Stealing Superman: Episode Seven — Strange Visitor

Eleven years after going missing, Nicolas Cage’s copy of Action #1 reportedly surfaces in an abandoned storage locker in California. To confirm it, cops go undercover and discover a story almost too good to be true.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
April two thousand eleven a warehouse in Simi Valley, California.
Stephen Fishler, a comic book dealer, is standing outside. Next
to him is Los Angeles Police Detective Donald Harrisick. The
two are about to go inside the warehouse, where both
men think there's an ending to this story, the story

(00:25):
of four stolen comic books from the home of Nicholas Cage,
including the world's most valuable title action comics. No one
that comic might be just a few feet away after
eleven years of searching. It's tantalizingly close. But while they
suspect the comic is inside, they don't know who might

(00:49):
be with it, so hurry. Sick shares some words of caution.
Here's what Stephen remembers. And they gave me sort of
the lay of the land, the how they wanted this
to go down. Detective Horristic would poses my partner, And
they said to me, yeah, because I'm I'm trying to

(01:10):
do a comic deal. Obviously this is not a normal
comic deal because it's a stolen book. But he says,
if there's trouble, anybody brings out a gun, hit the
floor and I went golden I said, if somebody brings
out a gun, don't worry. I can do that. That
sounds well intense, but there are a few reasons why

(01:34):
Donald Horresi is giving the warning. The first is that
this isn't his first flirtation with people who are knowingly
or not in possession of stolen art, and people in
possession of stolen art can be dangerous. The second reason
is that Donald Harrisk doesn't plan on letting the men

(01:55):
inside know he's a cop, or that several cops are
hiding nearby, at least not just yet. So there's risk,
but the risk is worth it for both of them.
Harrisik has an opportunity to add another recovery to his
storied career as an art detective, and Fishler can put

(02:17):
to bed a mystery that's been eating at him since
two thousand, the mystery of how Nick Cage's comics were
ripped off his wall during a party in a brazen
and so far successful attempt to relieve him of his
prized possessions. Anything could have happened to the comics. They

(02:38):
could have been lost, or destroyed or damaged. But if
the picture sent to Stephen just a couple of days prior,
was any hint the most important comic had survived the
past decade in one piece. To confirm it, all the
two of them had to do was walked through the door.

(02:58):
That was it. The two walk inside, then Stephen notices
something out of the corner of his eye. We get
out and we go into an office and there was
an individual standing outside, and as soon as we went

(03:20):
in he must have realized who I was. He went
into the office fifteen seconds after the tective and I
went in, and I went kind of weird. He was
waiting outside and then I looked at his hand. He's
holding the Manila folder and I go that book was
pictured in the Manila folder, but I can't see what's
in it. And the individual with the Manila folder is

(03:44):
pulled into an inner office is now sitting in this office,
and the Minila folder is now open, and there's the
book on like a little aprolic pedestal and we sit down.
Oh yeah, that's an original action one where I heart radio.

(04:09):
This is Stealing Superman. I'm your host, Dana Schwartz, and
this is episode seven. Strange Visitor two thousand eleven was
turning out to be a tumultuous year for Cage. It

(04:29):
was a time when, approaching his fifties, he was on
shaky ground as a leading man. He was drifting away
from his action star Heyday and many years removed from
his last Oscar nomination. A major Disney movie, The Sorcerer's Apprentice,
had disappointed a year earlier. Cages two thousand and eleven

(04:50):
slate of films weren't much better, with little remembered titles
like Season of the Witch and Drive Angry Another turn
as more All's ghost Rider character debuted at the quote
Butt Namathon to a reportedly poor reception. This was the
beginning of a decade spent largely in the direct to

(05:12):
television market, where the movies were often undeserving of Cage's talents.
It had happened to John Travolta and to Bruce Willis.
Cage like to say, making a lot of low budget
movies was kind of like the old studio system where
stars churned out movies. But there was no denying his

(05:33):
career had stalled. Professionally, it wasn't his best year, But
for our story, there was one bright spot. Art crime,
as any good art crime detective will tell you, is
a game of Patients extreme Patients. Art thieves may try

(05:53):
to convert their illicit goods to money quickly, or they
may decide they're far better off sitting on something for years,
even decades. The general rule is, if a piece of
stolen art doesn't service immediately, you may not see it
for say, ten years, long enough for cops to lose
interest and the trail of ownership to grow cold. In

(06:17):
the case of Cages Action number one, it was eleven
years close enough. In an earlier episode, we Told You.
Art thefts are often preceded by media coverage of lavish
auctions or high dollar sales, something to make the thief
think about the value of something they could steal. The

(06:37):
same can also hold true for art recovery. Someone in
possession of a stolen item may see news of its
value and how much it's increased since it was taken,
and that can be the motivation to finally try and
return it to the legitimate market. So what happened in
two thousand eleven A few things. In February, Joanne Siegel,

(07:02):
the widow of the late Superman co creator Jerry Siegel,
passed away. It was covered in the media, often with
a mention of how rare and valuable Action Comics Number
one was, And in March of that year, Stephen Fishler
made some history. His company, Comic Connect, an online marketplace

(07:22):
for comics, sold a copy of Amazing Fantasy Number fifteen.
That nineteen sixty two comic introduced Spider Man, and it's
sold for an astounding one point one million, a new
record for the wall Crawler. So what does that have
to do with Action number one. In all of the

(07:44):
ensuing media articles about the sale of Amazing Fantasy Number fifteen,
reporters had to make a clarifying remark that while the
sale was a record for Spider Man, it wasn't a
comic book record. That honor still longed to Action number one.
In two thousand ten, Fishler sold two copies of the comic,

(08:07):
one for a million dollars and another for one point
five million. The latter was the most expensive comic ever sold.
So whoever was holding onto the comic taken from Nick
Cage's home may have felt a new sense of urgency.
And if someone happened to find that comic around that time,

(08:28):
well they'd know it was worth quite a bit. Just
a couple of weeks after news of that sale broke,
Dan Dotson and his wife Laura were approached by two men.
Dan and Laura run American Auctioneers, a storage locker liquidation
business in California. If you've seen the A and E

(08:50):
show Storage Wars, you've seen Dan. The premise of what
Dan and Laura do is pretty simple to understand, although
it's real not an easy job. American Auctioneers is hired
by storage unit companies to auction off storage units that
aren't up to date on their payments. Say someone rents

(09:11):
the storage locker, stuffs it full of their belongings, then
stops paying the monthly bill. The storage company is stuck
with a bunch of stuff they don't want, so to
recoup what they can, they auction off the contents to
buyers who hope to profit from what's inside. The buyers
can't really see any of it beforehand, just a glimpse,

(09:32):
so it's kind of a crapshoot. You might get something
valuable or you might get some old clothes. Either way,
it makes for really good reality television. American Auctioneers, like
every liquidator, gives the owners of the lockers every chance
to come and collect their things before it's too late.
They're required by law to print a public notice in

(09:54):
newspapers with the names of the people who are past
do on their bills. Those people can swooped back in
even at the last minute. If they can pay up,
they get to keep their stuff. If not, it's open season.
That's what Dan was doing in March when he was
approached by someone he recognized, a man about forty years old.

(10:16):
The man whom he knew only as Sylvester, had recently
arrived on the storage unit scene. Like a lot of people.
He may have been compelled to get into it based
on the popularity of storage wars. Either way, he was
a new but familiar face. Originally, he had approached Dan's wife, Laura,

(10:37):
who's the co owner of their company. Here's Laura. I
just remember his name being Sylvester, and he had a
friend with him, and they were they were shorter guys.
I just know that. When I'm doing my auction and
stuff like that, I try to remember the whole crowd,
and I try to make you look at everybody's face
so I don't miss anybody's bid and so forth. And
I just remember they were maybe five ft three each

(10:58):
of them and smaller guys. Laura thought Sylvester and his
friend had a question about the auction she and Dan
were holding. That was typically why people approached them to
ask questions about how it all works. But Sylvester had
something else on his mind. He wanted to invite her
to his home. Well, here I am in this auction

(11:21):
place and I'm doing an auction and I'm on my
like last unit, and a guy comes up with a
friend and asked me. I said, okay, you're here for
the auction. Everything is. I gave him the terms real
quick because I realized, oh, he's just showing up. And
he said to me, do you have comic books you
find in units? And so do you guys have buyers
and stuff like that? And could you appraise a comic

(11:43):
book for me? Sylvester was looking for guidance, and you know,
when it's really kind of local over here, you could
just come on over to my house. And I said, no,
I wouldn't be the one that would just come to
your house because I had never seen this guy before.
And he said, well, my name is Sylvester, and he
had a another guy with him, and I recalled that
they were new to the auction, and they were interested

(12:05):
in looking at units, is what I thought. And I said,
last unit, last unit, happening right now. And he wants
me to please come to his house, and okay, let
me look at this last unit. But if you could
just come before your next sale. And it seems like
you know about comic books, I said, listen, I wouldn't
be the one to come. Let me give you my
husband's information. He will be doing an auction on Saturday,
was the nearest time. And he said to me, okay,

(12:29):
well great, then I'm gonna come and see your husband.
And I figured, you know what my husband and I
do is we will look for provenance and we will
look for through a fem roun paper stuff if we
can find anything online. And I hadn't put it. I
put it into my head and kind of out of
my head. So Sylvester came back that Saturday and he

(12:49):
brought something with him, and this time he approached Laura's husband.
Here's Dan. So he brought it down to our auction
on Saturday, and I was looking at it. You know,
I was coming through that comic book and it just
looked so nice and Prestine, I just you know, it
was pretty sure that it was probably reproduction, but it wasn't.

(13:11):
Sylvester explained to Dan that he had just bought a
storage locker from American auctioneers. After cleaning it out and
sorting through its contents, he made the discovery of the Century,
a nearly flawless copy of Action Comics Number one tucked
inside of a large hardcover book. Dan knows a lot

(13:34):
about a lot when it comes to stuff people find
in storage lockers, from antiques to guns, but he's not
an expert in comic books. He didn't know exactly what
he was looking at. Not not really, No, I didn't.
I saw that it was June comic, but I didn't
realize it was I didn't realize how special it was

(13:55):
at the time. For Dan, there wasn't any thought to
trying to get involved. No, no, I didn't even realize
the value of it. Um. You know, I and I
don't really have connections to by, you know, comic books.
So while he figured this could be something, he decided
to pass Sylvester along to someone else. Lalo was, you know,

(14:17):
hitting up our auctions at the time, and I just
introduced them. I think the guy's name was Sylvester, and
I said, Sylvester, Mark, Mark, Sylvester, you know, knock yourselves out.
And then I, you know, I didn't really think anything
else of it. Balalo is Mark Balalo, another storage unit liquidator.
Mark was relatively new to the scene too. He would

(14:39):
make appearances on Storage Wars, flashing a lot of money
to scoop up storage units, wearing sunglasses indoors, and generally
being provocative enough to make an impression on reality television.
You know, Balalo at the time, I think really wanted
to be on Storage Wars. And and he pretended that
we knew each other like forever, and we didn't know

(15:01):
each other, you know, forever. But Mark did know about
comics more than Dan and Laura at any rate. So
he and Sylvester got to talking, and Mark said enough
to convince Sylvester that he could find a proper buyer
for his discovery. He took the comics, put it in
the safe of his warehouse in Simi Valley, and then

(15:23):
he made a phone call. He called the one person
whose name had been in hundreds of newspapers as the
man who was earning record prices for rare comic books,
including amazing Fantasy number fifteen and the very comic Mark
was holding in his hands. Of all the dealers he
could have called, Mark called Stephen Fishler. Stephen Fishler couldn't

(15:53):
believe it. The Action number one he sold to Cage,
the one he had been searching for, just material realized
in front of his face. An employee of Minds is
the individual contacted him with an Action one, and I
go to the person's word station. They look at their
computer and I see in this email a picture of

(16:19):
an Action one. It's not in a bag. It appears
to be in photograph while it's sitting in a Manila
four They're on screen. Was the comic unceremoniously tucked into
a Manila folder and resting on a car seat. But
how could Stephen tell it was the comic? Rare comics

(16:41):
have markings, certain distinguishable markings that distanced them from the
hundreds of similar copies. Stephen felt he knew what cages
Action number one looked like, the way a parent can
tell the difference between identical twins. The secret was in
the blue banner. Just over the tight a logo. There
were white markings. Stephen knew about markings other collectors or

(17:06):
a thief may not even be aware of. And the
markings were there exactly as Stephen remembered that. And I
do a double tape, and I will say it probably
took me five seconds to realize it was next book.
But I found a copy of a picture of the book,
just to be double short. And my employee emailed me,

(17:30):
forwarding me the original email. I called this individual up.
His name was Mark. He was in Semi Valley, and
I thanked him for contacting me. And it looks like
a wonderful book, and they wanted to sell it. And

(17:50):
he indicated that he was friends with the owner. He's
representing the owner. And they said that the book was
purchased in an aukstion like a storage unit auction. The
question was what exactly did Mark Ballelo want Stephen to do.

(18:10):
According to Stephen, it was to authenticate the comic, to
make sure it was the genuine article and not a
reproduction or a phony like the one that had turned
up in Memphis back in two thousand and two, or
the ones unscrupulous ebayers sometimes tried to pass off as
the real thing. If it was the real thing, then

(18:31):
Mark would go looking for a buyer, one who would
pay him at least a million dollars for the comic.
And who better to ask for help than the man
who was just in the news for setting seven figure
records for comic sales. I had the first million dollar
sale of a comic book. It was another Action one.

(18:52):
It was before this, and I believe that they heard
about this million dollars sale because it was mine. Mine
aim was well over it, and that's where they connected
the figure of a million, and I think that that's
why New Contact. So what happened was I sold See
an Action one for a million, then I sold an

(19:16):
Action one in for one point five. So that was
all before and that was publicized. So that was all
before Mark Contact. But Mark didn't seem to acknowledge that
it could be Nicholas Cage's copy, and Stephen didn't mention

(19:37):
it either. If Mark knew it could be Cages, why
go to Cages comic dealer. Isn't that launching yourself directly
in the line of fire? Not exactly. I don't think
he did, And my feeling is he just knew that
I dealt in Action once and I was prominent dealer.

(19:58):
He found a lot of information about out me, but
not that connection. And I also said to myself, if
they know it was stolen from California, let's not get
a California deal over here, because he might really know
that this is stolen book. Let's get a New York guy,
because if if it's New York, well maybe this is
a smaller chance that'll know it's stolen. Stephen did two things,

(20:21):
and I said, oh, that's great. And I'm knowing the
entire time that this story might not be real, but
it doesn't matter because they have the book. And I
called the detective horrific after I got off the phone,
saying that the main book, the Action One, is in
l A. And I said, I'm being contacted. I have

(20:42):
a picture of it. This is the individual's name. I
sent him the email. That's it. That's the book, um,
and he wants me to come and look at it.
And I booked a ticket. So the coordination happened where
I came out the next day, met the detective at
the local police station that was near Simi Valley. Harrisick

(21:06):
you'll remember is Donald Harresik, the l A. P. D
Art detective whom Stephen had sparred with a handful of
times over the years. To Stephen, Donald hadn't been overly
aggressive in hunting down the cage. Comics art theft was
rampant in Los Angeles, and in fairness to Donald, there
was always a lot going on with virtually no manpower

(21:29):
devoted to it. Donald had one partner. If that still,
Donald agreed that Steven should go and meet with the
two of them, with Mark and Sylvester. Donald would accompany
him as an associate. It would be a sting operation,
one where the contraband wasn't drugs or guns, but a

(21:51):
comic book. The next day, Stephen found himself outside Mark
Balelo's warehouse in Simi Valley, California, a massive struck sure
where Mark housed his inventory of items he bought and sold.
He dealt in electronics, a thriving eBay business, live auctions,
and business was apparently booming. Stephen got the pep talk

(22:14):
from Donald, the one where he should duck if someone
brought out a gun, but Donald wasn't taking chances. He
stationed a number of officers around the warehouse in case
backup was needed. The situation may have seemed funny on
the surface, it was after all a comic, but one
worth potentially millions of dollars, and when that kind of

(22:37):
money is involved, people can be unpredictable. Stephen and Donald
walked into the warehouse before anyone could say anything. Stephen
caught sight of the man with a Manila folder. It
was a light yellow office folder, the kind of stationary
you tuck and earnings report in. Not a valuable comic.

(22:58):
It's a great way for the book to get damaged,
wrinkled pages torn. Suddenly, Stephen was thinking that even if
this was the comic, who knew what kind of damage
it had sustained in the past eleven years. Anything from
humidity to sunlight could have damaged it beyond repair. Comics
can't be restored without someone noticing it, and collectors have

(23:20):
very definitive opinions about restored comics. They're often seen as
something less valuable. This comic was from night. It needed
to be treated kindly, and here was a man carrying
it like he was a waiter with a menu. Stephen's
attention was diverted when Mark Ballelo appeared. Stephen hadn't seen

(23:44):
Storage Wars, had never met Ballelo, knew virtually nothing of
the storage unit scene. But Mark was easy enough to profile.
He wore shiny shirts, he talked a lot, He acted
like the car salesman he used to be. He invited
Stephen and Donald into an office. The four of them

(24:06):
sat down. Mark seemed loose, easy going, excited. A seven
figure pay day had practically dropped itself into his lap.
If he knew about Cage or that Stephen's friend was
a cop, he showed no signs of it at all.
He was here to be told he was about to
come into a windfall, or at least half of it.

(24:30):
That was what he and Sylvester had agreed to. Stephen
picked up the comic. Anything could have happened prior to
this point. Mark and Sylvester could have gotten cold feet
for whatever reason and disappeared. They could have decided to
sell it to someone else. They could have sent a
picture they had found online. Or Stephen could have been

(24:50):
mistaken about the markings. There was no way for him
to know for sure until he had the comic in
his hands. An original action one beautiful me. I really
appreciate contacting me about it. And this individual who seemed
to think his name told me his name was Arthur
just off the top of my head, Arthur was Sylvester.

(25:14):
He reiterated the story about how he got the book,
and they bought a store of JUnit and it was
found inside another book. I think I might have asked,
was there anything else in there? Any other comic books?
They said no, And there's a little ooing and eyeing

(25:35):
over the book. They wanted a million dollars for it.
As the men talked, Stephen examined the comic, and right
away he knew this was Nicolas Cage's Action number one.
A tiny white splotch inside one of the blue banners
confirmed it. Like a fingerprint missing eleven years, found today,

(25:59):
and not only that, in virtually the same condition it
was when it was taken from Cage's house on purpose
or by accident. Whoever had been in possession of it
all this time had managed not to ruin it. For
a comic that had been purportedly stuffed inside a storage unit,
one that may not have even had a climate controlled environment,

(26:22):
it was pristine. Stephen wanted to exhale, but couldn't really
couldn't tip them off. He scanned the two men in
front of him, Mark and Sylvester. Stephen remembers. Sylvester kept
saying his name was Arthur. They were both hard to read.
They didn't seem nervous, so maybe they didn't know the

(26:45):
comics history. Maybe they both believed they were two of
the luckiest people on the planet. Stephen started talking to
them to try to understand how they wound up with
the comic in their hands. It is Arthur a little
bit of Mark, because Mark was really really not a
comic deal or so he's he's just trying to put

(27:08):
from what he said, parties together to do a deal.
I'm sure he was getting a cut for his work.
I asked Arthur, who obviously walked in with the book.
You know, I'm trying to get some more details. Wanted
to see what other information, and he had his story
and he was sticking to it about where it came from.
So I would think that if somebody bought a storage

(27:30):
unit would be very clear on where they got it from.
To see if there's anything more in there. Stephen wasn't
getting much more detail from either man. They were simply
two people who wanted to know if the rare comics
Sylvester found was the real deal, and it was, but

(27:50):
that wasn't necessarily a good thing for them. Stephen and
Donald had made an arrangement. Once Stephen was sure this
was the book, he'd not at Donald, and then Donald,
who was mostly quiet up until now, would start doing
all of the talking. And then Detective Horristic, who I

(28:11):
introduces my partner when we walked in, grabbed his business
card and handed it to the two gentlemen, and just
not a business card from a comic dealer, but a
business card from a police officer. Police Detective Donald announced
he was a cop, and suddenly the air seemed to

(28:33):
go out of the room. He may as well have
just set the comic book on fire. And he explains
who he is, and he brings out a copy of
the original police report from two thousands, and I literally
saw the individual I remember as Arthur turned gray. All

(28:59):
the blood ansom. Everybody thought they had a million dollar
paid day person flew out to buy the book. And
here's a cop, here's a police detective. As Mark and
Sylvester winced, Donald announced he was taking possession of the
comic and did just that, collecting it in its manila folder.

(29:21):
The officers outside rushed in, making sure no one left.
It was now up to Donald to determine the veracity
of Sylvester's story how he had gotten his hands on
the comic. The two spoke for maybe thirty minutes behind
closed doors. Stephen paced back and forth, the curiosity of

(29:43):
a collector eating at him. Some art investigations are about
finding the art, and strictly about finding the art. The
how of it all can get lost amid the investigator's caseload.
But here was a direct line between the comic and
the and who claimed to have found it. Donald Harrisik

(30:04):
was a seasoned detective. If there was truth to be found,
Stephen figured he'd be able to find it. When Donald
finished with Sylvester and walked out, Stephen went up to him,
eager to get the details, eager to share them with Cage,
who was about to get some very good news. Stephen
half expected to see Sylvester being hustled away by officers,

(30:27):
dragged back to the station for further questionings, but Sylvester
just strolled out unescorted. At that point, Detective Horristic takes
the individual who remembers Arthur into another room. They probably
spend about half an hour talking, and they talked to

(30:47):
Mark Allelo and Detective Horristic says, yeah, we're really not
able to get any more useful information. I said, I
think this is a story that they can talk that
he says doable is, but they're not giving you any
more information about where they the Detective one or technically seven.

(31:08):
I believe that they knew it was stolen and they
had a cover story already in case it gets found out.
Stephen wasn't sure he was hearing Donald correctly, and why
did Sylvester just get up and walk out? Pretty soon
everyone was clearing out of the warehouse. Donald returned to

(31:30):
the L a p. D. Comic into Stephen immediately phone Cage,
who was enthusiastic about the news outside. I called Nick
and I told him that the Action One is now back,
and he was very very happy. It was a very
defeating feeling having his best book stolen out of his house,

(31:54):
and it was a bit of a victory getting the
Action One back, But even though the comic had been recovered,
things felt incomplete. While the comic belonged to Cage, he
had been paid by his insurance company, so really it
belonged to them. And then and that was assuming Donald
was prepared to return it. He had an investigation to

(32:16):
finish to see whether sylvester story held up. Donald still
needed to do one other thing. He phoned William Hughes,
the man who had bought Action number one from Southebes
back in and asked for the catalog. Remember back in
episode four we mentioned southe Bees took a very precise

(32:39):
series of photos of this very comic book, and it
would make all the difference later in the story, well
my friends later is now. Donald wanted to use those
photos for comparison. In all, there were fifteen tiny but
distinct markings or irregularities unique to this copy, all of

(33:00):
them painstakingly documented by the auction house. It was, as
Stephen said, a perfect match. Beyond all doubt. This was
Cages comic. But how did a man named Sylvester find it?
A better question nagged at Stephen. Had he really found

(33:20):
it at all? The story Sylvester told Donald Harresik was
a fascinating one. He said he had discovered the Action
number one in an abandoned storage unit he bought at auction.

(33:41):
This seems pretty straightforward. If he bought it at auction,
then you just try to locate the original owner. Of
the locker to see what information they might have. After all,
the comic was in their possession, right, the storage facility
would have those names, so would Dan Dotson. And even
if they didn't remember that, Dan had to print the

(34:03):
names of the locker owners in the paper as a
legal requirement. So all Donald would have had to do
is go to the library to grab some back issues.
But here's the problem, the biggest problem. Sylvester said he
bought multiple storage units in March, and he simply didn't
know which storage unit the comic had come from. Somehow

(34:27):
the contents of all of the units had gotten all
mixed up. Here's Dan Dotson, That's what he had said.
And he had been coming around for a for a minute,
and you know, bought a lot of units from a
lot of different facilities, so it was pretty impossible for
that time to figure out what or where I really
was motivated to dig into it, figure anything out. To

(34:49):
be honest with you, I don't know which facility he
may have bought it from, and he said that he
bought it from one of ours, so I didn't have
any reason to doubt that. Here's Laura, because I've been
buying units and I put everything together because I was like, Wow,
where did you buying it from? What did you get
this from? What unit? And stuff from them? So excited
we like to put providence and put a story together,
you know, because I just can't really tell you. I

(35:12):
just know that it was a bunch of units, and
I got a bunch of stuff, and and he was
buying a lot of stuff from my husband. Yeah, and
my husband said, I've been selling until Sylvester has been
buying the heck out of units. So I just think, Wow,
he scored. Sylvester had bought a lot of ship, so

(35:35):
much ship that it co mingled, making pinpointing where the
comic came from impossible. But if Sylvester didn't know which
storage unit the comic had come from, then Donald couldn't
have any assurance. The people who owned the lockers, if
they could be found at all, wouldn't simply deny the
comic had been in their particular one. It was kind

(35:57):
of like saying that the comic had just been found
in the street. The providence, the ability to gauge where
the comic came from it was lost. It was either
an incredible stroke of luck for the thief or one
of the better cover stories the detective had ever heard.
Here's Stephen Fishler. I don't believe that these guys gave

(36:22):
the detective any specific information about any storage unit. I
can't remember if they even indicated what facility they think
the storage unit was. I don't remember that. But there
was definitely pretty much a dead end in terms of

(36:42):
investigating the storage unit. If you're if you're a police detective,
and you believe that this is a cover story and
it really was never in a storage facility or storage unit,
you're not going to spend a bunch of time, you know,
dealing with the storage units. This isn't as unusual a
situation as it may seem. A lot of art has

(37:06):
been discovered over the years stolen art original art inside
storage units. If you are in possession of a rare
item that's been liberated from its owner, you may not
want to keep it on your property. So it's entirely
possible someone decided the safest place for cages stolen action
comics number one was in a storage unit. But would

(37:29):
they simply then forget to pay the bill? Would you
forget to pay the bill on the unit that had
a million dollars or more inside of it. Donald Herresik
was prepared to dig into this more, but then Mark Blelow,
the man whom Sylvester turned to for help with the comic,
made a move of his own. Mark recognized the value

(37:52):
of publicity in his line of work, and being the
co finder of Action Comics Number one was worth the
of headlines. Before Donald could blink, Mark was talking to
the press. This made Donald very unhappy. In an interview
of his own, he said he wished that Mark hadn't
opened his big mouth. The problem was if anyone else

(38:16):
happened to be involved or knew where cages. Two remaining
comics were the Detective Number twenty seven and the Detective
Number one. They now knew the police were chasing a lead,
but Mark was pretty happy to talk about it. In fact,
he ran up to Laura Dotson not long after to
tell her the news. And then Ballelo comes to one

(38:37):
of my sales and he says, we'll never believe what happened.
He says, you know, we're looking at that book and
we're all inside the room, and then all of a
sudden he's telling us, yes, this is something great, and
I think, okay, the exchange is going to happen. We're
gonna make money. And you know, I had your husband
in and you guys for a hundred thousand dollars. I
was like, what like a commission and we had no clue.
I didn't know. You know, usually I think, and well,

(38:59):
I guess this is how this game works. He goes,
but it all fell apart, like go really And he goes, well,
that turned out that I thought he was going to
say it was a fake. And he says, all of
a sudden, the doors bust open and it was the
FBI or the police, and they said this was stolen.
And he goes, oh my god. And I'm looking at
the guy going, oh god, I'm so glad I didn't
buy this comic book from him. If this was a

(39:22):
big scheme, Mark was pretty happy to talk about it.
He took a photo he had taken of the Action
Number one surrounded by antiques and used it to announce
an upcoming sale on Facebook, and then he dressed up
as Superman, Cape and all for one of his live auctions.
As much as Donald hated the attention, Mark was loving it.

(39:46):
It wasn't more than a few weeks before Donald ran
out of reasons to keep the comic. Sylvester story wasn't
something that could be proven or disproven, and the law
says that you're only in trouble for possession and of
stolen material if you know it was stolen, you should
have known it was stolen, or you admit to stealing it.

(40:08):
Donald couldn't prove Mark or Sylvester knew it was Cages
comic or a stolen comic, and there was nothing linking
the two back to the Night of Cages party in
two thousand. For Stephen, the news was bitter sweet. The
comic was back, but it came without much of an
explanation and whether the reason was Mark Ballelo talking or

(40:31):
something else, Stephen felt Donald wasn't that interested in chasing
the only lead they had, very frustrating. And then when
I finally called him up, the only reason he paid
attention was because I said, here's the name of the
person who has here's the address there at they're offering
it to me. I'm flying out, I have a flight.

(40:53):
You can't spell it out more than that. I think
who was stolen from? I think he took it seriously.
I think you know they might be overwhelmed, and unless
they're given something super concrete, they don't have the time
to track everything down. Cage, for his part, declared the
discovery divine providence and hoped the heirloom his words would

(41:15):
be returned to his family. Reports indicated Cage had the
option of returning the money the insurance company had given
him for the comic, possibly with inflation. If he did,
the comic would be handed back to him. In the
fourteen years since Cage first purchased it, Action Number one
had appreciated in value by a lot. Remember that Stephen

(41:39):
Fishler sold two Action Number one for over a million
dollars each, neither in as good a condition as the
Cage copy. Cage wanted the book back, but he didn't
want to keep it, and the police had investigation for
a number of and kept it in a safe at

(42:03):
a secure police location. And then I eventually, in another
trip to California, I came and picked up the book
when the police released it, and brought it back to
New York, and we eventually sold it for Nick. The
sentimental value of the comic was probably still there for Cage.

(42:24):
Once someone falls for Superman, they tend to admire him. Forever,
But by this point Cage's unusual approach to financial planning
was well known. It involved spending. He admitted he loved
spending money on homes and cars and rarities. There were
reports he owned an island or two in the Bahamas.

(42:47):
He owned a gulf Stream Jet, four yachts, at one point,
fifty cars, and his own mechanic. A Tyrannosaurus skull was
procured for two hundred and seven. The six thousand dollars
then returned when it was found to have been stolen
from Mongolia. Cage, of course, had no idea it was illicit.

(43:10):
Buying hot dino bones was certainly expensive, but what really
dampened cages spending was real estate. The market took a
bad turn, and the many properties he had became difficult
to maintain or sell off. Even the bell Air mansion
where the comic was originally stolen went up for sale.

(43:32):
Cage didn't have much of a choice. He had eighteen
million dollars in loans against it. It did eventually sell
for only a fraction of cages thirty five million dollar
asking price, so Superman would have to be a savior.
In another way, Cage returned the money to the insurance company,

(43:53):
and then he put the comic up for auction with
Stephen Fishler. They submitted the book to the c g
C The Last Word in third Party Comic Book Grading,
where it received a nine out of ten at the time,
the highest ever awarded an action number one. In November
of two thousand eleven, the book fetched an incredible two

(44:17):
point one six one million dollars, a new record for
a comic book sale, which undoubtedly helped Cage attend to
at least a portion of his debt. This truly was
divine providence. The comic found a new home with an
undisclosed buyer, one who would presumably take more precautions than

(44:39):
Cage had in safe keeping it. Mark and Sylvester were
off the hook. Sylvester had seemed to materialize on the
auction scene suddenly, and after the comic deal turned sour,
he seemed to disappear just as quickly. Here's Laura Dotson.
Yet it was something like, how often does this happen?

(45:02):
And we came across this and we just don't know
how to sell it or get it appraised, And this
just fell into our lap from these units we've been
buying and I'm thinking, well, here comes another fantastic treasure
hunt story. And as quick as he came onto the
picture in the scene, I had never seen him again either.
There are questions left dangling. Did Mark really happen to

(45:26):
call Stephen Fishler by pappenstance? Did Sylvester really find the
comic in a storage locker? If he did, who did
the locker belong to? Stephen doesn't think there is an
original owner. I believe that they concocted the story as
a plausible cover, so they went all right, usual, I've

(45:50):
got this book. I'll just say it came from a
storage unit. That'll be it. But I don't I don't
really believe that that was the case. But where the
book was, if I was to put together reasonable details,
left Nick's house. The person who stole it out of
the house sold it, and may have sold it to

(46:11):
the individual who had it all these years, who I
met and wanted a million dollars for. I don't think
it bounced around for many people. However, many people it
bounced around with. It landed with Sylvester and Mark. Sylvester
virtually disappeared and Mark Well Mark was already in some trouble,

(46:35):
trouble that ended tragically and under some slightly suspicious circumstances.
To try to make sense of it, We're going back
to the warehouse, this time from the perspective of the
people who worked there. We're going to get more help
from a reformed art thief. And yes, we're going to

(46:55):
see if we can find the elusive Sylvester and see
if he is finally ready to talk. But please don't
john me. As a current joined us called tweetcau as well,
that's next time on the finale of Stealing Superman. Stealing

(47:21):
Superman is written by Jake Rawson, sound design, scoring and
mixing by Josh Fisher, additional editing by Jonathan Washington, original
music by Aaron Kaufman, mixing and mastering by Baheed Fraser.
Research and fact checking by Jake Rawson and Austin Thompson,
with production support from Lulu Philip. Show logo by Lucy Quintinia.

(47:46):
Our executive producer is Jason English and I'm your host
Danish Sports. If you're enjoying this show, check out Haileywood
and Noble Blood and give us a nice review. We'll
see you next week. Five