Tag peter tangen

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!”
···

Jack Havoc appeared all Memorial Day weekend at Crypticon Seattle, in The Hilton Hotel and on May 29th Phoenix came down and did an amazing panel and showed some self defense techniques, as well as made an appearance at the Jack Havoc/Your Mom Comics Booth and signed autographs for donations for Water for Africa.
http://www.reallifesuperheroes.com/2011/03/26/water-for-africa/
And the actual donation page is here…
https://mygenerositywater.org/rlsh
Was a Great Team up from Jack Havoc and Rain City Hero Movement
Rock on guys

The Ded Beat
 

Originally posted: http://blogs.indiewire.com/spout/archives/2011/06/01/superheroes_hbo/
By Christopher Campbell
Add one more superhero blockbuster to your summer movie schedule.
I had heard a whisper of this a while ago, but now it’s confirmed: HBO Documentary Films bought the TV rights to Michael Barnett’s Slamdance hit “Superheroes,” a doc about those real-life costumed crusaders who are often likened to characters in the films “Kick-Ass” and “Super.” The funny thing is I didn’t realize it was official until I saw a magazine ad today for HBO’s summer doc series, which features a new premiere every Monday from June 6 through August 15. Other titles include such festival hits as “Bobby Fischer Against the World,” “Hot Coffee,” “Koran by Heart” and “A Matter of Taste: Serving Up Paul Liebrandt” (see the rest of the titles here). The news about “Superheroes” was also confirmed recently on the doc’s Facebook page, where I regrettably missed it earlier.
Of course I’m excited about all 11 films in the series (the only other I’ve seen so far is “A Matter of Taste”), but I’m especially happy for Barnett’s film, because it wasn’t seen by enough people in Park City and I know there’s a significant audience that will find it intriguing. Here’s a snippet of my review:

Often “Superheroes” comes off as also being more about the problems of the world than the costumed crusaders on screen. Through people like “Zetaman,” “Life,” “Mr. Extreme” and the simply named “Super Hero,” we are made to think about the issues of homelessness and violent crime, as well as police corruption and bureaucracy that lead to the necessity for these [Real-Life Superheroes] to pop up in cities across the nation…“Superheroes” will surely be a big hit with the RLSH crowd, of which there are hundreds more than the selected few in the film, as well as the Comic-Con/fanboy types. Plus it’s a well made, albeit fairly standard doc, without many flaws or bumps.

Fortunately, “Superheroes,” which is screening at Seattle’s True Independent Film Festival next week, is also apparently getting a small theatrical run in October and a DVD release in November.
Check out a trailer for HBO’s summer series, including footage of “Superheroes,” after the jump.

Originally posted: http://www.seattleweekly.com/2011-06-01/news/the-alleged-adventures-of-phoenix-jones/
By Keegan Hamilton

Trying to uncover what’s real and what isn’t about Seattle’s most famous superhero.

On a dark and drizzly night in downtown Seattle, five strangers huddle outside police headquarters awaiting the arrival of the man who calls himself Phoenix Jones. Scheduled to be here at half-past midnight, it’s now 1 a.m. and the city’s most famous real-life superhero is nowhere to be found.
Three-fifths of the group is part of a local documentary film crew that has been following Jones and his team of “Rain City Superheroes” on foot patrols for the past three months. Already familiar with Jones’ modus operandi, the filmmakers are in no hurry. “Last night they made us wait an hour,” says one, as she rummages through her purse in search of a granola bar. “Tonight I brought a snack.”
Suddenly, one of the crew spots Jones’ familiar black-and-gold mask and matching rubber suit behind the steering wheel of a passing Kia sedan. A few minutes later, Jones rounds a corner on foot and strides towards the group, trailed by two men in black neoprene balaclavas.
“Hi,” he says, in a gruff approximation of Christian Bale’s sandpaper growl in The Dark Knight. “I’m Phoenix Jones.” He stands six feet tall, with a patch of curly black whiskers protruding from the dark brown skin on his chin, which, along with his mouth, is the only portion of his face not concealed by the mask. Fingerless gloves with lead-lined knuckles augment his firm handshake, and in his utility belt he carries a protective arsenal; cattle prod, tear gas, handcuffs, and a first-aid kit.
Jones introduces his nightstick-toting associates as Ghost and Pitch Black, and then outlines the evening’s agenda. With last call approaching, the plan is to make the rounds in Pioneer Square before heading up First Avenue to Belltown. “By then it will be the crack hour,” he says, referring to the wee hours of the morning when business is booming at one of the city’s most notorious open-air drug markets. But first, with three cameramen in tow, Jones and his sidekicks plunge headlong into the mob of drunken twenty-somethings spilling out onto the streets.
Frat boys holler, “Love your work, bro!” and tipsy girls in skimpy outfits squeal “Ooh, take a picture with me!” Jones stops and mugs for dozens of camera-phone portraits with his fans while ignoring the taunts—”Hey look, it’s Joaquin Phoenix! You ruled in Gladiator, dude!”—of others.
Passing through a parking lot, he and his posse catch a whiff of marijuana smoke. “You smell that?” he asks. “That’s not a crime. Stupid, but not a crime.”
Outside The Last Supper Club, a girl trips and hits the pavement in full view of a few uniforms. Jones darts to the rescue, helping her up and reaching for his first-aid kit, but the young lady and her friends stumble off into the night before he can offer her a Band-Aid.
“In that situation we did the right thing,” Jones says to his crew. “But it doesn’t matter if the police are right there. Our job is to be where they aren’t.”
With that, the superheroes start heading north toward Belltown, making sure to stop at every crosswalk with a red light because, says Jones, he was once issued a jaywalking citation while in costume. Just inside the main entrance to Pike Place Market, Jones pauses to chat up a guy struggling to load a belligerently drunk girl into the backseat of a car. A group of bystanders stop to gawk at the spectacle.
“I don’t trust the cops, but I trust Phoenix Jones,” says one of the onlookers.
The man’s friend is incredulous. “Well, what’s he done?” she asks. “What does he actually do when something breaks out?”
“He puts himself in harm’s way. He got his nose broken before. He gets right in the middle of situations.”
“Yeah, but that’s something any other drunk person would do.”
“Well, yeah, but he’s wearing a costume.”
This back-and-forth between late-night revelers is representative of Jones’ polarizing personae. Since he began patrolling the Seattle streets in late 2010—wearing an outfit complete with bulletproof vest, “ballistic cup,” and “stab plates”—he has turned into a lighting rod for controversy not just among regular Seattleites, but also police, reporters, and, incredibly, other self-styled “Real Life Superheroes,” many of whom scoff at the notion of “fighting crime,” and instead prefer to perform good deeds while clad in comic book-inspired attire.

But while Jones’ critics are skeptical of his motives and harrowing tales of near-death, he has scores of supporters who either like his shtick or believe him when he says he pounds the pavement on their behalf. “I’m the first superhero to come along and come as close to a comic book as possible,” says Jones. “I fight crime like you see in a comic book. I get hurt like you would get hurt in a comic book. I have an alter ego like you would have in a comic book. I’m interesting and I’m charismatic on-camera, off-camera, and in person. People want to know what I’m doing. They want to get to know me.”
So who is this masked man with the cojones to call himself the “Guardian of Seattle”? How did he engineer his faster-than-a-speeding-bullet ascent to celebrity? And, more important, has he really helped police catch any criminals?
Jones has a Los Angeles-based publicist to help hone his image as a knight in shining rubber. And to hear him tell it, he’s only in the game to do good.
“Fighting crime in the mask and rubber suit, no matter how awesome I do or how many criminals I lock up, eventually it will lose its appeal to the people,” he says. “The goal is for the people to be inspired by what I do. The goal is to inspire people to not put up with petty crimes.”
But while Jones is busy puffing up his body armor-protected chest on the nightly news, in real life he has accumulated a 22-entry-long court record filled mostly with minor violations, but also including a restraining order after he allegedly made death threats against another costumed crusader. And though police reports and 911 recordings obtained by Seattle Weekly indicate that Jones has, in fact, phoned in numerous suspected lawbreakers over the past seven months, the records show that his efforts have resulted in more amusing whiffs than actual arrests.
What kind of person dresses up like a superhero? Long before Hollywood unleashed Kick-Ass and Super—two movies released within the past year about real people who don capes and masks—Tea Krulos was asking himself that very same question.
Krulos, a freelance journalist from Milwaukee who pens the blog “Heroes in the Night” and is working on a book with the same title, has traced the “real life superhero” phenomenon back to Captain Sticky, a man who called in-costume press conferences in early 1970s San Diego in order to draw attention to causes he thought deserved more attention, like a nursing home caught abusing its patients. Because Captain Sticky was a spectacle, his exploits usually caught the attention of the press, who were always willing to put a mic in his face.
According to various estimates, Captain Sticky has now begat between 250 and 500 self-proclaimed superheroes worldwide. On the website RealLifeSuperheroes.org, the men—for that is who they are, with few exceptions—create profiles and talk shop, with threads like “Grapple Gun. Possible?” (The verdict: definitely possible, not practical.)
Krulos says that the majority of these “citizen heroes,” as they call themselves, resemble their founding father Captain Sticky in that they would rather feed the needy than bust heads. In New York, a Brooklyn man who simply calls himself Life is the co-founder of Superheroes Anonymous, a group that makes small gestures like giving fresh socks to the homeless in order to prevent foot fungus. In Seattle, more than two years before Jones first went on patrol, a man named White Baron started roaming the streets handing out food and clothing. “A lot do it because they want to help out their neighborhoods and communities and they see this as a fun, adventurous way to do that,” says Krulos.
In the back room of the Night Kitchen in Belltown, a few evenings after his Friday-night patrol, Phoenix Jones shares his own origin story. One that, in his rehearsed telling, doesn’t sound as much like a call to adventure as a call to duty.
It all began sometime last year, when Jones says a thief shattered his car window with a stone stuffed in a ski mask. (He declined to provide an exact date or month.) Jones, a married 23-year-old day-care worker with two young sons, picked up the discarded mask and threw it in his glove box, he says, without giving it a second thought.
Then, the next night, while at a club celebrating a friend’s birthday, a fight broke out between two of Jones’ friends and a larger group of men. Running to his car to retrieve his cell phone—Jones says he never keeps it in his pocket because he doesn’t want to risk damaging it when he break-dances—Jones, a cage fighter in his spare time, impulsively threw on the mask and chased down the fight’s instigator.
“Basically, I was reacting to a crime,” he says. “People might call it a strong overreaction, and I wouldn’t disagree. It’s a different reaction than most people would have.”
When police arrived and asked Jones for a name, he gave them an alias he says has “personal significance.” Emboldened by the thrill of the chase, Jones soon ditched the ski mask and upgraded his getup to include a fedora, cape, blue tights, a white belt, and a face covering.
“The first time [my wife] saw me she said, ‘Aren’t those nylons from Wal-Mart? Aren’t you going to get a real suit?’ ” he says.
Growing up in foster homes that he shared with more than 30 adopted siblings, Jones says he wasn’t a hard-core comic book fan, but a big enough one to have a favorite: Nightwing, the alter ego of Dick Grayson, the original Robin who left Batman and struck out on his own. Copying Nightwing’s style, Jones upgraded a final time when he ditched his lighter ensemble and ordered the skintight black-and-gold suit he still wears today.
Then, on Nov. 19, 2010, Jones earned his first headline when SeattlePI.com reported on an internal memo circulating among Seattle Police warning officers not to mistake a new group of do-gooders for criminals. A spooked Capitol Hill resident saw Jones and his entourage in masks outside of a gas station and called 911, assuming he was about to witness a robbery. The story included a blurry photo of Jones posing with a uniformed officer and, shortly thereafter, a viral sensation was born.

According to the Lexis-Nexis news database, Jones has now been mentioned in more than 350 articles worldwide. He’s made appearances on Good Morning America and National Public Radio, and appeared on the pages of publications as diverse as People magazine and The United News of Bangladesh. His Facebook page has been friended by more than 7,000 people, and videos he and others have uploaded to YouTube have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. With his brash personality, occasionally self-deprecating sense of humor, and unwavering righteousness, Jones is a veritable sound-bite machine. As a result, nearly every story about him has been fawning, without trying to verify any of his supposedly courageous exploits, or acknowledging that they are, for the most part, completely unverifiable.
On Jan. 4, for example, KIRO aired a report on Jones that focused on an attempted car theft that allegedly took place in Lynnwood. A man who appeared on camera but refused to give his last name said he interrupted a thief trying to break into his car. Just as the man was about to dial 911, he said, Jones “came dashing in” and chased the thief away. Only when the story went national did a reporter from Talking Points Memo reach out to Lynnwood Police, who cautioned that the Department couldn’t confirm the story. Contacted recently by Seattle Weekly, Lynnwood Police spokesman Shannon Sessions goes one step further: the story “was found to be a false report—never happened.”
When The Wall Street Journal reported on Jones in April, the article’s author noted the backlash against Jones in the Real Life Superhero Community, many of whose members believe he’s less than truthful and attention-hungry. Jones’ peers are suspicious of his tales of glory, and multiple superheroes contacted for this article either turned down interview requests or made clear their doubts.
“He tells a ton of lies, makes up stories, and embellishes and exaggerates what he does,” writes Dark Guardian, co-administrator of Real LifeSuperHeroes.org, in an e-mail. “I’m very surprised no one in the media has called him out on it yet.”
When Jones debuted last November, he made it clear he wasn’t like other superheroes. Though he claims he’s donated thousands of dollars to several charities (records show he donated $500 to the international aid program Water for Africa; he also says he has contributed food and funds to Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission) he insists humanitarian work should be done on personal, not superhero, time. As he puts it: “There’s no comic book where Spider-Man runs around with a bag of sandwiches.”
On this point, Jones has an unlikely ally: Agent Beryllium, Seattle representative for ROACH—Ruthless Organization Against Citizen Heroes, a group of supervillians who have emerged to poke fun at the wannabe crusaders. Beryllium—who, along with nearly everyone else in the super subculture, asked that her real name be withheld—doesn’t think the superheroes should be getting so much publicity for their good deeds.
“Just be responsible people in your everyday lives,” she says.
Then again, Beryllium isn’t too fond of Jones either.
“He’s a special case,” she says. “Being an attention whore is one thing, but almost overnight he goes from being a guy with a cape and a fedora to wearing expensive plastic molded body armor. It just smells fishy to me.”
Peter Tangen had a hand in the transformation Beryllium finds so fishy. A Los Angeles photographer whose portfolio includes the posters for Batman Begins, Hellboy, and the Spider-Man series, Tangen is also the creator of a website (RealLifeSuperheroes.com, not to be confused with the .org forum) that features summer blockbuster-style portraits of two dozen costumed crusaders from across the country. Tangen says he initially set out to shoot the superheroes for a gallery exhibition, but after learning about their altruism, he began doing what he could to help them, accepting charitable donations on his website, and, occasionally, acting as a middleman with reporters.
Jones took the superhero world by storm a few months after Tangen completed his photography project, and Tangen says he decided to help him spread his message that “the problems of this world will never be solved until people realize one person can make a difference.” Tangen is now Jones’ de facto spokesman, in charge of coordinating his many interviews and appearances. The day after his Friday-night patrol of Pioneer Square, for instance, Jones was scheduled to visit three Seattle comic-book stores in conjunction with a nationwide Free Comic Book Day event. Tangen insists there’s never a fee for Jones’ services, adding, “To my knowledge, he’s never made a penny doing this.”
“Peter has been really instrumental in shaping the way I do things,” says Jones. “I had all the natural skills and all the raw talent, but he focused it.”
Dealing with a self-described superhero and his PR guru is sometimes an exercise in absurdity. When first contacted by Seattle Weekly via email, Jones responded with Tangen’s phone number and instructions to use a code word—”Twin Brother”—when calling Tangen so that the publicist would know he had Jones’ permission to talk. Then, on the eve of Jones’ interview, Tangen emailed to ask that photos of his client be staged so as to not show a portion of his suit that had been damaged by a mysterious fire.
By all accounts, Tangen has worked wonders for Jones’ career, such as it is. Earlier this year, Jones flew to Los Angeles and appeared in full regalia at the premiere of Super, the superhero comedy starring Rainn Wilson. (Wilson, a Seattle native, also name-dropped Jones on Jimmy Kimmel Live, joking that he has “taken 197 crack pipes away from people.”) In addition, Jones claims he turned down an offer for his own reality TV show, leaving $200,000 on the table because he didn’t like the concept.
“I would like to have a TV show where Phoenix Jones travels around the world inspiring people,” he says. “I don’t want a giant house and a Lamborghini like Batman—that’s just stupid. I want to be able to say to people on the street… ‘This is the Phoenix Jones apartment complex where you can rent with no credit.’ ”
Jones is cryptic about the cause of the malfunctioning wardrobe referenced by Tangen. “It got melted, I got burned,” he says, refusing to elaborate. “It’s unverifiable, and whenever I open my mouth and say something unverifiable, it sounds like I’m lying.”
Indeed, Jones’ tales have raised eyebrows among skeptical journalists and superheroes alike.
“I can’t really ever get the truth out of Mr. Jones,” says Skyman, a Seattle-area character who focuses on homeless outreach and has twice patrolled with Jones. “The guy came in with a track record of ‘I’ve been shot and stabbed,’ but he has no proof, and we’re supposed to take him on his word.”
When pressed for evidence to verify his near-death encounters—which include the two serious claims alluded to by Skyman: one a shooting in Tacoma, another a stabbing in Seattle—Jones draws a blank. He claims to have a private doctor who treats his serious injuries, which also allegedly include getting hit with a baseball bat and punched by an attacker with keys wedged between his knuckles, but Jones says the doctor won’t agree to an interview for fear of losing his medical license. Jones also never followed through on an offer to hand over his medical records.
What’s more, neither of his two most harrowing encounters—the shooting and stabbing—were reported to police. “I was walking through an alleyway in Tacoma,” says Jones. “I wasn’t involved in any altercation. I wasn’t involved in any fight. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and I got shot.”
Jones says a bulletproof vest saved his life, but nearly getting gunned down after just a few weeks on the job made him reconsider his superhero career. Jones claims he took a month off and eased back in by handing out food at a homeless camp. There, a knife fight broke out, he says, and he got cut when he intervened.
During the interview at the Night Kitchen, Jones offers to take off his suit and show his scars as proof that what he’s saying is true. Shirtless but still wearing his mask, he ignores the bewildered glances from a couple across the room and asks his partner Pitch Black to point out the remnants of several wounds on his back.
He has a few welts below his right shoulder blade, which he claims were caused by the fire that damaged his suit, and a faint, quarter-inch-long scar on his upper forearm that he says he got in the line of duty. But there’s nothing around his midsection where Jones says he was stabbed.
“Looks like that one healed up, bro,” says Pitch Black.
In an attempt to independently verify some of Jones’ alleged exploits, Seattle Weekly filed a public disclosure request with Seattle Police seeking information about every call for service that has involved Phoenix Jones and/or his real-life identity. As of May 5, there were a total of 18 incidents. Officers filed reports in seven cases, but ended up making just two arrests.
The first arrest occurred around 4:30 p.m. on Dec. 18 in the northbound lanes of I-5 at Northeast 80th Street. It is classified on the paperwork as a “pedestrian violation” but all other information is redacted from the paragraph-long report. Jones declined to discuss the encounter, except to confirm that he dialed 911 and claim that the arrest is tied to “an ongoing drug investigation.”
Other documents are more detailed. Shortly after midnight on Dec. 12, Jones was inside Pioneer Square nightclub Venom when he called the cops claiming an Asian man offered him sex with a woman for $100. Jones, the report says, “realized this was a prostitution arrangement and was concerned for the victim because it appeared that [she] could not speak any English.” The officers interviewed the alleged pimp and hooker, but didn’t arrest either of them, and Jones refuses to discuss the details of the case.
On Feb. 20, Jones reported a domestic dispute after he spotted a man “grabbing” his wife in the couple’s Rainier Beach driveway. The responding officer reported smelling alcohol on the man’s breath, and was told the argument began when the woman stormed out of the house after discovering that her husband had been mailed a copy of Sports Illustrated‘s swimsuit issue. It was just an argument, they said, and it never escalated to physical violence. Jones claims he saw the man pull the woman’s hair, but he didn’t mention this to the 911 dispatcher. Once again, police did not make an arrest.
As proof that he doesn’t embellish, Jones cites one of his more high-profile encounters. On Jan. 12, KOMO reported that Jones got his nose broken during a street brawl in Belltown. He reportedly pinned a drug dealer to the ground, but then two other attackers caught him off-guard. One held him at gunpoint and the other kicked him in the face. All three ran away before police arrived on the scene. (Records show that police responded to a 911 call from Jones on Jan. 11 at First Avenue and Madison Street, but were “unable to locate the incident or complainant” and did not file a report.)
Jones claims that KOMO had footage of the fight, but agreed not to broadcast it in exchange for an interview with him. But when reached by phone, the station’s news director Holly Gauntt says that’s not true. She says Jones put them in touch with someone who allegedly taped the incident on a camera phone. Another witness seconded Jones’ version of events, which was enough for KOMO to broadcast their story, but the video evidence never materialized. “We never saw it,” says Gauntt. “No deals were made. We wouldn’t do that.”
till, Jones won’t back down.
“If you guys want to call me a liar and say I make up stories, why don’t I win every time?” asks Jones. “Getting my nose broken was not a win.”
The only other known Jones-related arrest came on April 21, when he and Pitch Black teamed up for a drug bust in the University District. Pitch Black was out of costume when a man reportedly offered to sell him heroin. Jones swooped in and detained him until police arrived. The suspect voluntarily emptied his pockets, and was arrested after police discovered “a clear straw containing a brownish residue” and a “red, heart-shaped box,” with five oxycodone pills inside.
Jones claims he has contributed to additional arrests in Everett and Tacoma, but spokesmen for both police departments say they can’t turn up any cases involving Jones. Tangen also says there is an ongoing SPD investigation that started with a tip from Jones. It deals with “a sex trafficker,” Tangen says, repeating a story also told by Jones, “Not a guy who’s a pimp with prostitutes . . . when [police] went to his house, there were prisoners.”
Sgt. Ryan Long, a detective in SPD’s vice squad, confirms that Jones “was a complainant in something” but also suggests his role was minor. “I don’t know what he’s claiming,” says Long, “But I’ve had inquiries from other journalists in the past. I would suspect he’s shopping you guys off of each other.”
Upon hearing Long’s remarks, Jones simply shrugs. He has doubters, he says, but he does not doubt himself.
“I think there’s a healthy amount of skepticism in general with writers about what I do,” he says, “And a healthy sense of ‘We don’t want to empower this person’ that comes out of the Police Department.”
Jones says another alleged incident, one that may put his family in harm’s way, is why he demanded his real name be withheld in this story. Tangen says Jones told him about a time when “police picked up a couple of Russian women brought into Seattle for sex trafficking and they reported seeing ‘Batman’ in the area . . . so there is also a possibility that organized crime may be under the impression that he is a threat as well.”
As if that wasn’t enough, Jones claims his house was broken into a few months after he started patrolling the streets, and worries that the break-in was retaliation for his crime-fighting ways. Like most of his other claims, however, this one is also unverifiable: Jones says he didn’t file a police report because nothing of value was stolen, so once again there’s no paper trail.
The Rain City Superheroes’ Facebook page warns aspiring crime-fighters looking to join Jones’ crew that his standards are high. A military background or martial arts expertise is mandatory (according to MixedMartialArts.com, Jones real-life counterpart has an undefeated amateur fighting record in Washington); community-service experience is a plus but not required; and you must also own a bulletproof vest that is at least capable of stopping small-arms fire. Jones himself is fond of his “Dragon Skin” model, which he says he purchased for $1,500 with a loan from his mom. All applicants, he says, must also pass a background check.
Not every member of Jones’ posse has been so carefully screened. His partners Ghost and Pitch Black, for instance, are friends of his from high school, both of whom say they served in the armed forces or have other defense training. But a review of Jones’ own criminal record begs the question: Does he measure up to his group’s high standards?
A search for the man who calls himself Phoenix Jones on the Washington Courts online database yields 22 results. The majority are for minor traffic violations, mostly speeding tickets. But he has also been cited six times for driving without a license, driving without insurance, and/or driving with his license suspended. He also was booked during a traffic stop in Snohomish County for “refusal to give information to or cooperate with an officer.”
According to a police report, on Sept. 3, 2008, Jones was pulled over on a scooter between Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace after his driving, “enraged several motorists.” The officer noted that Jones “was extremely nervous” and bragged that he was “a WA state cage fighter champion.” Jones’ license was suspended at the time, so he tried to conceal his identity by using a friend’s name. Unfortunately for Jones, his friend’s license also was suspended. Jones eventually fessed up and used his real name, but still refused to give the officer his home address.
The real-life Jones has been evicted twice (with three more “unlawful detainers,” as such cases are called, ending in dismissal) and had two judgments filed against him in civil court. Jones won’t discuss his poor driving record, saying it has no bearing on his character or ability to fight crime. He admits he’s had financial problems, but accurately asserts that he has always paid back his debts per the court’s orders.
On Nov. 30, a King County resident filed an unlawful harassment suit against Jones in Superior Court. According to court documents, the man told a judge that a week earlier, Jones “called me multiple times through an unknown number and made threats about my physical safety at 1 a.m.” He also stated that three days later, Jones “contacted me and threatened me with knowledge of my address and my girlfriend’s car data,” and that, “a mutually known person . . . told me that [Jones] wants to kill me.”
The court granted a restraining order, requiring that Jones pay court costs for the case and not go within 500 feet of the man or his residence. When Snohomish County sheriffs tried to serve Jones with the court order, they realized that the address he’d listed on court documents was his martial arts studio, and not his home.
Reached by phone, the man who filed the suit explains that he has spent the past decade as real-life superhero Mr. Raven Blade, purportedly doing both crime patrols and humanitarian work in the Seattle area. Raven Blade has himself received some media acclaim, appearing in a CNN story about citizen heroes. (Raven Blade, like Jones, requested that his real name be withheld for this story.) He says he was outraged by Jones’ boasts in an early news report so, using his Raven Blade identity, he posted a scathing letter to Jones on his blog.
Jones later contacted Raven Blade via Facebook message and wrote in all capital letters, “I KNOW YOUR ADDRESS AND CAR, PLEASE LETS KEEP THIS CIVIL LEAVE ME ALONE.” A few days later, Raven Blade alleges, he saw Jones drive past his house and point at him with his thumb and forefinger, “like if you’re a kid playing cops and robbers and trying to shoot somebody.” That’s when Raven Blade says he decided to file for a protection order.
Asked about the restraining order and Raven Blade’s statements, Jones initially denies having any knowledge of the situation.
“I have a legal team that handles most anything,” he says, “So if anyone filed a restraining order against Phoenix Jones, if they filed it against me, my legal team handles it and I don’t know anything about it.”
A few moments later, however, Jones backtracks and says that the “mutual friend” Raven Blade referenced in the court documents eventually retracted his statements about the death threat. Neither Jones nor Raven Blade would disclose the identity of their “mutual friend,” except to say that he too is a real-life superhero.
Jones also claims that Raven Blade suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism. “I think that has a lot to do with the way he perceives me,” says Jones. “I don’t hold any grudge against him, and there’s an open communication line if he ever comes out and wants to work with me.”
Raven Blade, in turn, vehemently denies that he has Asperger’s and says there’s no way he’d ever go out on patrol with Jones.
“He’s trying to slander me,” he says. “It’s a classic tactic, you don’t like somebody so you try and make them look bad . . . He is not a superhero by any stretch of the imagination. He is, however, a very good marketer and a very good poser.”
Back in Belltown on the soggy Friday night, “crack hour” has arrived.
Standing on the corner of Second Avenue and Bell Street around 2:45 a.m., Jones and his crew are patrolling an area that’s obviously a low priority for Seattle Police—there’s not a uniformed officer, bike cop, or police cruiser in sight, and there won’t be for the rest of the night. Meanwhile, haggard addicts aggressively panhandle the few pedestrians brave or foolish enough to still be out and about. Unsavory characters stand on opposite sides of the intersection, peddling plastic baggie-packaged products as if they were legal.
Jones says he can’t confront the dealers unless he has probable cause. Accosting every group suspiciously standing on a public sidewalk would be considered harassment under Washington state law, he says, so a fight must break out in order to intervene. If they solicit him, or if he can pin down the precise type and quantity of drugs being exchanged, he will phone in a report to police. But until then, his strategy is to stand near a group and hope that his presence will intimidate them into shutting down their operation.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t really work out that way. “Man, you can’t arrest people,” says a young black man idling on a BMX bike. “I talked to the police about you.”
What makes the dealers a little uncomfortable, though, are the cameramen. “Yo, they snappin’ pictures!” shouts one of the men before slinking down the block to another corner. Some people remain, including a junkie nodding off in the middle of Second Avenue. Doubled over and on the verge of collapsing face-first into the pavement, the man somehow retains just enough balance to stay upright. Jones and his crew stare at the grim scene for a few minutes, trying to determine the proper course of action. Would it legally be considered harassment if they picked him up and moved him out of the street? Or should they wait until a car is coming so they’ll have a reason for rescuing him?
“This is ridiculous,” says Ghost, finally, before approaching the man along with Pitch Black, gently taking him by the arm, and guiding him to the curb.
With no obvious trouble brewing, a photographer asks Jones if he’d mind taking a break to do a photo shoot in a nearby alley. Jones obliges and spends the next 15 minutes posing. But just a few moments after leaving the alley, a man approaches asking for help. He has tattoos on his face and the backs of his hands, and says his street name is Poe. Pointing to a raspberry-colored welt on his face, Poe explains how he just got punched by one of the drug dealers. He wants Jones to track down the guy who hit him.
“When did this happen?” asks Jones.
“Soon as y’all left,” says Poe.
The irony of the superhero missing out on the only real skirmish of the evening to pose for pictures is not lost on Jones, but he tries to make the best of the situation.
“We have handcuffs,” he says. “We can citizens-arrest the guy, but when the police come you have to put your name down.”
“Nah,” says Poe. “I’d have the whole ‘hood after me if I did that.”
After getting a description of the alleged attacker, Jones heads back to the corner where the fight occurred. His plan, he says, is to wield “the Phoenix Cam” — a silver Flip pocket camcorder—and confront the assailant, provoking another altercation.
“I’m going to have to take a hit for the team,” he says. “I’ll get the guy to punch me in the face and we can press assault charges.”
“Are you aware of the concept of blocking?” asks Ghost.
“Yeah,” says Jones. “But then it’s not assault, it’s only attempted assault.”
Alas, by the time the superheroes return to the scene of the attack, the corner is empty. Jones and his crew circle the block a few more times, then decide to call it a night.
“I like that I’m not going to get punched in the face,” says Jones. “But I’m disappointed we didn’t get to take someone down.”
Still, by his standards the night is a resounding success.
“Sure other superheroes don’t like me,” he says. “Why? Because they suck at their jobs . . . Tonight we literally didn’t stop any crime. But we did definitely talk to some drug dealers, we picked up a girl who fell and hit her face on the ground, and we talked to a bunch of different people in Seattle who may now report crime because they talked to us. That’s still 100 times better than every other superhero.”
Additional links:
The (Alleged) Adventures of Phoenix Jones: The Police Reports
The (Alleged) Adventures of Phoenix Jones: The 911 Calls
The (Alleged) Adventures of Phoenix Jones: The Movie

Originally Posted: http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Real-Life-Superheroes-Patrol-the-Streets-of-San-Francisco-118882514.html?rr=td
By Mathew Luschek
Justin Juul over at the Bold Italic spent a night hanging out on the streets of San Francisco, with some Real Life Super Heroes.

No really. The Real Life Super Hero movement started in 2008, shortly after the “Kick-Ass” comic book was released. The organization is a collection of everyday citizens who don super hero costumes, and roam their city looking for crime.
Believe it or not there are over 250 of these brave folks worldwide. There’s Axle Grinder Man in London, Nyx, a female hero in New York, and here in San Francisco Motor Mouth and his crew which includes Nightbug and Justified.
As you browse the Real Life Super Hero page, you can check out the costumes some of these cats have constructed. Some are rather impressive, like the one Death’s Head Moth wears as he patrols an unnamed city in Virginia.
And these people are serious about what they do. Motor Mouth has been threatened and beat up doing his part to rid the streets of crime. In Juul’s article, he describes walking the streets of the Tenderloin in the middle of the night, approaching crackheads and running into the police (who don’t care for the masked method of crime-fighting.)
“Our relationship with the police department is tenuous at best,” Motor Mouth said.

While you’re thinking what I’m thinking, “These guys are gonna get killed,” they do take some precautions. Motor Mouth, for instance carries a pocketknife, mace and a pair of Blast Knuckles which are like brass knuckles but with a 950,000 volt taser built in.
Maybe they’re just over-zealous comic book fans, but they do seem to do some good. So if you see a group of caped crusaders walking the streets, don’t heckle them, because they just might save your life one day.
Juul’s full article at the Bold Italic
The Real Life Super Hero website

Originally posted: http://www.comicbooked.com/the-real-life-super-heroes-stand-up-for-what-you-believe-in/
By Trey Buffington

This isn’t a movie I’m describing: drugs run rampant in city parks, theft of money and property, & violence continues to escalate. Men and woman are terrified to take the subway at night. We live in fear. We give in to it. We welcome it. Well… not all of us.
There are those out among us who have taken a stand against such things that drag our society down. They are known as R.L.S.H.. The Real Life Super Heroes. They took it upon themselves to clean up the streets not by might and force alone but by acts of compassion and charity. They dedicate time to mentor children and giving food to the homeless as well as patrol streets to stop criminal acts. In other words, this is the new age neighborhood watch. Taking the persona of superheroes inspired by the comic books we all know and love, R.L.S.H. commit themselves to a hope of creating a better world for our children to grow up in.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNjhuxYyqyM
Dark Guardian (R.L.S.H. member) is a man who patrols around Manhattan’s Washington Square Park after noticing the drug dealers in the area having no fear of distributing out in the open. Growing up with no father figure, he turned to comic books to be his role model. Using martial arts as his weapon of choice, he confronts drug dealers out in the open dressed in his costume to prevent further moral decay of his park. He has been harassed, threatened verbally and at gun point but still persisted in continuing he endeavor to “clean up the streets.”
Dark Guardian doesn’t just fight drug dealers for a living, he also volunteers his time at hospitals and does homeless outreach. He may not be taking down a Lex Luthor or a Norman Osborn but in our real world society he is doing a tremendous job cleaning up the streets and helping the needy in all forms.
Dark Guardian is just one of the many superheroes who have joined this project to help humanity in this day and age. Other superheroes include: Samaritan, Nyx, Mr. Xtreme, Knight Owl, Crimson Fist, Phoenix Jones and many more.
What does it take to be a superhero? What powers must you possess to do what is right and help others? If you ask any of these “superfolks” helping out their community around the world, I bet they would say “Just be a neighbor”. Reach out to those in need. Stand up for what you know is right. If you have the power and the ability to change you surrounding environment, do so. Everyone wants the world to change, but who out there will try

Originally posted: http://akzia.ru/subtext/616.html
English Translation
The Real Life Superhero Project – a project of the American photographer Peter Tangen about ordinary people, donning a superhero costume to correct deficiencies in our society. Peter Tangen did photography for such films as “Spider-Man” and “Batman” with Christian Bale, so the phenomenon of “real superheroes” it is very inspired. The photographer wants to create a full series of posters of conventional superheroes in North America, to draw public attention to the fact that these people do. Perhaps it is because of these pictures people will discover the heroes within themselves. From the works of Peter Tangen can be found at reallifesuperheroes.com .
Photo: Peter Tangen

Name: Zimmer (Zimmer)
City: Austin, Texas, then New York
Occupation: patrol the streets without a mask and does not hide his real name, worked in the ambulance.  After a serious accident, was left with partial paralysis of his hands, but did not leave his job.
Zimmer supports MagicCamp ( magiccamp.reachlocal.com ).

Name: Knight owl (Knight Owl)
City: Vancouver, Washington
Occupation: daytime running paramedics, night patrolling the streets, distributing medicine, began writing a guide for the superhero.
Knight Owl supports the organization Heifer ( heifer.org ).
Photo: Peter Tangen

Name: Guyst (Geist)
City: Rochester, Minnesota
Occupation: calling himself a “green space cowboy” patrolling the streets, punishing illegal graffiti and helps the hungry and homeless, armed with slingshots, and baton.
Guyst supports Ronald McDonald Charitable Foundation in Rochester ( mhmn.org ).
Photo: Peter Tangen

Name: Super Hero (Superhero)
City: Clearwater, Florida
Occupation: former wrestler, now owner of online store gym equipment, founded the “Team Justice” – the first non-profit organization for the “real superheroes” in the U.S..
Superhero support charities metromin.org and christopherreeve.org .
Photo: Peter Tangen

Name: Nyx (Nyx)
City: New York, NY
Occupation: helping homeless and drug addicts, in his first patrol went to 16 years.
Nix supports the National Association of the Deaf ( nad.org ).

Originally posted: http://www.semana.com/noticias-gente/luchar-justicia/152468.aspx
A 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”.

Originally posted: http://theminaretonline.com/2011/02/24/article16780
By ??Richard Solomon

??Ever seen a real superhero? Ever met someone in a mask who had been shot? When I stumbled upon an article about a man in Seattle who wore a costume and fought crime, I had to find out more. After reading more articles, sending emails and making phone calls I was granted the opportunity to meet some superheroes and go on patrol with them. This is my story about flying across the country, visiting Canada, staying up all night following guys in masks in the worst parts of Seattle and Vancouver and coming back to tell the tale. I video taped people trying to break into a car, saw a life get saved and didn’t even know it at the time, and managed to meet some of the most incredible people you could ever imagine.
Knight Owl parked his car outside of Vancouver’s Mountain View Cemetery where fellow superhero Thanatos was going to meet us.
Earlier that day I had flown into Seattle. Knight Owl met me at the airport. I had seen pictures of him online in costume, but he met me in normal street clothes. He looked nondescript and average. He would be the first of several superheroes I would meet over the weekend.
Who are real-life superheros? They are people who wear costumes and adopt monikers in order to help others. They are people who keep their real identities secret and in some way obscure their appearance. (Knight Owl, for example, keeps part of his face hidden and Thanatos completely covers his head.) For some, this secrecy is meant to keep their families safe, while others believe that the symbol of their alter ego is more powerful than their true-life, street-clothes persona.
Saving Lives, On My Own Time
Back in the cemetery, Knight Owl and I headed to the circle of graves where Thanatos was supposed to meet us. But before the cemetery there was the drive to Vancouver from the Seattle airport– three hours in the car with the first superhero I had ever met.
Knight Owl does mostly humanitarian work. He patrols occasionally with other superheroes in Portland, Oregon or in Vancouver, but mainly participates in homeless outreach.
Although he does not handle a lot of crime prevention (“In two years of patrolling, I’ve never once been in a dangerous situation”), he knows what danger is. As a paramedic in training and a former firefighter, he has the perfect response for critics who tell superheroes to quit and leave things to law enforcement. “I’m a firefighter,” he said, “and I choose to go out on my own time and help save lives, for free. How can you criticize me for that?”
To Knight Owl, being a superhero is about saving lives, whether that means giving food to the homeless or knowing first aid in case someone on the street needs help. Beyond the activities, he has also done his homework on the superhero appearance.
He told me of the additions he would soon be making to his suit. Among them, a cowl lined with a kind of rubber polymer that would harden when hit to protect his head; and a gadget that would create brief bursts of fire to scare off would-be attackers. As he related, just because he has never been in a dangerous situation does not mean he should not be prepared for one.

Amongst the graves, we searched for Thanatos’ usual meeting spot. At first, all I could make out was a dark shape emerging from the dim light of the cemetery. He got closer and I recognized him. As impressive as it was to meet Knight Owl, nothing could have prepared me for Thanatos.
Clad in dark clothing with a distinct death motif, Thanatos (Greek for ‘death’) exuded a mocking image of the Grim Reaper. From a tie covered in skulls and cross bones to a death-themed utility belt, every part of Thanatos’ attire was covered in death symbols.
He had on a long black coat, the aforementioned tie, a flat brimmed hat and all of the skulls looked more like they were from a Halloween novelty store than on a grim reaper’s attire. The overall effect was imposing and awe-inspiring. I didn’t feel frightened, but a criminal might have a different opinion on that.
Yet, his costuming’s dark theme contrasted with the cheerful optimism of the man under the mask.
Thanatos is arguably the most well-respected member of the superhero community. With a MySpace blog over two years old, Thanatos has been consistently doing homeless outreach since his first night out on Halloween 2008.
Thanatos and I did laps around the cemetery for close to an hour. He was open about his mission and about how he feels he is affecting the city of Vancouver.
“I don’t think I’ve made [Vancouver] any worse,” he said. “I know there are those who feel inspired enough to do something because of me.”
He said he was inspired by old comic book superheroes, specifically citing a “Superman” issue in which Superman attends a charity event. “The more you do, the more you have to work with,” he said. “It’s not just crime-fighting.”
He felt that the homeless people of Vancouver live with death every day to the point that he wanted death to start looking after them.
“Something has to be done, and there has to be a way to draw attention to it,” he said.
“There’s just too many people dying on the streets. It’s too easy to die on the streets. . . . I am a parody of the death. Where death walks around and dispenses grief and sorrow, I walk around and I dispense life.”
So he put together a costume and called himself Thanatos. His costume is not only aesthetics and skulls though. There is a surprising amount of functionality in what he wears. A utility belt with everything from a flashlight to marbles (“Have you ever seen The Defender?” he asked me), a multi-tool and cell phone close at hand.
But why wear a costume?
“I do it in costume because what I’m doing is much more important than who I am,” he said. “I was told by a cop that people on the street had nothing better to live for than to look forward to death. I said, ‘If that’s the case then death better start taking a hand at taking care of them.’ That’s where the costume came from. It got modified because I realized walking around with a big scythe and long robe wasn’t going to work.”
He believes this symbolism works. “People aren’t stupid, they get the idea, they know what I represent. I represent death. Death is so common now that he’s walking around on the street taking care of them. People get it. It’s a very powerful symbol. I put on the mask, take on the persona and here’s someone from Florida just to interview me.
“It’s not just me doing it either, and it does work. It draws attention to the problems, whether it’s high crime in Seattle or homelessness in Vancouver.”
Thanatos goes out whenever he can to distribute bundles of goods such as bread, peanut butter, socks, a razor blade. His goal is a noble one.
“You do what you can,” he said. “I give out my bundles. I do what I can, I’m keeping that person alive for one more day. That’s quite a victory over death. If I do my normal handout and I hand out 10 bundles, that’s 10 victories.”
Homeless outreach is not all he does. Whether he is dressed as death or in street clothes, Thanatos also observes area street gangs and drug dealers.
He takes copious notes on who sells what– and where– and copies down license plate numbers and makes notes on where those cars travel. He will submit this information to the police and he said he has previously succeeded in helping get drug dealers arrested.
A Man Named Armando
After the interview, Thanatos drove Knight Owl and I around some of the bad areas of Vancouver. We finally stopped outside of a homeless shelter, where the three of us handed out items. People were openly grateful, thanking us over and over. The Minaret t-shirts I had brought with me to distribute were a hit and the razors I had also packed vanished right away.
Thanatos had shoes, pants, and other goods. Everything vanishing in a matter of minutes. Some recognized him, others asked who he was. Several of the more nervous people came up to me to ask me who he was. I explained what he did. I was surprised that for many of the homeless I met that night, they just wanted someone to talk to. They were grateful for what we were handing out, but they were also grateful to have someone actually listen to them.
We got back into Thanatos’ vehicle (he drove with his mask off to avoid being pulled over, not at all concerned that I could see his face) and headed back to Knight Owl’s car. Along the way Thanatos told me a story about a man named Armando.
Armando and his family walked to Vancouver all the way from Chile. They were being tortured by police in Chile and finally had to leave. The police cut off all of Armando’s fingers. His wife was raped and had her breasts cut off. Their torturers then mutilated her face and tried to cut off her nose, but failed because they cut upwards and the knife got caught on the septum. Surprisingly, Thanatos told me that Armando is one of the most cheerful men he has ever met. I thought about how the average person must treat them– looking away from the woman with the scarred face, ignoring the man with no fingers. These were people who just wanted help. And Thanatos was doing what he could to help them, one bundle at a time.
We dropped off Knight Owl and then Thanatos took me to the Vancouver train station. It was only 1:15 a.m. Thanatos apologized for the early night. He explained he had to be up for work at five and needed some sleep.
The rest of my night had nothing to do with superheroes but was important nonetheless. The train station was closed and Thanatos had already driven off. I didn’t have his phone number and I knew Knight Owl was busy. Two shifty guys nearby started talking louder, looking at me and then walked towards me.
I made a quick decision and began walking. I couldn’t stay at the station, but I knew nobody in Vancouver. I realized suddenly that I had nowhere to go and almost nobody knew where I was beyond I was spending the night in Canada. If something happened to me nobody would notice until I missed my interview the next day. I was wandering the streets of the worst part of Vancouver.
I was carrying a camera, my laptop in a backpack and a duffel bag of clothes. If you’ve ever been (un)fortunate enough to be alone in the worst part of a city in a foreign country with no one to call and nowhere to go, carrying all your possessions and being eyed up and down by what seems like every shady-looking person in the area, you’ll know exactly how I felt.
I couldn’t run with all the bags I was carrying. I wondered if homeless people feel this same way; having everything that matters to you fit in a few bags, nowhere to go, hoping to stay safe. But I just had to make it through a few hours, they live with this feeling every day.
I ducked into a 24-hour diner full of people and nursed a coffee and milkshake for three hours. I didn’t get mugged or hurt that night, but whether that’s because of dumb luck or actual safety I can’t say. I wondered if my trip to Seattle the next day would be less eventful. I had no idea what I was in for.
Harder Than the Last
The next day, Saturday, I was set to see Phoenix Jones. If Thanatos was the most respected member of the Real Life Superheroes community, than Phoenix Jones was certainly the most famous. Media continually begged him for interviews. He even has his own Wikipedia page.
Jones has become an Internet sensation, with articles about him going viral. He has been stabbed, shot, tasered, and had his nose broken, but he still fights crime on the streets five nights a week.
At just after midnight on Sunday, I paced anxiously outside of my hotel. A friend, George McCaughan, was with me. He had flown up from Tampa that morning to go on this adventure for himself and take pictures.
At 12:30 a.m., a car rolled up in front of us with three superheroes inside: Buster Doe, Pitch Black, and the famous Phoenix Jones.
From the moment he began talking, it was obvious Jones was a very intelligent man. His suit was absolutely incredible. It sports a ballistic cup to deflect bullets, along with leg plates to protect his inner thighs; a bulletproof vest underneath stab-resistant armor that was lined with blood-coagulating packets; and even special gloves. I recalled Knight Owl telling me of the hardening rubber material he wanted to get for his cowl; Phoenix Jones had this material in his gloves, meaning that every punch he threw would literally be harder than the last.
He demonstrated this to me by whacking his gloves emphatically against the hotel desk. I tried it myself and felt the gloves get harder the more forcefully I hit them.
Jones also had a working utility belt. It lacked the death theme that Thanatos’ had but was efficient nonetheless. A taser, tear gas with special properties, and a cell phone were also part of the outfit.
It’ll Ruin My YouTube Clip
Phoenix Jones first sprang to life in a water park in Seattle. “I was at Wild Waves with my son,” he said.
“At the end of the day we were going back to the car and we always race back.” He said someone had broken into his car and the glass from the window cut his son’s leg. Jones was doing his best to stop the bleeding and hold his son’s leg together when he saw someone close by with a cell phone. As Jones recalled, “I asked him to call an ambulance and he said, ‘I can’t, it’ll ruin my YouTube clip.’”
Later, police told him they could not find the person who had broken into his car. Jones had found a mask wrapped around a rock in his car, the tool the burglar had apparently used to break the window. He called the police to tell them of the discovery. They never called him back.
A few weeks later, Jones was outside a club and saw a man get struck down with a club (the man would have a large scar for the rest of his life). He ran to his car to get his phone and saw the mask the burglar had wrapped around the rock to break his window sitting in the glovebox, where he’d left it after he found it. On a whim, he grabbed the mask instead of his phone and ran back. He chased the assailant down– wearing the mask– and succeeded in holding him down on the ground until the police arrived. When they asked him who he was, he replied, “Phoenix Jones.”
He explained to me that the Phoenix part of his adopted name comes from the mythical creature that rises from the ashes, signifying life from death, birth from destruction. Jones, he said, was because it was a very common last name and he wanted to represent the common man.
Like Knight Owl and Thanatos, Jones feels the real foe he is fighting is apathy. A man who would rather film a kid being hurt than call the police is the exact kind of person Jones hope to inspire to change.
The Superheroes of Seattle!
After the interview we went back to the lobby where Buster Doe and Pitch Black were waiting for us. Before heading out, Jones delineated the roles for the evening. “Buster Doe, you’re on backup duty,” he said. “Pitch Black, you call and then backup Bus’ if needed.” If Phoenix got into an altercation, Buster Doe was to help him out as needed while Pitch Black called the police. Once the phone call was done Pitch Black was to help Buster Doe if the situation hadn’t been settled already.
Though there were only three out that night, there are actually 11 members of the Rain City Superhero Movement. Jones is the leader of the group. The others go on patrol with him as often as they can.
Jones also told me that there would be several people in plain clothes shadowing us all evening. They were unknown members of his superhero group who would all be carrying cell phones and guns. If someone pulled a gun on any of us, we would have someone nearby to pull a gun on them. I kept an eye out all night and, despite the warning, did not notice anybody until Phoenix Jones told me the next day who the shadow forces were. I went through the photos of the night and, sure enough, the same people were around us multiple times.
We walked up and down busy streets just as the bars closed. Reactions to the superheroes differed wildly. Some people became excited and begged for a picture with them. Others shouted obscenities. A few inebriated revelers became scared. Most of the women we came across were eager to get a photo with Phoenix Jones, usually inviting him home with them. “I lost my hotel room,” they would say. “Can you help me find it?”
Most people seemed to recognize the trio, some shouting, “It’s the superheroes of Seattle!” I heard constant references to “Kick-Ass,” a movie that all superheroes seem to praise and hate in the same sentence. They think it portrays the process of becoming a superhero well, but the over-the-top violence and the lack of planning the character Kick Ass puts into his costume seem to turn them all off to it.
Throughout the night, Jones was unfailingly polite to everyone. He would greet people and ask how they were, if they needed help. Nothing was too small for the superheroes– whether it be getting ready to break up a fight, stopping to talk to people about staying safe, and making sure a drunk man did not hit his girlfriend.
During our patrol, I spotted countless police around us. Some were in cars, while others were on bicycles. All of them managed to glare at Jones.
The “Jones Patrols,” as he called them, were a direct result of his activity. “The mayor of Seattle got upset that I was stopping all these crimes and the police weren’t,” he said. “He made a rule that every single officer has to spend at least an hour of their shifts on the street. . . . You can argue that I’m not helping or that I’m not effective, but because of me there are more police officers patrolling the streets. I’d say that’s a good thing.”

They Are Not Batman
Roughly halfway through the night we came upon three men trying to break into a car– using a screwdriver, a crowbar, and a hanger all sticking into the door and trying to force it open. Jones asked them what was wrong. One of the men said he had locked his keys in his car. We were on a fairly busy street and Jones asked if they would like him to get a police officer. The men looked uncomfortable at this idea and declined, despite Jones insisting that a cop may have something on hand to jimmy the lock.
The men looked shiftier, so Jones decided to talk to a police officer. He and Pitch Black went off with George to find a cop while Buster Doe and I stayed behind by the car. The three would-be car thieves glanced uneasily at my camera but didn’t say anything because I wasn’t taking pictures. (I was actually video taping the whole thing, including the license plate of the car!). While we waited, two officers rode by us on bicycles, but did not stop or say anything about the car with a crowbar sticking out of one of its doors.
Jones reported back something similar. Police said they did not have anything to open the door. When he raised the possibility of it not being the men’s car, he said they just shrugged. In that type of situation, Jones explained he could not do much after notifying the police. We moved on.
Real-life superheroes are not vigilantes. A vigilante is “any person who takes the law into his or her on hands, as by avenging a crime” according to dictionary.com. Another definition on the same site notes that is an act “done violently and summarily, without recourse to lawful procedures.”
Jones and the other superheroes are not vigilantes. They all learn their local laws and call the police whenever something happens. They do not break the laws and they do not take justice into their own hands. They are not Batman. They are much realer than that.
In fact, Phoenix Jones thinks Batman is one of the worst superheroes to be influencing people.
“As Bruce Wayne, a billionaire, he spends eight hours a day doing nothing and pretending to be a careless jerk. Then he spends four hours every night fighting crime? How about instead of beating up some drug dealers you buy their house. How about instead of fighting gangs you buy the neighborhood and clean up the streets.” I had asked Jones earlier about what he did for a day job and he revealed he was a professional MMA fighter and worked with autistic kids when he wasn’t fighting. In many ways, Bruce Wayne has nothing on Phoenix Jones.
After the car incident, things were mostly quiet. We went down a lot of dark alleys and kept an eye on those who were especially drunk or loud.
At one point, we walked by a woman passed out on a stoop in front of a doorway, neck bent at a horrible angle, breathing shallowly. A shady-looking guy with her said she was fine and friends would be along soon to pick them up. We asked if he wanted an ambulance but he insisted no. We told him to at least fix her neck and he rearranged her.
The girl worried us so we stayed close by, unsure of what to do. The woman looked like she may need real medical attention, but on the other hand perhaps she was indeed fine. A steady stream of people walked past her, unconcerned.
Finally, the decision was made. Pitch Black called an ambulance. While he was on the phone, two policemen rode by, again on bicycles. I watched one glance at the woman, clearly unconscious, and then keep going.
Within a few minutes, one ambulance, then two, pulled up. Another came after that. The woman’s “friend” moved further away and by the time the third vehicle arrived he had disappeared. We heard the paramedics say the woman had low vitals and Phoenix Jones observed a tube being put down her throat.
Emergency Medical Technicians took her away. I received a phone call from Jones a few days later. Apparently he had received an e-mail from someone saying they were friends with the woman. The friend wanted to thank him. The woman had asthma and that combined with a little too much “fun” were causing her to asphyxiate. She may have died if we had not called an ambulance. I thought of the shady guy near her, the police who rode by, and the people who walked past. None of them had looked even a little concerned.
It was late enough that we decided to call it a night. The heroes led us to a 24-hour café, Night Kitchen. Jones and Buster Doe ordered Sprites and some fries to split, while Pitch Black asked for Limeade. Apparently lemon-lime is the flavor of choice for masked crusaders.
Jones headed to the bathroom to take off some of his costume, mainly his chest piece. The way his suit is configured leaves him with less mobility for his head.
“Remember in Batman,” he said, “when Bruce Wayne asks Morgan Freeman to make some changes to his suit and Morgan Freeman goes, ‘You want to be able to turn you head?’ You have no idea how true that is.”
Jones kept his mask on, but put on a simple t-shirt over his bulletproof vest. The five of us sat there for an hour while the heroes exchanged stories. Jones told us about some of his first patrols and showed me photos.
At about 4:30 in the morning we called it quits. Buster Doe drove George and I back to the hotel.
And that ended my weekend with superheroes. I had the opportunity to see two of the biggest names in the superhero community, and meet people who stop crimes and feed the homeless. I saw an entire community that is relatively unknown doing what they feel is right and changing lives in the process.
Interested in learning more about superheroes? Check out RealLifeSuperHeroes.org and RealLifeSuperHeroes.com to find out more.