NO PAIN, NO GAIN?<\/strong>
\nIt’s hard to think about becoming a superhero without thinking about pain. Even the most skilled heroes in the comics get beat up nearly every day. That’s not much fun. Local adventurer Green Scorpion, who won’t go into details about his escapades, says that at times he has gone home with nasty injuries following his patrols.
\n“I have encountered property crimes, theft and assault,” Green Scorpion writes via e-mail. “I have ended up with some wicked bruises, and have come home limping a time or two. I don’t worry about getting hurt, though. I wear protective gear, and do not let myself get backed into corners.”
\nWhile Ragensi out in California spends most of his time as a superhero delivering blankets and hot coffee to the homeless or dropping off bags of toys to a nearby children’s hospital, he has occasionally stumbled upon more serious matters. Once, he says, he stopped and attempted mugging in a part, and had to tie the mugger’s hands to a lamppost.
\nIs Ragensi ever worried that he might get hurt?
\n“The thought does cross my mind from time to time,” he says. “The way I see it, though, is that you can get hurt in a lot of professions. Physical danger is just a reality of life, even for those who do their best to avoid it. Not that I’m saying I’m going to be stupid and rush into a dangerous situation without a care in the world. I’m just not going to let fears hold me back from living my life to the fullest.”
\nSo, how long is the lifespan of a real-life superhero? Can we expect to see Ragensi as a 50-year-old man tying muggers to street lamps? And what about Green Scorpion? Will he be willing to sustain those bumps and bruise once he’s approaching mid-life crisis time? And if these heroes retire, will other real-life heroes take their places?
\nThat’s hard to say. But the blogs written by these masked adventurers do offer hints that nighttime patrols and costume making aren’t necessarily all fun and games.
\nSeveral heroes have written about falling into funks, when patrols don’t offer the same thrill. Others have requested that Kevlex remove their names from the World Superhero Registry, explaining that they’re taking leaves of absences.
\nBut Citizen Prime shows no sign of retiring from the hero life. Patrols still give him a rush, and he’s even working on creating a new superhero community, WHO, which stands for Worldwide Heroes, although, at press time, this project was place on the backburner.
\n“I don’t find it very hard at all to do this,” says Citizen Prime. “I don have a normal life and a normal job. But this really enhances the rest my life. I am always on patrol, even when I’m not in uniform. If I see something like a guy yelling at his wife in a dark parking lot, I’ll roll down my window to see whether I can help defuse the situation.
\nReally, Citizen Prime is just an extension of that.” -Dan Rafter lives in St. Charles, Illinois. He can be reached at
\nphxmag@citieswestpub.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Citizen Prime and Green Scorpion can’t stop bullets with their hands or see through walls. They don’t have archenemies, and they’re not crippled by Kryptonite. They do, however, don costumes and patrol the streets of Phoenix, looking for wrongs to right and helpless to help. Some call them freaks. Other call them heroes. Phoenix Magazine […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":94,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[429,542,638,1099,1453,1841,2038,2146,2181,2477,2987],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}