Speaker 1: Novel. May I see a show of hands? How many
Speaker 1: people in this room have ever dreamt of wearing spandex?
Speaker 1: One day around two thousand and ten, a guy named
Speaker 1: Peter Tangan was flipping through Rolling Stone magazine when an
Speaker 1: article caught his eye. It was called the Legend of
Speaker 1: Master Legend. I found out from this article that there
Speaker 1: were more than a hundred people like minded costumed activists
Speaker 1: that were in the country. You guys, there's really superheroes.
Speaker 1: There's really superheroes. How exciting is this? Peter Tangan isn't
Speaker 1: your average comic book fan. He's a photographer and you've
Speaker 1: probably seen his work. One of his main gigs is
Speaker 1: taking promo shots of Hollywood superheroes. He shot Christian Bail
Speaker 1: for the Batman Begins poster, Chris Hemsworth as Door, and
Speaker 1: also Will Ferrell as Elf. He likes to mix it up,
Speaker 1: but sometimes living in the world of celebrities can feel
Speaker 1: a little fake, and at a certain point in his career,
Speaker 1: Peter longed to shoot something more real, and this article
Speaker 1: about real life superheroes gave him an idea. In a
Speaker 1: Ted talk he did in two thousand and fifteen, he
Speaker 1: remembers the moment, and it hits me right then and there,
Speaker 1: I say, I gotta figure out a way to make
Speaker 1: Hollywood quality movie posters out of these guys. So Peter
Speaker 1: started reaching out to the real life superheroes. He got
Speaker 1: to know their work and shot them in glossy, big
Speaker 1: budget photos where they posed with steely expressions against a
Speaker 1: city backdrop. Inevitably, he decided to reach out to Phoenix Jones,
Speaker 1: the greatest superhero of them all. Not long after, Phoenix
Speaker 1: got a Facebook message from Peter and the two of
Speaker 1: them talked on the phone, but it didn't go well.
Speaker 1: Peter had met a lot of real life superheroes by
Speaker 1: this point, and he was skeptical Phoenix's crime fighting approach.
Speaker 1: And he's like, what you're doing is kind of dangerous
Speaker 1: and actually maybe empathetical to the movement. You might want
Speaker 1: to like calm yourself down, you know. Plus, I highly
Speaker 1: doubt you're actually stopping as many crimes as you think.
Speaker 1: He's like, I've seen it, maybe ten crimes that have
Speaker 1: been stopped by realized superheroes maybe. And I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: well we're not friends. I don't like you. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to talk to you again. And go fund yourself.
Speaker 1: It's a wonder why none of Phoenix's old superhero buddies
Speaker 1: or friends with him anymore. Anyway, after this initial call,
Speaker 1: five months went by, and then Peter called Phoenix again,
Speaker 1: and according to Phoenix, this time he was full of
Speaker 1: praise you called me. He says, look, you need to
Speaker 1: come to California. I need to take photos and videos
Speaker 1: and shoot you. Allegedly, Peter told Phoenix that he should
Speaker 1: sit down with the lesser real life superhero community and
Speaker 1: tell them it was time to hang up their costumes.
Speaker 1: You're trying to like bring them a place they should
Speaker 1: not go. You can go there if you want to,
Speaker 1: but he shouldn't, and you need to make that really
Speaker 1: clear because they'll all get killed. And then he bought
Speaker 1: me a plane ticket. I left two days later and
Speaker 1: I flew down to California. Be Peter. The thing about
Speaker 1: Peter Tangan is that he's a big Hollywood guy and
Speaker 1: he lives in a big Hollywood house in the hills.
Speaker 1: He lives in the giant glass house. And I have
Speaker 1: a secret identity. So I wore my mask every single
Speaker 1: day all day. It was terrible. It's so ridiculous. It
Speaker 1: was in Vandis, California, and this glass house on the
Speaker 1: side of a creaking cliff looks like the Iron Man House.
Speaker 1: Literally every wall is a wucking window, Like, why would
Speaker 1: you invite a superhero a secret identity to a place
Speaker 1: where every wall is a bucking window. It was trash.
Speaker 1: I slept in my mask. It was just horrible. As
Speaker 1: horrible as it was, it actually turned out to be
Speaker 1: a major turning point in Phoenix Jones life. Up until then,
Speaker 1: he and his team had attracted some media coverage, but
Speaker 1: according to Phoenix, he hadn't actively sought it out, and
Speaker 1: every time media would call me, I be like, no,
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk to you. And he was like,
Speaker 1: no one knows what you're doing, who you are, what
Speaker 1: you stand for me. He's like, and everyone wants to
Speaker 1: talk to you, so just go out tell him what
Speaker 1: you mean, what you plan on doing. No one's gonna
Speaker 1: get mad at you for telling what you're doing. He's like,
Speaker 1: you're doing the dangerous work anyway, you might as well
Speaker 1: protect yourself. Phoenix agreed to the photo shoot. In the photos,
Speaker 1: he stands in a rain soaked street, fully costumed and
Speaker 1: glares down at the camera. He'd look a lot like
Speaker 1: Batman if it weren't for the gold chevron across his chest,
Speaker 1: which glows with an unearthly yellow light. When the pictures
Speaker 1: were released, Peter's phone started ringing off the hook. Phoenix
Speaker 1: wasn't just a local news curiosity anymore. People around the
Speaker 1: country wanted to know who this mysterious crime fighter was.
Speaker 1: Peter fielded so many calls for Phoenix that he ended
Speaker 1: up becoming his semi official spokesperson. Peter is actually how
Speaker 1: I got in touch with Phoenix in the first place,
Speaker 1: and Phoenix was going to need his pr rep. The
Speaker 1: photo shoot catapulted him to a new level of fame.
Speaker 1: Phoenix's knack for grabbing people's attention is one of his
Speaker 1: greatest assets, but it's also maybe his greatest weakness. From
Speaker 1: the team's at Novel and I Heart Radio, This is
Speaker 1: the Superhero Complex, Episode four, Under the Spotlight. After the
Speaker 1: Peter Tangan photo shoot, journalists wanted to fly to Seattle
Speaker 1: and meet the famous Phoenix Jones. One of those journalists
Speaker 1: was the writer and broadcaster John Ronson. John and Phoenix
Speaker 1: hooked up for a piece that John was writing for
Speaker 1: g Q. John had flown over from England, and according
Speaker 1: to Phoenix, the idea had been to try and uncover
Speaker 1: a sex trafficking ring, but when they finally tracked down
Speaker 1: some sex workers, things didn't go as planned. We couldn't
Speaker 1: find anything right because none of them said they were trafficked,
Speaker 1: which was a giant bust. And so instead I went
Speaker 1: on patrol with John Ronson and took down thirty armed
Speaker 1: crack dealers, you know, by myself. Phoenix and some of
Speaker 1: the other members of the rain City Crew had taken
Speaker 1: John on a patrol of the city. Instead, nothing was happening.
Speaker 1: He couldn't find any crimes to thwart, and so he
Speaker 1: pulled out the big guns. That's John. He told me
Speaker 1: that they headed to the Belltown neighborhood. It was a
Speaker 1: sketchy pass of town tact three in the morning. There
Speaker 1: was about five or six different groups of track dealers
Speaker 1: on different street corners, and farious bires going between them.
Speaker 1: Phoenix described a fairly intimidating scene. See, I was an
Speaker 1: open cary state. Dudes walk around their guns out, They
Speaker 1: stand on the corner right and when people come out
Speaker 1: of the club, they strong armed them for money to
Speaker 1: get their car out of parking. Lots thirty dudes with
Speaker 1: open carried weapons in a parking lot. This was clearly
Speaker 1: a dangerous situation, but John wasn't sure that the superhero's
Speaker 1: presence made things safer. The crack dealers all unified in saying,
Speaker 1: what the fuck do you think you're doing here with
Speaker 1: your superhero outfits? And one of them said this may
Speaker 1: be funning games for you, but this isn't funny games
Speaker 1: for us. This is how we feed our families. And
Speaker 1: then one of them said, if you don't get off
Speaker 1: our block, we're going to show you what the Bernard does.
Speaker 1: And they had a point like what the funk were
Speaker 1: we doing trying to break the back player whose business
Speaker 1: was of ours? I mean, I'm saying ours? What I
Speaker 1: really made his phoenix is the way Phoenix tells it.
Speaker 1: This was a heroic standoff. I look a ghost and
Speaker 1: I said, ghost man, there's a good chance we're gonna
Speaker 1: die here, bro, are you? Are you good? Ghost is
Speaker 1: like yep? And I looked at Jack and Jack's like,
Speaker 1: you're stupid, Jones. This is like a movie, you know.
Speaker 1: I looked at a caballero and Cabby's like, oh, I
Speaker 1: already called the car man, He's like, I hope they
Speaker 1: don't should have the cops get you. I hadn't call
Speaker 1: the cops, but John told me the danger really did
Speaker 1: seem genuine. They came back to us and they said,
Speaker 1: you are stupid motherfucker's Do you know that? Do you
Speaker 1: know that you were stupid? Motherfucker's We should shoot you.
Speaker 1: And I've got to say at this point, I was terrified.
Speaker 1: They showed us the shape of a gun and the sweatpants.
Speaker 1: They were clearly coming up with a justification to commit
Speaker 1: an active violence against Phoenix. And they said, we should
Speaker 1: shoot you, but if you refuse to leave, I guess
Speaker 1: we're going to have to go home. And they did.
Speaker 1: They all went home, and so Phoenix one. When Phoenix
Speaker 1: told me the story, he didn't paint John in a
Speaker 1: very favorable light. John Ronson hailed a cab and they
Speaker 1: got in the cab and told the cab to wait
Speaker 1: and was hiding in the cab and then he wanted
Speaker 1: to come back up control with us and we're like, no,
Speaker 1: you're hit in the cab. Bro like you're crazy, Like
Speaker 1: you can come back out with us? And how did
Speaker 1: a cab with a card Again, when I asked John
Speaker 1: about it. He told me he wasn't in the taxi,
Speaker 1: but he did try to hail one down. They all
Speaker 1: had bullet proofess the superheroes, and I had nothing. I
Speaker 1: had a T shirt in the cardigan, so I was
Speaker 1: close to the cab so I could like escape for
Speaker 1: hat too, but also close to Phoenix so I could
Speaker 1: hear what they were saying so I could write it
Speaker 1: all down. But if Phoenix says that he didn't let
Speaker 1: me patrol with him the next day because I had
Speaker 1: hailed a cab, that's not true. Phoenix was thrilled that
Speaker 1: I was there, and in fact, when I got back
Speaker 1: to the hotel like six in the morning or whatever,
Speaker 1: the first thing Phoenix did was like phone me to
Speaker 1: talk excitedly about what had just happened, and he was
Speaker 1: like hyper ventilating down the phone. That's not someone who
Speaker 1: was so annoyed with a journalist that they didn't want
Speaker 1: them to patrol with them the next day. And the
Speaker 1: only reason why there was no patrol the next day
Speaker 1: was because Phoenix was doing a personal appearance at a
Speaker 1: comic book convention in town, and I don't think he
Speaker 1: did any patrolling that night. So the cab was true.
Speaker 1: The rest of it was not true. There really relationship
Speaker 1: was not exactly smooth sailing. But John doesn't hold a grudge.
Speaker 1: On a personal level, I liked Phoenix very much. He
Speaker 1: was my favorite of all the superheroes that I met.
Speaker 1: He was charming, charismatic, fun odd in a kind of
Speaker 1: engaging way. I'd say the most negative thing I would
Speaker 1: say about Phoenix is that he had an odd relationship
Speaker 1: with crime fighting. It was clear that he was kind
Speaker 1: of addicted to it. It felt like there was an
Speaker 1: addiction there that he couldn't find any crimph to thwart.
Speaker 1: He was getting more and more frustrated. It's like he
Speaker 1: needs a cigarette and he can't find one. But during
Speaker 1: his time with Phoenix, John got a sense that crime
Speaker 1: fighting wasn't the only thing he cared about. I think
Speaker 1: got our first night, we heard a woman screaming and
Speaker 1: Phoenix was like yacht Sie, running towards the Saga's family
Speaker 1: had someone in distress he could save, and that as
Speaker 1: he was running towards the sound of the woman screaming,
Speaker 1: this cop pulled up and these guys spot down the
Speaker 1: window and it's the guy from YouTube. Can we get
Speaker 1: a picture with you and fix It's like sure, so
Speaker 1: you like stopped and took a picture with these guys
Speaker 1: and from the time they were satisfied, so that the
Speaker 1: screaming woman was nowhere to be seen ahead. According to Phoenix,
Speaker 1: his relationship with fame is practical. It's what keeps him
Speaker 1: from getting arrested or worse, and that protection is all
Speaker 1: the more important if, like Phoenix, you're trying to do
Speaker 1: superhero work as a person of color. I'm a black
Speaker 1: guy in body armor running down the street punching white people.
Speaker 1: I need some media coverage. So what does that look
Speaker 1: like to you? Like, what's your strategy? Like what do
Speaker 1: you hope to get out of being covered with the
Speaker 1: media like that kind of stuff, not being arrested. I
Speaker 1: think what people don't know is that, um, especially currently right,
Speaker 1: there are two different Americas. Being a six ft tall
Speaker 1: black dude in body armor running up to people who
Speaker 1: have been previously assaulted in the streets is not a
Speaker 1: solid look. People don't approach it the way that you
Speaker 1: think that they would. But yeah, but when they see
Speaker 1: Phoenix Jones, they see the symbol, the one that I
Speaker 1: set up, the one they're aware of. They know what
Speaker 1: my mission statement is they know why I'm there, and
Speaker 1: it puts them as much at ease as a costume vigilante.
Speaker 1: Can you know, as I shouldn't use that word as
Speaker 1: a costume crime prevention specialist. That's what my attorneys told
Speaker 1: me to use. Phoenix always has an answer for everything.
Speaker 1: He always manages to come up with a reasonable explanation
Speaker 1: for why he is right and everyone else is wrong.
Speaker 1: When I spoke to Phoenix's former team members, they all
Speaker 1: brought up his relationship with publicity. Here's El Caballero. A
Speaker 1: lot of it. I felt like Jones's heart was for
Speaker 1: protecting people, but then there was also this part that
Speaker 1: I saw was actually his ultimate self at that time,
Speaker 1: which was publicity. Midnight Jack told me that the rain
Speaker 1: City Superheroes initially started out courting the media for strategic reasons.
Speaker 1: It was a way to get a lot of attention
Speaker 1: on crime trends, to call attention to problem areas the
Speaker 1: police were not enforcing. But as things blew up that changed.
Speaker 1: Ben was so hooked on the attention on the media
Speaker 1: following and the celebrity status and things like that that
Speaker 1: it was a problem. So then he started having us
Speaker 1: fucking not not necessarily fake footage, but kind of stage ship.
Speaker 1: When we talked about his relationship with the cameras, Phoenix
Speaker 1: never admitted to staging patrol videos, but it was an
Speaker 1: accusation I kept hearing. Cabby told me once that you
Speaker 1: guys were doing some media interview and you started making
Speaker 1: stuff up, and he was like, too, that didn't happen,
Speaker 1: and you leaned over and he said, hey, man, the
Speaker 1: history is told by the victors, you know. Oh no,
Speaker 1: I didn't. I leaned over and I said history has
Speaker 1: written by the winners, So you were just making stuff up.
Speaker 1: Phoenix even clarified for me the story Cabby had been
Speaker 1: talking about was when the rain City Superheroes were on
Speaker 1: Good Morning America. They're like, what's your biggest crime you
Speaker 1: ever stopped? And I was like, Arson, can you give
Speaker 1: some details? Like I can't give details. Phoenix couldn't give
Speaker 1: any details because there was no Arson, Like, we didn't
Speaker 1: have a lot of credentials at that moment, but we're
Speaker 1: I'm good going in America and we're about to go
Speaker 1: on TV. And I was like, fuck it, yeah, straight up,
Speaker 1: and I don't feel bad about it. I wouldn't take
Speaker 1: it back, and I would do it again if you
Speaker 1: admittedly just like make stuff up to the media, like,
Speaker 1: how do I know what you're saying is true? It
Speaker 1: wasn't admittedly making that hold on. If there's a way
Speaker 1: for me to tell a story that makes it sound
Speaker 1: better and doesn't change the core facts that are on
Speaker 1: a police report, I will probably do that to Phoenix
Speaker 1: is just giving the world when it wants. I don't
Speaker 1: want to do interviews. I don't want to talk to
Speaker 1: these people. I don't like you. I want to stop
Speaker 1: bad people from doing bad things, and I want to
Speaker 1: make people do it themselves and understand it. But the
Speaker 1: government and the world we live in would not let me.
Speaker 1: So I gave you what you wanted. You wanted a superhero,
Speaker 1: because that's what you think what I was doing was,
Speaker 1: So I gave you a superhero check. But no point
Speaker 1: in any of this was this my like idea or goal.
Speaker 1: It's these types of statements from Phoenix that I have
Speaker 1: a hard time believing. But I wouldn't necessarily say that
Speaker 1: Phoenix is lying when he says them. I think he
Speaker 1: probably believes them to be true. And it's certainly true
Speaker 1: that as a black man trying to fight crime on
Speaker 1: the streets of America. The publicity provides him with a
Speaker 1: level of protection that any of his former team members
Speaker 1: who were white might not have needed. But I find
Speaker 1: his unwillingness to admit that he enjoyed being a celebrity
Speaker 1: as a kind of dishonesty for what it's worth. I
Speaker 1: think Phoenix liked all the attention, and not just because
Speaker 1: it made it easier for him to catch criminals. But
Speaker 1: one thing does ring true and what Phoenix is saying here,
Speaker 1: he spends his whole life attempting to live up to
Speaker 1: a particular ideal of a superhero, and that's a lot
Speaker 1: of pressure, and not everyone has the same idea of
Speaker 1: what a superhero is. When those interpretations clashed, things got messy.
Speaker 1: That's coming up O. Well, Phoenix Jones was making the
Speaker 1: most of his newfound celebrity. One of his many appearances
Speaker 1: got the attention of Seadellite Crystal Marks. That's her real name,
Speaker 1: by the way, So she was kind of born with
Speaker 1: a brilliant superhero alias. I've grown up in love with
Speaker 1: superheroes my entire life. My dad was a huge NERD
Speaker 1: into D and D. He was in the Navy where
Speaker 1: they played D and D all the time, and he
Speaker 1: got a friend of his to actually get my name
Speaker 1: worked into a Superman comic book. I thought that was
Speaker 1: the coolest thing. So when I heard that someone was
Speaker 1: dressing up like one and doing something that a superhero
Speaker 1: would do, it was irresistible. When Crystal saw the news
Speaker 1: coverage of Phoenix Jones and his crew, she was immediately captivated.
Speaker 1: Late one night, she set out to see what Phoenix
Speaker 1: was really about. I ended up kind of stalking his team.
Speaker 1: The rain City superhero moved went through the streets of Seattle,
Speaker 1: watching them break up fights. Crystal didn't want the rain
Speaker 1: City Superheroes to see her. I threw my hair upon
Speaker 1: a ponytail, and I wore a hat and sunglasses at
Speaker 1: night in the middle of Belltown in Seattle. It was
Speaker 1: not the wisest choice. She hid behind street corners and
Speaker 1: counted thirty seconds before creeping along behind the superheroes. I realized, like, Wow,
Speaker 1: anyone can do this, that's really cool. But I wasn't
Speaker 1: seeing the things happening that mattered to me. Homeless outreach.
Speaker 1: As a kid growing up in Aberdeen, Washington, Crystal had
Speaker 1: some rough patches in her childhood. When I was eight
Speaker 1: years old, my biological mom and I were kicked out
Speaker 1: of my grandmother's house and we were homeless. We had
Speaker 1: nowhere to go, living in our car, we lived under
Speaker 1: a bridge, living on my mom's friends couches, and we
Speaker 1: did that for a little over six months, and that
Speaker 1: stuck with me. I was homeless as a kid, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to see people reached out to in a
Speaker 1: compassionate way. For Crystal, Phoenix's team didn't seem like the
Speaker 1: heroes she'd been looking for. I was like, do we
Speaker 1: need to just be breaking up drunk fights? Can we
Speaker 1: be doing more? So she started looking for alternatives. It
Speaker 1: turned out Phoenix's Crew weren't the only superheroes in town.
Speaker 1: Crystal ended up joining another group called the Washington Initiative.
Speaker 1: They started out by patrolling around Belltown, that's Phoenix's turf.
Speaker 1: It was a little bit of a not so friendly competition,
Speaker 1: but we realized very quickly after the first couple of patrols,
Speaker 1: where we were just seeing people stumbling to their cars,
Speaker 1: we weren't really making a difference. So our team, the
Speaker 1: Washington Initiatives, switched over to more homeless outreach Phoenix did
Speaker 1: not take kindly to his fellow crime fighters. Evocatus soft
Speaker 1: Phoenix's reaction firsthand. He would get in very animated, all screeching,
Speaker 1: yelling matches about how other teams are just trying to
Speaker 1: copy us or trying to draw his Facebook likes and
Speaker 1: his fans his words away from him and ticket for
Speaker 1: their own, which didn't make a lot of sense or
Speaker 1: mean anything to me. He felt incredibly threatened by anyone
Speaker 1: else that would try to do this line of work
Speaker 1: in his city. Phoenix used his social media to rail
Speaker 1: against his new enemies. It was this feud online. If
Speaker 1: I do this better, No, I do this better. Phoenix
Speaker 1: Jones was constantly saying, like, fine, you can say that
Speaker 1: you do homeless outreach better. I'm sure you do, but
Speaker 1: that doesn't really matter. That's not really taking care of
Speaker 1: a community as long as you acknowledge that I'm the
Speaker 1: better fighter. The feud between Phoenix and the other Seattle
Speaker 1: superheroes speaks to something I've noticed a lot in the
Speaker 1: world of real life superheroes. There seems to be an
Speaker 1: ideological split at the heart of the community over what
Speaker 1: a superhero should actually do. Some of the real life
Speaker 1: superheroes are all about action. They want to take down
Speaker 1: criminals and stop violent crime. But there are a lot
Speaker 1: like Crystal who see real superhero work as the humanitarian
Speaker 1: stuff like homeless outreach. They are interested in getting into fights.
Speaker 1: In fact, they see the flashy, action packed crime fighting
Speaker 1: is reckless, irresponsible. Personally, I don't understand why these two
Speaker 1: models can't co exist peacefully, but then I'm not Phoenix Jones.
Speaker 1: Among the rest of Phoenix's crew, the reaction to their
Speaker 1: superhero arrivals was mixed. Midnight Jack was more action oriented.
Speaker 1: He was all about dousing people with flour and pepper spray.
Speaker 1: Crystal didn't think much of his tactics though. Midnight Jack
Speaker 1: as someone out on patrol, he's just not right, Like
Speaker 1: there were plenty of time so I've heard of things
Speaker 1: where he had like a flash grenade or like a
Speaker 1: smoke bomb or something, and he would set it off
Speaker 1: on accident, Like you don't carry equipment that you don't
Speaker 1: know how to use. On the flip side, Jack thought
Speaker 1: the other groups like the Washington Initiative or nothing but
Speaker 1: attention seekers for whatever reason, they don't feel secure in
Speaker 1: themselves or maybe they hate their job. They hate how
Speaker 1: their life turned out, and so they're gonna go and
Speaker 1: dress up like Spider Man and run around take selfies
Speaker 1: and should lie down. I seen another crew kick a
Speaker 1: homeless dude awake to give him a water bottle so
Speaker 1: they could take a selfie of it, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like, I watched that happen. At the other
Speaker 1: end of the rain City Superhero spectrum, Evo had been
Speaker 1: getting tired of the media circus around Phoenix and of
Speaker 1: the constant need to seek out drama in the streets.
Speaker 1: He felt inspired by his group's new costumed rivals. Holy shit,
Speaker 1: these guys are really professional. They're on top of this.
Speaker 1: This is very different from what's been going on on
Speaker 1: our team, where it's all about the Facebook likes and
Speaker 1: it's all about how many followers do you have. Eva
Speaker 1: reached out to the Washington Initiative and struck up a relationship.
Speaker 1: At one point, he met Crystal Marks for coffee. Phoenix
Speaker 1: fell two pieces over it, and he he wanted to
Speaker 1: pat me down to make sure I didn't have any
Speaker 1: bugs or microchips planted on me, because their entire existences
Speaker 1: around spying on Phoenix. According to him, despite Phoenix's paranoia.
Speaker 1: Eva was undeterred and he and Crystal hit it off.
Speaker 1: In fact, a couple of years later their relationship turned
Speaker 1: to more than a superhero collaboration. You know, her hands
Speaker 1: would brush on on a patrol and like, and then
Speaker 1: he and I started dating and we got married. These days,
Speaker 1: Crystal isn't involved in the superhero movement, but she is
Speaker 1: still a public servant from She was the deputy mayor
Speaker 1: of Burian, a city just south of Seattle, and when
Speaker 1: she campaigned for office, she did not hide her past
Speaker 1: as a real life superhero. It took me sitting down
Speaker 1: with my husband and saying, like, does this actually translate?
Speaker 1: Does this type of real world experience of breaking up fights,
Speaker 1: doing homeless outreach, does that actually translate into public office?
Speaker 1: And he helped me list out all the ways that
Speaker 1: it did, leading groups, making decisions, strategic planning, all of
Speaker 1: this stuff. And so I ran in seen. I took
Speaker 1: out the incumbent in the primary with five people in
Speaker 1: the race, and then I came in first in the
Speaker 1: general and I became deputy mayor two years into my arm.
Speaker 1: When I interviewed Phoenix, this was one of the parts
Speaker 1: of his story. I was was interested in asking him
Speaker 1: about I'd heard stories of him referring to people like
Speaker 1: crystal marks with a derogatory term. It's a story I'd
Speaker 1: heard from a lot of people who knew him. Apparently,
Speaker 1: Phoenix called the heroes who focused on homeless outreach real
Speaker 1: life sandwich handlers. That seemed to be one of the
Speaker 1: centers of beef around certain members of the rainsyt Haris
Speaker 1: was that, like you were like, if you want to
Speaker 1: help people, like giving them a food, like you can't
Speaker 1: be on my team anymore. That's not what I said,
Speaker 1: say what happened. Like, for sure, if you want to
Speaker 1: take our main focus and make it humanitarian aid, then
Speaker 1: you should find another team, because we do humanitarian aid
Speaker 1: for sure. But the concept is stopping crime. No point
Speaker 1: in feeding people if the food you feed them gets
Speaker 1: robbed at their house. It's that simple. I've never seen
Speaker 1: a comic book with who runs around feeding people cheeseburgers,
Speaker 1: except for the handblurger cartoons that I got from the
Speaker 1: McDonald's in Like the Nights. We just have different concepts apparently,
Speaker 1: of like what fighting crime is. You can definitely hand
Speaker 1: out food. You should definitely do that. There's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with that, you don't need to wear an outfit for
Speaker 1: that at all. Actually wearing an outfit to hand out
Speaker 1: food to regular ass homeless people makes you an asshole.
Speaker 1: Why why is that? Because you're showing up and saying,
Speaker 1: you guys are so disadvantaged to look at me and
Speaker 1: my giant suit handing you sandwiches that I made in
Speaker 1: my own house. I mean, it's absurd. I think showing
Speaker 1: up in a suit and saying, hey, I put on
Speaker 1: this armor to protect you guys because I care about
Speaker 1: you being stuck out here makes way more sense than
Speaker 1: to me saying, hey, here's a fucking cheeseburger. By the way,
Speaker 1: look at my outfit. Amazing, insane, It's just incredible. It's
Speaker 1: like the disconnect between that in fighting crime is mind
Speaker 1: blowing to me. I don't even get it. Phoenix has
Speaker 1: a very specific vision of what it means to be
Speaker 1: a superhero, and for him, anything less than active crime
Speaker 1: fighting doesn't measure up. But when you make busting criminals
Speaker 1: your goal, it isn't just the criminals you have to
Speaker 1: watch out for. Phoenix's daredevil crime stopping approach brought him
Speaker 1: onto the radar of a powerful To me, the Seattle
Speaker 1: Police Department. That's coming up For a while. At least,
Speaker 1: it seemed that Phoenix Jones had managed to fulfill his
Speaker 1: dream of becoming Seattle's very own Night Wing, the superhero
Speaker 1: Phoenix had looked up to as a kid. Things weren't
Speaker 1: always perfect in the rain City superhero movement, but for now,
Speaker 1: Phoenix was patrolling the streets several nights a week, chasing
Speaker 1: down criminals and snapping photos with fans. But the more
Speaker 1: attention he got, the more he rankled the local authorities.
Speaker 1: The problem was that Seattle already had its own force
Speaker 1: of professional crime fighters, and they felt that Phoenix Jones
Speaker 1: was stepping on their toes. Police worry Phoenix has recently
Speaker 1: taste of fame, He pushes him to put himself in
Speaker 1: harm's way. They insert themselves into a potentially volatile situation
Speaker 1: and then they end up being victimized as well. Don't
Speaker 1: insert yourself into those situations. If you see something called
Speaker 1: nine and one police, hope he stops before it's too late.
Speaker 1: A pattern began to emerge. Phoenix and his crew would
Speaker 1: make the news for their latest active costumed heroism, and
Speaker 1: the Seattle Police Department would issue an increasingly exasperated statement
Speaker 1: to the effect of, thanks, but you can leave the
Speaker 1: crime fighting to us. I didn't know anybody who actually
Speaker 1: thought it was a good idea for then to put
Speaker 1: themselves in harm's way, put on these outfits, if you will,
Speaker 1: and make themselves a target for others. Carmen Best was
Speaker 1: the chief of the Seattle Police Department from two thousand
Speaker 1: and eighteen to two thousand and twenty. She was the
Speaker 1: first black woman to lead the force. But before Carmen
Speaker 1: became chief, she held a lot of different roles, and
Speaker 1: she was there during the height of the Seattle superhero movement.
Speaker 1: While you truly respect what they were trying to do,
Speaker 1: I was very concerned one for their safety and two
Speaker 1: for their full motive, because we really discourage as profession
Speaker 1: people doing what we would view as a vigilanteism. Carmen
Speaker 1: told me that the police department had been watching the
Speaker 1: superheroes out on patrol and making their TV appearances with
Speaker 1: growing concern. They don't have all the same protections that
Speaker 1: a law enforcement officer who's sworn in, who's had the
Speaker 1: training that we have in place. There was an instance
Speaker 1: when one of them was injured pretty significantly and was stabbed.
Speaker 1: You know, we definitely were coutuming them when that occurred.
Speaker 1: You know, it was our you know, our worst fears
Speaker 1: realized in that situation and also intervening in the manner
Speaker 1: that they did, they put themselves in some legal jeopardy
Speaker 1: as well. Carmen didn't know which would be superhero was
Speaker 1: in this instance, but Phoenix claims he's been stabbed on
Speaker 1: patrol more than once and she definitely remembers him. Of course,
Speaker 1: his name came up. He did the most amount of
Speaker 1: interviews and was pretty extroverted, if you will, and how
Speaker 1: he approached this whole thing. In my opinion, I think
Speaker 1: the opinion of many within the police department, this seemed
Speaker 1: a little bit like fantasy work, you know, putting on
Speaker 1: a uniform or an outfit, because you're actually not a superhero.
Speaker 1: You're a person who's intervening and what can ostensibly be
Speaker 1: some pretty dangerous situations, and you can interfere in such
Speaker 1: a way that causes harm to you, not only yourself,
Speaker 1: but to the person you're trying to assist as well.
Speaker 1: So we were very concerned about it. I understand this argument,
Speaker 1: and I think it applies to a lot of people
Speaker 1: in the real life superhero community. But I also think
Speaker 1: that this is one of the areas where Phoenix does
Speaker 1: have a point. He's not the type of Yahoo who
Speaker 1: simply put on a costume and jumped into this job
Speaker 1: without thinking about it. He actually put in the time
Speaker 1: to train. I can't imagine being a cop and not
Speaker 1: having these certain skills. You know. It's not like going
Speaker 1: lifting weights. It's like running and training my knife disarms
Speaker 1: like I have. I do Wednesday knife disarms, right, I
Speaker 1: do Saturday hand to hand combat like that all the time, always.
Speaker 1: And he isn't only prepared for physical altercations. He also
Speaker 1: has clearly spent time studying the laws around what he
Speaker 1: can and can't do when fighting crime. Oh I don't
Speaker 1: hire a lawyer anymore because I know all this stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can see I know all of the laws.
Speaker 1: The hard part for me is filling out the paperwork appropriately.
Speaker 1: I've won them all, just be clear, every single one
Speaker 1: of them I've won, except for one I consider a win,
Speaker 1: but technically it was not. It was like a no contest.
Speaker 1: The guy just didn't show up. But I mean that's
Speaker 1: still kind of a win. A lot of the media
Speaker 1: reports and statements from the Seattle Police around two thousand
Speaker 1: and eleven seemed to speak to an underlying worry that
Speaker 1: Phoenix might use excessive force in his crime fighting or
Speaker 1: that he wasn't accountable for his behavior. But those are
Speaker 1: the same accusations that the US Department of Justice made
Speaker 1: about the Seattle Police Department in the same year. The
Speaker 1: d j's Civil Rights Division receive the letter in two
Speaker 1: thousand and ten from the Washington a c l U
Speaker 1: and thirty four other civil rights and community based organizations.
Speaker 1: The letter requested an investigation into multiple incidents of excessive
Speaker 1: force by the Seattle Police Department, particularly force used against
Speaker 1: persons of color. The d o J launched an investigation,
Speaker 1: and their report found that the SPD were engaging in
Speaker 1: a pattern or practice of unnecessary or excessive force, and
Speaker 1: that the chain of command does not properly investigate, analyze,
Speaker 1: or demand accountability from its subordinate officers for their uses
Speaker 1: of force. They also found serious concerns about biased policing.
Speaker 1: To date, in April, the Seattle Police are still under
Speaker 1: federal oversight as a result of that report, though a
Speaker 1: lot of activists in the city think their reforms haven't
Speaker 1: gone far enough. It's also a reminder of what Phoenix
Speaker 1: was talking about earlier, of the additional risk that he
Speaker 1: faces because he's trying to fight crime as a black man.
Speaker 1: Phoenix talks about crime fighting like it's his whole reason
Speaker 1: for being. It's intense, but it's also not unique. A
Speaker 1: lot of people are drawn to this line of work,
Speaker 1: but very few of them grind the nipples off a
Speaker 1: batman outfit and go around hiding trampolines and alleys. I
Speaker 1: feel like a lot of people like the more traditional
Speaker 1: path for someone who had those ideals about fighting crime
Speaker 1: would be to just join the police force. I'm curious
Speaker 1: why that was not appealing to you, because I want
Speaker 1: to help people, and you don't see the police as
Speaker 1: being helpful. The police are very very helpful in certain
Speaker 1: situations when they understand it, and the right day, when
Speaker 1: you catch the right officer and you happen to have
Speaker 1: an open in chet situation. But that's not what I
Speaker 1: consider policing. Where police really shine is investigating crimes that
Speaker 1: have already taken place. But that is not justice to me.
Speaker 1: That's legalized retribution. I think if you're a police officer
Speaker 1: or a crime fighter, your job is intervened between the
Speaker 1: incident and the person at the moment of that incident,
Speaker 1: not to investigate afterwards, like investigating afterwards is what you've
Speaker 1: done when a plan fails. Talking to Phoenix, the biggest
Speaker 1: beef he seemed to have with the cops was that
Speaker 1: he thinks they aren't effective at stopping crime. But Phoenix
Speaker 1: saw that as an opportunity, a gap the cops weren't
Speaker 1: able to fill, but a superhero might. Cabby also saw
Speaker 1: the rain City Superheroes as a way of making up
Speaker 1: for the police's ineffectiveness. They show up after a crime
Speaker 1: has happened, and a lot of things happened in between
Speaker 1: when a crime is happening and when law enforcement actually
Speaker 1: arrives or medical services arrived to actually deal with the problem.
Speaker 1: That in between space was where the rain City Superheroes
Speaker 1: saw work to be done. But even at their most intrepid,
Speaker 1: they always got law enforcement involved, despite their own bivalent
Speaker 1: relationship with the cops. In fact, on their patrols, Evil
Speaker 1: told me there was even a role dedicated to police liaison.
Speaker 1: I started being all one, which means if we saw
Speaker 1: an actual crime happen, we would call Seattle Police, right away.
Speaker 1: That was like step one was called them always know
Speaker 1: where we're at, the street corners and the intersections. You
Speaker 1: know exactly where we're at so we can report it.
Speaker 1: But when the police did show up, things could get tense.
Speaker 1: Cabby told me a story about a patrol when things
Speaker 1: went south. We rolled up in Belltown and saw this
Speaker 1: guy harassing this man and woman who were a mixed
Speaker 1: race couple, and instantly we knew, like we felt like
Speaker 1: this guy was racist, like trying to attack this couple.
Speaker 1: According to Cabby, one of the other rain City superheroes,
Speaker 1: Captain Karma, approached the man and told him to leave
Speaker 1: the couple alone. And this guy, like Butterfly, kicked him
Speaker 1: running the chest and threw him out in the street,
Speaker 1: and I was like what the Cabby says, he ran
Speaker 1: over and pin the guy in a wrestling hold until
Speaker 1: the police finally arrived. They pull up and they pull
Speaker 1: out their guns. They're like, let him go, let him go.
Speaker 1: We're like, we want to press charges. This guy just
Speaker 1: attacked a couple with their baby. We think he's a
Speaker 1: racist or whatever. Like they're like let him go, and
Speaker 1: like this guy's violent and they're like let him go.
Speaker 1: So the rain City Superheroes did what they were told,
Speaker 1: and they let the guy go. When he runs up
Speaker 1: and he punches the cop in the face. So then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the cops, who have their weapons drawn,
Speaker 1: are wrestling with this guy and the guns are pointing
Speaker 1: around like to all these different people, putting everyone's life
Speaker 1: in danger. And so I grabbed the guy again. Cabby
Speaker 1: claims he broke the guy's wrist. The police demanded that
Speaker 1: the superheroes unmasked and hand over their footage, which they
Speaker 1: agreed to, but then the police let the guy they
Speaker 1: had just subdued go free. I'm like, nope, I want
Speaker 1: to press charges. Sorry, we can't press charges against him,
Speaker 1: Like why is that? Because that's crazy, and they're like
Speaker 1: diplomatic community, he's from the Russian embassy. So they ended
Speaker 1: up letting him fucking go pardon my language, and we're
Speaker 1: there looking like dumbasses like guess, I don't know, sitting
Speaker 1: there with their mass of like hands on the hood,
Speaker 1: like we were criminals Russian diplomats. Aside, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of videos that showcase the dysfunctional relationship Phoenix and
Speaker 1: his crew had with the Seattle police and Phoenix became
Speaker 1: increasingly vocal online with his criticisms of the cops. Let's
Speaker 1: make sure I understand this guy assaults person, the guy
Speaker 1: walks away clean and free. Nothing happens. Police won't take
Speaker 1: my statement, won't take my paperwork. I am pretty piste
Speaker 1: off right now. Phoenix had a couple of favorite targets
Speaker 1: to beef with. Seattle has lost its mind when it
Speaker 1: comes to what a real crime is. Has lost its mind,
Speaker 1: and part of that is Pete Holmes and his inability
Speaker 1: to do his job. Phoenix is talking about former Seattle
Speaker 1: City Attorney Pete Holmes. Me and Pete Holmes have a
Speaker 1: history of hatting each other. To the distric attorney of
Speaker 1: Seattle is a complete joke because trash trash from Holmes
Speaker 1: was in charge of all misdemeanor prosecutions in Seattle. He
Speaker 1: has sandy gray hair parted at the side and glasses,
Speaker 1: and he embraced a lot of left leaning policies when
Speaker 1: he was in office. He declined to be interviewed for
Speaker 1: this series, but he's gone on record multiple times telling
Speaker 1: Phoenix to stand down. Holmes once said to the press quote, Mr.
Speaker 1: Photor is no hero, just a deeply misguided individual. He
Speaker 1: also argued that Phoenix couldn't rely on Seattle's Good Samaritan
Speaker 1: laws to protect him. He said, quote, our state's Good
Speaker 1: Samaritan statutes are designed to protect individuals who happened upon,
Speaker 1: rather than actively seek out opportunities to render assistance to others.
Speaker 1: These laws are not designed to protect a branded, costumed character,
Speaker 1: his roving video crew, or their copyrighted videos from the
Speaker 1: reach of torte plaintiffs. It's not surprising that Phoenix and
Speaker 1: Pete Holmes kept butting heads the first couple of times.
Speaker 1: The first like ten or twelve times, it was just
Speaker 1: me pleading with him to actually charge the criminals and
Speaker 1: him explaining to me how I'm not a police officer,
Speaker 1: and me being like, yeah, no, ship idiot, I don't
Speaker 1: need to be a police officer, and him saying, well,
Speaker 1: it draws a weird precedents. No, which draws a president
Speaker 1: is a guy running around a rubber suit and actually
Speaker 1: finding crime that draws a precedence. Maybe should do your job.
Speaker 1: Throughout things were getting increasingly tense between Phoenix and Seattle's
Speaker 1: law enforcement, and while his fellow superheroes didn't necessarily disagree
Speaker 1: with him, they worried that Phoenix's outspokenness would provoke a backlash.
Speaker 1: Jones really instigated the hatred of SPD. That's Cabby. He
Speaker 1: was just always like an interviews anything, He's like, cops,
Speaker 1: if they would do their job, blah blah. I was like, dude,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's not really how it is. He's a
Speaker 1: total dick to them, which I understand. A young black dude,
Speaker 1: I get it, And I'm not an apologist for law enforcement. Basically,
Speaker 1: people call and they show up afterwards. It's like trash collectors.
Speaker 1: It was like, you deal with it afterwards. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, we got all put under the whole blanket. Oh,
Speaker 1: these guys think they're vigilantes. They're taking the low their
Speaker 1: own hands. It's like, no, we're not. In the early
Speaker 1: hours of October nine, two thousand eleven, Phoenix was out
Speaker 1: in downtown Seattle patrolling with Ghost, a videographer named Ryan McNamee,
Speaker 1: and the journalist t Krulos. And we met back in
Speaker 1: episode one. It had been a long night and Phoenix
Speaker 1: was nearly ready to wrap things up. Then he says
Speaker 1: one of his crew spotted a fight outside of bar.
Speaker 1: Phoenix looked out and I take off running towards because
Speaker 1: I could see these eyes are kicking this person on
Speaker 1: the ground, just beating him up. When they're kicking each other,
Speaker 1: punching each other, that's tea pushing each other down the street.
Speaker 1: Phoenix ran at full tilt and leapt into the middle
Speaker 1: of it. I'm like, breaking up, fight, breaks up, everything's cool.
Speaker 1: Then they start yelling about getting a gun and all
Speaker 1: kinds of other stuff. They take up to their car.
Speaker 1: They try to chase me around. The guy chased me
Speaker 1: comes at me, so I just spotted with pepper spray.
Speaker 1: No big deal. He pepper sprays them, and the pepper
Speaker 1: spray dissipated into the air and everyone was coughing and
Speaker 1: rubbing their eyes. In the midst of this chaos, a
Speaker 1: woman started attacking Phoenix with her shoes. I have body armors, all, okay,
Speaker 1: but I started and then she fell on her face.
Speaker 1: The minute she fell, those dudes went crazy and he
Speaker 1: started coming back at us. It all sort of grouped together,
Speaker 1: and then they rushed us. What Jesus and attacked us.
Speaker 1: I actually got punched in the face, and I was like,
Speaker 1: don't don't punch me. We were in a very kayak situation.
Speaker 1: I was genuinely very afraid for my safety. Seriously, your
Speaker 1: camera put your camera camera is up. At one point
Speaker 1: it looked like they might be looking for a gun.
Speaker 1: Phoenix pulled out his trusty pepper spray again and gave
Speaker 1: the attackers another dose. Ghost got kicked and fell over
Speaker 1: our trash can busted his finger up. I have hand
Speaker 1: surgery from how bad you are its hand. We're not.
Speaker 1: They started throwing rocks at us and then tried to
Speaker 1: run us over with a car. Finally the cops showed up,
Speaker 1: and they were pissed. The first thing this officer said
Speaker 1: was Phoenix Jones, I'm tired of playing these games with you, man,
Speaker 1: I'm tired of this game. We're about this rest the
Speaker 1: whole bunch of year clean. According to both Tea and Phoenix,
Speaker 1: the police officers were not interested in hearing what Phoenix
Speaker 1: had to say. They wouldn't look at our video, they
Speaker 1: wouldn't listen to us. They're like, we've had enough, you stupid.
Speaker 1: You've already pupiseday three people today, which is true, but
Speaker 1: you arrested the other two. Like maybe you don't understand
Speaker 1: how this works, you know, And then your cop was
Speaker 1: saying stuff about like, you're not a police officer, you
Speaker 1: don't have any authority. You guys are really arrogant that
Speaker 1: you can make a difference, and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's crazy to think you can get into a car,
Speaker 1: drive to a crime and make a difference, right, douche.
Speaker 1: The cops arrested Phoenix and took them away in their car.
Speaker 1: The people who Phoenix said had been fighting would let go,
Speaker 1: and the other Rain City superheroes melted into the night.
Speaker 1: He was left standing on the street corner alone, and
Speaker 1: that's when I looked down at my hands, and I
Speaker 1: saw that my hands were shaking from the adrenaline of
Speaker 1: what had just happened. I've always liked Phoenix personally, and
Speaker 1: I think that he's done some good things for the
Speaker 1: city of Seattle. But it made me realize that the
Speaker 1: real life superhero thing could be really dangerous. And in
Speaker 1: that circumstance, I think that his intention was to help
Speaker 1: save people because he saw people fighting, but that's his
Speaker 1: interaction made the situation a lot worse. The pepper spray
Speaker 1: made everyone angry, and it turned the scene into total chaos.
Speaker 1: The tables had turned on Seattle's comic book crusader. This
Speaker 1: time it was Phoenix who ended up behind bars. Phoenix
Speaker 1: Jones was arrested by saddle P d on suspicion of assault.
Speaker 1: Officers st Jones told them he spotted two men fighting,
Speaker 1: but could not explain why four people, including two women,
Speaker 1: got pepper spray. Pepper sprayed priest reports of citizens being
Speaker 1: pepper sprayed by Jones and his group pepper Spray, No
Speaker 1: big deal, pepper sprayed made everyone angry. The officer wrote
Speaker 1: that Jones had a history of injecting himself in these incidents.
Speaker 1: No deal. Everyone was coughing and rubbing their eyes, and
Speaker 1: deal turned the scene into total chaos. Jones has been
Speaker 1: advised to observe and report incidents to only smokes that man.
Speaker 1: I bet this never happens to you. What's a superhero
Speaker 1: to do when his back is against the wall. That's
Speaker 1: coming up on The Superhero Complex. The Superhero Complex is
Speaker 1: hosted and written by Me, David Weinberg and reported by Me,
Speaker 1: Amalia Sortland and Caroline Thornham. Production from Amalia Shortland and
Speaker 1: Caroline Thornham. Sean Glenn, Max O'Brien and David Waters are
Speaker 1: executive producers. Fact checking by Andrew Schwartz. Production management from
Speaker 1: Sharie Houston, Frankie Taylor and Charlotte Wolf. Sound design, mixing
Speaker 1: and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempson. Music supervision
Speaker 1: by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters. Original music is composed
Speaker 1: by Paul Housden and special thanks to Peter Tangan, Willard Foxton,
Speaker 1: Matt O'Mara, Katrina Norvelle Beth and Macaluso, Rin Rosenbaum, Shelby Shenkman,
Speaker 1: and all the team at U t A. For more
Speaker 1: from Novel, visit novel dot Audio m