesting we rent a hotel room, phone some prostitutes, and ask them on their arrival if they need help escaping the web of prostitution.
“I think the problem with the plan,” I say, “is if a prostitute turns up at a hotel room and sees three men in masks, she’s not going to immediately think ‘superhero.’ Plus, she may have to travel all the way across Seattle. It’ll be an hour out of her night.” They agree to abandon the idea.
Suddenly we notice a man across the street drop a small, clear bag on the ground at the feet of another man.
“Yahtzee!” yells Phoenix. He rushes across the road. “What did you just drop?”
“Pretzels,” says the man, picking the bag up and showing it to us.
There’s a silence. “Good,” says Phoenix.
···Our very last hope is Belltown. When we turn the corner into the district, everything changes. By day this place is nice: art galleries, bars, restaurants. It’s just down the road from the famous Pike Place Market. But now, at 4 a.m., the two or three blocks in front of me look as menacing and desperate as the projects from The Wire. The dealers staring at us look nothing like the exhausted old crackheads from the bus stop. These are large gangs of wiry young men. They stand on every block. The police are nowhere to be seen. I take in the scene and instinctively take a small step backward.
“There’s a possibility we could get into a fight,” whispers Pitch Black. “If that happens, back off, okay?”
“What are you doing?” a man calls from across the street, outside a shuttered-up liquor store.
“Patrolling,” Phoenix calls back. “What are you doing?”
He, Pitch Black, and Ghost walk toward him. He’s with eight other men.
“You’ve got to respect people’s block, man,” the guy is saying. “You don’t come down here with your ski masks on. What are you doing, getting yourselves entwined in people’s lives? You guys are going to get hurt. You understand? You want to see our burners?”
“I don’t care,” says Phoenix.
“You don’t care?”
“Not really. I’ve already been shot once.”
“I’ve been shot three times!” another guy says, looking weirdly proud. “One motherfucker round here got shot in the nighttime. Innocent bystanders get shot here. Think about the bigger picture. You’re putting your lives on the line. If you guys are in a casket, your mamas are going to be like, ‘For what?‘ ”
“Don’t be a hero,” a third man adds. “That superhero shit? You’re going to get hurt, fucking around. How you feed your family is not how we feed our family. We’re not out here for the fun and the show-and-tell. This is real life.”
I am finding myself ostentatiously nodding at everything the crack dealers are saying, I suppose in the hope that if the shooting starts, they’ll remember my nods and make an effort to shoot around me.
“I appreciate the info,” says Phoenix.
Suddenly the first guy takes a step forward and peers at Phoenix through his mask.
“You’re a brother?” he says. “You’re a BROTHER and you’re out here looking like THIS? You’ve got to be out of your fucking mind, man.”
And then it all changes. “I feel threatened right now,” the guy says. “You’ve got ski masks on. I don’t know if you’re trying to rob me. A guy got shot last Friday in Belltown by somebody with a mask on. Is that you?”
“You don’t have to be here,” says Phoenix. “You’ve got choices.”
“I’ve been in the system since I was 10 years old!” he yells. “I haven’t got no choices! When your kids get older, this is going to be the same shit.”
“I disagree,” says Phoenix.
“It can’t be better!” the man yells. “This is it!”
The dealers withdraw up the block to decide what to do next.
“Have a good night,” calls Phoenix. “Good meeting you.”
···They’re watching us, murmuring to one another. Their problem is that nobody wants to buy crack in front of three men dressed as superheroes. While Phoenix and his crew stand here, they’re losing all their business.
Phoenix points to two packs of cigarettes under the windshield wiper of a nearby car.
“Those are indications that you can buy here,” he says. “So I’m going to take them off and annoy the crap out of them.”
He scrunches the packets up and throws them onto the sidewalk.
At this, one of the gang heads toward us. If you were watching from across the road, it would seem as if he just wanders past, but in fact he whispers something as he does: “You keep staying on our block, we gonna have to show you what the burner do.”
“Thank you, it’s great meeting you,” says Phoenix.
The man loops and rejoins the others.
The streets are deserted, and it’s starting to feel exceedingly dangerous. It’s just the dealers and their guns and us. But then, miraculously, a taxi passes. I flag it. The superheroes all have (supposedly) bulletproof vests. I have a cardigan. “I’ll give you $20 to just stay here,” I say to the driver.
He looks around. “No,” he says.
“Thirty dollars?”
And then, suddenly, the whole gang, all nine of them, some with their hands down their trousers as if they’re holding guns just under their waistlines, walk toward us. I can’t see much of Phoenix under the suit, but I can see by the way his hands are shaking that he is terrified.
“My shift is over,” calls the taxi driver. “I need to go home now.”
“Forty dollars!” I yell. “Just stay there!
“I don’t care about the money!” the driver yells. But he doesn’t move.
The men get closer.
“Are we leaving or are we standing?” says Phoenix.
“We’re standing,” says Ghost.
“We’re standing,” says Pitch Black.
“You’re willing to die for this shit?” the first guy, who seems to be the leader, is yelling. “You’re willing to DIE for this shit? You guys are dumb motherfuckers. I don’t even know what to say. You guys are fucking stupid.” He stares at Phoenix. A moment passes. This is what I imagine a standoff feels like the instant before the shooting starts. But then his voice softens. “If you guys are going to stand here and die for it, I guess we’re going to have to walk home. We should shoot your ass, but I guess we’ve got to go home.”
And they do. They disperse. They go home.
Stunned, I look at Phoenix. He suddenly seems smaller than six feet one, lighter than 205 pounds, younger than twentysomething. “You won!” I tell him.
“They had the weapons, the numbers, but they backed down to the image of Phoenix Jones,” he says.
I feel an impulse to celebrate with him, but suddenly the full weight of the evening comes crashing down on me.
“I’m going to bed,” I say.
“We’ll stand here for ten minutes and solidify the corner,” he replies. “You don’t want to stand with us?”
“Definitely not,” I say.
I jump into the taxi. And when I arrive back at the hotel, my legs buckle and I almost fall onto the floor.
···Five a.m. My phone rings. It’s Phoenix, shrieking with laughter, babbling, hyperventilating, releasing all the adrenaline.
“That was ridiculously intense! In a few hours, I’ve got to be a day-care worker!
···It’s the next afternoon. There’s a comic convention in town, at the Washington State Convention Center in the business district. There are something like 30,000 people here, families and costumed comic fans, packing the modern glass building. I spot Knight Owl and another Seattle superhero named Skyman. He is only semicostumed. He’s unmasked and goateed, and he’s wearing a white T-shirt with a Skyman logo of his own design.

“Ooh, look, the Rocketeer!” he says at a passing costumed attendee. “You never see Rocketeer costumes! That is priceless! I gotta get me a photo of that! Ooh! Lady Riddler! Nice!”Skyman approaches a Batman. “Is that a real bulletproof outfit?” he asks him. “No,” Batman replies a little apologetically.
“This place,” I tell Knight Owl, “is full of costumed people who would never confront drug dealers in the middle of the night. You and Phoenix and Skyman exist in some shadow world between fantasy and reality.”
“Yeah,” Knight Owl replies. “What we do is hyperreality!”
And then there are cheers and gasps and applause: Phoenix Jones has arrived. He is a superstar here. He sees me and we hug—two brave warriors who have been through a great adventure together.
“Thank you for making our city safe!” a woman in the crowd calls out to him.
“You’re a very cool man!” someone else shouts.
I tell Phoenix it is time for me to leave.
“When you write this, be sure to tell everyone that what we do is dangerous,” he says.
“I think you’re great,” I say. “But I’m worried you’re going to get yourself killed.”
“Well, don’t make it seem like I’d be dying for a choice,” he replies. “I couldn’t quit if I wanted. You know how many people in this city look up to me? I haven’t paid for my own coffee in six months.”
And I suddenly realize I feel about Phoenix the same way everyone here does. I think he is an awesome superhero.
As I walk out, I hear a father whisper to his young son, “That’s a real superhero.”
“Are you a real superhero?” the little boy asks Phoenix.
Phoenix looks down at him and smiles.
“I’m as real as you can get.”

10 Real Life Superheroes Committing Crimes Against Fashion

Originally posted: http://fashionindie.com/10-real-life-superheroes-committing-crimes-against-fashion/5/
Styled by on Wednesday 07.20.11 7:31 PM
And speaking of Voguetron, there are actual superheroes among us. They’ve leapt off the pages of comic books, into the minds of fearless nerds that have re-envisioned their own crime fighting alter-egos. And they’re actually fighting crime. I know it’s true because I read about it yesterday in the August issue of GQ. In fact, there more than 200 costumed (and tweeting) vigilantes protecting average citizens from this cruel, cruel world. Meet some of the bravest, and most eccentric, here while they’re all gathered at Comic-Con in a most serious manner.
Phoenix Jones is a badass motherfucker. As the main focus of GQ’s story, it starts off with him in the hospital after being hit with a baseball bat in the same spot beneath his armor that he got punched with a key earlier that week. He was peeing blood. He went out that night again to right more wrongs. The story concludes with him and two sidekicks staring down a pack of armed crack dealers, guns pointed at them ready to shoot. The crack dealers walked away in defeat. Yes. This man is for real. And he protects Seattle. @ThePhoenixJones
Superhero is a trained policeman turned pro-wrestler turned, well, superhero. He once saved a girl from drowning in her car. When the people of Clearwater, FL ask him what they can do in return, he simply responds, “You don’t owe me anything. I’m a superhero!”
Mr. Xtreme has been a volunteer crime-fighter for more than a decade. Coming from a history rife with bullying and gang attacks against him, he decided he must take a stand and protect the innocent. Now, with spiked cuffs, x-game equipment, a bulletproof vest and crazy eyes, he protects the streets of San Diego.
Urban Avenger is Mr. Xtreme’s sidekick. He patrols San Diego covered head to toe, bespectacled green behind a gas mask. He’s bummed that his city doesn’t see as much action as Phoenix Jones, but that leaves him more time to tweet @urban_avenger.
Knight Owl admittedly went a little overboard with the costume, at one point donning a cape. He is a paramedic student by day and a real life superhero by night. @iamknightowl
Samaritan is our very own superhero here in NYC. He is a skilled martial artists and wears military fatigues to accomodate. He is a self-proclaimed peacekeeper and humanitarian that paroles the streets preventing and putting a stop to violent crimes.
Super Gay does exactly what is sounds like he does. He seduces gay-straight men and calls them out on it. Sounds like entrapment Us Weekly. But he does fight tirelessly against homophobia. We should introduce him to Unicorn Man, his new (un)faithful sidekick.
Phantom Zerois more of the bureaucratic type of superhero from North Jersey (typical). He helps people who have been screwed by circumstance by directing them to the proper lawful paper-filing way to solve their problems.
Lunar Veil and her partner Dark Wolf fight crime in Portland, but mostly work to protect animals. They’re trying to shut down a puppy mill now. But then where would we get miniature chiuauamaltipoodinese from? But I will say, steppin’ it up ladies.
Terrifica, though allegedly retired, patrolled the streets of New York City to prevent little drunk ladies from actin’ a ho. She’s been called the anti-cupid for putting a halt to the One Night Stand. Just trying to get these girls a hot meal the next week after a proper phone call is all.
See more real life superheroes in the August issue of GQ.