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By Idea Man
So this will be my brainstorming list for general ideas.  Many of these will have been previously posted in RLSH forums – and some will have been developed with the help of other Real Life Superheroes.  I will add to the list as I come up with more stuff.  Certain ideas will be removed from this list later on in order to give them their own more detailed post.

• Have a national day where people are encouraged to read from a book about a belief system other than your own.  If you are a Christian, maybe read the Koran.  If you are a creationist, maybe read a book about evolution.  If you are an atheist, maybe read the Bible.  If you are a Catholic, maybe read the Book of Mormon.  It doesn’t matter, as long as you take some time to learn a little about someone else’s beliefs.
• A play about Real Life Superheroes, written by Real Life Superheroes.
• Talent show to raise money for charity.  People vote for the winner by putting money into the contestants’ jars.
• Cities should have a place where people can go online and rank the safety of their neighborhoods.  They could also leave comments about what types of crimes that they know or believe are happening in their area.  This would help cops to know where to patrol and help families decided where to buy a home.
• Raise money to put youth leaders in the community through the Just Yell Fire Train the Trainer program, so that they can train the girls that they work with how to be safe and defend themselves from an attacker.
• Get booths at Christmas Bazaars, and give out free copies of the Just Yell Fire DVD for people to give to girls that they know as presents.
• A book by Real Life Superheroes for regular non-RLSH citizens, giving them advise on everyday things that anyone can do to change the world for the better.  The title could be something like:  How to Save the Day!
• A non-profit organization that hires private investigators to follow people who harass their exes.  The private investigators get evidence to prove that the harassment is going on, and give it to the police.  They can also be used to prove that someone is violating a restraining order.
• Self defense training for school children as part of P.E.
• A reality show that funds Real Life Superheroes, so that they can make a positive impact in ways that our current budgets will not allow.  Sort of a Extreme Makeover: Home Edition type show, but with superheroes.
• When you help someone, give them a Good Deed Card.  The card asks the person to help someone else, and pass the card along.
• A club for kids in which the members dress up in superhero costumes and do community service projects.  This could be done through an existing organization, such as 4-H.  The great thing about 4-H is that a leader can start a club about anything.  It is not all about farming and animals.
• An award that is given out by the RLSH community to non-RLSH who go the extra mile to make the world a better place.  This could involve the winners being dubbed as “Honorary Real Life Superheroes” and given their own RLSH name.
• There could be a contest held within a community that awards prizes for the most creative picture of someone cleaning up litter.  This will be fun and encourage community service at the same time.  One possible prize could be having your photo published in the newspaper.
• When a RLSH visits children, he or she could hand out items that give the kids the title of “Honorary Side Kick.”  Individual RLSH could have their own items, or there could be official reallifesuperheroes.org stuff.

 

Originally posted: www.refresheverything.com/blog/2010/07/21/how-to-be-a-real-life-superhero-with-or-without-the-cape/

How To: Be a Real Life Superhero (With or Without the Cape)
By Rebecca McQuigg Rigal of GOOD
So you want to make the world a better place? Maybe start with your block, or your neighborhood. Maybe start with an awesome costume. You don’t need superhuman powers or otherworldly resources to be a Real Life Superhero, just plenty of passion and a taste for the theatrical. We recently spoke with DC’s Guardian, about what it takes to be a costumed crusader for good. He had these six tips for making the world a better place, one neighborhood at a time.
1) Know what you stand for. It’s not a prerequisite to don tights or a mask, but every Superhero builds an identity around good morals and values.  Likewise, you’ll need a cause (or several) for which to crusade. Look around your community for actions groups that need help.
2) Identify your weapons. And we’re talking personal skills here, not nunchucks.  After identifying a cause, ask yourself what you can bring to the table to help fulfill that need. Take stock of your interests and find a way to donate your time and talents in ways that will be compatible with your lifestyle.
3) Dress for the fight. While it doesn’t take spandex to be a Superhero, always come prepared for the task. Whether the job entails managing logistics for a fundraiser, educating local youth, or just showing up to the right place at the right time with the right supplies, you’ll want to be known as a responsible and accountable crusader.
4) Don’t get mistaken for the bad guy. Real Life Superheroes can be activists, volunteers, educators, or neighborhood safety patrollers, but in order to establish an identity as a community crusader for long-term success, you’ll have to work closely with local citizens, civic leaders, and law enforcement. Collaboration and communication are key.
5) Don’t break the law. Never go above the law, and always stands firm behind your actions. As DC’s Guardian says, “If you can’t stand up and say ‘I did this!’ you shouldn’t be doing it.”
6) Be humble. There’s no such thing as a self-serving superhero, in real life or otherwise.
DC’s Guardian is prominent figure in the RLSH community and President of Skiffytown League of Heroes – a national network of original superhero characters dedicated to performing acts of community service.
 

By Tea Krulos
Since it was Father’s Day yesterday, I decided to take a look at some real life superheroes and their superhero children. Unlike Hit Girl in Kick-Ass, real life superhero kids tend to be mild mannered and trained in how to use butterfly knives.
Many real life superheroes that have children cite them as a reason for what they do- they want to make an attempt to make the world a better place for their children and inspire them.
The offspring inspire their super parents in return.
Silver Sentinel, for instance created his persona based on a superhero story he and his daughter created together.

Kid Civitron
Civitron is from New Bedford, Massachusetts and his 6 year old son has adopted two different hero personas- Kid Civitron and Mad Owl. Civitron explained the origin of Kid Civitron in a phone interview.

“When he was three he was playing with these two little Lego action figures and one of them wore a little helmet and the other was red with black hair. And these two little guys were going on an adventure. And he was playing by himself and I was in the doorway watching him, and he was playing out the adventures of his dad, Civitron, and his dad’s friend, Citizen Prime (a RLSH from Salt Lake City). That afternoon he comes up to me and says ‘Dad, can I be Kid Civitron? My powers are I can run really fast and I can climb mountains.’ I was really shocked, I was really amazed, I never even really thought about it.
He designed his own costume and drew it out. His original suit was yellow, with a red cape; he said ‘when you think Civitron, you think fire!’ So he picked fire colors. He has a mask with a light bulb on it, because he has good ideas. So I got him a cape with fire on the back, and he became Kid Civitron. After that, he found another mask that looked like owl eyes or bird eyes that were angry and he became the Mad Owl and that became his superhero persona. And the Mad Owl became the defender of animals. Any animal in trouble any animal lost.”

Mad Owl got to live out his mission with a stranded turtle at the park.

“We were out on a water bottle mission to the park and he found these two little girls by the pond. And he ran up to them and said, ‘what are you two doing?’ They said, ‘we found this turtle in the parking lot, and we’re trying to get it out of the parking lot and back into the water.’
“They didn’t want to push it or pick it up, or hurt it. And he said, ‘well, I’m a superhero, so I can help.’ They came up with the idea that they would all walk together and take really tiny steps behind the turtle. And as they walked, I don’t know how long it took them, a very long time, taking tiny little steps behind the turtle to get it back into the water from the parking lot.
It’s funny, I think of the scope of accomplishments and the perspective of age, talent, whatever, and he’s done a lot more than I have, just by doing that!”(Laughs)

I asked Civitron if he hopes that Kid Civitron will continue to be a RLSH as he grows up.

“It is up to him. If he wants to do it, that’s great, but the costume part, the superhero part, that’s personal. I don’t want to force that on someone if it is not truly them. I don’t want to be that crazy pageant parent with training and stress. I want to treat it as something positive that could enrich his life. Not something weird and out of the ordinary, but something positive.
It is ok to be creative; it is ok to take that power and control of your personality. Be true to yourself, and do the things you think are important and not think it is weird or odd. I think it has worked. He is really, surprisingly sure of himself. Even where he feels that if he’s not good at something, he is comfortable and confident enough to feel that to know that, and he is ok with it.”

Danger and Wonderboy
The Watchman, my hometown hero here in Milwaukee, decided to get his sons involved with his superhero act, letting them participate in charity events. They thought of their own names- Danger and Wonderboy. The trio delivered a supply of toys together to the Gingerbread House, a non-profit that gives low income families donated gifts for the holiday season. The Watchman told me about this in person and in an e-mail filling me in on how his end of the 2nd Annual Great Lakes Heroes Guild Christmas toy drive challenge was going.

“I’ll have about $100 to buy toys with. I’ll probably be dropping them off either (December) 19th or 20th. I’m still planning on taking my boys along for the drop, but I have to come up with costumes/uniforms for them. The oldest is sticking with the “Wonderboy” name, while the other one has chosen “Danger” as his name.”

He chronicled the mission in a YouTube video, panning over the stock of My Little Ponies, X-Men, Iron Man, and Star Wars action figures, Barbies, G.I. Joes, iTunes gift cards(“older kids often get overlooked” Watchman noted) and video games .
From his lair in his basement, Watchman described the charity.

“The gingerbread house takes care of needy families. They donate toys to families whose parents don’t have enough money to provide toys as presents for their children. This year they served 600 families. That is up quite a bit from last year. I was fortunate this year in that I was able to triple what I was able to do for them last year.” He also introduced Wonder Boy and Danger.
On their very first mission, they helped me donate the toys, they helped me carry them in a dropped them off at the gingerbread House. Good job kids, I’m very proud of you.”

“I think it is important to help out, especially around Christmastime. You’re never too young or too old to be a hero.” Wonder Boy says to camera.
“It’s good to give to people who don’t have enough. I hope we made a difference.” Danger adds.
Blue Girl
BloodRaven is a 21 year old from Waldorf, Maryland. She is trained as an EMT and going to school for criminal justice. She described her transformation into a superhero in an e-mail interview.

“I became a masked hero during the summer. My boyfriend decided he didn’t have time for me, so I became preoccupied with other things and as a consequence, almost forgot about him, LOL. Learning everything it takes to be a productive RLSH distracted me from problems in my own life and switched the focus to the world in general. I’ve always been interested in justice work, super heroes, comics… it was a natural switch.”

Besides patrolling her campus, she does litter pickups with her two and a half year old daughter, Blue Girl. As a single mother, it is clearly about connecting in a fun way and establishing a mother-daughter bond.

“(One of the most rewarding things is) teaching Blue Girl what’s right and what’s wrong. She won’t ever litter. She picks it up and puts it in the trash if she sees it. She’s two and a half. She knows about bad guys and that heroes are good.”
Getting kids involved, even at this small level, could do wonders for crime rates and litter rates in the future. The problem is that kids don’t really care these days. No one explains why something is wrong, or why something is right. They don’t get that littering is bad because it kills plants, or that it could hurt animals. They’re just too lazy to find a trash can. I wanna do something to change that. Break the cycle. Kids are much too spoiled these days.”

I asked BloodRaven if she would like to see Blue Girl grow up to be a RLSH.

“I’m not sure. I definitely want Blue Girl to be involved in the community, no matter where we are living. All kids should be. I wish my parents had brought that on me as well.”

I think this will be a great follow up story for my future self- will these kids grow up to be real life superheroes like their parents- or will they pull an “Alex P. Keaton” choosing an opposite path…like the path of a supervillain?! -dun dun DUN!

Originally posted: http://www.sunjournal.com/city/story/844777
By Kathryn Skelton, Staff Writer
Her mom thought she was doing drugs, slipping out at night, wandering the streets.
Mom didn’t realize her little girl was actually busy atoning and avenging.
As the self-styled superhero “Dreizehn” (that’s the number 13 in German), she’d slip out and look for trouble, interrupting drug deals and vehicle break-ins. Think “Kick-Ass,” but in real life. Sometimes it worked, sometimes the teenager got beaten up, badly.
Dreizehn moved to Maine from a big city outside New England a few months ago to join her similarly self-styled superhero boyfriend, “Slapjack.” Several nights a week they walk Lewiston-Auburn for hours on end as roving Good Samaritans, looking for trouble.

The streets here? Much less mean, in her limited experience.
Most nights their foot patrol means giving bottled water and granola bars to the homeless and maybe yelling at a graffiti artist, all the while costumed and armed with batons, knife-proof protective wear and brass knuckles electrified with Tasers.
Dreizehn and Slapjack are in their 20s. Their parents? They still have no clue.
“You kind of have to be a little unstable to do it,” Dreizehn said. “Going out at 2 a.m. with a mask on and thinking you’re going to save the world, it says a lot about you.”
Origin stories
They got started for different reasons. About four years ago, Slapjack said he read an article in VIBE magazine on the Real Life Superheroes movement, a worldwide community, to which they now belong, of people who dress up, assume names and do varying degrees of charity work and criminal deterrence.
Close friends of Slapjack had their home broken into. Another was hit by a drunk driver, part of Slapjack’s motivation now to hang outside bars. He calls police to report plate numbers when he sees people that he suspects have had too much to drink get behind the wheel.
“I believe in civilian patrols. The police can only be so many places at once, especially at night,” Slapjack said. “I think it’s everyone’s responsibility to keep an eye on their communities.”
He picked his code name from a favorite card game played with his grandmother.
The younger Dreizehn has been going out longer, since 2003.

“I started out, really, just bored, and didn’t want to cause trouble,” she said.
In looking to thwart mischief, there was also an element of making amends for her brother.
“He was robbing and completely destroying our family through his actions,” Dreizehn said. “It made me want to do something so nobody had to go through the pain I had to.”
She dresses to add bulk to her frame — a compressed chest, a man’s trench, men’s boots. Sometimes, in her experience, just walking up to someone is enough to make them stop whatever it is they’re doing, mainly because she appears to be a 200-plus-pound man wearing a full black and red mask with sheer white fabric eye holes.
Once on patrol, Slapjack found an unconscious man collapsed in the middle of the street and dragged him to the side of the road, potentially saving him from being run over.
But it doesn’t always go swimmingly.
“I got hit by a car,” Dreizehn said. And once, in what she believed was a meth buy, “I got ahold of what they were dealing. I ended up really taking a beating. I had my mask taken off. I managed to crawl and bite my way out of it. I had a death grip on (the meth).”
She picked her code name as a nod to her German heritage.
Why the names at all if everything’s on the up and up?
Their reasons are threefold. First, they say they don’t want their workplaces or families finding out, then worrying, questioning or demanding they give it up. Second, the couple doesn’t want to be harassed; they are, occasionally, snitches. A superhero named “Shadow Hare” began showing his face around Cincinnati too much and “the city completely turned on him,” Dreizehn said.
Lastly, putting on the costume, and wearing the name, is like becoming someone else.
“Your fear goes away,” Slapjack said.
Added his girlfriend, Dreizehn: “I wanted to be able to put a mask on so I could be somebody greater and better.”
They met through the Real Life Superheroes group. There aren’t too many others in Maine. He can name two, “The Beetle” and “Mrs. The Beetle.”
Taking it to the street
They go out on foot patrol two or three nights a week, often between roughly 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. She likes walking both cities. He prefers Lewiston.
Dreizehn and Slapjack cover about 5 miles at a stretch, carrying food, water, note pads, flashlights, cameras, night-vision goggles and cell phones. Ninety to 95 percent of the time, they’re just two people out for a walk. Two costumed, very prepared people.
If and when it comes to it, she’s clearly the scrapper. He’s never gotten in a physical confrontation.
“You’re McGruff; I’m the Punisher,” Dreizehn teased, walking through Kennedy Park on a Tuesday night in May.
Thursday, Friday and Saturday tend to be busiest, with more people on the street.
“But you never know; crime never takes a day off,” Slapjack said.
He keeps a map at home synced up to the local police crime bulletins, looking for neighborhoods or streets with patterns and familiarizing himself with people wanted on warrants.
Lewiston police Lt. Mark Cornelio checked around the station — no one he spoke with was aware of a pair of costumes on the street.
“Without knowing what their crime-fighting (is), it would be tough to say whether we agree with it or disagree with it,” Cornelio said. “My thing, I would rather have people be good witnesses.”
There’s also a reason for official police training and the lessons that come with it, he said.
Dreizehn and Slapjack said they were inspired to make themselves known now because of the “Kick-Ass” movie.
It’s not as easy as it looks on the screen.
“It was a funny little movie,” Dreizehn said. “But it’s completely disillusioned. It’s nothing like we do.”

20/20 will be premiering a two minute segement on Past the Mask: The Real Life Superhero Project on June 1st 2010. Originally the segement was scheduled for 8 minutes. However, to compensate for the cut in air time, 20/20 will be posting more contenting on their website at http://abcnews.go.com/2020/. This content will be made availible May 31st/
Peter Tangen will be relaunching http://www.reallifesuperheroes.com June 1st with brand new content, interviews and articles not only about RLSH but of Real Life Heroes worldwide as well.

There are at least two broad categories of real life superhero ( RLSH ) members: those who are exclusively inspiration-only outreach ( food give aways; school visits; comic book convention attendance, etc. ) and others who are actively intervention-only, i.e. patrolling the streets; monitoring suspects, confronting assailants etc. Tension has arisen between each faction and is regrettable. Whether one is providing inspiration or intervention, both acts help significantly change lives encountered.
The difference goes deeper than mere preference. Some RLSH feel it’s inappropriate to seek crimes in progress. They adamantly refuse to confront criminal suspects. Their logic is it can create more problems than the immediate one attempting to be solved. Creatively promoting good citizenship and particularly inspiring young people is their top priority. Anything outside those parameters is usually considered not their role. Hopefully all RLSH can agree that interspiration-only; intervention-only or doing both is up to the individual involved. There isn’t a pecking order where some RLSH are more ” real ” in their real life super heroism than others. Individuality is a Movement strength and allows creative public service limited only by the imagination. It would be tragic if this best practice changed.
Inspiration-only RLSH are good will ambassadors who interact with the needy; parents and children. They motivate society’s most vulnerable by providing memorable moments during hard times. They boost morale for terminally ill children and families who desperately need a dose of wonder. Promoting joy and lifting people’s spirits is an invaluable public service. Inspiration drives folks to escape the ordinary. Inspiration compels people to leave the sidelines and leap into inspirational action.
What’s the value of inspiration-only real life superheroes? It’s measured by every child’s smile; weighed by weary parent’s relief that costumed strangers care about his struggle and counted by each mind influenced to do some good because of their inspiring example.
The value of inspiration-only RLSH is infinite because they positively touch so many lives. They’re not better than those who practice intervention. They just deserve much needed just due.
-NOTE: Inspiration-only real life superhero groups include:
The Skiffytown League of Heroes:
http://www.skiffytownheroes.org
http://www.myspace.com/skiffytown
The Floridian League of Adventurers and Superheroes:
http://www.myspace.com/flashteam
NADRA ENZI AKA CAPT. BLACK promotes crime prevention and self-development. (912) 272-2898
http://reallifesuperheroes.org/archives/3187

For those who live in or around Phoenix, I highly recommend picking up a copy of the latest Phoenix magazine.  Inside you will find an article about real life superheroes and the great work they are doing in this pioneering effort to raise awareness.
If you live to far from Phoenix and cannot get a copy, I hope Phoenix magazine will go easy on me for presenting a copy here for the community to enjoy!
Citizen Prime
 

Where: http://www.frappr.com/reallifesuperheroes
When: Tuesday Septempber 12 8:00Pm Pacific Standard time
This was Ragensi’s idea…and a good one at that! Of course some people gotta work that night, but if not “come on out”.