Speaker 1: Novel h On April two thousand and fifteen, Phoenix Jones
Speaker 1: made a comeback of sorts, Ladies and Gentle. This fight
Speaker 1: has rerounds in the World Series of Fighting. He returned
Speaker 1: to the Deck a Gone, the ten sided cage where
Speaker 1: the Mixed Martial Arts World Series of Fighting takes place.
Speaker 1: In one corner, you had twenty eight year old Emmanuel
Speaker 1: wall Of Now in the other corner, you had Phoenix,
Speaker 1: who decided to fight under his superhero name for the
Speaker 1: first time in his career shore. This was Phoenix's first
Speaker 1: fight in the prestigious World Series of Fighting. It was
Speaker 1: a chance for him to rebrand himself after his falling
Speaker 1: out with his superhero teammates. It was also a chance
Speaker 1: for him to get his finances in order. He stood
Speaker 1: to win ten thousand dollars if he won the fight,
Speaker 1: and winning would put him on track to get more
Speaker 1: fights for bigger payouts. And it seemed like the world
Speaker 1: was ready to believe in Phoenix Jones again. He was
Speaker 1: going into this fight undefeated in his professional career, and
Speaker 1: in an online poll by the m A site, topology
Speaker 1: of the respondents predicted Phoenix would beat Emmanuel Wallow. Look
Speaker 1: at this arena, double stacked seats. This is where the
Speaker 1: legacy starts. This is where the phoenix rises. For someone
Speaker 1: like Phoenix, who has an admittedly disastrous personal life, I
Speaker 1: totally see the appeal of mm A. There's nothing messy
Speaker 1: about it. Hand to hand fighting is clean and simple.
Speaker 1: You can't misinterpret a punch to the face or have
Speaker 1: a difference of opinion about a roundhouse kick to the groin.
Speaker 1: It just happens, pure and visceral. Once you step into
Speaker 1: the cage, all the noise of your life melts away.
Speaker 1: The ring is the only true place in the world
Speaker 1: where no lives matter. Like nothing you said matters, nothing
Speaker 1: you claim to have done matters, none of it. Where
Speaker 1: two people were gonna fight and my machine is better
Speaker 1: than yours, and this is where I live. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be okay for me. And even if you win, you
Speaker 1: have to be spectacular, so you're gonna knock me out
Speaker 1: and I don't have to deal with it because I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna be conscious. Right. The hard part is is
Speaker 1: losing and having to stand there and watch yourself lose
Speaker 1: or not completing your goals but getting physically hurt. Who
Speaker 1: cares like you can't possibly hate me as much as
Speaker 1: I hate me. Sometimes, Phoenix was back where he longed
Speaker 1: to be, in the spotlight, about to take on his
Speaker 1: latest at poem. I'm pretty much known for safety to people.
Speaker 1: But the one thing that you have to know when
Speaker 1: they closed the deca gone doors. Not even Phoenix Jones
Speaker 1: can saving. We are set to go here in Connecticut.
Speaker 1: It would be a fight for the ages. You're ready,
Speaker 1: You're ready. I'm David Weinberg and from the team's at
Speaker 1: Novel and I heart radio. This is the Superhero Complex,
Speaker 1: episode seven from the Ashes. After Phoenix split from the
Speaker 1: Rain City Superheroes, he vowed to continue fighting crime, but
Speaker 1: based on his social media posts, he seemed to be
Speaker 1: patrolling a lot less than he had with his team
Speaker 1: beside him. He only posted to patrol videos for the
Speaker 1: rest of He posted five videos in January, one more
Speaker 1: in November, and then went silent on his official Nick
Speaker 1: Jones YouTube channel. To this day, he hasn't posted anything
Speaker 1: there since. But before he went dark completely, Phoenix posted
Speaker 1: a video from another channel, a video that was unlike
Speaker 1: anything he'd ever put out before. Hey, this is Phoenix Jones.
Speaker 1: I'm putting this on my YouTube channel, but it's really
Speaker 1: for other real life superheroes. I'm gonna be sharing it
Speaker 1: on my Facebook page. Phoenix is in street clothes. He
Speaker 1: is a massive, high top haircut, black rimmed glasses, and
Speaker 1: he's looking directly into the camera. He seems sincere acknowledging
Speaker 1: that maybe he'd made some mistakes in the past. And
Speaker 1: I realized I harbor a lot of resentment for a
Speaker 1: whole lot of superheroes in this community for various actions,
Speaker 1: I mean, different things, but when it really comes down
Speaker 1: to it, you guys are the closest I have to
Speaker 1: anyone who understands what I want to do. And like inside,
Speaker 1: I felt this crazy excitement that I wasn't alone, that
Speaker 1: I was gonna put on the suit, and I was
Speaker 1: going to make a difference with my family, you know.
Speaker 1: And as time has progressed, it's really been depressing to
Speaker 1: think that it's not that way, and someone has to
Speaker 1: start the trend, someone has to eventually give up the
Speaker 1: pissing match, and I guess it's gonna be me. So
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I'm sorry for anything that I've done that's
Speaker 1: offended you, or any of my actions that have caused you.
Speaker 1: Guys discomfort or trouble or pain. It was never really
Speaker 1: my intention to do that. I just wanted to be
Speaker 1: the best. I still I feel like I am. I
Speaker 1: feel like I am the best. Ah. There it is
Speaker 1: the moment he couldn't stop himself from proclaiming his superiority.
Speaker 1: But seriously, it must have been incredibly difficult and humbling
Speaker 1: for him to post a video like this to admit
Speaker 1: publicly that maybe he did need all those people who
Speaker 1: we called clowns and losers by his side. When you
Speaker 1: break it down, me and a superhero isn't all about
Speaker 1: in crime more being effective. So as far as I'm concerned,
Speaker 1: I'm dropping all of the negative talk about other superheroes.
Speaker 1: And before I recorded this, I deleted my entire banned list.
Speaker 1: So if you were once banned as a superhero, you
Speaker 1: are unbanned. Uh. I hope we can really just move forward.
Speaker 1: So funny to say this, if there was none of you,
Speaker 1: there wouldn't be any of me. After that, Phoenix offered
Speaker 1: to bury the hatchet with El Caballero, and he even
Speaker 1: did the unthinkable. He volunteered to help a different team
Speaker 1: of superheroes, the Emerald City Heroes Organization, which El Caballero founded,
Speaker 1: also known by their acronym Echo. No more negative stuff,
Speaker 1: no more garbage. We're all a team and uh I'll
Speaker 1: see you guys in the streets. Was the self proclaimed
Speaker 1: only true real life superhero suddenly turning over a new leaf.
Speaker 1: Was he humbled by his loneliness. Was he growing as
Speaker 1: a person and come to terms with his own shortcomings?
Speaker 1: It was certainly looking that way. Perhaps he used his
Speaker 1: downtime for self reflection. I do know that during this time,
Speaker 1: Phoenix turned back to the one thing he'd always found
Speaker 1: comfort in when he was growing up, martial arts. Martial
Speaker 1: arts was how I got away from all of the
Speaker 1: bad stuff in my life. Martial arts was what saved me.
Speaker 1: Do you remember your first mm A fight? Yeah, Ken Brenger.
Speaker 1: Sometimes in life you are presented with an opportunity to
Speaker 1: do something brave or stupid, depending on how you look
Speaker 1: at it. And for young Ben Fodor in two thousand
Speaker 1: and six, this was one of those moments. He says
Speaker 1: he went to see an m m A fight. He
Speaker 1: was sitting there in the audience with all the other
Speaker 1: fans of brutality when it happened, and they're like, oh, sorry.
Speaker 1: One of the fights bailed mack Iman to joke anyone
Speaker 1: from the audience went a fight, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'll do it, you know, And as the versus ken Brenger,
Speaker 1: like I was thirty five years old, Phoenix was only eighteen.
Speaker 1: But even though he already knew he wanted to be
Speaker 1: a fighter, he hadn't quite developed the stomach for it.
Speaker 1: Before every single gage fight, I always like projectile bombit
Speaker 1: maybe fifteen minutes before it's my turn every time, like
Speaker 1: clockwork right, warming have to get ready to go, just like, oh,
Speaker 1: we know what's gonna happen, so we just carry a
Speaker 1: bag with us. But I mean, I have crazy nerves
Speaker 1: until I don't. It turned out the bend Photor was
Speaker 1: much better at kicking and punching people than he wasn't
Speaker 1: holding down his lunch. He won fight after fight, eventually
Speaker 1: racking up eleven wins and only one loss in his
Speaker 1: amateur fighting career. He says he even teamed up with
Speaker 1: the m m A trainer, Eric Weissman, to run a gym.
Speaker 1: The world of fighting and training was a comforting place
Speaker 1: to be. Fighting is easy for me. Fighting has never
Speaker 1: been a thing that is a hard concept for me
Speaker 1: to understand. There's no like, oh no, someone wants to
Speaker 1: harm me Like I feel like people want to harm
Speaker 1: me all the time. Fighting grounded Ben and it solved
Speaker 1: another big problem in his life. Money m m A
Speaker 1: was a lucrative way to make a living. Fame may
Speaker 1: have played a big part and the disillusion of the
Speaker 1: Rain City Superheroes, but it also gave Phoenix new opportunities.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and fifteen, he signed a big deal
Speaker 1: with the World Series of Fighting, in large part because
Speaker 1: of the celebrity status he had acquired as a costume
Speaker 1: crime fighter. In fact, that was how Manny Wallow first
Speaker 1: heard about Phoenix. What was your first impression of him? Oh, honestly,
Speaker 1: man and don't judge me for saying that I thought
Speaker 1: he was a weirdo. At first, I got confused because
Speaker 1: the contracts that have been Forordab. When I kept putting
Speaker 1: Ben folded in, I kept getting Phoenix. I'm like, who
Speaker 1: is this? I hit him by my trainer and he's
Speaker 1: I think that the same person. So that's why I
Speaker 1: was the old ship. This guy got an alter eagle.
Speaker 1: I love talking to Manny. He was g garious and
Speaker 1: candid and he's still fighting, and like Phoenix, he likes
Speaker 1: to do some good when he's not trying to choke
Speaker 1: people unconscious. And the deck are gone lasts forever. You know,
Speaker 1: you gotta have what's next for you. So for me,
Speaker 1: when my passion was always the surf, my own community, everything,
Speaker 1: so I went up to became a firefighter. Manny is
Speaker 1: also pragmatic about his opponents. Fighting isn't personal. It's something
Speaker 1: I do because I love it. So if I saw
Speaker 1: my name, we could fight like me and you fight
Speaker 1: and we could be friends afterwards. There's no big deal
Speaker 1: to me. So he says he was surprised when Phoenix
Speaker 1: started attacking him on social media, and the weeks leading
Speaker 1: up to their fight, before I gave me a look
Speaker 1: to see who he was, he was already talking and
Speaker 1: shipped on me, like you know, so it's like he came.
Speaker 1: He came looking for me. I don't hit up opponents
Speaker 1: or nothing. I just go on YouTube but stuffing find ship.
Speaker 1: But he started with the whole making videos and everything
Speaker 1: about me, and I'm like, okay. When I spoke to Phoenix,
Speaker 1: he said Manny had challenged him to the fight and
Speaker 1: that made it personal. Whether he liked it or not.
Speaker 1: Apparently all the smack talking did get under manual skin.
Speaker 1: In the video of the way in before the fight,
Speaker 1: it's actually Manny who looks furious and so they didn't
Speaker 1: wait for the fighting to get inside the cage. The
Speaker 1: stick started out the way and as Wallow he taunts,
Speaker 1: Phoenix gets right up in his face as if he's
Speaker 1: about to hit him. President Ray Setho having to step
Speaker 1: in and back the fellows up. They were ready to
Speaker 1: go down right there. It's Phoenix who stands there playing
Speaker 1: it cool. At one point he holds his hand to
Speaker 1: like it's a mouth opening and closing it as if
Speaker 1: to say, yeah, I keep talking, buddy. Everybody. You know
Speaker 1: I'm easy going guy. You know I don't talk. But
Speaker 1: he got me out of my character. Like so at
Speaker 1: the way is when I finally saw him, I just
Speaker 1: went off and I'm forgetting like this is the way.
Speaker 1: The camera's there everything. Sometimes the effects of the weight
Speaker 1: cut plays out of the way against. The fight was
Speaker 1: on Phoenix Jones a Manual Wallow. We can inside the cage.
Speaker 1: Phoenix came out on the offensive, throwing the first punches
Speaker 1: and launching himself Wallow Jones walks right. He had the
Speaker 1: wallo we want to do no fear, But it's Waller
Speaker 1: who gets the first takedown, picking Phoenix up and slamming
Speaker 1: him to the mat on his back. The beautiful takedowns
Speaker 1: coming from Wallow in the red trunks. Phoenix jump so far,
Speaker 1: not having a lot of success. Phoenix manages to get up,
Speaker 1: but then immediately gets taken down again. Be beautiful, beautiful
Speaker 1: pat jobs. And then he said he continued to talk
Speaker 1: Phoenix in the ring while they were fighting. I was like,
Speaker 1: there's not some drunk guys down in Seattle that you're
Speaker 1: beating up. Every time I was taking him down, I
Speaker 1: was like, up another one. Every time I was talking
Speaker 1: about I was like, Dji was another one. I was
Speaker 1: just molding him. Pick the most flamm and pick him up,
Speaker 1: lamming for fift him in coming up on the final
Speaker 1: fifteen seconds of round number one, this one will go
Speaker 1: to a second round. Who we returned to Conneticut. By
Speaker 1: the end of round one, Phoenix doesn't have a single takedown.
Speaker 1: He looks exhausted, his mouth open as he gasped for air,
Speaker 1: revealing his mouth guard which has vampire fangs printed on it,
Speaker 1: and then before Phoenix can even catch his breath. Round
Speaker 1: and this is round two of Phoenix Jones trying to
Speaker 1: figure out the puzzle that is a manual wallow us wallow.
Speaker 1: The next two rounds don't go much better for Phoenix.
Speaker 1: He gets taken down again, and again he spends most
Speaker 1: of the fight on his back, being dominated by a manually.
Speaker 1: Phoenix Child's going to the guilty Phoenix needs an absolute
Speaker 1: miracle here, but there is no miracle. All three judges
Speaker 1: scorched twenty out of four year winner by humanimous decision
Speaker 1: eat Manuo whoa Phoenix hates losing, and I'm sure this
Speaker 1: loss in particular stue. It was supposed to be his
Speaker 1: grand comeback. But Phoenix takes things personally, and he seems
Speaker 1: to have burned bridges in the M m A world
Speaker 1: as well as the superhero world. We reached out to
Speaker 1: a lot of people for the story, and many of
Speaker 1: them declined to talk to us, but some responded with
Speaker 1: vague warnings like Phoenix is a bad person and the
Speaker 1: attention just makes him worse. One person who knew Phoenix
Speaker 1: from the gym told us that we were violating journalistic
Speaker 1: ethics for even doing a story about him. But Phoenix's
Speaker 1: mm A career wasn't over after his loss to Manny Wallow,
Speaker 1: though he did go on to fight an opponent that
Speaker 1: got a lot of attention. He went on to go
Speaker 1: fight his own brother, Like, what kind of crazy ship
Speaker 1: is that? I don't give a fuck if I me
Speaker 1: and my brood the Hades, I'm not gonna fight on
Speaker 1: entertaining people I don't know, like like, so there was
Speaker 1: a lot of demons that he has. Phoenix's brother, Karros Photo,
Speaker 1: is also an mm A fighter. He didn't respond to
Speaker 1: our requests to speak with him, but one thing we
Speaker 1: do know about him, his relationship with Phoenix is tense.
Speaker 1: I hate my brother and I hate this terrible person.
Speaker 1: Horrible person, Okay, I want to him physically. I would
Speaker 1: like to hurt him now physically. If it was a
Speaker 1: legal way for me to hurt him, I would do it.
Speaker 1: As we speak, Phoenix and his brother agreed to fight
Speaker 1: in the ring, and it was a media sensation a
Speaker 1: real life violent family feud. If this sounds weirdly familiar,
Speaker 1: the same thing happened to superhero Luke Cage, who publicly
Speaker 1: fought his half brother and arch nemesis Willis Striker, but
Speaker 1: unlike Luke, a fictional superhero, the outcome was a little
Speaker 1: different for Phoenix. Phoenix says Karros instigated the fight behind
Speaker 1: his back. I'm like, yo, remember that time that you
Speaker 1: signed a cage fight behind my back to fight me
Speaker 1: without telling me because you were my coach. Kicked me
Speaker 1: out of the fight, Jim, I'd been training at while
Speaker 1: you had been training me, and then talk about me
Speaker 1: on the internet. In the lead up to the fight,
Speaker 1: Phoenix posted videos trying to talk Carols out of it.
Speaker 1: I tried to call you, but you nasty phone. So
Speaker 1: just one last chance. We don't have to do this.
Speaker 1: I know you want to do this, and I will
Speaker 1: do this. We don't have to sure call see if
Speaker 1: you are. Karros told journalists at the time that his
Speaker 1: brother was only pretending that he had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with setting up the fight. Either way, it seemed like
Speaker 1: Phoenix was enjoying the attention and that it was a
Speaker 1: good marketing strategy. Calos is the older brother, Ben the
Speaker 1: caller brother. For all his posturing, Phoenix went forward with
Speaker 1: the fight. He wore his signature American flag shorts with
Speaker 1: the words Ben flat top photor so here they go. Wow,
Speaker 1: adopted foster brothers. The commentators initially referred to Phoenix as
Speaker 1: Ben Ben said he wanted to be called Phoenix Jones.
Speaker 1: Tonight they are the photo Brothers, but we will call
Speaker 1: him Jones and the red, white, blue trunks. They both
Speaker 1: come out swinging, each landing a few quick punches and
Speaker 1: then they lock arms and Phoenix takes a few knees
Speaker 1: to the face. Carols gets the first takedown down as
Speaker 1: he wanted to get it to the ground quickly, and
Speaker 1: he dogs from the get go. It's a struggle for Phoenix,
Speaker 1: Phoenix jugs having all kinds are trouble trying to keep
Speaker 1: their spikes standing up. He's not there able to do
Speaker 1: it so far. At the end of the final round,
Speaker 1: there's no decisive winner, so they go to the judges.
Speaker 1: Judges judges all score the fight thirty or your winner
Speaker 1: by unanimous decision. Carol m In the end, Phoenix was
Speaker 1: no match for his brother. When we hung out, I
Speaker 1: asked him about the fight, and even still all these
Speaker 1: years later, he's not over it. He's like, it's all
Speaker 1: about good fun and making money. Yeah, not to me.
Speaker 1: The most insulting thing you can do with another human
Speaker 1: is look at them and say, I want to take
Speaker 1: something you love, like fighting. I would think I can
Speaker 1: beat you. I want to sell tickets to my friends
Speaker 1: and family to come watch me beat you up. Oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, we're just kidding. Fuck you, you're crazy.
Speaker 1: You're a crazy person. We're gonna shake hands. We're not
Speaker 1: be friends. I hate you, I absolutely hate you. Phoenix
Speaker 1: had been defeated again, but in videos he posted online,
Speaker 1: he decided to double down on his mm A career.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna focus on becoming a well around him ay fighter.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take some jiujitsu classes and I'm gonna come back.
Speaker 1: I mean, you guys deserve better. I'm gonna give us
Speaker 1: a good shot. So for the next two years, I'm
Speaker 1: going to give this mm A thing a real shot.
Speaker 1: At least that was the intention. In reality, he only
Speaker 1: fought twice more, and neither of those fights attracted nearly
Speaker 1: as much attention as the one with his brother. After
Speaker 1: a final loss, in his career ground to a halt,
Speaker 1: leaving him to question his future. You get out of
Speaker 1: martial arts and there's nothing left. There's no more fighting.
Speaker 1: I have no skills that I think applied to the
Speaker 1: world I live, and I had better off four thousand
Speaker 1: years ago running a Germanic try of warriors like I
Speaker 1: don't have a place anymore. The world evolved to where
Speaker 1: computer people and pushing buttons are more important than physical attributes,
Speaker 1: and who am I? And then you go, what am
Speaker 1: I going to do with that? Phoenix Jones was adrift.
Speaker 1: He felt like he'd lost his purpose. Who was he
Speaker 1: if he wasn't fighting crime on the streets or opponents
Speaker 1: in the cage. Meanwhile, back in Seattle, the members of
Speaker 1: the superhero community who had once been inspired by Phoenix,
Speaker 1: we're having to pick up the pieces and defend the
Speaker 1: innocent without him. That's coming up alright. It is about
Speaker 1: ten thirty pm on Thursday, and I am about to
Speaker 1: roll up on Justin Service and Red Ranger from my
Speaker 1: very first ever patrol with real life superheroes. Here we go.
Speaker 1: From the moment I started working on this story, one
Speaker 1: of the things that excited me the most was the
Speaker 1: prospect of going out on a crime fighting patrol with
Speaker 1: some costumed heroes. And last year, when I was deep
Speaker 1: in the world of real life superheroes, I met up
Speaker 1: with two Seattle superheroes in a parking garage downtown. I
Speaker 1: was greeted at first with a powerful stench of urine.
Speaker 1: In a far corner of the garage, I saw two
Speaker 1: superheroes unloading equipment from the back of a station wagon.
Speaker 1: Hey you must be Red Ranger. David. Hey there, David,
Speaker 1: are you recording video right now? Audio? Okay, might snap
Speaker 1: some photos, snap photos of us cool just got the
Speaker 1: car just because secret. At Andy's Airport US Day, Red
Speaker 1: Ranger was dressed in a black and red outfit made
Speaker 1: up of the type of protective gear that hockey players wear,
Speaker 1: plastic shoulder and knee pads, and he wore a menacing
Speaker 1: looking red mask with black mesh eye holes and carried
Speaker 1: a big metal shield with a peace sign made of
Speaker 1: red tape on the front. Justin's service was clad in
Speaker 1: green and white gear similar to Red Rangers, with a
Speaker 1: bulletproof vest underneath his plastic armor. He wore a pair
Speaker 1: of goggles that he had accented with neon yellow tape
Speaker 1: and a gray mask that muffled his voice. They both
Speaker 1: had GoPro cameras mounted on their chests. I felt a
Speaker 1: little underdressed in my street clothes. I have a sort
Speaker 1: of practical question, where do you guys go to the bathroom?
Speaker 1: We've got the same out without going into too much detail, YEA,
Speaker 1: make sure our seats are not just flashy for functional.
Speaker 1: In the absence of Phoenix Jones, his old teammates at
Speaker 1: splinter into a few different groups that patrolled together. Red
Speaker 1: Ranger was a part of Echo, a group that El
Speaker 1: Caballero founded and sometimes patrolled with. Justin Service was relatively
Speaker 1: new to the Seattle superhero scene. He'd moved to town
Speaker 1: in two thousand and twenty. Tonight, it was just the
Speaker 1: two of them on patrol. They were getting ready by
Speaker 1: loading supplies onto a cart with wheels that they would
Speaker 1: tow behind them as we walked the streets. So we
Speaker 1: will start rolling around Pioneer Square with our supplies, doing
Speaker 1: our safety watch and also looking for people who might
Speaker 1: be in need of some help. Tonight, all right, let's roll,
Speaker 1: and with that we were on the move. Two armored
Speaker 1: do gooders and an intrepid reporter in search of people
Speaker 1: in distress. We started out in Pioneer Square, one of
Speaker 1: the oldest parts of the city, home to a lot
Speaker 1: of historic buildings, old saloons. Red brick streets and several
Speaker 1: large homeless encampments. As we made our way through the streets,
Speaker 1: nearly everyone who saw some had some kind of reaction.
Speaker 1: Are you guys transformers? There were double takes and wide eyes,
Speaker 1: and some people shouted things at us Seattle Superheroes Man
Speaker 1: control supplies at homes and Red Ranger wasn't kidding. You
Speaker 1: guys want food, water, socks, water, don't want you also
Speaker 1: got masks, hands and does want a mask? Man? Oh
Speaker 1: you've got one. It's beautiful too. Yeah, yeah, we gotta Okay,
Speaker 1: no worries. We're giving out free stuff tonight, including the
Speaker 1: beef stits turned on. The superheroes seemed unfazed by all
Speaker 1: the attention they got on patrol and maybe even a
Speaker 1: little flattered. You guys look like want video games? Oh no, Man,
Speaker 1: Seattle Superheroes brothers back in the scene. Man. Along with
Speaker 1: all the water, food, hand sanitizer, and socks, the superheroes
Speaker 1: were also outfitted with some more hardcore supplies. What's on
Speaker 1: your belt and all that? What do you kind of
Speaker 1: gear do you typically have? We've got our ballistic gear
Speaker 1: and the FENS weapons in case anything hard and we
Speaker 1: employed de escalation and nonviolent tactics always as a primary intervention.
Speaker 1: I do like to carry medical supplies on me at
Speaker 1: all times. Red Ranger was the more formidable of the duo.
Speaker 1: He was a big guy. In his civilian life, he
Speaker 1: works as a nurse in a hospital. He put these
Speaker 1: skills to use numerous times on the patrol, giving medical
Speaker 1: advice and first aid too many of the homeless people
Speaker 1: we encountered. I used to do some time in an
Speaker 1: emergency room. You know, I would see some things. They're
Speaker 1: like victims of gunshot wounds, things like that, and I
Speaker 1: would be there trying to help these people. And when
Speaker 1: you can't help them and they end up succumbing to
Speaker 1: their wounds, I just kind of made this resolve to
Speaker 1: myself that said, as long as I can prevent this happening,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do everything I can to prevent it from happening.
Speaker 1: Red Ranger came onto the scene at the tail end
Speaker 1: of the rain City Superhero movement, and he went on
Speaker 1: a few patrols with Phoenix and his team before the
Speaker 1: group disbanded. At the time, you know, I was still
Speaker 1: kind of getting to know all the drama. Um, so
Speaker 1: I was a little bit farther removed, and at first
Speaker 1: I saw him as a really good guy. I didn't
Speaker 1: really have any problems patrolling with him for a while.
Speaker 1: We kind of have a rule in the superior community.
Speaker 1: You know, you take care of your own house first, right,
Speaker 1: because you can't pour from an empty cup, right, You
Speaker 1: still have to take care of your own life. And
Speaker 1: if your own life needs work, you can't put yourself
Speaker 1: out there to try and help other people if you
Speaker 1: can't help yourself. He kind of got into this space
Speaker 1: where it was definitely not good for him to be
Speaker 1: patrolling for a while, and I think that's why he
Speaker 1: took several hiatuses and has been less active recently. In
Speaker 1: in the recent years, I got the feeling from patrolling
Speaker 1: and talking with Justin's service that Red Ranger was very
Speaker 1: much his mentor. Justin was younger, also smaller, a skinny
Speaker 1: guy who was relatively new to Seattle. He was soft
Speaker 1: spoken and had a gentleness that I found endearing. Hate Greg,
Speaker 1: but I have a flash, right, I think bring that
Speaker 1: big one. Justin grew up in a small town in Idaho.
Speaker 1: It's just the nerdy kid that would avoid confrontation all
Speaker 1: the time and got beat up a lot, but courage
Speaker 1: is uh something you build on. He heard about the
Speaker 1: real life superhero movement after seeing a documentary on HBO
Speaker 1: called Superheroes. They genuinely wanted to help and they had
Speaker 1: a creative way to do it, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I want to try that out. So he put together
Speaker 1: a costume and started patrolling the streets of a small
Speaker 1: town looking for crime to stop. It was nerve racking
Speaker 1: at first. I was just a guy in a costume
Speaker 1: wandering around in a very conservative area, and in small town, Idaho,
Speaker 1: there wasn't a whole lot of crime to fight. It
Speaker 1: was also a particularly difficult time in his life. My
Speaker 1: dad was diagnosed with cancer and getting treatments and stuff
Speaker 1: at the time, so it was kind of hard, and
Speaker 1: I didn't want to, like, I don't know, put any
Speaker 1: extra on him. He wasn't exactly the best father, but
Speaker 1: he was a good guy. So I alternated between like
Speaker 1: taking care of him and going out at night. But
Speaker 1: he uh, he recently passed in July, so Justin had
Speaker 1: also lost his mom, and without his parents, he struggled
Speaker 1: to figure out what exactly he was going to do
Speaker 1: with his life. As he started looking into the real
Speaker 1: life superhero movement. He met some of the Seattle superheroes
Speaker 1: like Red Ranger on Facebook and it made the possibility
Speaker 1: of becoming a hero more real. He decided to move
Speaker 1: to Seattle and join them Red Ranger, sky Man, Spirit Fox,
Speaker 1: El Cabro, all them. They welcome in and help me out.
Speaker 1: Does Seattle feel like a dangerous place? Do you? Um?
Speaker 1: I wouldn't call it safe, that's for sure. His luck
Speaker 1: would have it. During Justin's services very first patrol in
Speaker 1: Seattle with his newfound friends, they happened to run into
Speaker 1: Phoenix Jones. Well technically they ran into Ben Fodor. He
Speaker 1: was in street clothes, not on patrol. The first thing
Speaker 1: he said to me, he was like, hey, new guy,
Speaker 1: dear job or I'll kill you my fucking self. I
Speaker 1: was just kind of taken aback by that. I was like, Jesus,
Speaker 1: guy is supposed to be a superhero. When I first
Speaker 1: came out here, my mindset, I had watched the videos
Speaker 1: of Phoenix Jones and all that, and I was like stoked.
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, this is the guy. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: then he says off the walls stuff like that, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, okay, that was my first time meeting
Speaker 1: the famous Phoenix Jones. When I asked Phoenix about this exchange,
Speaker 1: he admitted to saying it. He claimed he was only joking,
Speaker 1: but it didn't seem that way to Justin's service. How
Speaker 1: can you claim to be a defender of the innocent
Speaker 1: and be a bully at the same time. After spending
Speaker 1: time with Justin and hearing his story of losing his parents,
Speaker 1: I just felt this paternal instinct to protect him, and
Speaker 1: knowing that he was inspired to uproot his life and
Speaker 1: moved to Seattle precisely because of Phoenix, only to meet
Speaker 1: him and have him threatened his life, it really angered me.
Speaker 1: We got like socks, So you're not totally free superheroes,
Speaker 1: not coops. I'm actually a nurse. I will also say
Speaker 1: that I'm very grateful for Justin's service, because he ended
Speaker 1: up protecting me on patrol that night. I had not
Speaker 1: expected things to go down the way they did. I
Speaker 1: figured we'd help a few homeless people and maybe, if
Speaker 1: we were really lucky, we'd find a bar fight to
Speaker 1: break up. Because the vast majority of the time, superhero
Speaker 1: patrols are pretty uneventful. Even if you patrol every night,
Speaker 1: the odds of encountering a crime in progress seems insanely low.
Speaker 1: But that's also one of the arguments I've heard for
Speaker 1: these patrols that the presence of these crazy looking characters
Speaker 1: can actually deter crime. I mean, would you snatch a
Speaker 1: purse from an old lady if a dude in head
Speaker 1: to toe body armor and a metal shield was glaring
Speaker 1: at you. What I was not prepared for was the
Speaker 1: profound mental health and addiction crisis that we were waiting into.
Speaker 1: At one point, we were standing on a street corner
Speaker 1: handing out food when this guy with a crazed look
Speaker 1: in his eyes came running at me with a metal pole.
Speaker 1: Justin's Service jumped in between me and the guy. So
Speaker 1: we just had a guy threatening other residents of this
Speaker 1: homeless camp with a pole, and Justin Service and I
Speaker 1: just put ourselves between him and the residents of this
Speaker 1: camp and he walked away. He's coming back though, never
Speaker 1: mind we wear the armor. He ended up stopping short
Speaker 1: of attacking us, but he was clearly distressed, rambling incoherently,
Speaker 1: Oh did you need so? Red Ranger and Justin's Service
Speaker 1: decided to try a different approach. They asked the guy
Speaker 1: about his weapon. Is it a flu? What is it?
Speaker 1: It's it's a compressed in spots like it looks like
Speaker 1: a flu. Do you want some water or food or anything.
Speaker 1: We can give you that right now. Brother. I'm sorry
Speaker 1: you guys walking. Oh yeah, we're going all around the
Speaker 1: city tonight. All right, brother, be safe with that thing tonight.
Speaker 1: It looks safe, it okay. Red Ranger and justin Service
Speaker 1: handled the situation extremely well. It was impressive, in fact,
Speaker 1: that they were so kind and gentle with the man
Speaker 1: that he decided he wanted to join us, and he
Speaker 1: walked alongside us for several blocks, while Red Ranger definitely
Speaker 1: tried to get him to go off on his own
Speaker 1: so we could continue our patrol. All right, brother, take care.
Speaker 1: We'll roll with you and see if I can orno.
Speaker 1: It's all right, man, we're gonna be moving all around
Speaker 1: you got There were other encounters that still haunted me.
Speaker 1: One woman came up to Red Ranger when she heard
Speaker 1: him say that he was in a nurse. She showed
Speaker 1: him her arm, which was covered in horribly infected sores
Speaker 1: from using intravenous drugs. Even Red Rangers seemed a little alarmed.
Speaker 1: That's a serious infection and he needs some antibiotics for that.
Speaker 1: I would make sure you get to a hospital as
Speaker 1: soon as possible. Okay, can you walk there? Can you
Speaker 1: get there? Are you hurting right now? I thought, alright, dear,
Speaker 1: I understand that, but you've got to be safe with that. Okay,
Speaker 1: make sure we get clean needles and go see a hospital.
Speaker 1: SUSI maybe I was just paranoid, but we came across
Speaker 1: so many people who were clearly struggling with mental health issues.
Speaker 1: I was worried they would see the superheroes in their
Speaker 1: armor and think they were a threat and they would
Speaker 1: attack us. But no one did. Instead, they accepted our
Speaker 1: socks and food, and we're grateful. Red Ranger administered first
Speaker 1: aid to several people who seemed to be in really
Speaker 1: bad shape. It was pretty remarkable to see the superheroes
Speaker 1: in action, and it was an experience that has stayed
Speaker 1: with me, especially after hearing the way Phoenix talked specifically
Speaker 1: about Justin's service and the other members of the superhero
Speaker 1: community who were drawn to the humanitarian aspect of this work.
Speaker 1: Seeing Red Ranger and Justin Service changed my opinion of
Speaker 1: the real life superheroes. Before going on patrol, I was
Speaker 1: a lot more skeptical of the good that these superheroes
Speaker 1: were doing, but I came away from my patrol with
Speaker 1: a lot more respect for them. I did wonder, though,
Speaker 1: how it affected them to wade into so much pain
Speaker 1: and suffering as often as they do. What is like
Speaker 1: your regular day to day life like when you're not
Speaker 1: uh fighting crime. Um, I won't go into too much detail,
Speaker 1: but I am currently homeless myself and trying to to
Speaker 1: work towards housing and all that. Uh so fighting crime
Speaker 1: on top of all that. It is a little tricky,
Speaker 1: but I try and make it work even when I'm
Speaker 1: not in the mask and everything. I'm I have an
Speaker 1: app called Citizen, Yeah, and so I use that a
Speaker 1: lot to find incidences near me, and I'll rush right
Speaker 1: to it armor or not, just to make sure everybody's
Speaker 1: safe and if there is anything I can do to help,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm there, you know. So, Yeah, it's pretty amazing
Speaker 1: that you do all this work and you're also like
Speaker 1: struggling to find housing yourself. What is that like? Um?
Speaker 1: I suppose it's just a matter of I've experienced a
Speaker 1: lot of loss myself with my parents and being homeless
Speaker 1: and stuff. I just understand what it is to be struggling,
Speaker 1: and if I can help another person not struggle as much,
Speaker 1: that that helps my life, you know. So, yes, I'm
Speaker 1: homeless and I'm working towards finding housing, but I I
Speaker 1: have ways to feed myself, I have ways to to
Speaker 1: work with housing navigators and stuff like that, so I
Speaker 1: want to help the people who don't have those resources.
Speaker 1: It's kind of the same with the armor, you know.
Speaker 1: If I'm the one with the armor, I want to
Speaker 1: take the damage, not the person who doesn't have the armor.
Speaker 1: I'm just in service. I'm here only to serve, not
Speaker 1: to receive. I was shocked to learn that justin Service
Speaker 1: was homeless. I think if anyone deserves to be called
Speaker 1: a real life superhero, I'd like to nominate him. A
Speaker 1: guy who's struggling to find housing and spends what little
Speaker 1: money he has buying food and socks for other homeless people.
Speaker 1: And learning that he was homeless made me more angry
Speaker 1: at the way Phoenix talked about people like justin the
Speaker 1: way he labeled them with his trademark insult real life
Speaker 1: sandwich handlers. He e J said that a long time
Speaker 1: ago and It's like, you know, from my perspective of
Speaker 1: being homeless and all that, I wish that there were
Speaker 1: superheroes hand and sandwiches on the times I was on
Speaker 1: the street and all that. I'm in a shelter now.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's just crazy to think that helping someone
Speaker 1: is bad or ineffective in some way. Like that's what
Speaker 1: heroes do. We hope people. It's not always comic book
Speaker 1: action and fighting Kaijus in the street. It's it's helping
Speaker 1: people first and foremost. Thank you for coming out here
Speaker 1: with our pro book. Thanks for letting me tag a lie.
Speaker 1: I hope I wasn't in the way at all. It
Speaker 1: was time to bid farewell to my new superhero friends.
Speaker 1: It was the early hours of the morning. I was
Speaker 1: exhausted physically and emotionally. I got into my rental car
Speaker 1: and shut the door. For the first time that night,
Speaker 1: all the noise of the city went quiet. I sat
Speaker 1: there for a good while, feeling heavy with sadness. After
Speaker 1: seeing so many people suffering, It was impressive to see
Speaker 1: the superheroes dedicate themselves to helping, but the scale of
Speaker 1: the problem fell overwhelming, and the need for housing and
Speaker 1: supportive services far greater than anything the superheroes could provide. Eventually,
Speaker 1: I started my car and headed back to my hotel. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: all was not well with the city's most famous masked adventurer,
Speaker 1: Phoenix Jones, was about to find himself in a mess
Speaker 1: he couldn't talk his way out of. That's coming up.
Speaker 1: In the years after Phoenix's departure from the Rain City Superheroes,
Speaker 1: his old teammates kept an eye on their old leader
Speaker 1: from a distance, and they noticed a pattern start to emerge.
Speaker 1: Phoenix would disappear for a while, then suddenly he would
Speaker 1: be back out on the streets patrolling. He always makes
Speaker 1: a comeback every six months or so when he's ready
Speaker 1: to like up his mm A career. This is Crystal Marks.
Speaker 1: He does a patrol, invites media along, and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden he's like, oh yeah, and I have
Speaker 1: a fight yet, you know Karina or wherever show Wear
Speaker 1: Center and Kent Like, okay, that's why you're doing it.
Speaker 1: You're no longer doing it because you care. I think
Speaker 1: you still do, but it's because you want to promote
Speaker 1: your fight. The rain City Superheroes and moved on with
Speaker 1: their own lives, but watching from Afar. They were getting
Speaker 1: indications that things in Phoenix's life we're not going well.
Speaker 1: Here's evocatus. I still remember the day I got a
Speaker 1: phone call asking, you know what can I speak to
Speaker 1: Benjamin Voter. I'm like, may I ask what this is
Speaker 1: in regards to without saying yes or no. And basically,
Speaker 1: there had been some altercation or crime or something and
Speaker 1: he had put my contact information on the police report
Speaker 1: for whatever crime or whatever it was he got stopped for.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it was he did. She wouldn't
Speaker 1: disclose that, but used my name, my phone number, and
Speaker 1: I explained that to the attorney that had called me.
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, this is I used to be on
Speaker 1: his team. I don't know why he would do that
Speaker 1: now I live in a completely different city. And she's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't sound anything like. I'm like, yeah, I'm I
Speaker 1: thank you, I'm aware, I don't tell anything like. She
Speaker 1: apologized and thanked me for my time, and that was that.
Speaker 1: Eva wasn't the only one. Almost everyone on the team
Speaker 1: at some point had been contacted by either the Seattle
Speaker 1: Police Department or someone within the King County Court system
Speaker 1: asking for Phoenix Jones EVO told me he and the
Speaker 1: other superheroes were still getting calls from the police. Years
Speaker 1: after the rain City Superheroes had disbanded. Phoenix's former teammates
Speaker 1: had some theories about what might be at the root
Speaker 1: of Phoenix's unusual behavior and all of the run ins
Speaker 1: he seemed to be having with the cops. He pawned
Speaker 1: a bunch of team equipment for drugs. Here's Midnight Jack
Speaker 1: Phoenix Jones. Sociopath is what I think. The only thing
Speaker 1: Ben cares about has been and that's why he has
Speaker 1: no friends. All his friends have left him. He's kind
Speaker 1: of got beaten down, started using. The man is just
Speaker 1: not in a good place, is what it is. This
Speaker 1: wasn't the first time there have been speculation that Phoenix
Speaker 1: might have a drug problem. Many of his former comrades
Speaker 1: told me they had suspicions for years, even back when
Speaker 1: the rain City Superheroes were still together. His proximity to
Speaker 1: drugs seemed to kind of increase with frequency. He keeps
Speaker 1: going to more and more of these parties where he
Speaker 1: would be air quotes accidentally slipped something on the Lord
Speaker 1: knows what it could be that made him feel very woozier. Stuff.
Speaker 1: He was kind of gauging the water to see how
Speaker 1: people react to him actually taking some kind of drugs.
Speaker 1: Evo said that Phoenix also repeatedly made excuses to be
Speaker 1: around drugs when it came to his crime fighting. Once
Speaker 1: a fellow team Reaper said, hey, did you see his Twitter? Like? No,
Speaker 1: I said, no, no no, no, his other Twitter, And he
Speaker 1: showed me a new profile he had made talking about
Speaker 1: going undercover. He would dress up and just regular civilian
Speaker 1: clothes and try to do drug busts and things like that.
Speaker 1: But you know, he had to get in real close
Speaker 1: with them first. And it's like he had watched a
Speaker 1: couple episodes of Breaking Bad and you know, got a
Speaker 1: couple of light bulb moments there. But Evo said the
Speaker 1: stories Phoenix told didn't add up. The other superheroes had
Speaker 1: heard conflicting versions from Phoenix. He was trying to take
Speaker 1: down this crack dealer and this other person. No, he's
Speaker 1: trying to take down this weed dealer. No, he's trying
Speaker 1: to take down this meth dealer. And you know, I
Speaker 1: had to earn their trust before they let me in,
Speaker 1: So I had to, you know, deal some stuff from
Speaker 1: time to time. But you know that was just for
Speaker 1: the mission, right, and it would change so many times.
Speaker 1: I just kind of like, Okay, well there's a problem here.
Speaker 1: I am not qualified to address this. I don't even
Speaker 1: know what to do. I'm just here at patrol man,
Speaker 1: and I would just keep on with it. Evo said
Speaker 1: things got so bad that at one point one of
Speaker 1: Phoenix's close friends, someone from outside the superhero world called
Speaker 1: him up worried about Phoenix's relationship with drugs. She had
Speaker 1: lost somebody to drug overdose who had had very similar tendencies, like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I was just hanging on with some friends
Speaker 1: and somebody put something in my drink and I had
Speaker 1: no idea what it was, and it bothered her so
Speaker 1: much that she couldn't talk to him anymore. Evo told
Speaker 1: me another story from back in their patrolling days, when
Speaker 1: Phoenix had been acting really strange. He just seemed like
Speaker 1: a nonresponsive zombie, just kind of walking but not talking
Speaker 1: to anybody. There were rumors of some kind of potential
Speaker 1: substance being in a system. We had two medics on
Speaker 1: our team at the time, and one of them could
Speaker 1: recognize immediately that there was something off, and it made
Speaker 1: some kind of sideways joke about, yeah, he would set
Speaker 1: fire to your analysis test right now if we were
Speaker 1: to test for drugs or something like that, and getting
Speaker 1: her and sample said, yeah, that would probably combust. Now,
Speaker 1: mind you, that's that's rumor mill And you know, I'm
Speaker 1: certainly no doctor, but the shoe would fit, and I
Speaker 1: don't think anyone would be surprised. Evil wasn't happy with
Speaker 1: the potential risk of patrolling with someone whose judgment might
Speaker 1: be impaired by narcotics, so he followed up right before
Speaker 1: the team had actually disbanded. I had purchased several ur
Speaker 1: analysis tests drug tests. It's basically urinate on a little strip.
Speaker 1: It detects like seven or nine different types of control
Speaker 1: substances and see if you know, if the color shows up,
Speaker 1: that means you have something in your system, that kind
Speaker 1: of a thing, and I would I bottle those. And
Speaker 1: I intended to bring that and kind of springing as
Speaker 1: a surprise on everyone at a on a patrol do
Speaker 1: to some of these rumors and stuff like that. But
Speaker 1: Phoenix had disbanded the team just before it had happened,
Speaker 1: so no one ever knew. And I suspect that someone
Speaker 1: may have leaked that to Phoenix, or had mentioned that, Hey,
Speaker 1: just so you know, there's going to be what we
Speaker 1: call a whiz quiz coming up soon. So I can't
Speaker 1: verify whether or not he knew in advance or just
Speaker 1: he was having a temper tantrum and decided to take
Speaker 1: his ball and go home. There was enough rumor mill
Speaker 1: to substantiate me actually getting drug tests. The entire team ready.
Speaker 1: Elcaba Lero was concerned too. I mean, it's something he
Speaker 1: had actually talked about quite a number of times, like
Speaker 1: I've never done drugs, Like I can't believe people do that.
Speaker 1: In fact, that was his coming of age superhero story,
Speaker 1: is that someone high on drugs broke his window and
Speaker 1: his kid almost got cut with the glass coming in
Speaker 1: the morning because a junkie or something broke his car
Speaker 1: window to steal his stuff. And now he's doing these
Speaker 1: kind of party drugs. It's frustrating because you know, you
Speaker 1: love someone to care about him and you want him
Speaker 1: to do the best, and then they do other things.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're a parent, you know you want the
Speaker 1: best for him, but at the same time, they're gonna
Speaker 1: do what they're gonna do. I also had an encounter
Speaker 1: that made me believe that Phoenix may have been involved
Speaker 1: with drugs over the years. One night, when I was
Speaker 1: out interviewing strangers on the street about Phoenix, a guy
Speaker 1: told me that he had a ton of dirt on Phoenix.
Speaker 1: He said that Phoenix was not a good guy and
Speaker 1: he had a lot of inside information on his dealings
Speaker 1: with drugs. This was around three in the morning, and
Speaker 1: the guy said he was heading home to crash, but
Speaker 1: he gave me his phone number and said he was
Speaker 1: willing to do an interview with me. But when I
Speaker 1: texted him to set up the interview, he said, quote,
Speaker 1: I don't really like the guy. I don't know how
Speaker 1: I feel about trashing his name in an interview. I'd
Speaker 1: feel weird doing that to anybody. I told him he
Speaker 1: could be anonymous or even off the record, but he
Speaker 1: never responded to any of my texts after that. But
Speaker 1: the whole exchange made me believe there was something more
Speaker 1: to Phoenix is a relationship to drugs, and he was
Speaker 1: willing to admit to me. It was Facebook messaging with
Speaker 1: the net Jack and I said something about how I
Speaker 1: commit up with you, and he was like, oh, he
Speaker 1: was probably on cocaine. And I was like, okay, Like
Speaker 1: is that a thing? Did you have a cocaine problem
Speaker 1: that I didn't know about? But like, that's hilarious. I'll
Speaker 1: never know because when I met men at Jack, he
Speaker 1: was a drug addict and that's why he started patrolling.
Speaker 1: So his comments on me doing drugs, it's really weird.
Speaker 1: If I ever did do drugs, I would never do
Speaker 1: them with bed night Jack. Like, I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: drugs in any direct fashion, but what because I'm not
Speaker 1: going to. But what I'm saying is like, even if
Speaker 1: I had a problem where peanut butter every single day,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't eat peanut butter before an interview because it
Speaker 1: makes your mouth telling. Well, no one's saying, you know,
Speaker 1: but that's what he's saying. But he's like, I think
Speaker 1: you think of what he said, right, He's like he
Speaker 1: was probably on this for the interview. That's me's saying,
Speaker 1: and not that I've been on you saw that you
Speaker 1: saw it as the United States Anti Doping Administration. I've
Speaker 1: been a member of his saw since I was sixteen
Speaker 1: years old. The Anti doping administration for the fucking Olympics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm a world class athlete and you think, and I've
Speaker 1: swing up on fucking cocaine, but just you saying it's
Speaker 1: so fucking stupid to me. You know, yeah, seventeen years,
Speaker 1: I've never failed a drug test in seventeen years. They're
Speaker 1: randomly done, but I know from two thousands two sixteen
Speaker 1: to two thousand nineteen I was actively being tested for
Speaker 1: you said it, right, which is once a month testing
Speaker 1: and then a random one every three months. Right. That
Speaker 1: leaves me eight days in every month that if I
Speaker 1: had timed doing drugs perfectly, I could do them, I guess,
Speaker 1: and be high for I guess two days. So there's
Speaker 1: sixty days in the left five years that I could
Speaker 1: have actively done drugs and not gotten caught. And you're
Speaker 1: telling me that those days are the days that I've
Speaker 1: won scheduling an interview, probably in cocaine and too. I
Speaker 1: have my life regimented enough when I can't even show
Speaker 1: up on time to patrols that I care about because
Speaker 1: I'm terribly late at everything, And you think I've scheduled
Speaker 1: my life to the point that these random sixty days
Speaker 1: I could do all of these fucking drugs. Yeah, to
Speaker 1: my superhero careers run a hundred nineteen times. Every time
Speaker 1: you get arrested, they take you to jail and you
Speaker 1: be you have to because when if you're on drugs
Speaker 1: and you and then you start having like to come
Speaker 1: down right. Only one person on our team has ever
Speaker 1: failed a PA test, and it fucking wasn't me. So
Speaker 1: if we're gonna accuse people of things, but somebody's on
Speaker 1: record is actually I've done that on record while you
Speaker 1: were supering with us. But I mean, if y'all want
Speaker 1: to come at me, there's records of you doing that.
Speaker 1: Why we were fighting crime. If I wrote a book
Speaker 1: about the fucking ship these assholes did, I mean, Jesus Christ,
Speaker 1: I think we're definitely on part with each other for
Speaker 1: being assholes. Congratulations were the biggest crew of assholes. Good job,
Speaker 1: But none of that has anything to do with chasing
Speaker 1: a gunman or stopping the crime. It's like everyone has
Speaker 1: such a short memory, Like I remember everything that I did,
Speaker 1: and I wish you guys would just bring up one
Speaker 1: of the things that I actually did wrong, because I wish,
Speaker 1: why would I ever do that? I get it, I get,
Speaker 1: I mean I don't. I'm not no shade against you.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't do it either. I wouldn't be like volunteering
Speaker 1: all these terrible things I've done to other people. But
Speaker 1: I mean, but there are some but it is ironic
Speaker 1: that they're talking all the ship about you. But then
Speaker 1: it's like, well, tell me the real things that he
Speaker 1: did so we can talk about it. But instead, and
Speaker 1: I see your point, like I I would agree that
Speaker 1: it seems highly unlikely that you've ever had a drug problem,
Speaker 1: do you know what I mean. I'm just so frustrated,
Speaker 1: just just sucking, irritating and just walking curious. I just
Speaker 1: wouldn't beat the funk out of guys, which I would
Speaker 1: not do because it's legal, but if I could, I wouldn't.
Speaker 1: I tried to lighten the mood, but Phoenix didn't take
Speaker 1: de bait. Have you ever thought about um doing like
Speaker 1: a charity fight against bed night check or something like
Speaker 1: that with a lion? Ever thought about doing a charity
Speaker 1: fight with the mouse? Midnight Jack has twelve to twenty
Speaker 1: crime stops. None of them are without me, and none
Speaker 1: of them are hands on stops. Never been in a
Speaker 1: fight his entire life, and I fought all over the
Speaker 1: world as a professional fighter, and I'm gonna take out
Speaker 1: my petty personal a grievances by going out and punching
Speaker 1: these guys in the face. In the moment, I was
Speaker 1: skeptical that Phoenix had a drug problem. He's very convincing
Speaker 1: when he's talking to you directly, and he was a
Speaker 1: professional athlete for a long time. But I wasn't able
Speaker 1: to verify his claims about his USADA testing as he
Speaker 1: isn't listed in their public databases. Now that I'm no
Speaker 1: longer in the room with him, I don't know what
Speaker 1: to think because there's also the elephant in the room
Speaker 1: the moment where this whole series began. One day when
Speaker 1: two thousand and twenty, EVO was at home with his
Speaker 1: family when the news dropped. Remember helping my little girls
Speaker 1: on homework. When I got messages from former team member.
Speaker 1: Used to get a load of this, all right. The
Speaker 1: crime fighting persona of Phoenix Jones has taken an interesting twist.
Speaker 1: Interesting an m M A fighter whose real name is
Speaker 1: Benjamin Photorc is in some very real legal trouble. Ever
Speaker 1: since Phoenix put on his super suit and took to
Speaker 1: the streets, He's claimed that the police have been out
Speaker 1: to get him. He said they arrested him one hundred
Speaker 1: and eighteen times, and each time he went free, but
Speaker 1: they had finally succeeded in nailing him, and this time
Speaker 1: the chargers would stick. Yeah, that was that was pretty hilarious,
Speaker 1: not surprising, but just like, wow, he actually got caught.
Speaker 1: What do you know? Phoenix had made many transformations in
Speaker 1: his life, from bullied orphan to champion bowler, cocky break
Speaker 1: dancer and then champion mm A fighter, And now he'd
Speaker 1: gone from real life superhero to convicted drug dealer. So
Speaker 1: how does the Great Phoenix Jones react when he's the
Speaker 1: one in the jail cell? Next time, Seattle's perfect crime
Speaker 1: fighter gets well and truly busted. The Superhero Complex is
Speaker 1: hosted and written by Me David Weinberg and reported by Me,
Speaker 1: Amalia Sortland and Caroline Thorn. Production from Amalia Sortland and
Speaker 1: Caroline Thorn. 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 Bet and Macaluso, Rin Rosenbaum, Shelby Shnkman,
Speaker 1: and all the team at E t A. For more
Speaker 1: from Novel, visit novel dot Audio