Speaker 1: Novel It's late two thousand and nine, Ben Fodor strolls
Speaker 1: into a Seattle comic book store, The Dreaming Comics and Games.
Speaker 1: He enters a hidden back room behind a bookcase. When
Speaker 1: he emerges from his secret lair, he has no longer
Speaker 1: been Photor. As the comic book lovers of Seattle browsed
Speaker 1: the shelves stuffed with Nightwing and Batman comics, an actual
Speaker 1: costumed crime fighter glides past them and steps out of
Speaker 1: the shop. Phoenix Jones has a city to save. A
Speaker 1: Few months earlier, before he established his secret changing room,
Speaker 1: Phoenix was sitting in the same store or chatting to
Speaker 1: the owner, Errand about crime fighting. At that point, he
Speaker 1: decided that he wanted to continue fighting crime, but he
Speaker 1: realized that he needed a compelling outfit, one that would
Speaker 1: make him stand out, and it would take a lot
Speaker 1: of trial and error to get there. I had a
Speaker 1: pair of jeans, no shirt, and like a ski mask.
Speaker 1: Then there was a more ostentatious look. We went all
Speaker 1: spandex with the count chocolate hate. Clearly, this was not
Speaker 1: a permanent solution. When I first heard about real life superheroes,
Speaker 1: I assumed that they modeled their outfits of fictional superheroes
Speaker 1: because I thought it was cool, But there's actually a
Speaker 1: practical reason for wearing a flamboyant superhero outfit. It distinguishes
Speaker 1: you from criminals who might also be wearing a mask.
Speaker 1: If a cop gets called out to a crime and
Speaker 1: they see a guy in a ski mask, there's a
Speaker 1: pretty good chance they'll think this is the suspect. And
Speaker 1: as a superhero, that is something you want to have
Speaker 1: wit at all costs. So Ben needed a costume that
Speaker 1: would distinguish him from the criminals he wanted to take down.
Speaker 1: In some ways, I feel like what happened next was
Speaker 1: the moment when Ben Fodor really became a superhero. Up
Speaker 1: until this point, he was just a guy in spandex
Speaker 1: and a goofy hat trying to stop crime. But his
Speaker 1: next suit is when he fully embraced superhero image. We
Speaker 1: got this replica Batman suit off the internet and like
Speaker 1: grinded the nipples off because one of the Batman forever
Speaker 1: like grinded the nipples off and being a conversation. And
Speaker 1: then we went out there and I had that one
Speaker 1: for a while. I spray painted the gold V on it,
Speaker 1: and so the newly minted Phoenix Jones, with his freshly
Speaker 1: spray painted Nippolis batman Halloween costume, took to the streets
Speaker 1: of Seattle, and the comic book version of this story,
Speaker 1: Phoenix would instantly start kicking ass. But this was not
Speaker 1: a comic book, this was real life. The first six
Speaker 1: months was just then expose and stupid for starters. Not
Speaker 1: all of Phoenix's gadgets worked the way he hoped. I
Speaker 1: was chasing a guy and get broke into a car.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I'm coming after you. I pulled
Speaker 1: out this neck and I just bought and I pop
Speaker 1: it off. But I'm running like super warp speed right,
Speaker 1: and the neckgun catches wind and blows back and nets
Speaker 1: me and rolls up and I land in the side
Speaker 1: of like a little gutter ditch right on the side
Speaker 1: of the road has been raining, just like two inches
Speaker 1: of water in it, right, And I landed belly down,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh my god, I'm gonna drown. So
Speaker 1: I'm like rolling up, taking breasts and rolling up and
Speaker 1: taking breasts. At this point, Phoenix feels a pair of
Speaker 1: hands grabbing his back. He gets forcibly turned over and
Speaker 1: they're glaring down at him is the criminal he'd been chasing. Then,
Speaker 1: in a decidedly unheroic moment, lying in a ditch and
Speaker 1: ensnared in his own net, Phoenix gets mugged. He grabs
Speaker 1: my wallet, he punches me in the face. I just
Speaker 1: laid belly up in this freaking rain ditch and then
Speaker 1: filing the cop show and they're like, what's going on?
Speaker 1: So I explained the story doing They're like, oh, we
Speaker 1: have to take photos for such as lies. It turns
Speaker 1: out crime fighting is tougher than it looks. Everything you
Speaker 1: see in a crime fighting magazine. It's the pages between
Speaker 1: the panels. You have to learn to live in. You
Speaker 1: those little white bars to separate all the comic book panels.
Speaker 1: That's where the real crime fighting takes place. That's where
Speaker 1: all the superhero work really is. Phoenix explained that in
Speaker 1: the comic books, you'll often see a hero on top
Speaker 1: of a tall building chasing a bad guy. The hero
Speaker 1: might be shown swing on a rope, but what's not
Speaker 1: shown is when he's set up where the rope would go.
Speaker 1: That's the part the superhero stories leave out. But as
Speaker 1: Phoenix was figuring out the hard way, these little details
Speaker 1: are crucial. Only weeks into his crime fighting career, Phoenix
Speaker 1: Jones was a laughing stock, reliant on friendly members of
Speaker 1: the Seattle Police Department to fish him soaking wet out
Speaker 1: of the gutter. This would not stand. It was time
Speaker 1: to get serious. From the team's at novel and I
Speaker 1: heart Radio, This is the Superhero Complex, Episode three, We
Speaker 1: Can Be Heroes. Hearing Phoenix tell the story of his
Speaker 1: early crime fighting failures made him more endearing to me.
Speaker 1: It was nice to hear him deviate from his over
Speaker 1: the top proclamations about being the only real superhero and
Speaker 1: his claims that he has quote perfect at crime fighting.
Speaker 1: I get the sense that his arrogance and his insistence
Speaker 1: on being better than everyone around him has been the
Speaker 1: source of a lot of the interpersonal conflict in his
Speaker 1: superhero life. The night of the disastrous net incident was humiliating,
Speaker 1: but one thing that you'll never see a self respecting
Speaker 1: superhero do is quit. As soon as he'd waved goodbye
Speaker 1: to the police who had rescued him, he dusted off
Speaker 1: his dirty Nipolis batman outfit and got back to work.
Speaker 1: I stopped my first crime that same night. I hear
Speaker 1: this girl screaming, and back in the day there used
Speaker 1: to be a really big pickpocket and like grab iPhone
Speaker 1: and run scenario kind of deal. This guy's pulling on
Speaker 1: this girl's purse and he cuts the purse strap right.
Speaker 1: I see him and I come up behind him. And
Speaker 1: at that point in time, I was still a catch
Speaker 1: phrases too. I'm like, really deep in the stupid and
Speaker 1: I roll up and I was like, stop, what are
Speaker 1: you doing? You know, kind of like that. It's a
Speaker 1: terrible catchphrase, by the way, Hey I do what I can.
Speaker 1: You know, you think you have catch phrases until the
Speaker 1: moment happens, you know, I say stop. The guy just
Speaker 1: turns around. It just straight up stabs me right in
Speaker 1: the stomach. And I had no armor. I was in
Speaker 1: just bandex, and all of a sudden, I realized, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, this isn't a game. You're a professional martial artist, bro,
Speaker 1: you have skills. You are three or four time champion
Speaker 1: at this point, There's no reason that you should be
Speaker 1: out here yelling at ridiculous corny catchphrase. In Spandex and
Speaker 1: Phoenix is telling of the event. It's almost as if
Speaker 1: he'd forgotten until this very moment that he was a
Speaker 1: trained fighter. Immediately I switched to fight stands too, left
Speaker 1: jabs in a right hand set the dude down flamingo dim,
Speaker 1: which is duct taping your right hand to your left
Speaker 1: leg so you can hop around like a flamingo if
Speaker 1: you try to run. And I'm sitting next to him
Speaker 1: and the girls taken off. At this point, I have
Speaker 1: a purse, but I don't know where the girl is.
Speaker 1: And all a sudden, like the brightest light shine on me,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, what's going on? I look and the
Speaker 1: cop who had just got me out of the ditch
Speaker 1: like four hours earlier, He's like, no way. He's like,
Speaker 1: Phoenix Jones just stopped the crime. And I was like,
Speaker 1: I did. I stopped the crime and the girls in
Speaker 1: the back of the car and everything, you know, And
Speaker 1: the cop comes up goes, hey, if you got caught
Speaker 1: by this corneum, motherfucker, maybe crimes not for you. With
Speaker 1: his first bad guy in handcuffs, it was time for
Speaker 1: Phoenix to level up again. And how does an ambitious
Speaker 1: crime fighter stay one step ahead, you might be wondering, Well, trampolines. Obviously.
Speaker 1: I went around the city setting areas that I would
Speaker 1: have things to make me superhero up and it was
Speaker 1: a calculated, it planned out, orchestrated idea, and it really
Speaker 1: really blew some of the criminals minds, you know, like
Speaker 1: little things like hiding those little trampolines you can buy,
Speaker 1: you know, like hiding them behind dumpsters and where there's fences.
Speaker 1: Phoenix told me that he set up these sort of
Speaker 1: booby traps around town. Not traps in the sense that
Speaker 1: they ensnared criminals, but more like magic tricks that made
Speaker 1: it seem like he had superpowers. He would chase unsuspecting
Speaker 1: bad guys down Seattle's backstreets. They'd flee in horror, attempting
Speaker 1: to scramble over walls, only for Phoenix to sail majestically
Speaker 1: into their path, propelled by one of his strategically placed trampolines.
Speaker 1: I'm bouncing over the fence, flying and just land. The
Speaker 1: dude just stopped and just laid down. He's just like,
Speaker 1: it's almost like you are breaking the Magician's rule and
Speaker 1: like revealing the trick, you know. Yeah, but I think
Speaker 1: that's not the trick, right. The trick is timing, being
Speaker 1: effective and actually having the skill to do it. Because
Speaker 1: there's no trick to what I've done, Right, I jumped
Speaker 1: over that fence, landed in front of a guy with
Speaker 1: a knife, and you surrender. No trick. Well, the trick
Speaker 1: I think is that you had gone ahead of time
Speaker 1: and put a trampoline there, right, But it's not a trick. See.
Speaker 1: That's the difference between being a superhero and being something
Speaker 1: that's a joke. Right, is because I'm using it as
Speaker 1: a tool to get over that fence to cut off
Speaker 1: valuable time. I'm just doing it in the mode of
Speaker 1: a superhero. Other superheroes are doing things simply as a trick.
Speaker 1: I love the image of Phoenix leaping from a trampoline
Speaker 1: and soaring through the air to thwart criminals, but I
Speaker 1: have serious doubts about the validity of this story. It
Speaker 1: just seems crazy to me that you would know where
Speaker 1: to place the trampolines and that they would be in
Speaker 1: precisely the right spot during what I imagine is a
Speaker 1: pretty chaotic chase through darkened streets. But some of Phoenix's
Speaker 1: other tactics seem a lot more plausible. I used to
Speaker 1: lazer point people all the time. Hilarious at a laser
Speaker 1: pointer on the top of my thing, and I just
Speaker 1: go stop. People would just stop out. I was thinking,
Speaker 1: like buzz Lightyear, kind of like I'm setting my thing
Speaker 1: from stunned to kill. Yeah, And I would just laser
Speaker 1: point of him and I'd be like, don't make me
Speaker 1: a mobilize you and they would just stop, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. So it's like a bluff, but really,
Speaker 1: if you came after me, you would get beat up,
Speaker 1: So it's not exactly bluff, right. The lasers for your protection.
Speaker 1: You get closer to me, you're gonna have a problem.
Speaker 1: The laser keeps you at a safe distance from your
Speaker 1: own bad choices. Wouldn't it be nice if we all
Speaker 1: had lasers that kept us at a safe distance from
Speaker 1: our bad choices. Anyways, in between zapping bad guys with
Speaker 1: his buzz light here laser and getting caught in his
Speaker 1: own net gun and bouncing over fences on miniature trampolines,
Speaker 1: Phoenix did manage to stop a few crimes here and there,
Speaker 1: and in the process he attracted some followers, folks who
Speaker 1: wanted to fight alongside him and, if needed, help him
Speaker 1: get out of whatever dumb mess he had made for himself.
Speaker 1: Even the world's greatest superhero needs a hand sometimes coming up,
Speaker 1: I meet Phoenix's original sidekicks. That's after the break on
Speaker 1: my first trip to Seattle. When Phoenix stood me up.
Speaker 1: I'd been messaging some of his crew from way back
Speaker 1: in the day. I'd found Midnight Jack on Facebook. He
Speaker 1: and another real life superhero, Ghost agreed to meet me
Speaker 1: at the north Gate Movie Theater and the outskirts of
Speaker 1: Seattle's city limits. The theater was in an outdoor shopping
Speaker 1: center with a few cafes and the Subway sandwich shop.
Speaker 1: It was a sunny, clear day in August. As I
Speaker 1: stood next to an outdoor fire pit, I noticed that
Speaker 1: ash was falling from the sky. I looked around and
Speaker 1: saw the alarm on the faces of other people around me.
Speaker 1: It felt apocalyptic, not unlike a scene out of a
Speaker 1: superhero movie where everyone is confused at the falling ash.
Speaker 1: Then we all look up to see a giant explosion
Speaker 1: in the sky m as two masked superheroes battle Royale
Speaker 1: and the heavens above our mortal world. But it turned
Speaker 1: out it was just a large structure fire about a
Speaker 1: mile away. Eventually I smelled the smoke and saw the
Speaker 1: plume rising in the distance, and then midnight Jack and
Speaker 1: Ghost walked up to me and introduced themselves. They were
Speaker 1: not what I expected. I guess I thought they would
Speaker 1: be more intimidating. This was during the pandemic, so they
Speaker 1: both had masks on. Ghosts looked like he'd just rolled
Speaker 1: out of bed, flip flops, jim shorts, and a T shirt.
Speaker 1: Midnight Jack at least looked like he'd come from the
Speaker 1: gym workout pants coffee in hand, though I remember being
Speaker 1: surprised how much skinnier he was than I expected. Hi, good, huh,
Speaker 1: I guess you're here to look for a ghost. Yes, Yet,
Speaker 1: we decided to walk down some steps away from the
Speaker 1: shopping center to a more looted area with a few
Speaker 1: tall apartment complexes built around a scenic bike path that
Speaker 1: ran alongside a little creek. On that bench over there,
Speaker 1: as grandparents pushed strollers and couples walked hand in hand
Speaker 1: along the path, midnight, Jack and Ghost regaled me with
Speaker 1: wild stories of their past lives. Home was dude almost
Speaker 1: ripped Cabby's dick off one time, which is funny. It's
Speaker 1: why you don't wear fucking men's leggings to street patrol
Speaker 1: duly noted Cavey I'd later learn was a fellow recruit
Speaker 1: before becoming one of Phoenix's comrades. Midnight Jack says he
Speaker 1: started out in life as a criminal with a superhero
Speaker 1: like ability getting away with it. I have no record.
Speaker 1: I had a very serious cocaine addiction, specifically a crack
Speaker 1: cocaine addiction. If you look back at my personal information,
Speaker 1: which I won't give you, I have something crazy like
Speaker 1: a hundred and seventy two police contacts in three years,
Speaker 1: no arrest, no convictions, which is not necessarily something you
Speaker 1: should bring bragging about it. I mean, that's just what
Speaker 1: it was. Now. Because Jack won't give me his real name,
Speaker 1: I'm not able to verify his claim that he has
Speaker 1: something like a hundred and seventy two police contacts without
Speaker 1: ever being arrested or charged with a crime. But I
Speaker 1: will say that I find it very hard to believe
Speaker 1: that someone suffering from a severe crack addiction who claims
Speaker 1: to have been a very active criminal and gang member
Speaker 1: could have that many encounters with the police and never
Speaker 1: get caught. Maybe it's a proof that real life superheroes
Speaker 1: have remarkable superhuman abilities, or maybe Midnight Jack is full
Speaker 1: of ship. Yeah, I'm curious about your transition, Like, what
Speaker 1: made you stop doing crime and start fighting crime. Well,
Speaker 1: when you stop doing cocaine, you stop needing to fund cocaine,
Speaker 1: and so the need to commit crimes slowly goes away.
Speaker 1: So at the end of that I left the crew
Speaker 1: I was with. I left the state for a year,
Speaker 1: and when I came back, I was sober and I
Speaker 1: was looking to fill my time in a positive way
Speaker 1: as opposed to being a criminal, bad guy and a buck.
Speaker 1: I was twenty two when I got back, and you know,
Speaker 1: I had done nothing really in my entire life other
Speaker 1: than crime. Jack saw news article about a guy stopping
Speaker 1: car breakings wearing what he calls a rubber gimp suit,
Speaker 1: but what we know now was actually a Nipolis batman costume.
Speaker 1: I was like, well, Ship, I got an little ski
Speaker 1: mask that I used to use in a baseball bat.
Speaker 1: I'll just start walking around here. So then for the
Speaker 1: next six months, I walked around with a bat and
Speaker 1: a ski mask and chased off car prowlers. And we
Speaker 1: call them baders. It's aggressive homeless drug addicts that we
Speaker 1: call invaders. And yeah, that was basically my first six
Speaker 1: months of career. Jack was in a park at night,
Speaker 1: ski mask on, bat in hand when a cop stopped
Speaker 1: him and asked for his name. I was like, uh,
Speaker 1: it's Jack. He glanced at his watch eleven fifty three pm.
Speaker 1: In a flash of inspiration, his superhero persona came to him,
Speaker 1: Midnight Jack, and the names stuck ever since, legends are
Speaker 1: born out of necessity, they're not planned out or carefully created.
Speaker 1: Now that the legend was born Midnight Jack decided it
Speaker 1: was time to join some like minded heroes. He told
Speaker 1: me that he fell in with a crew of decidedly
Speaker 1: average Seattle superheroes, all fat, out of shape, and they
Speaker 1: were so desperate to have somebody with any sort of
Speaker 1: skills or no how whatsoever. Jack says they harassed the
Speaker 1: odd drug dealer, but they weren't about to save the world.
Speaker 1: Then one day he saw Phoenix Jones crew patrolling in
Speaker 1: his part of town. He came up to me and
Speaker 1: I was like, hey man, just so you know, like
Speaker 1: this crowd down here is more mellow that one down
Speaker 1: there is a little routier. We already did two loops
Speaker 1: to the block. Most of the cars are parked down here,
Speaker 1: and this and that and that you got all this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, and it was he goes, who the
Speaker 1: funk are you? And why are you telling me about
Speaker 1: my own patrol? How did you even get here? That
Speaker 1: was how I met Phoenix Jones. It wasn't exactly love
Speaker 1: at first sight, but it was clear to Midnight Jack
Speaker 1: that Phoenix Jones was very different from crew he was
Speaker 1: running with at the time. Jones was the real deal.
Speaker 1: Jack says his work ethic impressed Phoenix, but Phoenix describes
Speaker 1: their first encounter a little differently. We found him night
Speaker 1: Jack on the streets. He was out patrolling in a
Speaker 1: very stupid way. He was out there just beating up people,
Speaker 1: like with no abandoned just you know, I mean, just
Speaker 1: like hiding in a bush with two sticks and then
Speaker 1: when a crime takes out, just beating someone senselessly. So
Speaker 1: we found him and we were like, you should join
Speaker 1: our squad and like not go to prison, and then
Speaker 1: from there it just kind of built. It might sound
Speaker 1: like an odd recruitment strategy to make a guy you
Speaker 1: found hiding in the bushes and beating people to within
Speaker 1: an inch of their life a member of your crime
Speaker 1: fighting crew, but Phoenix spotted a fellow costumed crime fighter
Speaker 1: and clearly saw something in Jack. By the time Jack
Speaker 1: started hanging out with Phoenix, Ghosts had already been patrolling
Speaker 1: with him for a while. In fact, Ghost actually knew
Speaker 1: Phoenix back when he was just Ben Fodor. I came
Speaker 1: back from Iraq in two thousand and nine and I
Speaker 1: found out that someone I knew from high school, Ben
Speaker 1: was doing this crazy shift out in the streets. And
Speaker 1: you knew been in high school I did. We ran
Speaker 1: in similar circles. I called him, I'm like, Ben, what
Speaker 1: the hell are you doing? What are you doing? Man?
Speaker 1: And he invited me up to have a chat with him.
Speaker 1: We talked about it, and I was like, well, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm going now if you don't really have a say
Speaker 1: in that. I really wanted to know what Ben had
Speaker 1: been like when they were growing up, But Ghost was
Speaker 1: not particularly interested in talking. He seemed wary of me
Speaker 1: and my microphone. At one point midnight, Jack said that
Speaker 1: Ghosts had been freaking out. On the way to the interview.
Speaker 1: Jack did almost all the talking. Ghost would stand to
Speaker 1: the side, and sometimes he would wander off, like twenty
Speaker 1: or thirty yards away from us and just stand there
Speaker 1: watching From a distance. I don't trust anyone, like sometimes
Speaker 1: I struggle with some post traumatic stress situation and that
Speaker 1: doesn't really help things with when it comes to my trust.
Speaker 1: But I'm just doing my best. Ghost didn't want to
Speaker 1: talk much about the old days, though. Every once in
Speaker 1: a while, night Jack would launch into a story about
Speaker 1: a patrol from long ago, and Ghosts would jump back
Speaker 1: into the conversation. Apparently, midnight Jack used to carry a
Speaker 1: container of baking flower to throw it people. One time,
Speaker 1: he was about to douse a local pervert and flower
Speaker 1: when Ghosts stepped in. Almost flowered this homeless dude and
Speaker 1: a wheelchair. They had one leg, but he had his
Speaker 1: dick out and he was following women back from the club,
Speaker 1: jacking off, yelling aggressive sexual things. You're talking me out
Speaker 1: of flowering that guy because he was in a wheelchair.
Speaker 1: I was gonna flower him and then I was gonna
Speaker 1: push him over. I got the sense based on this
Speaker 1: story and videos I've seen of Phoenix's patrols, the Ghost
Speaker 1: often played this role. Phoenix described him as a level
Speaker 1: headed analyst rather than a brawler. Ghost as a specific
Speaker 1: intel slash observational job, and he's amazing at that. But
Speaker 1: Ghost can't run into an altercation and take people out.
Speaker 1: These days, Ghost doesn't go out on patrol, but he
Speaker 1: continues to fight crime. He says his efforts are now
Speaker 1: focused on catching pedophile else online By posing as a
Speaker 1: fourteen year old boy, I set up these fake profiles,
Speaker 1: and I have at least ten detectives that work with me,
Speaker 1: and to any pedophiles out there, it's always me, so
Speaker 1: keep that in mind. I came away from my first
Speaker 1: encounter with real life superheroes. I'm not really sure what
Speaker 1: to make of them. On that first trip to Seattle,
Speaker 1: before I met Phoenix, I was skeptical of a lot
Speaker 1: of their claims, but I admire their ambition and their
Speaker 1: desire to do good in the world, even if a
Speaker 1: lot of their escapades seemed a little absurd. I also
Speaker 1: got a kick out of all the petty infighting that
Speaker 1: seemed to consume a lot of the superheroes time. I
Speaker 1: was only just learning what kind of person puts on
Speaker 1: a costume and takes the law into their own hands.
Speaker 1: But maybe it shouldn't have surprised me that a lot
Speaker 1: of them have big egos that can lead to personality clashes.
Speaker 1: Despite the bickering, they did seem to have a solid
Speaker 1: system in place for organizing patrols and vetting new recruits. Sometimes,
Speaker 1: when Phoenix at interviews with the media, he would give
Speaker 1: out a phone number that people could call if they
Speaker 1: wanted to get in touch with him. That phone number
Speaker 1: went directly to Ghost and one day he got a
Speaker 1: call from a new guy who said he was interested
Speaker 1: in joining the team. We hit it off instantaneously because
Speaker 1: we understood that it's not a game, that's not some
Speaker 1: kind of trivial thing you could just jump into. The
Speaker 1: guy on the other end of the phone was about
Speaker 1: to become the latest member of Phoenix's crew and one
Speaker 1: of Phoenix's best friends. He called himself El Caballero. Of
Speaker 1: all the real life superheroes I've hung out with, El
Speaker 1: Caballero was the one who surprised me the most. Before
Speaker 1: I met him, I had formed my opinion based on
Speaker 1: videos of him patrolling with Phoenix's team, and to be honest,
Speaker 1: I thought he was the most ridiculous of the bunch.
Speaker 1: His superhero costume was really absurd. He wore a luchador
Speaker 1: mask and a purple cape vest thing with a gold
Speaker 1: embroidered dragon and l bottoms. He was the guy a
Speaker 1: midnight Jack had talked about who nearly got his junk
Speaker 1: pulled off on patrol. And of course his name was
Speaker 1: El Caballero Gentleman or night in Spanish, which for a
Speaker 1: white guy just seemed like an odd choice. Based on
Speaker 1: all of this, I had an idea in my head
Speaker 1: of who Cabby was, but then I actually met him.
Speaker 1: El Caballero agreed to meet me, of all places, at
Speaker 1: a Mexican restaurant. He doesn't live in Seattle anymore, and
Speaker 1: he asked to keep his exact location a secret. He
Speaker 1: says there are a lot of bad dudes he's apprehended
Speaker 1: over the years, who he thinks are keen to track
Speaker 1: him down and enact revenge. It's peaceful where he lives now,
Speaker 1: a small town about an hour and a half outside
Speaker 1: of Seattle. He left the city a few years ago
Speaker 1: and has settled into a quiet life with his wife.
Speaker 1: They live in a trailer park in the forest. Cabby
Speaker 1: chose the Mexican restaurant to meet because it was close
Speaker 1: to his home. It had nothing to do with his
Speaker 1: superhero name. I got there a little early and took
Speaker 1: a sea in a booth, Mexican pottery and colorful Spanish
Speaker 1: tile line of walls. When he walked into the restaurant,
Speaker 1: I didn't recognize him. It came over to me and
Speaker 1: introduced himself, and I was immediately entranced by his eyes.
Speaker 1: Cabby has hypnotic blue eyes that feel like tractor beams
Speaker 1: into your soul. There's a depth to Cabby that totally
Speaker 1: surprised me. He's a deeply spiritual person, but also very intimidating.
Speaker 1: He's a big guy, covered in tattoos. He had on
Speaker 1: a denim jacket over a brightly colored shirt. His appearance
Speaker 1: hides a gentle, thoughtful side that I hadn't expected. We
Speaker 1: sat in the restaurant for a while. I ordered some
Speaker 1: food and Cabby had a couple of drinks and ordered
Speaker 1: a burrito to take home to his wife. Then we
Speaker 1: got some beers from the gas station and sat in
Speaker 1: my car chatting in the parking lot between the restaurant
Speaker 1: and Cabby's trailer. One of his neighbor's sauce and wandered
Speaker 1: over to see what we were up to. Hey, we're
Speaker 1: just doing an interview. We're doing an interview for the internet,
Speaker 1: all right, it sounds good. All these kids, thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna how should I talk? Is this a
Speaker 1: good level to talk in? And talk? When I talk,
Speaker 1: I generally talk talk like this, and yeah, sharing the
Speaker 1: story and telling the thing about the things of the story.
Speaker 1: It sounds good. Cabby has lived all over the world.
Speaker 1: His dad was in the U. S Military and worked
Speaker 1: for NATO. So Cabby spent part of his childhood living
Speaker 1: in Europe. After I saw the Berlin wall fall, it
Speaker 1: was like eleventh grade, twelfth grade, and I moved back
Speaker 1: to America in small town. I'm a little bit of
Speaker 1: a artist and creative person, and growing up in Europe
Speaker 1: and then coming to America, whatever, some of my mannerisms
Speaker 1: made people think certain things or whatever, and they made
Speaker 1: judgments on me. And there was like skin heads and
Speaker 1: all this other not traditional skins, but some negative Nazi
Speaker 1: white power skins, and like one threw me down the
Speaker 1: steps and teachers were like, oh, that's all right, that's
Speaker 1: all good or whatever, and so I experienced that, and
Speaker 1: I was like, no one should suffer this, like, let
Speaker 1: alone myself. And so like I went from someone who
Speaker 1: was very sensitive, artistic and still am I believe to
Speaker 1: someone who was trained to protect myself and then even
Speaker 1: trained to protect other people. I tried to join the military,
Speaker 1: but have irregular heartbeats. Even though he couldn't become a soldier,
Speaker 1: Katy wanted to be a protector of humanity in some way.
Speaker 1: He got into martial arts and pursued a career in
Speaker 1: social work. I was doing caregiving and helping developmentally disabled
Speaker 1: people and stuff like that. Some of my clients were
Speaker 1: really intense, had violent tendencies, and so the company I
Speaker 1: worked for sent me to them because I had already
Speaker 1: been trained, not with them, but with other things with
Speaker 1: martial arts and de escalation and things like that. Cabby
Speaker 1: was also an avid reader of history, and in his
Speaker 1: studies he came across a template for the type of
Speaker 1: heroism that he wanted to emulate, the Knights Templar. It's
Speaker 1: an ancient chivalric order dedicated to protecting pilgrims and widows
Speaker 1: and orphans and the downtrodden and anyone else. Although the
Speaker 1: actual Knights Templar were destroyed around the year seven, the
Speaker 1: revivalist group the Cabby was involved with paid homage to
Speaker 1: the medieval order and dubbed Cabby their new Knight. I
Speaker 1: swore on the Holy Bible in front of legal witnesses,
Speaker 1: and they gave me a knighthood. In fact, I have
Speaker 1: several knighthoods now, just based on the fact that I've
Speaker 1: sworn to protect humans. Cabby took his new role as
Speaker 1: a protector of humanity very seriously. He felt a deep
Speaker 1: sense of honor and duty as a member of this
Speaker 1: historic order. I felt like I wouldn't be living up
Speaker 1: to these high honors that these people gave me if
Speaker 1: I didn't do something more noble with my skills. I
Speaker 1: told Jones, I'm like, hey, it's cool you have your
Speaker 1: school buddies, but let's bring on some real heavy hitters.
Speaker 1: It was time for Phoenix Jones and the rain City
Speaker 1: Superheroes to raise the bar so for a new generation
Speaker 1: of aspiring recruits. Things were about to get competitive. After
Speaker 1: the break, we sort the superheroes from the sidekicks. Over
Speaker 1: the first couple of years of his superhero career, Phoenix
Speaker 1: Jones had built a rag tag crime fighting posse through
Speaker 1: a bit of luck and some chance encounters with like
Speaker 1: minded folks. This motley crew ultimately became the rain City
Speaker 1: Superhero Movement, an organization with a mission to strike fear
Speaker 1: into the heart of Seattle's criminal underworld. If Phoenix really
Speaker 1: wanted to create the Avenger's style supergroup of his dreams,
Speaker 1: he couldn't just let anyone in. The movement needed some
Speaker 1: professionals like ghost. James Marks is a veteran. He'd worked
Speaker 1: in aviation mission planning for the Army and had served
Speaker 1: in Iraq after he got out of the service. James
Speaker 1: was surfing the internet when he came across some curious
Speaker 1: posts about a guy who claimed to be a real
Speaker 1: life superhero. His first thought was, Oh, come on, give
Speaker 1: me a break, I suspect. His second thought was, is
Speaker 1: that a Nippolis Batman costume? But that's more of a guess.
Speaker 1: I remember seeing online a couple of posts and screenshots
Speaker 1: of some weirdo named Phoenix Jones, and it just seemed
Speaker 1: a little larger than life personality, and I thought, it's like,
Speaker 1: what a kind of cook is this. James was skeptical
Speaker 1: but intrigued, so when he heard the superheroes of Seattle
Speaker 1: were holding an event in a bar to meet the public,
Speaker 1: he showed up. My expectations were seeing a bunch of
Speaker 1: basement dwelling causeplay nerds that put down their dice for
Speaker 1: a minute to go patrol the streets or something. And
Speaker 1: it was nothing like I'd expected. A lot of the
Speaker 1: superheroes James met that day had families and full time jobs.
Speaker 1: They didn't seem delusional. It seemed like they genuinely wanted
Speaker 1: to help people. After the meet up, James couldn't get
Speaker 1: the idea out of his head. He'd given up his
Speaker 1: job in the military, but he missed the feeling of
Speaker 1: being on a team united behind a cause. I shot
Speaker 1: an email to Phoenix shows. He left his email on
Speaker 1: the Facebook post, so I'm like, okay, morning, you know,
Speaker 1: what's the process, Like, how is this work? If someone
Speaker 1: might be interested in joining something like this? And he
Speaker 1: he responded right away and his famous caps locked fashion.
Speaker 1: Meet us at Second in Jackson on Tuesday morning at
Speaker 1: midnight and wear something blue, Phoenix out. So in the
Speaker 1: early hours of the following Tuesday, James waited on the
Speaker 1: street corner more in kind of like a black hoodie
Speaker 1: and pctical cargo pants and have this blue sash kind
Speaker 1: of a scarf. I showed up there and found out
Speaker 1: there's like eight other people also waiting around kind of
Speaker 1: dressed in various dark garb, each with the individual color.
Speaker 1: There was green, there was orange, there was me blue,
Speaker 1: there was black, there was yellow. The superhero recruits eyed
Speaker 1: each other apprehensively. Nobody said much. A couple of other
Speaker 1: people started showing up that we're very much decked out
Speaker 1: and what looked like kind of superhero gear almost costumes.
Speaker 1: Won't look like a Mexican wrestler. There was one guy
Speaker 1: looked like Spider Man kind of. That was Midnight Jack. Eventually,
Speaker 1: in his very famous late fashion, Phoenix Jones showed up
Speaker 1: and greeted all of us, and turns out it was tryouts,
Speaker 1: superhero tryouts. If you want to join the gang, you've
Speaker 1: got to prove yourself. Phoenix was in his full suit
Speaker 1: and body armor and act like his usual cocky self.
Speaker 1: He's a very very charismatic, affable guy, clearly very smart,
Speaker 1: like just genius smart, and smile like a crack a
Speaker 1: camera lens. You could just leap into any room and
Speaker 1: be the center of attention and the start of the show.
Speaker 1: Before the rookies got the chance to prove themselves to
Speaker 1: their magnetic leader, there was a first round. They had
Speaker 1: to pass they took us around the corner, one at
Speaker 1: the time. Your name, hold up your ready, pulled on
Speaker 1: your masks and keep it up, you know, for be
Speaker 1: anonymous in this. But okay, now what's your superpower? And yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And I just kind of sat there and blinked a
Speaker 1: few times. I didn't think of that. He's like, it's okay,
Speaker 1: that's all right, that's the right answer. We boot anyone
Speaker 1: who thinks they can fly immediately. I'm like, all right, okay,
Speaker 1: it's like, all right, you're good to go, you know.
Speaker 1: One of the time they let everyone else back, and
Speaker 1: at least one person walked away, very dejected, back to
Speaker 1: the car and drove off. Reading to James, this part
Speaker 1: of the vetting process was essential. There had been one
Speaker 1: guy before my time, apparently went by the name the Platypus,
Speaker 1: who superpower was poisoned water balloons or something, which turned
Speaker 1: out to be full of peace. So suffice to say,
Speaker 1: this line of volunteer working activism draws a very particular crowd.
Speaker 1: Once the rain City Superheroes were satisfied that the new
Speaker 1: recruits were more or less sane, it was time for
Speaker 1: the real test. Their first patrol Phoenix Jones had a
Speaker 1: very like all right, everyone follow me, do what I do.
Speaker 1: Don't hurt anybody, just follow my lead. He just started
Speaker 1: running and everyone's staring blinking at each other. Okay, well
Speaker 1: hold up. With the new recruits trailing in his wake,
Speaker 1: Phoenix led the patrol squad to Pioneer Square, an old
Speaker 1: red brick neighborhood in the city's downtown area, for a Tuesday.
Speaker 1: It was a busy night. People from the bars were
Speaker 1: spilling out onto the streets, and the motley crew of
Speaker 1: want to be superheroes attracted a lot of attention. Just
Speaker 1: a lot of cars honking as they drove by, or
Speaker 1: you know, waving of people. A couple of other security
Speaker 1: guards on parking lots, Hey, p j what's up. It
Speaker 1: was like everyone seemed to know this guy, Phoenix was
Speaker 1: in his element. He must have stopped for thirty photo
Speaker 1: ops by the time we made it around the block.
Speaker 1: All the women, so many women would want selfies with
Speaker 1: him or take pictures, or he did this thing where
Speaker 1: you carry women like a bride to get a picture.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was a workout in itself. But it
Speaker 1: wasn't just a photo op. The recruits got to see
Speaker 1: some action too. There was a couple of people who
Speaker 1: had clearly gotten kicked out of the club but weren't
Speaker 1: leaving yet, clearly being too intoxicated, and one of the
Speaker 1: telltale signs that she's about to go down as you
Speaker 1: see someone pull off their shirt, they're like ship shortless mail,
Speaker 1: shirtless mail Phoenix leapt into the middle of the fray.
Speaker 1: We just kind of stood back and watch him get
Speaker 1: in there and talk people down. He pulled up pepper
Speaker 1: spray at one point, didn't deploy, but just laid in faces.
Speaker 1: You know, back up or else are you gonna get it?
Speaker 1: A full year of patrolling later, James and three other
Speaker 1: battle hardened recruits who had been at the tryouts were
Speaker 1: inducted as full team members of the rain City Superheroes,
Speaker 1: and by this time James had a new superhero name,
Speaker 1: being a history nerd and uh loving a lot of
Speaker 1: things Latin. I kind of went down the path of
Speaker 1: the Roman Army and shows evocatus. It means veteran in Latin,
Speaker 1: and UH usually just got chopped down to EVO for short.
Speaker 1: Evo is the one I told you about before who
Speaker 1: wears a full faced helmet a bit like daft punk
Speaker 1: and motorcycle leathers with thick protective gloves. With a team
Speaker 1: that now included train warriors like Evo, the Rain City
Speaker 1: Superheroes were ready to take Seattle by storm. Phoenix even
Speaker 1: had his girlfriend along for the ride, Purple. Rain Purple
Speaker 1: focused mainly on supporting victims of domestic violence. El Caballero
Speaker 1: remembers the heyday of the Ray City Superheroes. Well, we
Speaker 1: were really hitting the pavement. We were really doing some stuff,
Speaker 1: from felons who would stabbed people, hardcore drug dealers like
Speaker 1: the cocaine and the cartel stuff, to identity thieves like
Speaker 1: we hit the ground running. The team held practices in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night at gas Works Park. It's
Speaker 1: on the shores of Lake Union, a freshwater lake in
Speaker 1: the middle of Seattle. The rusting remains of an old
Speaker 1: gas plant still stand there late at night by the
Speaker 1: metal ruins. The superheroes would trade skills. Phoenix taught them
Speaker 1: m A moves, and Evo taught knife disarms and other
Speaker 1: techniques he picked up in the military, and these turned
Speaker 1: out to be necessary. According to Midnight Jack, things could
Speaker 1: get pretty gnarly out on patrol. We go to crazy
Speaker 1: ass light. We were going to work with fucking bruises
Speaker 1: and black eyes from fistfights, broken thumbs, taped up toes,
Speaker 1: washing the mace off your body at the end of
Speaker 1: a long nighte so you can get two hours sleep,
Speaker 1: and going in stock shelves at the target. That's the
Speaker 1: kind of life that we lived. The stakes were hot.
Speaker 1: I had to look out for each other. Like Phoenix says,
Speaker 1: this wasn't a game. I end up getting stabbed and
Speaker 1: Cabby was there and he's like, oh, it's all good, man,
Speaker 1: don't even stress about that. So we're talking and we're
Speaker 1: getting dress at getting stad Oh yeah, it's like everything's fine.
Speaker 1: We're talking about our way to the car. We're driving
Speaker 1: back to the hospital or whatever, right, and before I
Speaker 1: get in, I like can't stop tearing up, right, And
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, I can't get in the hospital like this,
Speaker 1: Like there's cameras, people might see it. We are tearing up,
Speaker 1: like I can't stop crying, like a stabbed Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just can't stop and get my ship together and I
Speaker 1: wake up. But I'm in the hospital bit and I'm
Speaker 1: like what the cat was like, don't worry, boss, I
Speaker 1: choked you out. I was like, thanks, man, you're a
Speaker 1: genius choking your buddy unconscious so he doesn't freak out
Speaker 1: getting stabbed. That's true friendship. And it's just as well because,
Speaker 1: as you might have gathered, Phoenix has a lot of
Speaker 1: stabbing stories. He got the chance to repay Cabby. On
Speaker 1: another patrol in Belltown, Cabler and I see this person
Speaker 1: and the guy's got a knife and he's yelling at
Speaker 1: this guy and this girl, and Cabby runs in and
Speaker 1: the guy turns around and reaches out and grabs Elkaboler
Speaker 1: straight in the crotch and starts grabbing his junk. Cabby
Speaker 1: at instinct grabs the guy's arm right, So the guy's
Speaker 1: arms kind of grabbing his junk like that, and he's
Speaker 1: got his arm around it like this and like this
Speaker 1: back is for on the side of the street. And
Speaker 1: then I come through. When I put the guy down
Speaker 1: and Cabby steps back, he's like he's holding himself and
Speaker 1: he goes, you know what, man, I forgive you. So
Speaker 1: the guy he was grabbing his nuts. It was just
Speaker 1: one of those moments. It looked like I was gonna
Speaker 1: get his junk pulled off. It was hilarious. I love
Speaker 1: Cabby that way. Until I met Cabby, I never imagined
Speaker 1: that superhero work would put your groin in so many
Speaker 1: high risk situations. Anyway, flash forward to today. Of the
Speaker 1: individuals who made up the rain City superhero movement in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eleven and two thousand and twelve, none
Speaker 1: of them are on speaking terms with Phoenix Jones, literally
Speaker 1: not one. We'll get into the drama of all that
Speaker 1: fallout later, but despite the fracture of the group, speaking
Speaker 1: to me one, it was clear that they missed each other.
Speaker 1: Just kind of the calm, cool demeanor that Jones had
Speaker 1: at that time, where it was like, I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: care of business and fight some crime, but I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna be scared about it. That was always impressive with me.
Speaker 1: Cabby is this mix of like skilled negotiator right and
Speaker 1: tactical fighter. Is a tactical monster, so he'll come in
Speaker 1: and just do something and hit somebody one time or
Speaker 1: take them down the right way, and by the time
Speaker 1: they got something to do, they're just they're in the
Speaker 1: wrong position. I can't tell you enough about that guy.
Speaker 1: When you're risking your lives together, you get close and
Speaker 1: evil got to know the rest of the team, particularly well,
Speaker 1: a lot of the people on the team would just
Speaker 1: kind of naturally talk to me because I kind of
Speaker 1: accidentally wound up as like the entire HR departments. Evo
Speaker 1: had many roles in the rain City Superhero movement. Turns
Speaker 1: out being a superhero comes with a lot of admin
Speaker 1: In addition to running Phoenix is social media, filling out
Speaker 1: endless paperwork, and managing the patrol schedule. Evo was also
Speaker 1: the rain City Superhero's main chauffeur. I would leave up
Speaker 1: to an hour and a half early before a patrol
Speaker 1: to start picking up team members, and I was driving
Speaker 1: a tiny Forward Focus at the time, and I would
Speaker 1: have it packed like a clown car full of these
Speaker 1: superheroes who couldn't drive. So I would be listening for,
Speaker 1: you know, two to three hours a night of these
Speaker 1: people just kind of venting and unwinding about everything going
Speaker 1: on in their personal lives before we hit the street
Speaker 1: and put on the mask. If there's one thing I've
Speaker 1: learned in my time in the world of real life superheroes,
Speaker 1: and so they have a lot of car trouble, Phoenix
Speaker 1: seems to learn from one car crisis to the next,
Speaker 1: both with me and with his former crew members. Over
Speaker 1: the course of many many car pools with Phoenix, Evo
Speaker 1: begin to notice a pattern that made him uneasy. I
Speaker 1: guess one of the unintended consequences of me driving him
Speaker 1: absolutely everywhere is that he would tell me these stories about,
Speaker 1: you know, what's going on, Oh my god, you won't
Speaker 1: to believe what she told me this time, or something
Speaker 1: like that. But he tells this story to so many
Speaker 1: people that he kind of forgets who he's already told.
Speaker 1: Phoenix would reel off stories to people on the phone
Speaker 1: as they cruised around in Evo's car. Evo would also
Speaker 1: drive Phoenix to speaking engagements at summer camps and colleges,
Speaker 1: where he'd tell wild tales of his crime fighting capers.
Speaker 1: Evo started noticing that the details and these familiar stories
Speaker 1: started shifting. He would just hop on his phone and
Speaker 1: you know, start telling different team members different versions of
Speaker 1: the same story as well, seemingly kind of forgetting like
Speaker 1: I'm in the car or that I've already heard this.
Speaker 1: As well as having concerns about the truth of Phoenix's
Speaker 1: claims evil, it was starting to have doubts about Phoenix's
Speaker 1: leadership style. Behind the scenes, it wasn't very communicative. If
Speaker 1: it wasn't like on stage or if it was in
Speaker 1: front of a crowd or anything like that, he didn't
Speaker 1: talk much, or he didn't tell a lot of people
Speaker 1: like what was going on or what's the next step.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like, if you want to be in this,
Speaker 1: you gotta follow my every word and lead. In a
Speaker 1: team full of aspiring superheroes, there was always going to
Speaker 1: be some friction, but Evo says things got particularly bad
Speaker 1: between Phoenix and Midnight Jack. They would bud heads like
Speaker 1: an old married couple and just end up getting in
Speaker 1: yelling fights, and more than one patrol, you know, one
Speaker 1: would just like funking, I'm out and they would just
Speaker 1: leave the patrol, leaving a bunch of people in line,
Speaker 1: kind of like, uh, what what do we do? When
Speaker 1: I spoke to him, Phoenix didn't deny that there had
Speaker 1: been clashes, but to him, that misses the point. Every
Speaker 1: one of those guys didn't no ship before they met me,
Speaker 1: and I taught every single one of them how to
Speaker 1: fight crime. So people can kind of say with a
Speaker 1: will from personality conflicts, but when it comes to just facts,
Speaker 1: half of those guys would be nowhere without my crime fighting.
Speaker 1: Any group of people is going to have its personality conflicts,
Speaker 1: and for a group like the Rain City Superheroes, with
Speaker 1: it's larger than life personalities undergirded by a sense of righteousness,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was even harder to keep everyone in agreement.
Speaker 1: And then throwing the high stakes nature of their mission,
Speaker 1: the possibility of death or injury, and top it off
Speaker 1: with an arrogant, charismatic leader. And it's a wonder they
Speaker 1: were able to work together at all. But somehow they
Speaker 1: did it, and maybe they could have kept at it.
Speaker 1: But then they started to get attention, first from the
Speaker 1: citizens of Seattle, then the local and eventually national news media.
Speaker 1: Phoenix and his gang were about to hit the big time,
Speaker 1: and the fragile alliance they had with each other would
Speaker 1: finally start to buckle under the weight of their growing fame.
Speaker 1: That's coming up next time. The Superhero Complex is hosted
Speaker 1: and written by Me David Weinberg and reported by Me,
Speaker 1: Amalia Sortland and Caroline Thornham. Production from Amalia Sortland and
Speaker 1: Caroline Thornham. Sean Glenn, Max O'Brien and David Waters are
Speaker 1: executive producers, fact checking by Andrew Schwartz, Production management from
Speaker 1: Sharie Houston, Frankie Taylor and Charlotte Wolf. Sound design, mixing
Speaker 1: and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempson. 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'Meara, Katrina Norvelle Beth and macalou so or In Rosenbaum,
Speaker 1: Shelby Shenkman and all the team at U t A.
Speaker 1: For more from Novel, visit novel dot Audio m