Speaker 1: Novel. Greetings, you have reached the phone number of Tamerlane,
Speaker 1: real life super villain. Please leave a message so we
Speaker 1: can stay in touch and most importantly, stay evil. This
Speaker 1: is tammer Lane, a real life super villain whose bonkers
Speaker 1: online videos cut our attention. So we reached out to him,
Speaker 1: and he agreed to chat with us From his secret layer.
Speaker 1: I had to get all dolled up for you today
Speaker 1: and put on my best leather Tamerlane did our interview
Speaker 1: in his full super villain regalia. If you listen carefully,
Speaker 1: you can hear his leather pants squeaking. He has a
Speaker 1: shaved head and a beard dyed bright red. He wears
Speaker 1: a metal gauntlet on one hand, and he accents his
Speaker 1: look with a gold grill over his teeth and a
Speaker 1: pair of mirrored sunglasses. Well, I just think aviators just
Speaker 1: say to me, douche bag. When I see people in aviators,
Speaker 1: I don't don't you don't you think they look douchey?
Speaker 1: I do. They're like trying excessively hard to be cool,
Speaker 1: So I adopted that as my own. Tamer Lane took
Speaker 1: his name from a Turko Mongol conqueror rampaged across Central
Speaker 1: Asia in the fourteenth century. He would leave piles of
Speaker 1: humans heads outside of cities that he was going to
Speaker 1: sack and lay siege to, and I think he left
Speaker 1: a clear message. So he was a good inspiration for me.
Speaker 1: But tammer Lane doesn't only take inspiration from ancient warriors.
Speaker 1: As a child, I was a huge fan of Mr.
Speaker 1: T So he was a little bit of an inspiration
Speaker 1: to me as well. And in his more introspective moments,
Speaker 1: timmer Lane would say his persona came from even closer
Speaker 1: to home. Was there some sort of Nietzschean monster within
Speaker 1: us all, some sort of Carl Young's belief in the
Speaker 1: shadows cell? Yes, I would say that the disconnect I
Speaker 1: had with my own family and my own father helped
Speaker 1: create this character. Also my disappointment in society, trying to
Speaker 1: be a good citizen, trying to do the right thing
Speaker 1: and get a nine to five job and work forty
Speaker 1: hours a week and be an obedient servant of the
Speaker 1: fascional capitalist system. I think failing at that. And again
Speaker 1: my disconnect from my family, Yes, helped create this character.
Speaker 1: As you might have gathered from his voicemail, an affinity
Speaker 1: for bloodthirsty warlords timmer Lane identifies as a real life
Speaker 1: supervillain and a bit like Rex Velvet. He sees it
Speaker 1: as his duty to offer a kind of meta commentary
Speaker 1: on the superhero world. I was at home one day
Speaker 1: and I was stroking my beloved pet, and I noticed
Speaker 1: on the news the story came on about real life superheroes,
Speaker 1: and mostly it would seem that these real life shoulder
Speaker 1: here spent their time handing out sandwiches and warm socks.
Speaker 1: And I thought to myself, what arrogance. How dare they
Speaker 1: go around calling themselves real life superheroes when they set
Speaker 1: the ball so low. So I said to myself, well, ourself,
Speaker 1: you all a real life super villain by comparison. So
Speaker 1: from that day forth, I made it my goal to
Speaker 1: become the best real life super villain I could become.
Speaker 1: Timmer Lane isn't above his own heroics when the moment
Speaker 1: calls for it. One time, he says he got into
Speaker 1: a fight with a Wolverine impersonator at a nightclub. It
Speaker 1: was a party and he was like squirting tequila into
Speaker 1: a to the mouths of miners, and he had a microphone.
Speaker 1: I thought it would be a good idea to take
Speaker 1: it from him, So I took his microphone and began
Speaker 1: riding through the nightclub, saying, a super villain's up in
Speaker 1: here running this bitch. He didn't like that he tackled
Speaker 1: me from behind. His other hobbies include protesting aginst what
Speaker 1: he calls his enemies insurrectionists, fascist Republicans, Christians, even dare
Speaker 1: I say. He also runs a supervillain YouTube channel where
Speaker 1: he reviews fast food. Alright, guys, this is the Derek
Speaker 1: We Yeah, he starred in short films and he does
Speaker 1: charity work. My charity has saved the chips dot org.
Speaker 1: Being that I am an anthropology major, I have a
Speaker 1: very close affinity to our chimpanzee cousins. We didn't get
Speaker 1: to hear from tamer Lane in the main series because
Speaker 1: tamer Lane isn't a part of the Seattle superhero scene.
Speaker 1: He's from Miami. He's just one of many people all
Speaker 1: over America and the world who've taken up a cape
Speaker 1: or mask, or in this case, a pair of leather
Speaker 1: trousers and joined the real life superhero community. And the
Speaker 1: course of making the superhero complex, I met a lot
Speaker 1: more than just Phoenix and his crew. So in this
Speaker 1: bonus episode, I wanted to fire up the Batmobile one
Speaker 1: more time and take you on a whistle stop tour
Speaker 1: of the rest of this wild world and the folks
Speaker 1: like Tammer Lane who inhabited I'm David Weinberg and from
Speaker 1: the teams at Novel and I Heart Radio. This is
Speaker 1: the Superhero Complex, Episode nine, Unsung Heroes. One person who
Speaker 1: got to know the real life superhero world as well
Speaker 1: as I did is writer and broadcaster John Ronson, who
Speaker 1: we heard from an episode four. John hung out with
Speaker 1: real life superheroes from across America, but like me, his
Speaker 1: introduction to this weird and wild world start it in Seattle,
Speaker 1: in true Phoenix Jones style. The first time I met him,
Speaker 1: he was in the emergency room. I got off the
Speaker 1: plane in Seattle and got a message that he had
Speaker 1: been shot. I think I was stabbed. My first thought,
Speaker 1: of course, was a shift. I've just traveled Britain and
Speaker 1: he's been stabbed, So that's how empathetic I was after
Speaker 1: a twelve hour flight. So I got to the emergency
Speaker 1: room and he's there in the superhero outfit of the
Speaker 1: emergency room, and he had been stabbed. But it's like
Speaker 1: it's okay. You know, I was stabbed earlier tonight, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go out and patrol some more. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: are you sure? And then the doctor came in and
Speaker 1: asked him about his family doctor, and he named his pediatrician,
Speaker 1: and I said, are you a child? But it turns
Speaker 1: out you can. He was like, twenty three and you
Speaker 1: can be with you pede addition to the twenty four,
Speaker 1: apparently in America. I did say to him, look, you've
Speaker 1: just been stabbed. Are you sure that you want to patrol?
Speaker 1: Like I can honestly wait till tomorrow. No, He's like, no,
Speaker 1: fib ing out. A couple of nights later, they went
Speaker 1: on the patrol where they had ultimately faced down the
Speaker 1: crack dealers in Belltown. But before that epic showdown, John
Speaker 1: said Phoenix was clutching its straws, trying to find crimes
Speaker 1: to thwart. Phoenix saw somebody pass the back to someone else.
Speaker 1: How he went yacht sie right across the road and said,
Speaker 1: it's got its stupid superhero fits, Sir, can I see
Speaker 1: that baggy? And it was it was pretzels, And he
Speaker 1: was like so disappointed. I was jealous that John had
Speaker 1: even this experience while on patrol with Phoenix, I wasn't
Speaker 1: so lucky. We never even encountered a bag of salty
Speaker 1: snacks being exchanged suspiciously. Comparing notes on Phoenix Jones wasn't
Speaker 1: the only reason I wanted to talk to John. He
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time with other different real life
Speaker 1: superheroes too, and I was curious to learn what he
Speaker 1: made of the whole scene. He told me in his experience,
Speaker 1: they fell into two camps. You've got the sort of
Speaker 1: Phoenix type ones who are into the costumes, and sometimes
Speaker 1: they even have like the special weapons like the web
Speaker 1: gun or the grappling hooks, So you've got that sort
Speaker 1: of which Phoenix was the clear like leader, and they
Speaker 1: all looked up to him. He had the best costume,
Speaker 1: He was the most charismatic. That lot were quite camp.
Speaker 1: I remember we were looking at this group of crack
Speaker 1: addicts that they wanted to break up at the best
Speaker 1: stop at three in the morning, and the crack addicts
Speaker 1: were looking at us and the superheroes we like murmuring
Speaker 1: to each other, and the crack addicts were presumably thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, what are they saying to each other? And
Speaker 1: what the superheroes were saying to each other was, oh,
Speaker 1: I love your black and yellow color scheme. The yellow
Speaker 1: really pops. So they were So you had that genre
Speaker 1: her superhero who were all pretty delightful, even though I
Speaker 1: didn't agree with what they were doing. But then you
Speaker 1: had this other sort who I thought were much worse.
Speaker 1: John told me he met some superheroes who represented the
Speaker 1: second camp when he was in New York City. He
Speaker 1: went on patrol with the group called the New York Initiative,
Speaker 1: and they loved him feeling deeply uncomfortable. They were barely
Speaker 1: superheroes at all. What they really were. With the Gilantes,
Speaker 1: they didn't make much of an effort with the color scheme.
Speaker 1: It was more just balaklavas, and they wanted to break
Speaker 1: up drug dealers in Washington Square Park. But it was
Speaker 1: only when they ran towards this guy with lights, like flashlights.
Speaker 1: I mean, they were terrifying this guy. They surrounded this
Speaker 1: guy and they had like like floodlights and we're like
Speaker 1: lit him up, and the poor guy was like running away, saying,
Speaker 1: you don't know me, you don't know anything about me,
Speaker 1: you don't know why I'm here, you know this? And
Speaker 1: I was on his side, and this guy was selling
Speaker 1: weed to the students at n y U and they
Speaker 1: did all of that. You know, it's terrifying the life
Speaker 1: out of this poor guy with lights and shaming for weed.
Speaker 1: Now a few years later, weeds legal and you can
Speaker 1: stand in Washington Square Park and smoke weed and the
Speaker 1: police are fine because it's legal to do it. So
Speaker 1: out of a bad vibe with them, I thought they
Speaker 1: were very unpleasant because after My Peace came out, this
Speaker 1: one guy who was the ringleader of the New York Crew,
Speaker 1: it was like really angry. It was like, you know,
Speaker 1: let's get ronson. And remember somebody said to me, oh,
Speaker 1: he's really troubled. I never encountered this type of superhero
Speaker 1: in Seattle. Everyone I talked to seemed to be more
Speaker 1: of the Phoenix camp, well meaning folks who seemed to
Speaker 1: have their hearts in the right place. Is But John
Speaker 1: wasn't just uncomfortable with the real life superheroes he met
Speaker 1: in New York. He thinks the whole movement is flawed.
Speaker 1: I don't believe in real life superheroing, Like I don't
Speaker 1: think it's something that people should do. Look at the
Speaker 1: real place of a flawed too, but they're flowed in
Speaker 1: a different way. And quite often when we tried better
Speaker 1: the justice system, we bring new problems to it. You
Speaker 1: see that with social media shaming, and I think you
Speaker 1: see it with the real life superhero So one of
Speaker 1: the main things is just that they're they're too into it.
Speaker 1: And when you're too into something, that's when that's where
Speaker 1: the problems starts. That's when you commit miscourages of justice.
Speaker 1: So that was my main animus was that there were
Speaker 1: two into it. They were into the fame. It was
Speaker 1: like a badge of honor to to thwart a crime.
Speaker 1: And I don't think crime fighters should feel about crime
Speaker 1: that way. It should be both pragmatic and by the book. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I found this to be true for Phoenix Jones as well.
Speaker 1: I think his desire for fame and compulsion to find
Speaker 1: crime don't serve him well in his attempt to live
Speaker 1: up to the ideals of a superhero. But despite John's
Speaker 1: reservations about the real life superhero communities crime fighting tactics,
Speaker 1: he told me that Phoenix was his favorite. Out of
Speaker 1: all the heroes he met, Phoenix was the best. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's why you're doing him. He was just the most charismatic, funny, charming. Inevitably,
Speaker 1: then some of them will be like angry and troubled,
Speaker 1: and he didn't feel like that some of them would
Speaker 1: be like nerdy, um kind of misfits. And I think
Speaker 1: Phoenix was a misfit, but not in a kind of
Speaker 1: gamer type. I mean, I'm sure he is a gamer,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't like one of those sort of nerdy
Speaker 1: guys who just spend two long sign front of his
Speaker 1: computer and decides to buy and outfit go out into
Speaker 1: it on the streets of what There were other superheroes
Speaker 1: who were like that, you know, a little out of shape,
Speaker 1: and you could tell that they were just passing through.
Speaker 1: I asked John if he still thought of Phoenix that
Speaker 1: way even after his conviction on drug conspiracy charges. I
Speaker 1: was genuinely startled and saddened. Like like everyone, one of
Speaker 1: my least favorite things is hypocrisy, and obviously the first
Speaker 1: thing you think as well as her hypocrite. But mainly
Speaker 1: I just felt sad, like I know from spending that
Speaker 1: time with Phoenix that he's a sweet guy. He wants
Speaker 1: to do good. You know, Phoenix is a very unique person.
Speaker 1: He's this sort of weird kind of specialness to him.
Speaker 1: It feels like it's a little sullied now because we
Speaker 1: wanted him to be He was setting himself up as pure,
Speaker 1: and we wanted him to be pure. John said that
Speaker 1: compared to the New York superheroes who just seemed angry
Speaker 1: and vengeful when they chased down drug dealers, Phoenix had
Speaker 1: seemed a lot more idealistic. In fact, John said when
Speaker 1: they faced off with the crack dealers on the patrol
Speaker 1: we heard about an episode four, he really felt Phoenix
Speaker 1: was genuine. The conversation that I overheard with the crack
Speaker 1: data was like, I've got no choice. This is how
Speaker 1: I feed my family. I've got no choice. And Phoenix
Speaker 1: was like, sir, you do have a choice. It was like,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to be a positive. Influence said, I'm
Speaker 1: sure that was real. That was part of what attracted
Speaker 1: him to us was that he was innocent and sweet
Speaker 1: and pure, and yeah he was goofy, and yeah there
Speaker 1: were definitely some bad sides to what he did, getting
Speaker 1: too into it, but there was a kind of goofy.
Speaker 1: This sort of purity to him. Had the problem with
Speaker 1: the drug allegation is that it's not pure anymore. It's
Speaker 1: like hypocritical And I heard that. Now people yeah, hypocritic
Speaker 1: at him as he walks down the street in Seattle. Now,
Speaker 1: my guests is that there's a complicated set of circumstances
Speaker 1: as to why he ended up in that situation. But
Speaker 1: the problem is no one likes hypocrisy. That was the
Speaker 1: same problem I had with Phoenix. But John said that
Speaker 1: for all Phoenix's flaws, there was still one moment that
Speaker 1: stuck in his mind. My last memory of Phoenix were
Speaker 1: all of these kids just gathered around him like so excited.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's Phoenix Jones. It's Phoenix Jones. And
Speaker 1: though he was a celebrity. As I walked away, I
Speaker 1: looked back and I saw these kids with Phoenix, and
Speaker 1: I thought, well, he's no different to a superhero. He's
Speaker 1: giving these kids the same joy that a real superhero would.
Speaker 1: So he is a superhero in a way. For all
Speaker 1: the ups and downs in Phoenix's superhero career, there's no
Speaker 1: denying that he has genuinely inspired people along the way,
Speaker 1: and not just in the US. The superheroes John met
Speaker 1: and the ones I've spent time with in this series
Speaker 1: so far are all based in America, but since the
Speaker 1: heyday of the Rain City Crew, the real life superhero
Speaker 1: movement has gone international. It's time to meet the Cape Crusaders,
Speaker 1: who are fighting crime all over the globe that's coming up.
Speaker 1: America may be the birthplace of the classic comic book
Speaker 1: superheroes and the country where the real life superhero movement
Speaker 1: found its feet, but all over the world there are
Speaker 1: thriving pockets of superhero activity. Who knows, maybe there's even
Speaker 1: a Mask Avenger in your neighborhood, sneaking out late at
Speaker 1: night in a cape and mask to ward off muggers
Speaker 1: or clean up the streets. So first stop on our
Speaker 1: Superhero World tour is Japan. I guess there are about
Speaker 1: party heroes in Japan. This is Clean Panther. She wears
Speaker 1: a blue, red, and black kimono and a futuristic yellow
Speaker 1: panther mask that covers her whole head. Japan has the
Speaker 1: biggest real life superhero scene I encountered outside of America.
Speaker 1: But whereas the groups I met in Seattle were into
Speaker 1: crime fighting and homeless outreach, the big focus in Japan
Speaker 1: is picking up litter. That's how Clean Panther got her name.
Speaker 1: My main activity is clean up Tongue. So named Clean
Speaker 1: and also combined with Panther. I love Black Panther, the
Speaker 1: Marvel superhero Clean Panther and her superhero crew go on
Speaker 1: litter patrols, picking up trash in Goya, Japan's fourth largest city.
Speaker 1: They're just some of many heroes with names like Hell Hero,
Speaker 1: Clean Arrow and Maroons Sparrow, who gear up in fantastical
Speaker 1: masks and buddy armor to tidy up their cities. For
Speaker 1: Phoenix Jones, a patrol that isn't focused on taking out
Speaker 1: bad guys as a patrol wasted, so I can imagine
Speaker 1: he wouldn't fit in too well with the Japanese scene,
Speaker 1: but they do have one thing in common. The real
Speaker 1: life superheroes of Japan are great at social media. They
Speaker 1: post videos of themselves cleaning up their towns, shot like
Speaker 1: an action film with a comic book movie soundtrack. Over
Speaker 1: in Europe they have their own superheroes too well. Of course,
Speaker 1: I can give you my real name, but um I
Speaker 1: go the Colonel Spider. The Incredible Spider is from the Netherlands.
Speaker 1: He likes to keep his superhero activities on the download,
Speaker 1: so he asked us to disguise his voice. I want
Speaker 1: to protect myself and UM, I don't say that I
Speaker 1: worked outside with the law, but sometimes it really has
Speaker 1: its benefits to not work specifically by the law, A
Speaker 1: warming he says. He divides his time between online vigilanteism
Speaker 1: and real life street patrols, and his costume is a
Speaker 1: tribute to his favorite superhero, Spider Man. He was basically
Speaker 1: the one character that really inspired me to do more,
Speaker 1: to do all this um, and it's also a symbol
Speaker 1: that people trust, people feel safe around Spider Man. He
Speaker 1: wears a red suit with a white spider on the
Speaker 1: chest over stab proof armor and a homemade protective spider mask.
Speaker 1: He even builds his own Spider Man inspired gadgets, like
Speaker 1: a d i y web slinger. I got some what
Speaker 1: shooters with the fluid that has like apers mixture in it,
Speaker 1: so if somebody were to attach me, I can like
Speaker 1: simply pepperscrate him and they wouldn't see it. Like it's
Speaker 1: it's all covered into suits. So people want to see
Speaker 1: you come in. The Incredible Spider has a pretty defined aesthetic,
Speaker 1: albeit one that borrows heavily from one of fiction's most
Speaker 1: well known superheroes. It's not easy to come up with
Speaker 1: your own superhero identity. Sometimes it takes time to refine it.
Speaker 1: There's also another Dutch superhero who went through a lot
Speaker 1: of different alter egos before he ultimately landed on the
Speaker 1: perfect alias. My first alias I've used was Blue Tornado.
Speaker 1: I was called Blue Tornado because those were the only
Speaker 1: two English words I knew back at the time. After that,
Speaker 1: it was Black Shadow, then Green Assassin for a while,
Speaker 1: and I just jumped to my closet, like, what, what's
Speaker 1: the most superhero combination of clothes I have right now?
Speaker 1: And there wasn't all black suit. And that's when I
Speaker 1: started Shadow Panther. And Shadow Panther was the alias I've
Speaker 1: actually got arrested with because they thought I was trouble.
Speaker 1: This was a few years ago, when Shadow Panther was
Speaker 1: around seventeen. I was walking through a bark because the
Speaker 1: killer clown hype was raging. Back then, if the killer
Speaker 1: clown hype passed you by, it was an international hoax
Speaker 1: that got a lot of traction. Around two thousand and sixteen.
Speaker 1: They were rooms and news stories about evil clowns popping
Speaker 1: up all over the world who supposedly preyed on children,
Speaker 1: and it was like, Hey, I'm going out there in
Speaker 1: the bark trying to get killy clowns. And I had
Speaker 1: this like a huge iron barrow with me to protect myself,
Speaker 1: you know. And this couple of guys came by and
Speaker 1: they asked me what I was doing, so I just
Speaker 1: started explaining. So the two guys called the police, who
Speaker 1: weren't impressed. And what I would give to have been
Speaker 1: there to see Shadow Panther decked out in his full costume,
Speaker 1: explaining to the cops that he was there to fight
Speaker 1: off killer clowns. I tried to mimic like a panther's face,
Speaker 1: but it kind of was like like like a shnake face. Um.
Speaker 1: It had like little teeth at the mouth opening and
Speaker 1: stuff and safety goggles in it. It was completely made
Speaker 1: of trash backs and dark tape. That run in with
Speaker 1: the cops was basically the end of the Shadow Panther era.
Speaker 1: Now he's known as Blood Slash, and he says he's
Speaker 1: given up on ridding the world a killer clowns. I'm
Speaker 1: there to help people out with small things, pointing the
Speaker 1: directions and stuff, and if trouble is going down, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to be there, to be one of the people
Speaker 1: that has their phone in their hands, calls the alarm
Speaker 1: number that kind of thinks I have to say to me.
Speaker 1: The name blood Slash doesn't really say I'm your friendly
Speaker 1: neighborhood helper Warden. But maybe it won't be the final
Speaker 1: alias this intrepid hero tries on for size. If he
Speaker 1: ever decided to take up the good old iron bar
Speaker 1: again and head to Seattle, I think blood Slash would
Speaker 1: find a kindred spirit in Midnight Jack. After all, once
Speaker 1: upon a time, Jack was just a guy in a
Speaker 1: mask hiding in a bush with a baseball bat. Over
Speaker 1: in Mexico, the scene is a little different. Mexico is
Speaker 1: home to one of my favorite offshoots of the real
Speaker 1: life superhero World. Meet political scientist Jorge Kane is a
Speaker 1: k A. Jorge studied urban planning and transportation in college.
Speaker 1: When he was growing up in Mexico City, he discovered
Speaker 1: his true passion in life, road safety. We built cities
Speaker 1: for cars, motorized CDs, metal machines in the streets, killing
Speaker 1: everyone literally. Jorge struggled to get other people as fired
Speaker 1: up about infrastructure as he was. You know it could
Speaker 1: be boring to talk about pedestrians with people, and nobody
Speaker 1: will read the academic paper about pedestrian road safety. Then
Speaker 1: one night, Jorge and his best friend went to catch
Speaker 1: a Lucha libre wrestling match. It was something they did
Speaker 1: all the time, but that night was different. Jorge watched
Speaker 1: the mask luchi door fighters throw each other around the
Speaker 1: ring and they're gleaming costumes, and a crazy idea popped
Speaker 1: into his head. We need to do something fun. Uh,
Speaker 1: why not after the match we buy a cape and
Speaker 1: a mask and go out to the streets to fight
Speaker 1: for the rights of pedestrians. And just like that, a
Speaker 1: new hero was born El po that's Spanish for the pedestrian.
Speaker 1: For his first few outings, Lato wore a five dollar cape,
Speaker 1: but then he got an upgrade. A brother helped me
Speaker 1: with the design of the mask. It's a crosswalk with
Speaker 1: a pedestrian. I told my grandmother to help me design
Speaker 1: my cape, and my cape has white and black stripes,
Speaker 1: just like a pedestrian crosswalk. With his new supersuit, Lao
Speaker 1: set out to brave the onslaught of rush hour in
Speaker 1: Mexico City. He wove through road raging drivers and toxic
Speaker 1: exhaust fumes with his black and white crosswalk cape streaming
Speaker 1: out behind him. I pushed back cars that are obstructing
Speaker 1: the crosswalk. I paint the sidewalks, and I paint crosswalks
Speaker 1: and bikeways without any pyramids. And my most controversial action
Speaker 1: in the streets is to walk on top of the
Speaker 1: cars parked on the sidewalk, because the sidewalk is the
Speaker 1: space of pedestrians. My mother tells me that I can
Speaker 1: get in trouble with the owner of the cars. L
Speaker 1: has a lot in common with the real life superheroes
Speaker 1: I met in the US, but he prefers a different label.
Speaker 1: I don't like to watch the world superhero I feel
Speaker 1: it sounds pretentious. I don't know, but I like more
Speaker 1: of In the Spanish the were the luchador. It's a fighter,
Speaker 1: a fighter of the streets. Lucha libre wrestling started out
Speaker 1: in the late nineteenth century, and it's famous for its
Speaker 1: high flying takedowns and masked fighters who wear brightly colored capes.
Speaker 1: Each luchador creates their own superhero esque persona. Some of
Speaker 1: them symbolize good and some embody evil. It's a message
Speaker 1: that that that we're always have this struggle with the
Speaker 1: two sides of humanity. You know, we are all good
Speaker 1: and evil by nature, and these representation with lucavores, with
Speaker 1: these wrestlers with colorful masks and capes, and it's a
Speaker 1: great way to express these internal bottle of human being,
Speaker 1: just like the real life superheroes who came before Phoenix
Speaker 1: Jones Elo has his own cape wearing predecessors in Mexico too.
Speaker 1: In the late nineteen eighties, a Lucidor in red tights
Speaker 1: and a gold cape named super Barrio Gomez for affordable
Speaker 1: housing after thousands of people were left homeless by an
Speaker 1: earthquake in Mexico City. But l Peotonito's main inspiration was
Speaker 1: a man named Antonas Mochus. He was a mathematician and
Speaker 1: philosopher with thick glasses and a sandy beard. He roamed
Speaker 1: the city of Bogata, Columbia, in red spandex underpants and
Speaker 1: a cape with a letter C painted across his chest.
Speaker 1: It stood for super c v COO super Citizen. His
Speaker 1: central mission was to use his superpowers of comedy and
Speaker 1: performance to get people fired up about important issues. He
Speaker 1: even turned up on TV naked. Apart from his superhero
Speaker 1: logo and took a shower to protest the lack of
Speaker 1: clean water in the city. And then he ran for
Speaker 1: mayor of Bogata. He won the election and he was
Speaker 1: Mayor of Bogotan. And during his administration, he fired all
Speaker 1: the corrupt transit police and he hired minds to control traffic.
Speaker 1: You heard that right. He hired four hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: mimes with white painted faces and fluorescent dungarees. They fanned
Speaker 1: out across the city, mocking people who broke traffic laws
Speaker 1: and helping pedestrians cross the roads. The result was a
Speaker 1: fifty drop in traffic fatalities, and this superhero mayor Supercifical,
Speaker 1: also brought down homicide rates by with his other unusual policies.
Speaker 1: At one point, he got forty five thousand citizens to
Speaker 1: gather in the streets and inflate balloons. They were painted
Speaker 1: with the image of someone who they felt had persecuted
Speaker 1: them in some way. Together, the citizens popped the balloons
Speaker 1: in a form of citywide performance therapy. I had the
Speaker 1: privilege to talk with him about these and he told
Speaker 1: me that it's a way to have a civic theater
Speaker 1: in the streets. You know, people love to see a
Speaker 1: theater and spectacles in the streets, and that's a great
Speaker 1: way to send a message in a peaceful way. And
Speaker 1: and then I decided, like, we need a pedestrian superhero
Speaker 1: in Mexico City. This is a world I desperately want
Speaker 1: to live in, one where our philosopher mayor where is
Speaker 1: a cape to celebrate the humble citizen. A city run
Speaker 1: by a visionary leader who hires hundreds of mimes as
Speaker 1: traffic police. What a beautiful sight that must have been.
Speaker 1: Why can't we have that? I would even settle for
Speaker 1: a world in which one of my elected officials was
Speaker 1: a real life supervillain, like, oh, I don't know, lord Mole,
Speaker 1: I've got an old Russian tank commander's helmet and a
Speaker 1: big overcoat and goggles obviously, because Mole is a mole.
Speaker 1: He's short sighted, but he needs the glasses on the
Speaker 1: goggles because he also is a scientist. Despite his supposedly
Speaker 1: villainous persona, Lord Male is actually a good guy. He
Speaker 1: spends a lot of his time out on the streets
Speaker 1: of Birmingham, England, doing homeless outreach or charity fundraising with
Speaker 1: his son, who is also a real life superhero. My
Speaker 1: son Andrew was being called electro Kid by the other
Speaker 1: heroes because of all of the treatment that he had
Speaker 1: in hospital for a ain tumor, and then electro lad
Speaker 1: as he got a bit older, and then he became
Speaker 1: proton because of the proton beam therapy. So our favorite
Speaker 1: organization to raise money for is the Birmingham Children's Hospital.
Speaker 1: Lord More runs a real life superhero collective called the
Speaker 1: UK Initiative. It's part of a larger superhero network called
Speaker 1: The Initiative, which exists all over the world. Got groups
Speaker 1: in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Africa, South America, and obviously
Speaker 1: the UK. As it turned out, two of the leaders
Speaker 1: were only a few hours away from me, just outside
Speaker 1: of San Francisco. So what's it like to run the
Speaker 1: real life equivalent of an international Avengers squad? That's coming up.
Speaker 1: If the real life superhero movement has a spiritual home,
Speaker 1: it's a bakery in the Bay Area called Superhero Desserts.
Speaker 1: You'll find it in a red brick building with a
Speaker 1: glass fridge out front full of cakes with elaborate fondent toppings. Inside,
Speaker 1: it's cozy. There are fairy lights hanging up and photos
Speaker 1: on the walls of people dressed up in superhero costumes.
Speaker 1: It's run by Edwina and Mike a k A. Rock
Speaker 1: and Roll and night Bug. If you catch them in costume,
Speaker 1: night Bug is decked out in red and black, with
Speaker 1: a smooth red mask that covers his whole face and
Speaker 1: black mesh holes over his eyes. Rock and Roll likes
Speaker 1: to switch up her look, but you might find her
Speaker 1: with long, bright pink hair, knee high black boots, and
Speaker 1: a purple cape. There are two of the leaders of
Speaker 1: a global superhero network with chapters all over the world
Speaker 1: called The Initiative. They're also husband and wife, but they
Speaker 1: didn't start out their real life superhero journey together. I
Speaker 1: had been doing it without the wife's knowledge because I figured, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, if they are completely crazy and I
Speaker 1: go out twice and I'm like, this is not for me,
Speaker 1: I can just forget the whole thing. Ever happened. Night
Speaker 1: Bug had heard about some heroes in his neighborhood doing
Speaker 1: costumed safety patrols and he wanted to check it out.
Speaker 1: So one night he pulled on a mask and stuck
Speaker 1: out to join them. Several patrols later, night Bug figured
Speaker 1: it was time to let his wife in on the secret,
Speaker 1: and he said, Okay, you know, I know I told
Speaker 1: you about this this movie. I want you to come
Speaker 1: see it's it's called Superheroes. And so we went to
Speaker 1: this theater, the Roxy in San Francisco, and there were
Speaker 1: all these weird guys standing around in costume outside, and
Speaker 1: I thought, while you guys really take these shows seriously,
Speaker 1: you're all just done. It turned out the movie was
Speaker 1: a documentary. I realized, Oh my god, this is about
Speaker 1: people who are trying to be real life superheroes. And
Speaker 1: the arc of the movie is beautiful in that you're
Speaker 1: laughing at these people. At first, you're you're killing them,
Speaker 1: you know, with with the rest of the audience, and
Speaker 1: then you see the sacrifices they make, the determination and
Speaker 1: the just the dedication they have. By the end of it,
Speaker 1: you're rooting for these guys. I was, and so is
Speaker 1: the audience. By the sound of it, they were all
Speaker 1: clapping at the end. After the credits rolled, some of
Speaker 1: the people who come dressed up in costumes assembled at
Speaker 1: the front of the movie theater for the director's q
Speaker 1: and a night bug said he needed to use the bathroom.
Speaker 1: The questions, happened? Is not back? Ten minutes later, I'm going, oh,
Speaker 1: my gosh, is he okay? I'm looking at my watch
Speaker 1: and this guy in this costume walks up right to
Speaker 1: the front of the theater where the other heroes are,
Speaker 1: and he takes his place, and they go, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: this is night Book. I went to the back and
Speaker 1: I was going looking for just any man to go
Speaker 1: into the bathroom and check out my husband. And then
Speaker 1: I hear my husband's voice and I go, oh, thank goodness,
Speaker 1: and I turned around, but it's not my husband talking.
Speaker 1: It's night Bug. I felt like somebody had punched me
Speaker 1: in the gut and I speechless. I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1: So that's how I was introduced it. After that, were
Speaker 1: you like, oh this is great, or you're like I
Speaker 1: don't know about this, or oh my god, and immediately
Speaker 1: immediately the same things we're in through my head, Oh
Speaker 1: my god, how long has he been doing this? How
Speaker 1: did he keep this from me? And I love this?
Speaker 1: How can I get into it? Edwena seemed to be
Speaker 1: known as rock and Roll was pretty well qualified for
Speaker 1: superhero work. We've been martial artists and instructors for decades now,
Speaker 1: and I was the head of security for a night
Speaker 1: club in San Francisco. It felt like being a bouncer,
Speaker 1: but for the entire city of San Francisco. These days,
Speaker 1: Nightbug and Rock and Roll are something of a superhero
Speaker 1: power couple. They founded the California chapter of the International
Speaker 1: superhero group the Initiative in two thousand and eleven. Thirteen
Speaker 1: More Initiative chapters have sprung up since. As it happens,
Speaker 1: the New York branch of the Initiative is the same
Speaker 1: group John Ronson went on patrol with, though a lot
Speaker 1: of the membership has turned over since then. From their
Speaker 1: base in California, Rock and Roll and Night Bug have
Speaker 1: become magnets for a firing superheroes all over the world.
Speaker 1: We used to get several emails a month from people
Speaker 1: who are like, oh yeah, I can move things with
Speaker 1: my mind, you know, Oh yeah, can you demonstrate that?
Speaker 1: Oh no, no no, I can't do it over video because no, no, no,
Speaker 1: there's always some excuse. I think it's a masterpiece of
Speaker 1: an understatement to say that we get a few. We
Speaker 1: get like, like, out of ten people, I'd say seven
Speaker 1: people are just unrealistic about dudes. We don't go out
Speaker 1: taking down drug lords. It's not what we do. You'll
Speaker 1: find out really quickly that you don't actually have superpowers.
Speaker 1: To make sure their budding recruits stay grounded on this
Speaker 1: plane of reality, rock and Roll and night Bug run
Speaker 1: a Facebook page were they and other veterans superheroes offer advice.
Speaker 1: They even have their own podcast called Heroes one oh one.
Speaker 1: The initiative wasn't the only reason I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: to rock and Roll. In night Bug, Phoenix Jones repeatedly
Speaker 1: claimed to be the only true real life superhero one
Speaker 1: who was flawless at crime fighting. But as you know,
Speaker 1: I had my doubts. So every time I interviewed a
Speaker 1: superhero for this series, I asked them who they thought
Speaker 1: was the best example of a real life superhero out
Speaker 1: there today, and again and again, people told me rock
Speaker 1: and Roll and night Bug. So I was curious to
Speaker 1: meet them and find out what they were up to.
Speaker 1: It turns out it was a lot. They started out
Speaker 1: doing community outreach to unhoused people in their community. Every
Speaker 1: week we were going broke. To put it plainly, we'd
Speaker 1: make two hundred burritos and you know, every week and
Speaker 1: then bring them out with socks and water and everything else,
Speaker 1: and and pretty soon what we can't do this anymore.
Speaker 1: At the time, Rock and Roll had been watching a
Speaker 1: lot of The Great British Baking Show, and so I
Speaker 1: was baking so much that my friends were going, you know,
Speaker 1: if your family is getting sick of all the sugar
Speaker 1: and you can't do anything with it, why don't you
Speaker 1: just have a pop up, take the money and do
Speaker 1: something good with it. Oh my god, there you go.
Speaker 1: That's how the Bake Superhero Desserts was born. Of their
Speaker 1: profits go to fund superhero community outreach events. Every month.
Speaker 1: We had fifties people the last time, sixty people the
Speaker 1: time before, and they all got together wearing superhero costumes
Speaker 1: and making burritos and things together. They also carry out
Speaker 1: safety patrols, run free self defense classes, and according to
Speaker 1: their website, they've personally collected eleven thousand used needles from
Speaker 1: the streets of California. When I talked to Rock and
Speaker 1: Roll and night Bug about the Seattle superhero scene, they
Speaker 1: told me they were close with Evo and Crystal Marks,
Speaker 1: and they were big fans of Red Ranger two, but
Speaker 1: they were less complimentary about our old friend Phoenix Jones
Speaker 1: to be perfectly blunt in Phoenix knows this. We've said
Speaker 1: it before to him. Phoenix has a kind heart. But
Speaker 1: Phoenix has made a lot of really bad decisions. It's
Speaker 1: sad that he's the biggest name you see, but you know,
Speaker 1: we don't want people thinking the rest of us are
Speaker 1: like him. Rock and Roll and night Bug definitely fall
Speaker 1: into the category of superhero that Phoenix derisively calls real
Speaker 1: life sandwich handlers, though at times Phoenix has apologized for
Speaker 1: these types of remarks and said he wants to be
Speaker 1: able to get along and work alongside all types of superheroes,
Speaker 1: but then he'll launch into a rant about how people
Speaker 1: who give out food in costumes are assholes. So it's
Speaker 1: hard to take him in his word when he claims
Speaker 1: to be above the petty superhero in fighting. Rock and
Speaker 1: Roll and night Bug told me they are interested in
Speaker 1: doing this work for glory or fame, another accusation Phoenix
Speaker 1: often lobbs at other superheroes. We try to hammer it
Speaker 1: into the community. Look, it's awful if you think about it,
Speaker 1: to want to be someone's hero, because you're essentially hoping
Speaker 1: that someone will have the worst day of their life.
Speaker 1: So for you to want to be, oh, I I
Speaker 1: want to rescue someone today, just hope that everything's quiet.
Speaker 1: And if you happen to be there for someone that's
Speaker 1: great for you, you not so great for them. I
Speaker 1: think that is probably an ideal attitude that any superhero
Speaker 1: should have when they head out on a patrol of
Speaker 1: their community. At the end of the day, I would
Speaker 1: say that I'm a supporter of the real life superhero community.
Speaker 1: I think if you're judging real life superheroes solely on
Speaker 1: their ability to fight crime, I would say the movement
Speaker 1: as a whole has underdelivered on that promise. But I
Speaker 1: personally never had any experiences with the kind of superheroes
Speaker 1: John Ronson met, the ones whose hearts did not appear
Speaker 1: to be in the right place, So my take is
Speaker 1: a little different than his. I don't see the movement
Speaker 1: itself is flawed. I think any movement will have its
Speaker 1: bad apples, the ones who seem to be doing more
Speaker 1: harm than good. But at least in my experience, I
Speaker 1: think the vast majority of real life superheroes do way
Speaker 1: more good for society than harm. It's hard to quantify
Speaker 1: just how much good they do but attempts have been made.
Speaker 1: A study at the University of Sydney looked at real
Speaker 1: life superheroes and found that, on average, they spent nineteen
Speaker 1: hours a week on superhero activity, which I assume is
Speaker 1: way more time than most people spend volunteering to help
Speaker 1: their own community. And I love the idea of every
Speaker 1: town having its own unique superheroes, its own home team,
Speaker 1: so to speak, instead of a superhero monoculture dominated by
Speaker 1: the large corporations that control the intellectual property of DC
Speaker 1: and Marvel. I'm all for the diversification of the superhero universe,
Speaker 1: and I wholeheartedly support people's individual expression. Who doesn't love
Speaker 1: seeing a kick ass homemade costume. I wish there were
Speaker 1: more of real life superheroes and every city for kids
Speaker 1: to encounter out in the wild, for the good humanitarian
Speaker 1: work they do, and for the sheer joy of having
Speaker 1: eccentric characters roaming the streets, living out their own fantasies
Speaker 1: of what it means to be a hero. The Superhero
Speaker 1: Complex is hosted and written by me David Weinberg and
Speaker 1: reported by me Amalia Sortland and Caroline Thornha. Production from
Speaker 1: Mamalia Sortland and Caroline Thornham, Sean Glenn, Max O'Brien and
Speaker 1: David Waters are executive producers. Fact checking by Andrew Schwartz,
Speaker 1: Production management from Sharie Houston, Frankie Taylor and Charlotte Wolf.
Speaker 1: Sound design, mixing and scoring by Rob Spate. Music supervision
Speaker 1: by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters. Original music is composed
Speaker 1: by Paul Housden. Special thanks to Peter Tangan, Willard Foxton,
Speaker 1: Matt O'Mara, Katrina Norvelle Beth and Macaluso, Oran Rosenbaum, Shelby
Speaker 1: Shankman and all the team e t A. For more
Speaker 1: from Novel, visit novel dot Audio