Speaker 1: Love and Las Vegas. Las Vegas, home of cheesy, magic,
Speaker 1: ultimate fighting, and people mortgaging their homes to let it ride.
Speaker 1: It's a playground for adults, a disneyland of decadence. And
Speaker 1: on this day in June, something even more remarkable than
Speaker 1: disappearing elephants is happening. I say remarkable because it might
Speaker 1: be one of the few wholesome things going on in
Speaker 1: the city. It's the Las Vegas Comic Con. Thousands of
Speaker 1: fans are streaming into the building to get autographs from
Speaker 1: artists and pick up titles for their collections. Some are
Speaker 1: browsing comic books that are a dollar or less. Some
Speaker 1: are picking up titles worth a few hundred and one man,
Speaker 1: one very recognizable man, is spending a lot more than that.
Speaker 1: Nicholas Cage, once a disenfranchised comic fan, is back in
Speaker 1: the game. As fans gawk and ask for his autograph,
Speaker 1: Cage admires big ticket books like X Men Number one
Speaker 1: and Fantastic Four number one, titles worth hundreds of thousands
Speaker 1: of dollars, titles he used to own before ditching his
Speaker 1: entire collection. Surrounded by tables full of books, it's like
Speaker 1: the world's most expensive flea market. He holds them up
Speaker 1: for scrutiny, squinting to make out the pencil lines through
Speaker 1: their protective plastic casing. Some sixteen years after losing four
Speaker 1: of the most valuable comics in the world, Cage is
Speaker 1: seemingly ready to rejoin the ranks of the comics faithful.
Speaker 1: It's also been five years since his most treasured book,
Speaker 1: Action Comics Number One, surfaced in a storage locker. No arrests,
Speaker 1: no real suspects, just a story, one pretty much impossible
Speaker 1: to prove or disprove, but one worth examining to see
Speaker 1: if there's any clue or trace of how a multimillion
Speaker 1: dollar comic wound up in a storage unit, the place
Speaker 1: where people store old rugs and broken chairs. Two men,
Speaker 1: Mark Ballo, and a man known only as Sylvester, presented
Speaker 1: it for sale, not knowing one of their potential buyers
Speaker 1: was an undercover police officer. But just who are Mark
Speaker 1: and Sylvester and why does one of them seem to
Speaker 1: have an unlikely connection to Cage. It's a page turner,
Speaker 1: and we are at the last page for I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: This is Stealing Superman. I'm your host Danis Schwartz and
Speaker 1: This is the final episode special farewell issue a quick recap.
Speaker 1: Nick Cage's copy of Action Comics Number one was stolen,
Speaker 1: along with three other comics from his bell Air home
Speaker 1: around two thousand. After several leads failed to materialize, Action
Speaker 1: number one was finally discovered in April two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: when a storage unit liquidator named Mark Palelo emailed comic
Speaker 1: dealer Stephen Fishler and told him he had a copy
Speaker 1: for sale. Fishler was the same dealer who sold the
Speaker 1: book to Cage. Unfortunately for Ballelo, he was able to
Speaker 1: positively identify it as cages copy. Fishler and l ap
Speaker 1: D detective Donald Harresk went to Ballelo's warehouse to see
Speaker 1: it in person. There they met Ballelo and a man
Speaker 1: named Sylvester, who claimed to have found the comic in
Speaker 1: a storage locker he had bought at auction. But here's
Speaker 1: the twist, he couldn't remember which one. With nothing tying
Speaker 1: either Ballelo or Sylvester to the original theft, and without
Speaker 1: a storage locker owner to question, the case went cold.
Speaker 1: Cage got his comic back from the insurance company and
Speaker 1: sold it for two point one six one million dollars.
Speaker 1: Mark Ballelo seemed to relish the attention, immediately notifying the
Speaker 1: press about the controversy. He even hosted auctions in a
Speaker 1: Superman costume Sylvester all but disappeared for the storage locker
Speaker 1: scene as quickly as he had entered it. The next
Speaker 1: steps seemed obvious enough. Reach out to both men and
Speaker 1: see what they have to say. In the case of Mark,
Speaker 1: that's unfortunately impossible, and we'll get to why in a moment.
Speaker 1: But we did speak to several people who knew him
Speaker 1: and worked for him, and this is where things get
Speaker 1: well more interesting. He seemed fun. He seemed like a
Speaker 1: fun guy. Like I said, from what I saw the
Speaker 1: way he treated his family that would come from Brazil.
Speaker 1: He was very generous with them. I could tell he
Speaker 1: loved them a lot. That's Liz. Liz worked for Mark
Speaker 1: for a few years, overseeing his online sales division. She
Speaker 1: got to know Mark fairly well, and while he was nice,
Speaker 1: there were dimensions to him that could be unsettling. Drug
Speaker 1: habits and stuff that he didn't really care to hide
Speaker 1: from anybody. But he was fun to talk to. I
Speaker 1: enjoyed having conversations with him. Yeah, No, he was he
Speaker 1: had his moments. You know, because of his drug case,
Speaker 1: he would get a little aggravated. But I mean, other
Speaker 1: than that, I enjoyed working for him while things were good.
Speaker 1: At the time Mark popped up with the action number one,
Speaker 1: he was actually on probation. Mark had been arrested back
Speaker 1: in December two thousand seven on three felony charges, possession
Speaker 1: of the controlled substance, possession with intend to sell or distribute,
Speaker 1: and sale or transport of a controlled substance. Mark denied
Speaker 1: any wrongdoing and said friends had been using drugs in
Speaker 1: a hotel room registered in his name. He pled guilty
Speaker 1: to the last charge in two thousand nine and was
Speaker 1: sentenced to sixty days in jail along with three years probation.
Speaker 1: That's an important detail for a cup of reasons. If
Speaker 1: Mark somehow knew the comic book was stolen before attempting
Speaker 1: to sell it, it would be colossally silly for him
Speaker 1: to get involved while on probation. The last thing you
Speaker 1: want to do when you're being monitored for good behavior
Speaker 1: is be in possession of stolen property. On the other hand, well,
Speaker 1: Mark wasn't exactly being overly careful. In June two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: two months after trying to sell the comic, Mark was
Speaker 1: in violation of his parole for possessing a firearm. Mark's
Speaker 1: story was that he had found it in a storage
Speaker 1: unit and was simply transporting it, but not long after,
Speaker 1: he left California without approval, another parole violation that landed
Speaker 1: him forty five days in jail. It's hard to know
Speaker 1: to what degree Mark was involved in, well, let's say,
Speaker 1: alternative businesses. A report from Radar in two thousand thirteen
Speaker 1: stated that Mark was sometimes high on the set of
Speaker 1: Storage Wars, the A and E reality show about storage
Speaker 1: locker auctions, and that he bragged he could get large
Speaker 1: quantities of drugs from connections in Tijuana. But Liz isn't
Speaker 1: so sure about that. I think he was just using it.
Speaker 1: I don't think he sold it. Mark could be erratic.
Speaker 1: He would make very rash decisions and not think them
Speaker 1: out thoroughly. And so he fired his manager, who was
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, she was there for him anytime he
Speaker 1: needed her, and he decided to fire her. I can't
Speaker 1: remember what it was for. And then her husband also
Speaker 1: worked for him as well, and he fired him too,
Speaker 1: And then he fired me shortly after that. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: were other employees that he would get into arguments with,
Speaker 1: and I don't think he took his employees very seriously
Speaker 1: or he cared to have like a good relationship with us.
Speaker 1: There were other aspects of Mark's life that didn't quite
Speaker 1: add up. Before becoming a storage unit magnate, he had
Speaker 1: declared bankruptcy back in two thousand eight. Mark's bankruptcy documents
Speaker 1: also revealed that two people filed to oppose his debts
Speaker 1: to them being discharged because they were owed money for
Speaker 1: new cars he had failed to deliver. Prior to getting
Speaker 1: into the storage unit business, Mark owned a car dealership.
Speaker 1: According to the two customers, he had accepted their orders
Speaker 1: for cars with a value of over forty dollars each.
Speaker 1: Then Mark later admitted he had used that money to
Speaker 1: pay down other debts. Despite offering excuse after excuse that
Speaker 1: the cars were stuck in transit or that their registration
Speaker 1: needed more paperwork, he had never actually obtained the cars.
Speaker 1: There's something else we learned to Prior to owning his dealership,
Speaker 1: Mark worked Beverly Hills as a car salesman, and according
Speaker 1: to an employee of his, we spoke with Mark had
Speaker 1: sold at least one car to none other than Nicholas Cage.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's just a coincidence. After all, Cage used to
Speaker 1: buy cars like other people buy socks, so there was
Speaker 1: a decent chance any salesman in Los Angeles could have
Speaker 1: eventually crossed paths with him. And there's no evidence Mark
Speaker 1: new Cage or was ever at his house in bel Air.
Speaker 1: In fact, we are reasonably confident we can place Mark
Speaker 1: firmly in Arizona at the time of the theft. But
Speaker 1: it is interesting that Mark called Stephen Fishler, the one
Speaker 1: dealer who could positively identify the comic as Cages. That's
Speaker 1: another weird coincidence. Stephen believes it's because he brokered other
Speaker 1: high dollar comic sales, and that's probably why Mark called him.
Speaker 1: There are plenty of mysteries surrounding Mark that would make
Speaker 1: for an interesting conversation with him. But Mark had problems
Speaker 1: that ran deep. In February, he was arrested again for
Speaker 1: drug possession for Math. The repeated offenses were piling up
Speaker 1: and things didn't look good for him. That same month,
Speaker 1: an employee of Marks walked into the warehouse, the same
Speaker 1: warehouse where he tried to sell the Action number one
Speaker 1: and found Mark dead by suicide, his car engine idling
Speaker 1: in the garage. It was carbon monoxide poisoning. He was
Speaker 1: just forty years old. He just seemed like a fun guy.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I would have never in a million
Speaker 1: years thought that he would kill himself the way he did.
Speaker 1: I would have never thought that. We're left with so
Speaker 1: many questions and so few answers. But remember fell auctioneer
Speaker 1: Dan Dotson said he'd been approached by the man who
Speaker 1: found the comic book and gave him Mark's information. Mark
Speaker 1: didn't volunteer. So what about the man who had handed
Speaker 1: Mark the comic and said he found it in a
Speaker 1: storage locker. The man known only as Sylvester, the man
Speaker 1: who said he bought in the story junits that he purchased.
Speaker 1: So he's asking everyone to believe a multi million dollars
Speaker 1: said the main comics stolen from Nicholas Cage ends up
Speaker 1: in the storage locker, that this man just hast bide.
Speaker 1: That's Paul Hendry, you probably remember Paul, reformed art thief
Speaker 1: turned consultant for art crime investigations. Paul has seen and
Speaker 1: heard it all, and he has an opinion on the
Speaker 1: storage locker story, the one where Sylvester claimed he bought
Speaker 1: a number of lockers and then found the action number
Speaker 1: one among their contents, but he couldn't remember which one.
Speaker 1: Number one is. Watched the odds you're going to find
Speaker 1: a multimillion dollar comics in a storage locker? Best the
Speaker 1: first one. The second one is, what's the odds is
Speaker 1: someone who buys multiple storage lockers, not one single one?
Speaker 1: And the third thing is, watch the odds they can't
Speaker 1: remember which storage locker it came in, so that there's
Speaker 1: so many red flames. I think we can just dismiss
Speaker 1: the storage locker story as just a fake, fabricated story.
Speaker 1: I have the luxury, but just us him my forty
Speaker 1: years of experience and analyzing the situation and coming up
Speaker 1: with what my considered opinion is highly valuable items have
Speaker 1: turned up in some very unlikely places, including storage lockers,
Speaker 1: but when they do, there's always a chance that their
Speaker 1: discovery could have been orchestrated. Why one part sable motive
Speaker 1: for stolen art servicing isn't to sell it, it's to
Speaker 1: get a reward for it. Well, let me tell you, right,
Speaker 1: if a private art detective was on this case, he
Speaker 1: would charge the insurance company twenty class fact of the
Speaker 1: insurance claim, which would have been if we assume it's
Speaker 1: a hundred fifty tho and he would have wanted a
Speaker 1: hundred fifty thou dollars per insurance claim. He would have
Speaker 1: wanted thirty six thousand dollars as his fee for being
Speaker 1: a private art detective who recovered this comic, the fact
Speaker 1: that it's worth and sold the two point one million.
Speaker 1: Some art detectives would also sign a contract to say
Speaker 1: that they want ten or twenty if it's sold within
Speaker 1: a period of time. So on two point one million,
Speaker 1: that would have been a lot of money. Okay, So
Speaker 1: that would be private art detectives. And I criticized them
Speaker 1: sometimes when they do that because that doesn't look to
Speaker 1: be transparent. But these people who recovered it, I would
Speaker 1: have assumed that they wouldn't have gone away quietly. Is
Speaker 1: especially if they are not being in dieted on any
Speaker 1: criminal charges. They may have a claim for a finder's fee.
Speaker 1: So is that why Mark Balelo called Stephen Fishler not
Speaker 1: as a coincidence, but to prove it was Cage's comic.
Speaker 1: To pursue some kind of reward. That's Paul's theory, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean either Mark or Sylvester had anything to
Speaker 1: do with the book being stolen, just that some research
Speaker 1: could have led Mark to believe this book found in
Speaker 1: a storage unit could be worth a finder's fee. Here's
Speaker 1: Paul's possible scenario. They were prepared for it to be identified,
Speaker 1: but wanted to portray themselves Sylvester as being honest and
Speaker 1: above board. That was the intention, was to filter into
Speaker 1: Nicolas Cages Deana via a third party file wall, which
Speaker 1: is Mark, and then that's a plain. So then when
Speaker 1: the dealer comes out and says this is the one,
Speaker 1: then they may not have thought Donald would be cop
Speaker 1: would have been there, but that the next thing would
Speaker 1: have been if they hadn't have had it confiscated off
Speaker 1: of them, then there might have been a legal dispute
Speaker 1: and they would have still had possession of it. Maybe
Speaker 1: they didn't account for the fact that Donald was going
Speaker 1: to be there and confiscate it, but even if that happened,
Speaker 1: their whole intention was to monetize it and claim my
Speaker 1: finder's fee or a reward. So they knew at some
Speaker 1: stage that they was going to have to be declared
Speaker 1: that this was the sole a month from Nicolas Cage.
Speaker 1: Maybe the initial plan was to have the dealer look
Speaker 1: at it and go, yes, that's the original I wanted back.
Speaker 1: And then the person go well, no, ang and speak
Speaker 1: to my lawyer and maybe getting to litigation over it
Speaker 1: or something, and declared they want to find this thing.
Speaker 1: And then when Donald turned up and dis confiscated it,
Speaker 1: they went, well, we can still go down the same
Speaker 1: road and claim the finders feel again. That's Paul's theory.
Speaker 1: And for Paul, the most intriguing part of the story
Speaker 1: is that of all the commock dealers in the country,
Speaker 1: Mark could have called he called Stephen Fishler literally the
Speaker 1: only person on earth who could positively identify the action
Speaker 1: number one as cages. This Mark person, right, why would
Speaker 1: he focus in on the one avenue that's going to
Speaker 1: lead straight back to Nicolas Cage. Why not take a
Speaker 1: local estimate, right, He's part of a plane. It was
Speaker 1: a plane, it's a scan, it was a sting. It's
Speaker 1: a thing to monetize the Superman comic. And then they
Speaker 1: tried to make it so confusing that the police wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to pin it on anyone. But yes, of course,
Speaker 1: because this is such a small world. It's got to
Speaker 1: go through Nicolas Cage stealer in New York, and he's
Speaker 1: going to be made aware of it. Yes again, it's
Speaker 1: I mean their story. He's like a Swiss change. It's
Speaker 1: for the holes. Cages comic sold for two point one
Speaker 1: six one million dollars just a few months after it
Speaker 1: was found, making even a percentage of that a very valuable.
Speaker 1: But Stephen Fishler, who was there when the l a
Speaker 1: p d. Sees the comic from Mark and Sylvester, doesn't
Speaker 1: think that's what happened. Here's Stephen. No, there was a trip.
Speaker 1: They wanted to sell it and it was a stolen book.
Speaker 1: When y've gone, all right, we want a million dollars. Oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, this book stolen, it's a little hard
Speaker 1: while the police is there to go, hey, how about
Speaker 1: a reward now? You know, I think if they had
Speaker 1: said we think this book is the stolen book, you know,
Speaker 1: I could see giving them a reward for the recovery
Speaker 1: of it. But it just wasn't in the cards. There's
Speaker 1: a real mystique surrounding Sylvester. For one thing. Stephen remembers
Speaker 1: that he introduced himself as Arthur, and Mark Ballelo told
Speaker 1: people that Sylvester only went by his first name. Mark
Speaker 1: said he didn't even know Sylvester's last name, which is
Speaker 1: very strange. If you were planning to split the profits
Speaker 1: from a multimillion dollar comic with someone, wouldn't you want
Speaker 1: to know their last name. Few people did, and maybe
Speaker 1: that was by design, but at some point his full
Speaker 1: name did leak out, which allowed us to try and
Speaker 1: get a better understanding of the man at the crux
Speaker 1: of all this, the person who found Cages comic after
Speaker 1: it had been missing eleven years. Sylvester doesn't have much
Speaker 1: in the way of a social media presence, but we
Speaker 1: can tell you he is or was a contractor by
Speaker 1: trade and no longer living in California. He's into cars,
Speaker 1: as so many of the people in this story seemed
Speaker 1: to be. We reached a former employer of his who
Speaker 1: said he was a nice guy who wound up quitting.
Speaker 1: The employer thought it might have been because of the comic,
Speaker 1: because he expected to come into a windfall. Despite his
Speaker 1: lack of an online presence, and after a lot of
Speaker 1: trial and error, we did manage to find Sylvester we
Speaker 1: wanted to ask about finding the comic, but within minutes
Speaker 1: of messaging him, he deleted his social media profile. So
Speaker 1: we tried email and got no response. Then we reached
Speaker 1: out to some friends of his to see what else
Speaker 1: we might be able to learn or to find out
Speaker 1: how we could contact him. That's when Sylvester asked for
Speaker 1: our reporter's number and then sent a text saying he
Speaker 1: did not want to talk about finding the comic. We
Speaker 1: asked again and again, as much as we'd like to
Speaker 1: hear from Sylvester. He apparently said all he wanted to
Speaker 1: say to Detective Horresik on the day the comic was seized.
Speaker 1: The story he told the detective is certainly intriguing. According
Speaker 1: to people we spoke with who have knowledge of the
Speaker 1: storage locker liquidation market, taking the contents from a bunch
Speaker 1: of lockers and pulling it all together to sort through
Speaker 1: later isn't unheard of. With storage auctions, you're given only
Speaker 1: a limited amount of time to clear out the unit,
Speaker 1: after all, that's why the locker company wants stuff gone
Speaker 1: so they can rent it out to someone else. You
Speaker 1: might have just twenty four or forty eight hours, so
Speaker 1: piling everything into a truck to sort through later. If
Speaker 1: you've bought several units, might be wise. Here's Liz again.
Speaker 1: There's just so much stuff there to look through. It's
Speaker 1: hard to keep track of it, especially when you're just
Speaker 1: looking through everything and everything just kind of gets bunched
Speaker 1: into one place. But the opposite is also true. Some
Speaker 1: locker storage buyers keep a strict inventory of where items
Speaker 1: came from in case something stolen or illegal like drugs,
Speaker 1: are ever discovered. They don't want to be the ones
Speaker 1: suspected of possessing them. The other consideration is whether anyone
Speaker 1: really would leave a rare and delicate comic in a
Speaker 1: storage locker and then neglect to pay the bill. Hey,
Speaker 1: it's possible. Sometimes lockers are abandoned because the person renting
Speaker 1: it dies or goes to prison. If a storage locker
Speaker 1: owner was storing the comic there, then it would be
Speaker 1: a matter of inquiring to the owner whether they knew
Speaker 1: anything about the comic. But the problem the storage facility had,
Speaker 1: and the reason they put the lockers up for public sale,
Speaker 1: is that their owners weren't easily reached and couldn't pay
Speaker 1: the bill. Because Sylvester couldn't remember which locker the comic
Speaker 1: came from. There wouldn't be much use in trying to
Speaker 1: contact them. You could never prove it was theirs to
Speaker 1: begin with. I think as we've gone through the whole story,
Speaker 1: it really is a Russian dole. You know, you're only
Speaker 1: more and more layers. You're peeling back the onion and
Speaker 1: every kind of stop. There is something there that doesn't
Speaker 1: smell right, It doesn't taste right, and doesn't look right.
Speaker 1: And in the normal world of things, this is not
Speaker 1: normally what would happen, from the theft of it, to
Speaker 1: the handling of it, to the surfacing of Chiu of
Speaker 1: the comics. But knowing who put the comic in the
Speaker 1: storage locker would still only tell just part of the story.
Speaker 1: Art theft is one giant game of hot potato. The
Speaker 1: more hands the stolen art passes through, the more convincing
Speaker 1: someone is when they say they have no idea where
Speaker 1: it came from, because they probably don't. And every time
Speaker 1: it changes hands, someone is sold on the fantasy that
Speaker 1: for just a few thousand dollars they can take possession
Speaker 1: of something worth millions. It's almost like a criminal lottery.
Speaker 1: If they can just figure out how to unload it
Speaker 1: and then well they can't, so they sell the dream
Speaker 1: to someone else. There's no evidence Mark Ballelo or Sylvester
Speaker 1: knew anything about the Action Number one being stolen. There's
Speaker 1: no evidence the storage locker story was fabricated. There are
Speaker 1: just questions which one man can't answer and another man won't,
Speaker 1: and that is his prerogative. It doesn't invalidate his story
Speaker 1: that he found the comic. Maybe the reason he doesn't
Speaker 1: want to talk about it is because watching two million
Speaker 1: dollars slip through your hands is too painful to revisit. However,
Speaker 1: cages comic made its way to Mark Balleto and Sylvester.
Speaker 1: It's a minor miracle it's surfaced at all. Cage, of
Speaker 1: course sold it for a handsome profit. But there's still
Speaker 1: one act left untold in this story. Where is the
Speaker 1: Action Number one? Now? Just a couple of months before
Speaker 1: Nicholas Cage popped up at the Las Vegas Comic Con
Speaker 1: is now very notor his comic book was on display
Speaker 1: in London, but it wasn't for public viewing. This was
Speaker 1: a private, invitation only affair at a hotel in the city.
Speaker 1: Five years after being discovered in the storage locker. One
Speaker 1: of the best copies of Action comics. Number one was
Speaker 1: inside a glass case and surrounded by security, just in
Speaker 1: case anyone had any ideas The comic was part of
Speaker 1: a collection being displayed courtesy of a man named Aman Harreary.
Speaker 1: A man is a very big Superman fan, though not
Speaker 1: for the reasons you may think. Here's a man. Superman
Speaker 1: was always part of me growing up. I guess it
Speaker 1: was a character that I used to watch on cartoons,
Speaker 1: and obviously, like every other kid, that captures your imagination.
Speaker 1: To imagine a person who can fly and be invulnerable
Speaker 1: to you know, being shot at or any kind of danger,
Speaker 1: it just sparks the imagination of all kinds of stories
Speaker 1: you build in your head and you imagine all the
Speaker 1: things that he can do. Even back then. I mean
Speaker 1: at the time it was, you know, faster than a
Speaker 1: speeding train and can leap tall buildings into you know,
Speaker 1: the modern version of what he can do these days.
Speaker 1: But I was living in Saudi at the time, so
Speaker 1: the only way that I was exposed to Superman was
Speaker 1: on VHS tapes that would be made available to us
Speaker 1: by people from living abroad and sending them to us
Speaker 1: or receiving a copy of a comic book. Well, I
Speaker 1: think when you're younger, things are less granular. You think
Speaker 1: about doing the right thing. What does it mean as
Speaker 1: an adult, and what does it mean as a child.
Speaker 1: It probably lacks granularity when you're a child, and you
Speaker 1: start to understand the nuances of doing the right thing
Speaker 1: as you get older. I would say that being a
Speaker 1: hero was what I would imagine. What I remember thinking
Speaker 1: of this character and what he would do, and if
Speaker 1: you put together any kind of scenario and he saw
Speaker 1: somebody in danger, that he would do anything and everything
Speaker 1: to save that person, he would save the day and
Speaker 1: be a hero. It's not uncommon to grow up with
Speaker 1: Superman and then want to own a piece of his legend.
Speaker 1: After all, that's what Nicolas Cage did. But a man
Speaker 1: is in a slightly different category. He's a fan, sure,
Speaker 1: but he's also a billionaire and the son of Lebanon's
Speaker 1: one time prime minister, Rafi careery Eman idolized his father, Rafiq,
Speaker 1: who was celebrated in Lebanon for his work helping to
Speaker 1: end the fifteen year Lebanese Civil War. He also used
Speaker 1: his considerable wealth to provide educational opportunities for the less fortunate.
Speaker 1: According to Amon, his father put third two thousand young
Speaker 1: adults through college. Then in two thousand five, tragedy struck,
Speaker 1: a tragedy that in some ways echoes the loss suffered
Speaker 1: by Superman's co creator Jerry Siegel, who lost his father
Speaker 1: to a violent crime. Rafiq died in Beirut after someone
Speaker 1: detonated a bomb hidden in a car near Rafique's motorcade.
Speaker 1: Along with Rafique, twenty one others were killed. Members of
Speaker 1: his Bola were convicted. According to Reuter's, judges said the
Speaker 1: attack was quote clearly a politically motivated act of terrorism
Speaker 1: end quote. Aman was just twenty six years old when
Speaker 1: his father was murdered, and as you probably gathered, it
Speaker 1: was a galvanizing experience for him. He has always been
Speaker 1: my hero. He's somebody who had sacrificed so much of
Speaker 1: his life for his country, for people in need, and
Speaker 1: ended up paying the ultimate price. But during his life,
Speaker 1: and when I would think of Superman and I would
Speaker 1: think of my father, there was always yes this connection
Speaker 1: between them, and I didn't really put them together until
Speaker 1: I visited my family home after many years of being
Speaker 1: away in school abroad and university in the US. When
Speaker 1: I came back home, I saw this picture hanging on
Speaker 1: my bedroom wall of him represented a superman carrying buildings
Speaker 1: in his arms. The buildings were universities and schools and
Speaker 1: hospitals above a destroyed city underneath him. And it was
Speaker 1: a cartoon that was drawn by you know the cartoons
Speaker 1: that used to be in the back of newspapers. This
Speaker 1: was from a local newspaper in Lebanon, and it was
Speaker 1: an artist that had depicted my father a superman. And
Speaker 1: obviously that's really on the nose that can ingrain itself
Speaker 1: and you completely forget about where things originate from. But
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, it was depicted by
Speaker 1: somebody else, and he was regarded as a hero and
Speaker 1: still is by his country. I actually in his life
Speaker 1: when I started to buy comic books and collect them,
Speaker 1: the original comic books, you know, graded and I work
Speaker 1: with I think, you know, the Metropolis out of New
Speaker 1: York to collect these looks. I remember that I couldn't
Speaker 1: get myself to buy a single Superman book. That I
Speaker 1: felt like I hadn't reached that level yet, And I
Speaker 1: always would think of Batman is more sort of where
Speaker 1: I was and the Superman where I want to be
Speaker 1: aspiration Lee. And when my father passed, that's when I
Speaker 1: started buying every Superman comic book that I could get
Speaker 1: my hands on. For Aman, Superman and his father had
Speaker 1: become linked. The character was emblematic of how he perceived
Speaker 1: her fik as benevolent, kind and generous with his own superpower,
Speaker 1: which was wealth. He was always one of my favorite characters,
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong. I mean when I buy statues
Speaker 1: or if I could watch a movie or or anything,
Speaker 1: I was into the character. But yes, at that point,
Speaker 1: you know, I guess the floodgates opened and I needed
Speaker 1: to I mean, obviously I missed my father and it
Speaker 1: was the most horrible day of my life when he
Speaker 1: was taken from us, and I wanted to be connected
Speaker 1: to him even more in the way that I imagined him.
Speaker 1: And so you know, buying these books was a way
Speaker 1: of me doing that. It's always been there. I mean,
Speaker 1: certainly Superman has played a big role in my life,
Speaker 1: just in the back of my mind. Like a lot
Speaker 1: of people, you grow up with these characters in your
Speaker 1: life in one form or fashion, and you either grow
Speaker 1: out of them, they become a memory or they they
Speaker 1: stick with you in some form or fashion. And so
Speaker 1: a Man began to gather what's become one of the
Speaker 1: most valuable and expansive comic book collections in the world.
Speaker 1: Issue after issue of number one titles Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman.
Speaker 1: He worked with Stephen Fishler Cages Comic Dealer, and in
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven he had the rare opportunity to acquire
Speaker 1: an Action number one Cages Action Number one. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm made aware of the opportunity, and I was obviously
Speaker 1: excited and did my best to get the book and
Speaker 1: ultimately got it, which was one of the major thrill
Speaker 1: because again, you look at the significance of Action one,
Speaker 1: I mean Action one. Before Action one, the day or
Speaker 1: the morning or the hour before those stores opened and
Speaker 1: people entered to see that book and start reading them.
Speaker 1: There was no Superman, there was no Superhero, and it
Speaker 1: was the first. He was the first superhero. The significance
Speaker 1: of that is amazing to me when you even think
Speaker 1: about that, Like, we can't even imagine without the idea
Speaker 1: of Superman or any of these characters. For amen, The
Speaker 1: fact that this comic had its own story to tell
Speaker 1: is part of the appeal. Absolutely, yeah, anything that has
Speaker 1: a history, and certainly when it goes through certain circumstances
Speaker 1: like this one has. You're right, it does develop a character.
Speaker 1: Amen put the Action Number One, along with many other
Speaker 1: valuable books on display in two thousand sixteen. There's even
Speaker 1: a chance, he says, that his collection may go on
Speaker 1: public display, bringing comics one step closer to the vaunted
Speaker 1: esteem people hold for fine art. Imagine going into a
Speaker 1: museum and seeing an Action Number one on display in
Speaker 1: one room and a monet in another. I'm not worrying
Speaker 1: about how do you display them, and how do you
Speaker 1: keep them safe? And where would you do it and
Speaker 1: what kind of an experience would people have that With
Speaker 1: all the things that I got pulled into in life,
Speaker 1: it got really hard to focus on that and execute
Speaker 1: that project. It is in the back of my mind.
Speaker 1: I'd love to do it in one form or fashion.
Speaker 1: Maybe there's a digital version that could be done, you know,
Speaker 1: something with VR or a R or something. But you
Speaker 1: could say we'll just display two or three books. But
Speaker 1: I think it would be cool to display as many
Speaker 1: as I could. I haven't really figured out a way
Speaker 1: to do it, whether that happens or not, it seems
Speaker 1: as though this comics journey has come to an end.
Speaker 1: Though he could almost certainly sell it for far more
Speaker 1: than the two point one six one million dollars that
Speaker 1: he paid in two thousand eleven, he won't ever. I mean,
Speaker 1: my whole planning of this is I would never sell
Speaker 1: these books. It would have to be my kids that
Speaker 1: would decide to sell them if they would want to.
Speaker 1: One day, when I'm gone wherever this book might have
Speaker 1: been in the eleven years it was missing in a
Speaker 1: basement attic storage locker glove compartment. It's probably as safe
Speaker 1: as it's ever going to be. And if Cage ever
Speaker 1: wants to take another look at it, he probably just
Speaker 1: needs to ask. I'm a fan of him as an actor,
Speaker 1: and I would love to to meet him and and
Speaker 1: geek out on comic books, and you know, maybe we
Speaker 1: can look at this stuff together. But no, I haven't.
Speaker 1: I haven't had that that experience. And in the incredibly
Speaker 1: unlikely event something happened to this action Number one, well
Speaker 1: Amen is prepared. In two thousand fourteen, he bought a
Speaker 1: second copy. Yeah, that's right before I own a nine
Speaker 1: point oh graded copy. And when another nine point oh
Speaker 1: came onto the market. It's like, Okay, this is an
Speaker 1: interesting situation because, on the one hand, from like an
Speaker 1: emotional standpoint, I felt it would be phenomenal to be
Speaker 1: able to have two of these books if I was
Speaker 1: able to buy it. So, just in terms of being
Speaker 1: able to have in one collection two books of that
Speaker 1: level and everything that I said about how did they
Speaker 1: survive and all of that, I mean, to have two
Speaker 1: of them in a single collection was something very very
Speaker 1: exciting to me, And so I bought the second one
Speaker 1: for that reason. And I was really really fortunate to
Speaker 1: be in a position to be able to, you know,
Speaker 1: one afford it, and second have the opportunity even to
Speaker 1: be aware of it and be able to buy it.
Speaker 1: This book shouldn't exist. Not only shouldn't it not exist,
Speaker 1: but it shouldn't be able to to find it, let
Speaker 1: alone find it. In the state that it's in. It's
Speaker 1: almost a superman in and of itself. How does it exist?
Speaker 1: Amid a volatile economy turned upside down by a pandemic,
Speaker 1: there's been one pretty reliable investment collectibles. Comic book values
Speaker 1: have skyrocketed in recent years. A comic selling for millions
Speaker 1: is no longer a seismic event, but the norm the
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand dollars Nicolas Cage paid for his
Speaker 1: copy of Action number one back in was if you'll
Speaker 1: forgive the pun In absolute steal, Action number one is
Speaker 1: so desired that even a single loose page from it
Speaker 1: can sell for thousands of dollars. Brittle shavings of pages
Speaker 1: from a nearly ruined version were sold in a baggy.
Speaker 1: Maybe someday someone will offer a loan. Staple they insist
Speaker 1: is from an Action number one, and if their story
Speaker 1: is good enough, it'll probably find a buyer. In September
Speaker 1: two thousand twenty two, a copy graded six point oh
Speaker 1: that's a good amount below the nine given to cages
Speaker 1: copy sold for a staggering three point four million dollars.
Speaker 1: A higher grade copy coming up for sale could fetch five, six,
Speaker 1: maybe seven million dollars. That figure would have been impossible
Speaker 1: for the thief or thieves who took Cage's book to
Speaker 1: conceive of. It was an audacious heist, taking four high
Speaker 1: profile comics from an A list actor's home. It was
Speaker 1: almost certainly done for profit, as indicated by one of
Speaker 1: the comics popping up for sale on eBay months later.
Speaker 1: A crime of opportunity inflicted by someone on the periphery
Speaker 1: of Cage's life, someone who couldn't resist the temptation of
Speaker 1: stealing a small piece of history that was there for
Speaker 1: the taking, unlocked and unguarded. That it was stolen. Isn't surprising.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was inevitable. Maybe someone will come clean one day,
Speaker 1: Maybe someone already has. Though if Cage knows, he's not talking.
Speaker 1: Of course, we wanted to ask about it, but his
Speaker 1: manager politely declined. That's easy to understand unless it was
Speaker 1: a transient worker, someone there to deliver booze or set
Speaker 1: up one of Cage's oversized nutcrackers for a holiday party.
Speaker 1: The person who took the books was known to him,
Speaker 1: considered a friend, or at least trustworthy enough to be
Speaker 1: let into his house, and having that trust betrayed is disillusioning.
Speaker 1: Two of the four books taken are still at large,
Speaker 1: still filed in the FBI's database of Stolen art, A
Speaker 1: Detective Comics Number twenty seven, the first appearance of Batman,
Speaker 1: and A Detective Comics Number one. It's possible they were
Speaker 1: sold in a private transaction, but remember that cages dealer
Speaker 1: Stephen Fishler is often a conduit for big comics sales.
Speaker 1: It would be hard to sell the books without him
Speaker 1: hearing about it eventually, and he hasn't not yet. And
Speaker 1: if they did surface, Stephen says he could identify them
Speaker 1: just as he did Cages Action number one. So maybe
Speaker 1: they've been destroyed, or maybe they're still out there somewhere
Speaker 1: their handler in a kind of paralysis. Selling them is risky,
Speaker 1: so is keeping them. Maybe they're in another country, maybe
Speaker 1: they were altered in a way that makes them undetectable.
Speaker 1: Here's Paul Hendry again, sixty and seventy pages. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: they could take off the first tem page. They could
Speaker 1: sell probably pages right as just being discovered in a
Speaker 1: yard sale or something like that. Or they could find
Speaker 1: a half of the book right, or just the middle
Speaker 1: section of the comic had been discovered, and so the
Speaker 1: backpages and all the front pages have been raised it out,
Speaker 1: and then maybe stores separately they just sell the actual
Speaker 1: in between the middle bits, and then it will be
Speaker 1: virtually impossible to distinguish whether this actually was the one
Speaker 1: style an off a Nicolas page, unless, of course, there's
Speaker 1: something that could distinguish it on each page, or you
Speaker 1: could see different pages, because I'm sure that the collectors
Speaker 1: will buy a page from that for obviously a lot less,
Speaker 1: but a page of it should certainly be worth a
Speaker 1: few thousand dollars, maybe ten thousand dollars. While those books
Speaker 1: are valuable, the public interest in their recovery probably won't
Speaker 1: equal the discovery of an Action number one. Superman's status
Speaker 1: as a defender of justice, his earnestness will always make
Speaker 1: someone pufferring his first appearance a strange juxtaposition. It's like
Speaker 1: stealing a boy Scout, Marra badge or a Norman Rockwell painting.
Speaker 1: And while you might be able to swipe a material
Speaker 1: depiction of Superman, you can't really take his symbolism. More
Speaker 1: than any cultural character, Superman has come to embody oh
Speaker 1: many things. He's the ultimate immigrant, a savior, the zenith
Speaker 1: of patriotism, truth, justice, and the American way. Steal his
Speaker 1: material form, but you can't steal what he stands for.
Speaker 1: No one can take what Superman means to you, or
Speaker 1: to aim and her Reary or Nicholas Cage. It's possible,
Speaker 1: even probable, that Action Comics Number one will enter the
Speaker 1: public domain on January one, two thousand thirty four, that's
Speaker 1: when the year limit un copyrighted materials will expire. That
Speaker 1: doesn't mean all of Superman's mythology will be up for grabs,
Speaker 1: as much of it, like Kryptonite or even flying, was
Speaker 1: introduced later, and trademark lawyers may have something to say
Speaker 1: about all this, But the basic premise of an alien
Speaker 1: from another planet with superhuman gifts and red boots could
Speaker 1: soon belong to everyone, and who knows, maybe by then
Speaker 1: we'll know the secret identity of the person who stole him.
Speaker 1: And if it's an arch deitective who gets a lead
Speaker 1: on them, trust me, they will be demanding of their
Speaker 1: current value, not of the insurance value. The current value,
Speaker 1: because on paper it's no longer a theft where the
Speaker 1: insurance company owns them. They paid out originally, But I
Speaker 1: would imagine Nicholas Cage has paid the whole claim back
Speaker 1: and so he now not only has two back in
Speaker 1: his possession. If the other two were recovered, he gets
Speaker 1: them back as well, and they're worth millions of dollars.
Speaker 1: So yes, I mean to be honest with you, it's
Speaker 1: a chase on right to see who can monetize these comics,
Speaker 1: and that's why the situation that we're in at the
Speaker 1: moment cagees flying higher again. His recent meta comedy The
Speaker 1: Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, where he plays an exaggerated
Speaker 1: version of himself, was critically praised. He's playing Dracula in
Speaker 1: a movie titled Renfield, about the vampires faithful sidekick. There
Speaker 1: was even talk he was being considered to play Bizarro,
Speaker 1: the slightly off kilter version of Superman, for an HBO
Speaker 1: Max anthology series based on d C comics, and one
Speaker 1: day maybe he'll be reunited with the two missing comics.
Speaker 1: For now, the most remarkable book the Action Comics, Number
Speaker 1: one is with a Man and you look at where
Speaker 1: you know movies have gone. All movies are pretty much
Speaker 1: superhero movies. Every TV show is somebody has powers of
Speaker 1: some sort. And it all started from I believe that book,
Speaker 1: and it sparked the imagination of generations to come after
Speaker 1: that and now shaped industries and ways of thinking and
Speaker 1: what are ideals and just storytelling in general. I absolutely
Speaker 1: love that, And it feels like by owning a book
Speaker 1: like that, to you owning a not only a piece
Speaker 1: of history, but something that represents a moment in time
Speaker 1: that then had a significant impact on everything to come
Speaker 1: after that. Maybe that's what the thief was after, not money,
Speaker 1: not reward, but the chance for a moment to feel
Speaker 1: history in their hands. This has been Stealing Superman for
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. I'm Danish Wartz. Thanks for listening. Stealing
Speaker 1: Superman is written by Jake Rawson, sound design, scoring and
Speaker 1: mixing by Josh Fisher, additional editing by Jonathan Washington. Original
Speaker 1: music by Aaron Kaufman, mixing and mastering by Baheed Fraser.
Speaker 1: Research and fact checking by Jake Rawson and Austin Thompson,
Speaker 1: with production support from Lulu Philip. Show logo by Lucy Continia.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Jason English and I'm your host
Speaker 1: Danish Sports. If you're interested in more from me, I
Speaker 1: host the weekly history podcast Noble Blood, available every Tuesday.
Speaker 1: I also hosted the eight part mini series Haileywood, about
Speaker 1: Bruce Willis's mysterious business dealings in a town in Idaho.
Speaker 1: I wrote a novel called Anatomy a Love Story, and
Speaker 1: its sequel, Immortality a Love Story, which is available for
Speaker 1: pre order now coming out February. If you're enjoying this show,
Speaker 1: give us a nice review. Stealing Superman is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio