May 31, 2022 • 43 mins
Before Phoenix Jones, there was Major Victory, Fat Momma and Monkey Woman. David delves into the weird world of ‘Who Wants to Be A Superhero,’ a reality TV show in which comics legend Stan Lee searches for the ultimate real life superhero.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Novel. It was a cold, unusually windy evening in downtown
l A in two thousand and six. The hum of
the city was interrupted by a woman's screams for help.
She was on the roof of a warehouse, running around
in a pink skirt and flailing her arms. But on
(00:28):
the neighboring roof was a site that would make even
the most jaded Angelino do a double take. A group
of superheroes were assembled. They're dressed in colorful spandex costumes
and billowing caps. One of the heroes cried out, help
is coming. At the edge of the roof was a
perfectly placed beam that spanned across the two buildings to
(00:50):
create a precarious bridge. From this height, the people walking
along the street below looked like ants, We're gonna go
across two buildings on a beam, because that's the superheroes do.
That's La Mauria. She's one of the heroes. She's wearing
a gold spandex suit with no sleeves and a black cape.
(01:10):
Her black hair is flowing in the wind. Gold lots
and lots of gold, lots of gold like gold power
and then I work gold pants well rap fans, super
tight and um stiletto gold stiletto booths, because every superhero
should wear a s little boothe She stepped onto the
beam towards the desperate woman. It's at night and there's
(01:32):
a wind going, and I'm feeling my hair is kind
of brushing against my face. I'm holding on to a beam,
just white knuckling it. Right, So I'm white knuckling this beam.
I cannot see anything. With her face furrowed in concentration,
Lemuria and the other superheroes navigated the narrow space between
the buildings. So here we go. So we're there, and
I literally no shape. I have no shame at all,
(01:55):
no shape. I get on my hands and knees, and
the wind is coming and I'm getting cold, and just
one hit time, you know what I mean. This is
like internal, ugly crying and just the fear of death.
Midway across the beam, Lemuria thought it might be the end,
(02:16):
but after some hyperventilating, she saved the damsel in distress.
At this point, I should add that while La Maria
thought she was defying death two above street level, she
was actually blindfolded on a TV set, tiptoeing across a
wooden beam. There was only a few inches off the floor.
There was even a guy operating a wind machine to
(02:37):
simulate the gusty l a wind. I didn't realize it
wasn't real. We're on the set of a reality TV
show like no other. Somewhere inside autous Welcome to Who
Wants to Be a Superhero? Before Phoenix Jones and the
(02:57):
Rain City Superhero Movement started doing their ing. Who Wants
to Be a Superhero was a reality competition show that
aired on the Sci Fi Channel in two thousand and six.
It was like a cross between Big Brother and The Apprentice,
but with a whole lot more spandex. The premise was
that comic book fans had to invent their own superhero
persona and battle it out in a series of challenges
(03:19):
to see who possessed true superhero qualities compassion, courage, and kindness.
It's the church to make lifelong fetes. I'm a source
of life, i amdulous ball, I'm the last hero standing.
Would receive a prize that money can't buy. They'd have
(03:40):
their character immortalized in an original comic book written by Stanley,
the mastermind behind Spider Man, The Hulk, the Fantastic Four,
and some of the greatest comic book superheroes in history.
When you look back at footage from Who Wants to
Be a Superhero, it's can't be in pretty ridiculous. The
contestants have names like the Iron and Forcer, cell Phone Girl,
(04:02):
or Nitro g and they carry homemade cardboard laser guns
or plastic bananas which supposedly transform into high tech weapons.
It all looks pretty low budget. Who Wants to Be
a Superhero air before the renaissance of all the superhero
blockbuster movies, back when the real life superhero scene was
just getting off the ground. In a way, the show
(04:22):
laid the groundwork for the whole movement. I wanted to
get to know the people who played such a big
role in this weird subculture. I'm about to dive back
into the comic book universe to find out what it
takes to triumph in the ultimate reality TV battle between
real life superheroes. So don your capes, slip into your micra,
and rehearse your cheesiest catchphrase, because things are about to
(04:45):
get ridiculous. I'm David Weinberg and from the Team's at
Novel and I Heart Radio. This is the Superhero Complex,
Episode ten America's next top superhero. I'm such a nerd.
(05:14):
You know. You're here in my house and it's just
board games everywhere and swords and beholders and mind flares
and dragons on the walls. And that's what makes me happy.
I met Matthew Atherton at his house in the suburbs,
about an hour east of Los Angeles. Back in two
thousand and six, he was known as Feedback, a real
(05:36):
life superhero, but not in the way that Phoenix Jones
is a real life superhero. I'm not the guy who
you know is going to put on a costume and
go into dark alleys and look for wrongs that need
to be righted. Feedback is Matthew's superhero character, created for
who wants to be a superhero. Before he was Feedback, though,
Matthew liked to role play as his favorite superheroes, in
(05:59):
particular Spider Man. I made a Spiderman costume and dressed
up as Spider Man and led the Halloween parade a
Spiderman and stuff like that. And in college he even
made his own Spider Man movies. So the first one
was called The Origin, and I sent a copy to
my mom, and my mom sent it to Marvel, and so, uh,
(06:22):
I got this letter that said, we really love that
you're excited about the character, but you can't do this,
you know, getting this, I'm like, mom, why did you
do that? And so I wrote back a letter that said, hey,
you know, we're not charging any money for any of this.
I said, we're just making fan films. And I got
another letter back that's like, you know, it's tough to
(06:43):
break into the comic book business. You know, try hanging
out at a comic bookstore and all this other stuff.
And I thought, this is worthless. Maybe Marvel knew something
Matthew didn't at the time, because hanging out at this
local comic bookstore would change his life. One day, around
two thousand and five, many years after Matthew got in
touch with Marvel, he saw an ad for an open
(07:04):
casting call. It was for a show called Who Wants
to Be a Superhero? Matthew raced home and forged a
brand new superhero persona feedback. Feedback had the power to
draw energy from others. If I was with other heroes,
I could enhance their powers, and if I were with
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a villain, I could pull their power down. Feedback were
a black iron man looking suit with electric blue detailing
and a big letter F in the middle. On the
day of auditions, Feedback took the day off from his
job as a software engineer and drove down to Sunset
Gower Studios in Hollywood. He parked his car and quickly
realized he wasn't alone. There was a whole crowd of
(07:49):
would be superheroes milling around, blinking in the rain and
waiting to be told what to do. The battle to
become one of the show's contestants was clearly going to
be fierce, like how do you do this? And it's like, well,
let's have an open casting call and we'll put it everywhere, Craigslist, everywhere.
This is Rick tell Us, he's the director of the show.
(08:10):
He was raging on the day of the auditions and
he was scared nobody would show up. But Rick definitely
underestimated the number of would be superheroes in l A.
And then I remember going outside looking down the street
and there was this huge line of people and it
just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
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He had to open a second studio to house them all,
and they were all dressed up and I'm thinking to myself,
how do you keep them entertained? Rick didn't have to
do anything because these weren't regular people. They were superheroes,
and it's just completely filled with spectacle, you know, people
that are wearing huge wings and some people even like
(08:50):
breathing fire, you know, and I'm like, how is that?
You probably should not be doing that in an enclosed space.
Feedback and the other superheroes walked into a dramatic black
room and took their place in a pool of light.
Then they introduced themselves, told their superhero origin story, and
explain their powers to Stanley, who's peering down from a
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large screen. There was Monkey Woman who sounds exactly like
a monkey, and there was Ice Bitch, who has the
excellent catchphrase of freeze motherfucker. There was Mulletman, who looks
as you'd expect, and then there was also a guy
who can unleash the powers of his quote Harry Ass
when he puts on a yellow thong and healed white boots.
(09:35):
Here's director Rick. There was one woman that came in
and took off her top and we were like, oh
my god, how are we going to show this on TV?
Stan was like shocked, and we were all shocked or like,
oh my god. Apparently she liked to fight topless to
distract her enemies. Sometimes you have to go to extreme
measures to combat evil. Some of the wanna be TV stars,
(10:00):
it seemed more invested in their characters than others. The
trick was figuring out who's the most genuine. Maybe it
was the woman clad in a pink leotard over her
skin tight black suit with donuts hanging around her waist.
My name is Alison Wilson. I'm known as Neil Wilson.
I wasn't into superheroes and stan Lee and I didn't
(10:20):
really even know who he was. You know. Allison's daughter
had come home one day after seeing a post about
the audition on social media. She said, they were doing
auditions for Who Wants to Be a Superhero? And so
we were playing around and um, trying to think of
what we would be if I was a superhero. So
I said, well, I'm fat and I'm a mama, so
I'll be fat mama. And so I had these donuts
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and I put some donuts around my waist, and I said,
I'll read the world of bullies so I would help
people to accept themselves the way they are, and the
producers loved her. They loved her so much that that
Mama already knew she was in by the time she
attended the audition. It was merely a normality. But not
everyone was having fun. Another aspiring superhero, Major Victory, was
(11:07):
dressed in ballet tights and a red shirt with a
letter V duct tape to his chest. He was fed
up at the endless hours of auditioning and waiting around
as the producers tried to whittle down their contestants. What
am I doing. I'm dressed in spandex, I'm sopping wet
my hair that I had all like a bunch of
hair spray and and stuff, and I just felt like
(11:27):
a wet dog. And I wanted to leave. But just
as he was about to give up and go home,
he got a tap on the shoulder that would change
his life forever. And I was just about to leave,
and the producer grabbed me and said, hey, I want
to introduce you to somebody. This is Diamond Girl. So
he introduced me to Diamond Girl. So I met Diamond Girls. Said, hey,
you want to see my diamond said sure, I'll check
(11:50):
out your diamond and and um Diamond Girl ended up
being my wife. While romance blossomed between these who masked adventures,
their spandex clad rivals were being put through the wringer.
After being grilled and grueling round of interviews, psychological tests,
and a final round of performing their superhero battle cry
(12:12):
to Stanley himself, the producers picked their final twelve contestants.
It took a bit of extra persuasion for feedback, but
I knew that if I were on the show, then
people who really loved comics and loved the stories, and
not just the great artwork and the funny parts of it,
but the parts where you care about it. You know,
(12:32):
stories that resonate with you as a human being. I
wanted to represent those people who really appreciated it and
just said, I feel like this is my purpose. There's
the reason why I'm on the planet. His speech to
the producers did the trick. Feedback, secured his spot on
the show, and perhaps unadvisedly quit his job that same day.
(12:53):
On the first day of filming, the chosen twelve superheroes
arrived one by one on set to a luxurious mansion
with large staircases. Each character was profiled in true comic
book fashion in a majestic entrance hall, Fat Mama, Feedback,
Major Victory, and Lemuria. We're all sizing each other up
over a welcome toast. Alongside them were Monkey Woman, Cellphone Girl, Creature,
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Iron Enforcer, Nitro g Tculus Levity, and Rode Art, who
was wearing a silver suit and a silver army helmet.
At first, I was a little bit intimidated because, like
I said, all I saw was these people, and they're young,
and you know, they looked like what America or people
think a superhero supposed. It looked like we had no
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idea what was going to be ahead of us. A
party ensued. Monkey Woman was shaking her body wildly while
cell Phone Girl danced the Robot Levity, an action figure
shop owner, discussed his plans to blaze a trail for
the LGBTQ community as a superhero with the added perk
of being able to cash in with his own act
and figure. Creature, who could heal others with fruit and
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raw foods, was flirting with the other heroes, and Iron Enforcer,
with his machine gun arm was bragging about his affinity
for killing people. Suddenly, Stanley interrupted them from a screen
in the corner that none of them had been paying
attention to. He was wearing his iconic aviator glasses. He'd
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been watching them for a while. I was appalled at
the chaotic scene unfolding in front of him. This was
serious business and not what superheroes were supposed to do.
Hero like that, he informed them that he was looking
for human qualities that make superheroes great. They were going
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to move to a secret layer, because, after all, their
identities were supposed to be kept secret. The mansion was
just a tease. They were ushered into an inconspicuous vehicle
to take them to their hideout, and by inconspicuous, I
mean a long and glaringly white limousine with disco lights
blasting from the inside. We're driving around a limo, around
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and around, and we pulled up to kind of a
very nondescript building. And if you wouldn't have been able
to talent from outside, I remember that excitement of we
knew there was going to be a challenge, but we
had no idea what it was going to be. They
arrived at a storage facility with dumpsters and barbed wire
lining the street. It took the contestants a while before,
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they spotted stan Lee on another screen. Stanley had a
message for them, quote, I'm afraid one of you will
not be allowed to enter. There happens to be a
spy amongst you. I've enlisted the help of one of
my assistants to infiltrate the group. I have to be
sure that all of you are here for the right reasons.
They all started pointing fingers. Then Roti Art stepped forward
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spelled backwards. Is stradar. I've got all of you on
tape since the very beginning, watching all of your moves.
Pulling out footage from the party, rodi Art showcased multiple
examples of indecent superhero behavior. In a tense moment outside
the storage facility, Levity was eliminated. His plan to monetize
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his superhero status with an action figure did not sit
well with the Great Stanley. One of the main qualities
of the superhero is selflessness. I understand you have a
toy shop and you hope to make millions on your character.
Superheroes were not supposed to be greedy. Levity never got
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his chance to fulfill his dream of becoming a gay
superhero icon. His sudden departure sent shock waves through the
remaining heroes. Ship just got real. This probably would have
been a good time to remind everyone of the contracts
they had signed, which allegedly included a clause that the
producers could lie to their faces. But I'm willing to
bet that reading the fine print was not a superpower
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that many in the group put to use on the show.
We walked through would look like a sweatshop. There was
these people sitting there, so seen, soing, and all factory going.
The remaining ten superheroes found a rickety old elevator. There
was a warning sign on the door. After a few
moments of hesitation, they decided to go in. The elevator
took them up to a darkened floor. Then the lights
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came on and they were standing in a huge room
with tall ceilings lined with candle light. The furniture was
draped with velvet. There was even a hot tub. They
had finally made it to their secret layer. Major Victory
was psyched. When you got into it, you felt more
like a superhero, you know what I mean? Oh yeah,
check this. Look at all the red brick kind of
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goes with my outfit. Nice cool, But the heroes were
also a bit wary. It wasn't just the production team,
but the heroes were suspicious of They didn't trust each
other either. On the first night, Fat Mama overheard a
whole lot of superhero bitching going on in the layers
hot tub. I was on one side of the curtain
and Lamaria Nitro creature where in the hot tub, and
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so they didn't know I was on the other side
of the curtain, and they were saying, oh, Fat Boma
was definitely going first. You don't even need to be here.
He can't do nothing. But you know, all this stuff,
I've never said that. That hurt my feelers, but at
the same time it gave me determination that I'm gonna
show them. You know, the superheroes hadn't even started competing
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against each other, but already there were personality conflicts and
rivalries were simmering. After tiling off, it was time to
get some rest. The next day, the heroes would do
battle for real in a series of outlandish challenges that
would push their powers to the limit. That's coming up.
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The superheroes were all assembled at Pershing Square, a paved
park in downtown Los Angeles. It was time for the
first challenge. Their mission was to make it from one
end of the park to the other as quickly as possible.
At the same time they do inconspicuously change into their
full superhero outfit. I think Clark can't turning into Superman
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and the telephone booth but while running at the same time.
It was cheesy from the get go. Monkey Woman scaled
a treat to change into her outfit, then somersaulted back
down to the ground. The Iron Enforcer sprinted through the
park brandishing a homemade laser gun. Then it was Fat
Mama's turn. I though, I can't outrun these guys and
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all the younger people and stuff, but I'll just go
through as they asked. She rounded a corner and saw
something unusual and so what does he look? Come on,
I saw this little girl crying, and I stopped and
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asked her was she okay? And she was saying she
lost her parents and stuff. And then there was a
sign over to the side that says security. So I
ran her in there and I ran, you know, took
her to security. There was a trick at play that
Stanley didn't reveal. Here's director Rick tell Us. We put
a little girl next to a fountain who was lost
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and she needed her mom. And we wanted to see
who would stop and throw the challenge and help that
little girl. And that was the real challenge. Major Victory
also spotted the secret challenge and decided to ramp up
the drama just a little. I think I said, who
is this child's mother? I did by d J Boys Blue.
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He proceeded to carry the little girl heroically to security office.
Lemuria also decided to help the girl, but she had
a different problem. I just were running in these crazy heels.
I do not recommend that for any in the future,
and wants to create a superior costumers do not use.
Still let him feels, and then there was feedback. Things
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were going wrong and the zippers were not going up
and clasps were not clasping, and I was like, oh man.
After a struggle behind some porter parties, feedback was finally
suited up. As he was running, some straps from his
costume fell off in front of the girl. All I
saw was that archway and I flew past. After he
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was done, the production team asked him how he thought
he did, and then they said, so, did you see
anything unusual? And I said unusual. No, they said, you
didn't see a little girl, and I thought, oh I missed.
Oh I'm done. Made me on the rooftop in time
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for an elimination. All the contestants were called up to
the rooftop of their secret layer in the middle of
the night. They stood on glowing cubes with the lights
of l A glittering behind them. It was the first
of many supposedly epic game show eliminations. Stanley was peering
down on them from a big screen. Once again, here's Lemuria.
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So it's all very dramatic, and none of you know
who's leaving. You're all packed. I think we had to
pack up every single time. Stan was disappointed at the
six contestants that missed the little girl. This obviously wasn't
a test of speed. The girl was practically screaming for help.
Stand calls on three of the failures to explain themselves,
and in the end, Nitro g gets sent home Nitrogen
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Turn into your costume. He changed out in plain sight
and totally missed the girl. He was both the youngest
contestant and the biggest comic book collector of all of them.
When he heard the news, he solemnly pulled off his
gloves and threw them into a nearby trash can. Fat
Mama felt relieved. I laughed so hard because I said
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I thought I was gonna be the wanted to go home.
So I'm like, okay, so Fat Mama didn't go home.
Feedback took the results of the challenge to heart. I
was crushed. I felt like I had disappointed stand and
disappointed myself. I thought I knew the trick, and therefore
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I closed my mind off to other things, and so
being authentic was really the right way to go. And
my most authentic self is Captain Oblivious. The contestants all
lived together in a house and were filmed intensively every
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day for two weeks. Each episode took about three days
to film. There wasn't a huge budget for the show,
and the contestants suffered as a result. You go into
the bath room, it was like it's no white the
seventh Awards. There's these lines of twin side beds and
I'm like, we gotta sleep in here, all next to
each other. We all thought we would getting their own
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bed room, so maybe two to a room. So you
never thought she was gonna be sleeping in a room
for growing the dope. You know, at night they say
good night John. You know you say good night to
each person going down the line. As well as sharing
a bedroom, there was only one bathroom between them all.
They often slept with their shoes next to their beds
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in case a challenge was sprung on them during the night.
Living on top of each other for days and days
on end, the contestants started to get more and more tired.
According to La Mauria, tensions were starting to build. Okay,
so fat Mama really got reality, Like she really understood,
like she was gonna push buttons and kind of make
things happen and be in the middle of all the craziness. Right.
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But she, oh man, she got so she would just
pick at me a little. She was just a little.
It was something you're like, Okay, cool, I can handle that.
That's fine. Just get on my nerves, Okay, she just oh,
I was getting pissed. There wasn't time for the contestants
to hold drudges for long. The filming schedule was packed
with challenge after challenge designed to put their superhero qualities
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to the test. By the second week of filming, the
superheroes overcrowded bedroom was getting emptier and emptier. There were
only four superheroes still standing, Lemuria, Fat Mama, Major victory
and feedback. They had to battle it out in a
questionable challenge that would prove fateful for the ending. The
remaining heroes were standing in the kitchen eating fruit before
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Stanley appeared on a screen. He said, very shortly, you'll
meet some hardened criminals. All of them are incarcerated as
we speak. They'll spend some quality time with them in
an effort to show them the error of their ways.
The challenge was to prevent these criminals from reoffending. The
superheroes were genuinely nervous as they got taken to the
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prison to meet the convicts. It was a big sandy
yard surrounded by tall fences and barbed wire. The whole
setup was fantastically absurd. The spandex, the minivan, the orange
jump suits, and the camo clad prison guard brandishing liability
contracts that assumed any in all risks, including death. What's
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more is that the superheroes had also been given secret
tasks to complete. In their encounter with the prisoners, La
Mauria had to sit on an inmates lap for ten seconds.
This challenge felt particularly gross to me, especially the use
of prisoners comic relief. Unsurprisingly, Lea Maria felt uncomfortable with
the situation that the producers had put her in. I
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was really tired. I was so tired, and I hadn't
been sleeping. I tried to give people a great deal
of respect for their personal space, for their personal body.
So for me personally, I kind of felt a little
bit weird being in somebody's personal space that had already
been in prison, that had already been um it was
already paying their dues. I didn't want to be more disrespectful.
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It doesn't matter if I'm on a TV show, it
doesn't matter if I'm you know, in a really cool costume.
It does not give me the right to invade another
human being space, and especially a human being there's a
point in their life that they're not doing great. But
in the world of Stanley, all is not as it seems.
It turns out the prisoners were all actors. Lamuria was
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actually talking to dot Marie Jones, who would go on
to play Coach Sheldon on Glee. She was sitting on
a chair with an angry demeanor, legs sprawled out in
front of her. Her red hair was messy and unkempt.
In a desperate attempt to complete her challenge, La Mauria
abruptly tried to sit on the coach's lap without consent.
The actress shoved her away and angrily stormed off again.
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I'm sorry if I disrespected you in anyway. I really,
I really are. Feedback, on the other hand, had to
hug an inmate three times. I don't think being phony
has any part of being superhero. So the only way
that I'm going to hug that person is if I
feel a genuine response to hug. The fake convict asked
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to have his handcuffs removed. The man was apparently in
jail for four counts of murder. Feedback asked if he
felt any remorse for his victims families, and the man
replied no, because my own father was murdered. In return,
Feedback opened up with his own story. He revealed, and
when he was a kid, his father took his own life.
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I don't know what your life was like, but I
know what it's like to leave to dad when my
dad died. I started getting back into the Spider Man
comic books, but for me. I was searching for father
figures and the character of Peter Parker, the decisions he
would make. I took that and was integrating that like
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a father figure almost. But it wasn't Peter Parker that
I was looking at as the father figure. It was
the creator of the stories, the writing, and that was
stan Lee. The producers had no idea. This emotional exchange
turned into a big hug, and Feedback managed to complete
his secret task. Later, at that night's elimination ceremony, Stanley
(29:00):
announced that he'd won a place in the next round.
Feedback thanked his father figure with tears in his eyes.
The episode was a real emotional roller coaster and reminded
me of a lot of the time I spent with
the real life superheroes, especially those moments where one minute
I would be thinking this is all so ridiculous, and
then the next moment I would be so moved by
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the work the superheroes were doing and by their dedication
to bettering their community, even if it was in this
really bonkers way. Unfortunately for Lemuria, she was the only
one who failed to complete the prisoner challenge. Stan told
her it was time to pack her bags. I was
incredibly sad to leave from outside. It's kind of like
this wacky show, I think, but for inside and being
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with the people that were on it and doing these challenges,
and we got to go in an amazing adventure and
experiencing that adventure. And then when stance like, well, you're done,
and then these other people get to keep on going,
you kind of you just just want a little our taste,
a little half. And you know, I think I cried
a lot because I wasn't going to be able to
(30:04):
do that. In the Battle of the Real Life Superheroes,
there were now only three contestants remaining. Superheroes can lonely
get harder from here, but I suspect the three of
you will be up to it. Yes, sir, Yes, sir. Sleepwell,
Tomorrow is a new day that's coming up. As Who
(30:44):
Wants to Be a Superhero reached its climax, the challenges
got even more absurd. The three remaining contestants, Fat Mama,
Feedback and Major Victory had to win over a tough
jury of fourth graders with their origin stories and super hours.
Then they hunted for a super villain and a shopping center.
(31:04):
They were also shown their potential comic book covers a
k A their passport to immortality. When our first side
to be honest, I was like, why do you make
me look so mean? The face was so mean. Fat
Mama wasn't sure about her own comic book, but she
could see from Feedback's face how much surprise meant to him.
(31:26):
Back in the Secret Layer in between challenges, Fat Mama
was worried. She had a bad feeling that Feedback was
going to be eliminated. The fourth graders had been confused
by the explanation of his powers, and he lost out
in the race to hunt for the super villain. At
the mall, Fat Mama and Major Victory, we're going to
be finalists. The producers had already planned to fly Major
(31:48):
Victory's daughter out for an emotional finale. He wanted to
be a hero in her life, and the producers could
smell the tears. Fat Mama locked herself in the bathroom
and asked to speak to the production team. I told
them to eliminate me and let the two boys do
it and have it because they really wanted it, and
I couldn't see taking that from someone. When I came
(32:09):
in and I wasn't really even into the prize, and
when I look at Feedback, it was like I couldn't
do it to him, you know, I was like, I
need to go fat. Mama wasn't even into comic books. Now,
maybe if it was two or three million dollars, we
might be talking something something totally different. The producers were
in a difficult position. Feedback didn't want to go home,
(32:32):
but he understood their dilemma. It made sense for her
to win this show. As an audience member, I would
have wanted her to win the show because then it
would send the message of everybody can be a superhero.
It's about how you treat other people and how you
face different challenges. There was another complication too. Before his
Superhero days, major victory was in a dance group called
(32:55):
the California dream Men. They were a bit like an
off brand Chippendale's. Apparently they were huge in Italy stand
and the producers were conflicted about major victories dancing days. Apparently,
according to them, stripping didn't qualify as a heroic activity.
I'm noticing a pattern with you. No matter what I say,
(33:18):
no matter what I do, you just can't see to
keep your clothes up. Personally, I think it takes a
lot of courage to get naked in front of strangers.
It also seems like a skill that would come in
handy if you wanted to, I don't know, seduce a supervillain.
But ultimately Major Victory's fate was in the hands of Stanley,
(33:38):
known skeptic of male strippers. Up on the roof of
the layer stand, summoned the three remaining superheroes for one
more elimination ceremony. They took their places on the glowing
cube shaped podiums to face the music one more time
before the grand finale. From up on a giant TV
screen disguise as a billboard, Stanley glared down at them
(33:59):
and now that one hero would be eliminated, Major Victory,
the whole thing surreal because you're up there, They're trying
to dissect everything you did wrong, you know what I mean,
to justify you leaving, and you just felt, wow, this
is coming to Then Stanley told him it accomplished his mission.
(34:22):
He had become a hero to his daughter. The producers
handed him a phone and they put my daughter on
the line, and I lose it and it just feels
so final, and it felt good um to connect with her.
It was cathartic and I really grew from it, and
(34:44):
I got to connect with my daughter. I got to
meet some amazing people, do some really fun things, to
meet my wife. It's like one of the best experiences
I've ever had in my life. It was time for
the final showdown between Fat Mama and Feedback. Okay, my
money was on Fat Mama. For the next challenge, our
two remaining heroes were sent to stunt school to learn
(35:06):
the action packed moves that any self respecting superhero should
be able to perform with ease. We're going to teach
you to flaw using that green screen over there. Under
the watchful eye of a Hollywood stunt coordinator, Feedback launched
himself again and again onto a crash mat. Fat Mama
(35:26):
traded punches with an instructor before flooring Feedback with a
right hook and a kick to the stomach. Here we go.
Then they were grilled by Stanley in a final interview.
This is the last chance I'll have to speak with you,
and I want to learn more about you, not your character.
(35:48):
And finally, Fat Mama and Feedback were taken to the
Universal Studio CityWalk shopping center. They were greeted by a
cheering crowd and Stanley beaming down from his giant screen.
We wrote around the World's Next Grade. High up on
a balcony podium, overlooking the crowd, Fat Mama reflected on
(36:11):
what she and Feedback had shared. Me and him are
the only two that went through every single task, and
we got to experience everything. We got to see the
heartache and the laughter and the joy. Feedback's heart was pounding.
I had no idea what was happening. They told us
to write two different speeches, one as a winning speech,
(36:31):
one is a concession speech. And I didn't spend any
time on the winning speech because I completely convinced that
Fat Mama was gonna win. For the final showdown, the
producers rolled an action movie sequence of the two heroes
dueling and evil villain called dragon Breath in the Last
Chance to prove their super credentials. Well, if it isn't
Mr dragon Breath, we're going down, Fat Mama. The producers
(36:56):
through in all the special effects that a mid tier
reality TV show could forward. There were meteors, fire breathing dragons,
and even a giant chicken rampaging Godzilla style through skyscrapers.
Then the dust settled, intense music ramped up up on
his godlike TV screen, Stand bowed his head solemnly and
(37:19):
declared the time had come for him to make the
ultimate decision. After evaluating all the challenges over the course
of the season, the winner was Feedback. And then stan
Lee comes out, and so my my mind was just
jumping up to different levels que the big fake explosions.
(37:41):
As Stand the manly strolled over to meet Feedback in
real life. They shared a big hug, which was a
dream come true for the nerd of all comic book nerds.
Then Feedback literally flew off into space in a big
flurry of bad c g. I. There were a lot
of people that thought I was just this attention seeking
(38:01):
crazy guy. But it wasn't about getting attention. It was
about fulfilling something inside of me. And at that moment
of winning, I felt validation. I felt a purpose fulfilled
After blowing all that money on the giant c g
I chicken, maybe the producers didn't have any budget left
or stands appearance fee because he didn't stick around to
explain what exactly the superhero qualities were that made Feedback
(38:24):
a winner. If you ask me, it seems like kind
of a cop out considering that it was meant to
be the whole point of the show. But talking to
his fellow contestants, they had some theories. An incredibly humble,
loving human being that would literally you could see himba
a fireman that would just save people's lives without any
thought of their own. That is that man. But Feedback
(38:45):
sees it differently. It was Fat Mama's competition. In my mind,
Fat Mama is the one, you know who won, and
I'm still runner up to her because I think she's amazing,
and I still think the only reason why she didn't
win this because basically she said she didn't want to win.
As for me, I was happy for Feedback. Being a
(39:07):
superhero clearly meant a lot to him. After all, he'd
been dressing up like Spider Man since he was young,
and Fat Mama seemed perfectly happy to let Feedback have
all the glory. After the show, many of the contestants
remained friends, and some went on to make appearance as
at comic book conventions and gigs within the superhero community.
Some of them used their superhero characters to become real
(39:28):
life superheroes who went out on the streets and patrolled,
just like Phoenix Jones. As for feedback, he never became
the next Spider Man. Despite overcoming six episodes worth of obstacles,
his character faded into obscurity. He was even promised a
role in a TV movie on the Sci Fi Channel,
but all he ended up getting was a cameo. At
one point, he was asked to do a new TV
(39:50):
show with our old friend Phoenix Jones. In true Phoenix
Jones style, he was mid crisis on his way to
the hospital one night he gave me a call because
he had been He had like a shaft of a
knife like stuck in his leg. The show they talked
about never came to fruition and the two heroes never
spoke again. But for feedback, it was never about the
(40:11):
TV deals. They offered this prize of immortality and getting
your own comic book and stuff like that. But for
me then end now, the prize was always being on
the show. And I think what the show is about
is identity, you know, finding your people and making them
feel like, wow, there's some validation there. This It's not
(40:33):
just me who likes this stuff. It's enough people where
they're going to make a TV show about it. We
live in the age of the slick, six pack filled
superhero industrial complex, where a new Marvel or DC movie
gets pumped out every couple of months. It's easy to
forget there was a time not so long ago and
being into superheroes wasn't that cool to me? Who wants
(40:56):
to be a superhero? Feels like an extension of the
real life superhero movement. It's one of the few places
in popular media that represented regular folks who created their
own original superhero personas. In the years following the show,
superheroes became a dominant force in popular culture. But strangely,
the rise and popularity of comic book superheroes was not
(41:16):
accompanied by a rise in real life superheroes. I've always
found that puzzling. Maybe it's because we are increasingly living
our lives online so there's less actual real life happening
in general, or maybe he was always going to be
a fringe movement. But even if they are small in number,
I'm glad they're out there suiting up and patrolling their neighborhoods,
(41:38):
helping people in need, and making the streets a little
more exciting. I do wonder what Stanley would think of
the real life superheroes who were inspired by his writing
to take on the real world problems dressed as superheroes.
I did come across a quote of his and which
he talked about why he created characters like the X
Men and the Fantastic Four. He said, vote we were
(42:01):
fascinated by science and awed by the mysteries of the
great beyond. Today we consider a nearer, deeper, unknown one
inside ourselves. We asked, what is more real a world
that we were born into or the one we create ourselves.
(42:31):
The Superhero Complex is hosted and written by Me, David Weinberg,
and reported by Me, Amalia Sortland and Caroline Thornham. Production
from Amalia Shortland and Caroline Thornham. Sean Glenn, Max O'Brien
and David Waters are executive producers. Fact checking by Andrew Schwartz,
Production management from Shari Houston, Frankie Taylor and Charlotte Wolf.
(42:54):
Sound design, mixing and scoring by Eli Block and Daniel Kempson.
Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters. Original music
is composed by Paul Housden. Special thanks to Peter Tangent,
Willard Foxton, Matt o'mera, Katrina Norvelle Beth and Macaluso, or
(43:14):
In Rosenbaum, Shelby Shenkman, and all the team at U
t A. For more from Novel, visit novel dot audio
Novel. It was a cold, unusually windy evening in downtown
l A in two thousand and six. The hum of
the city was interrupted by a woman's screams for help.
She was on the roof of a warehouse, running around
in a pink skirt and flailing her arms. But on
(00:28):
the neighboring roof was a site that would make even
the most jaded Angelino do a double take. A group
of superheroes were assembled. They're dressed in colorful spandex costumes
and billowing caps. One of the heroes cried out, help
is coming. At the edge of the roof was a
perfectly placed beam that spanned across the two buildings to
(00:50):
create a precarious bridge. From this height, the people walking
along the street below looked like ants, We're gonna go
across two buildings on a beam, because that's the superheroes do.
That's La Mauria. She's one of the heroes. She's wearing
a gold spandex suit with no sleeves and a black cape.
(01:10):
Her black hair is flowing in the wind. Gold lots
and lots of gold, lots of gold like gold power
and then I work gold pants well rap fans, super
tight and um stiletto gold stiletto booths, because every superhero
should wear a s little boothe She stepped onto the
beam towards the desperate woman. It's at night and there's
(01:32):
a wind going, and I'm feeling my hair is kind
of brushing against my face. I'm holding on to a beam,
just white knuckling it. Right, So I'm white knuckling this beam.
I cannot see anything. With her face furrowed in concentration,
Lemuria and the other superheroes navigated the narrow space between
the buildings. So here we go. So we're there, and
I literally no shape. I have no shame at all,
(01:55):
no shape. I get on my hands and knees, and
the wind is coming and I'm getting cold, and just
one hit time, you know what I mean. This is
like internal, ugly crying and just the fear of death.
Midway across the beam, Lemuria thought it might be the end,
(02:16):
but after some hyperventilating, she saved the damsel in distress.
At this point, I should add that while La Maria
thought she was defying death two above street level, she
was actually blindfolded on a TV set, tiptoeing across a
wooden beam. There was only a few inches off the floor.
There was even a guy operating a wind machine to
(02:37):
simulate the gusty l a wind. I didn't realize it
wasn't real. We're on the set of a reality TV
show like no other. Somewhere inside autous Welcome to Who
Wants to Be a Superhero? Before Phoenix Jones and the
(02:57):
Rain City Superhero Movement started doing their ing. Who Wants
to Be a Superhero was a reality competition show that
aired on the Sci Fi Channel in two thousand and six.
It was like a cross between Big Brother and The Apprentice,
but with a whole lot more spandex. The premise was
that comic book fans had to invent their own superhero
persona and battle it out in a series of challenges
(03:19):
to see who possessed true superhero qualities compassion, courage, and kindness.
It's the church to make lifelong fetes. I'm a source
of life, i amdulous ball, I'm the last hero standing.
Would receive a prize that money can't buy. They'd have
(03:40):
their character immortalized in an original comic book written by Stanley,
the mastermind behind Spider Man, The Hulk, the Fantastic Four,
and some of the greatest comic book superheroes in history.
When you look back at footage from Who Wants to
Be a Superhero, it's can't be in pretty ridiculous. The
contestants have names like the Iron and Forcer, cell Phone Girl,
(04:02):
or Nitro g and they carry homemade cardboard laser guns
or plastic bananas which supposedly transform into high tech weapons.
It all looks pretty low budget. Who Wants to Be
a Superhero air before the renaissance of all the superhero
blockbuster movies, back when the real life superhero scene was
just getting off the ground. In a way, the show
(04:22):
laid the groundwork for the whole movement. I wanted to
get to know the people who played such a big
role in this weird subculture. I'm about to dive back
into the comic book universe to find out what it
takes to triumph in the ultimate reality TV battle between
real life superheroes. So don your capes, slip into your micra,
and rehearse your cheesiest catchphrase, because things are about to
(04:45):
get ridiculous. I'm David Weinberg and from the Team's at
Novel and I Heart Radio. This is the Superhero Complex,
Episode ten America's next top superhero. I'm such a nerd.
(05:14):
You know. You're here in my house and it's just
board games everywhere and swords and beholders and mind flares
and dragons on the walls. And that's what makes me happy.
I met Matthew Atherton at his house in the suburbs,
about an hour east of Los Angeles. Back in two
thousand and six, he was known as Feedback, a real
(05:36):
life superhero, but not in the way that Phoenix Jones
is a real life superhero. I'm not the guy who
you know is going to put on a costume and
go into dark alleys and look for wrongs that need
to be righted. Feedback is Matthew's superhero character, created for
who wants to be a superhero. Before he was Feedback, though,
Matthew liked to role play as his favorite superheroes, in
(05:59):
particular Spider Man. I made a Spiderman costume and dressed
up as Spider Man and led the Halloween parade a
Spiderman and stuff like that. And in college he even
made his own Spider Man movies. So the first one
was called The Origin, and I sent a copy to
my mom, and my mom sent it to Marvel, and so, uh,
(06:22):
I got this letter that said, we really love that
you're excited about the character, but you can't do this,
you know, getting this, I'm like, mom, why did you
do that? And so I wrote back a letter that said, hey,
you know, we're not charging any money for any of this.
I said, we're just making fan films. And I got
another letter back that's like, you know, it's tough to
(06:43):
break into the comic book business. You know, try hanging
out at a comic bookstore and all this other stuff.
And I thought, this is worthless. Maybe Marvel knew something
Matthew didn't at the time, because hanging out at this
local comic bookstore would change his life. One day, around
two thousand and five, many years after Matthew got in
touch with Marvel, he saw an ad for an open
(07:04):
casting call. It was for a show called Who Wants
to Be a Superhero? Matthew raced home and forged a
brand new superhero persona feedback. Feedback had the power to
draw energy from others. If I was with other heroes,
I could enhance their powers, and if I were with
(07:26):
a villain, I could pull their power down. Feedback were
a black iron man looking suit with electric blue detailing
and a big letter F in the middle. On the
day of auditions, Feedback took the day off from his
job as a software engineer and drove down to Sunset
Gower Studios in Hollywood. He parked his car and quickly
realized he wasn't alone. There was a whole crowd of
(07:49):
would be superheroes milling around, blinking in the rain and
waiting to be told what to do. The battle to
become one of the show's contestants was clearly going to
be fierce, like how do you do this? And it's like, well,
let's have an open casting call and we'll put it everywhere, Craigslist, everywhere.
This is Rick tell Us, he's the director of the show.
(08:10):
He was raging on the day of the auditions and
he was scared nobody would show up. But Rick definitely
underestimated the number of would be superheroes in l A.
And then I remember going outside looking down the street
and there was this huge line of people and it
just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
(08:30):
He had to open a second studio to house them all,
and they were all dressed up and I'm thinking to myself,
how do you keep them entertained? Rick didn't have to
do anything because these weren't regular people. They were superheroes,
and it's just completely filled with spectacle, you know, people
that are wearing huge wings and some people even like
(08:50):
breathing fire, you know, and I'm like, how is that?
You probably should not be doing that in an enclosed space.
Feedback and the other superheroes walked into a dramatic black
room and took their place in a pool of light.
Then they introduced themselves, told their superhero origin story, and
explain their powers to Stanley, who's peering down from a
(09:13):
large screen. There was Monkey Woman who sounds exactly like
a monkey, and there was Ice Bitch, who has the
excellent catchphrase of freeze motherfucker. There was Mulletman, who looks
as you'd expect, and then there was also a guy
who can unleash the powers of his quote Harry Ass
when he puts on a yellow thong and healed white boots.
(09:35):
Here's director Rick. There was one woman that came in
and took off her top and we were like, oh
my god, how are we going to show this on TV?
Stan was like shocked, and we were all shocked or like,
oh my god. Apparently she liked to fight topless to
distract her enemies. Sometimes you have to go to extreme
measures to combat evil. Some of the wanna be TV stars,
(10:00):
it seemed more invested in their characters than others. The
trick was figuring out who's the most genuine. Maybe it
was the woman clad in a pink leotard over her
skin tight black suit with donuts hanging around her waist.
My name is Alison Wilson. I'm known as Neil Wilson.
I wasn't into superheroes and stan Lee and I didn't
(10:20):
really even know who he was. You know. Allison's daughter
had come home one day after seeing a post about
the audition on social media. She said, they were doing
auditions for Who Wants to Be a Superhero? And so
we were playing around and um, trying to think of
what we would be if I was a superhero. So
I said, well, I'm fat and I'm a mama, so
I'll be fat mama. And so I had these donuts
(10:43):
and I put some donuts around my waist, and I said,
I'll read the world of bullies so I would help
people to accept themselves the way they are, and the
producers loved her. They loved her so much that that
Mama already knew she was in by the time she
attended the audition. It was merely a normality. But not
everyone was having fun. Another aspiring superhero, Major Victory, was
(11:07):
dressed in ballet tights and a red shirt with a
letter V duct tape to his chest. He was fed
up at the endless hours of auditioning and waiting around
as the producers tried to whittle down their contestants. What
am I doing. I'm dressed in spandex, I'm sopping wet
my hair that I had all like a bunch of
hair spray and and stuff, and I just felt like
(11:27):
a wet dog. And I wanted to leave. But just
as he was about to give up and go home,
he got a tap on the shoulder that would change
his life forever. And I was just about to leave,
and the producer grabbed me and said, hey, I want
to introduce you to somebody. This is Diamond Girl. So
he introduced me to Diamond Girl. So I met Diamond Girls. Said, hey,
you want to see my diamond said sure, I'll check
(11:50):
out your diamond and and um Diamond Girl ended up
being my wife. While romance blossomed between these who masked adventures,
their spandex clad rivals were being put through the wringer.
After being grilled and grueling round of interviews, psychological tests,
and a final round of performing their superhero battle cry
(12:12):
to Stanley himself, the producers picked their final twelve contestants.
It took a bit of extra persuasion for feedback, but
I knew that if I were on the show, then
people who really loved comics and loved the stories, and
not just the great artwork and the funny parts of it,
but the parts where you care about it. You know,
(12:32):
stories that resonate with you as a human being. I
wanted to represent those people who really appreciated it and
just said, I feel like this is my purpose. There's
the reason why I'm on the planet. His speech to
the producers did the trick. Feedback, secured his spot on
the show, and perhaps unadvisedly quit his job that same day.
(12:53):
On the first day of filming, the chosen twelve superheroes
arrived one by one on set to a luxurious mansion
with large staircases. Each character was profiled in true comic
book fashion in a majestic entrance hall, Fat Mama, Feedback,
Major Victory, and Lemuria. We're all sizing each other up
over a welcome toast. Alongside them were Monkey Woman, Cellphone Girl, Creature,
(13:18):
Iron Enforcer, Nitro g Tculus Levity, and Rode Art, who
was wearing a silver suit and a silver army helmet.
At first, I was a little bit intimidated because, like
I said, all I saw was these people, and they're young,
and you know, they looked like what America or people
think a superhero supposed. It looked like we had no
(13:40):
idea what was going to be ahead of us. A
party ensued. Monkey Woman was shaking her body wildly while
cell Phone Girl danced the Robot Levity, an action figure
shop owner, discussed his plans to blaze a trail for
the LGBTQ community as a superhero with the added perk
of being able to cash in with his own act
and figure. Creature, who could heal others with fruit and
(14:03):
raw foods, was flirting with the other heroes, and Iron Enforcer,
with his machine gun arm was bragging about his affinity
for killing people. Suddenly, Stanley interrupted them from a screen
in the corner that none of them had been paying
attention to. He was wearing his iconic aviator glasses. He'd
(14:23):
been watching them for a while. I was appalled at
the chaotic scene unfolding in front of him. This was
serious business and not what superheroes were supposed to do.
Hero like that, he informed them that he was looking
for human qualities that make superheroes great. They were going
(14:45):
to move to a secret layer, because, after all, their
identities were supposed to be kept secret. The mansion was
just a tease. They were ushered into an inconspicuous vehicle
to take them to their hideout, and by inconspicuous, I
mean a long and glaringly white limousine with disco lights
blasting from the inside. We're driving around a limo, around
(15:06):
and around, and we pulled up to kind of a
very nondescript building. And if you wouldn't have been able
to talent from outside, I remember that excitement of we
knew there was going to be a challenge, but we
had no idea what it was going to be. They
arrived at a storage facility with dumpsters and barbed wire
lining the street. It took the contestants a while before,
(15:28):
they spotted stan Lee on another screen. Stanley had a
message for them, quote, I'm afraid one of you will
not be allowed to enter. There happens to be a
spy amongst you. I've enlisted the help of one of
my assistants to infiltrate the group. I have to be
sure that all of you are here for the right reasons.
They all started pointing fingers. Then Roti Art stepped forward
(15:50):
spelled backwards. Is stradar. I've got all of you on
tape since the very beginning, watching all of your moves.
Pulling out footage from the party, rodi Art showcased multiple
examples of indecent superhero behavior. In a tense moment outside
the storage facility, Levity was eliminated. His plan to monetize
(16:10):
his superhero status with an action figure did not sit
well with the Great Stanley. One of the main qualities
of the superhero is selflessness. I understand you have a
toy shop and you hope to make millions on your character.
Superheroes were not supposed to be greedy. Levity never got
(16:30):
his chance to fulfill his dream of becoming a gay
superhero icon. His sudden departure sent shock waves through the
remaining heroes. Ship just got real. This probably would have
been a good time to remind everyone of the contracts
they had signed, which allegedly included a clause that the
producers could lie to their faces. But I'm willing to
bet that reading the fine print was not a superpower
(16:52):
that many in the group put to use on the show.
We walked through would look like a sweatshop. There was
these people sitting there, so seen, soing, and all factory going.
The remaining ten superheroes found a rickety old elevator. There
was a warning sign on the door. After a few
moments of hesitation, they decided to go in. The elevator
took them up to a darkened floor. Then the lights
(17:15):
came on and they were standing in a huge room
with tall ceilings lined with candle light. The furniture was
draped with velvet. There was even a hot tub. They
had finally made it to their secret layer. Major Victory
was psyched. When you got into it, you felt more
like a superhero, you know what I mean? Oh yeah,
check this. Look at all the red brick kind of
(17:37):
goes with my outfit. Nice cool, But the heroes were
also a bit wary. It wasn't just the production team,
but the heroes were suspicious of They didn't trust each
other either. On the first night, Fat Mama overheard a
whole lot of superhero bitching going on in the layers
hot tub. I was on one side of the curtain
and Lamaria Nitro creature where in the hot tub, and
(18:02):
so they didn't know I was on the other side
of the curtain, and they were saying, oh, Fat Boma
was definitely going first. You don't even need to be here.
He can't do nothing. But you know, all this stuff,
I've never said that. That hurt my feelers, but at
the same time it gave me determination that I'm gonna
show them. You know, the superheroes hadn't even started competing
(18:25):
against each other, but already there were personality conflicts and
rivalries were simmering. After tiling off, it was time to
get some rest. The next day, the heroes would do
battle for real in a series of outlandish challenges that
would push their powers to the limit. That's coming up.
(19:02):
The superheroes were all assembled at Pershing Square, a paved
park in downtown Los Angeles. It was time for the
first challenge. Their mission was to make it from one
end of the park to the other as quickly as possible.
At the same time they do inconspicuously change into their
full superhero outfit. I think Clark can't turning into Superman
(19:22):
and the telephone booth but while running at the same time.
It was cheesy from the get go. Monkey Woman scaled
a treat to change into her outfit, then somersaulted back
down to the ground. The Iron Enforcer sprinted through the
park brandishing a homemade laser gun. Then it was Fat
Mama's turn. I though, I can't outrun these guys and
(19:43):
all the younger people and stuff, but I'll just go
through as they asked. She rounded a corner and saw
something unusual and so what does he look? Come on,
I saw this little girl crying, and I stopped and
(20:05):
asked her was she okay? And she was saying she
lost her parents and stuff. And then there was a
sign over to the side that says security. So I
ran her in there and I ran, you know, took
her to security. There was a trick at play that
Stanley didn't reveal. Here's director Rick tell Us. We put
a little girl next to a fountain who was lost
(20:26):
and she needed her mom. And we wanted to see
who would stop and throw the challenge and help that
little girl. And that was the real challenge. Major Victory
also spotted the secret challenge and decided to ramp up
the drama just a little. I think I said, who
is this child's mother? I did by d J Boys Blue.
(20:48):
He proceeded to carry the little girl heroically to security office.
Lemuria also decided to help the girl, but she had
a different problem. I just were running in these crazy heels.
I do not recommend that for any in the future,
and wants to create a superior costumers do not use.
Still let him feels, and then there was feedback. Things
(21:11):
were going wrong and the zippers were not going up
and clasps were not clasping, and I was like, oh man.
After a struggle behind some porter parties, feedback was finally
suited up. As he was running, some straps from his
costume fell off in front of the girl. All I
saw was that archway and I flew past. After he
(21:32):
was done, the production team asked him how he thought
he did, and then they said, so, did you see
anything unusual? And I said unusual. No, they said, you
didn't see a little girl, and I thought, oh I missed.
Oh I'm done. Made me on the rooftop in time
(21:54):
for an elimination. All the contestants were called up to
the rooftop of their secret layer in the middle of
the night. They stood on glowing cubes with the lights
of l A glittering behind them. It was the first
of many supposedly epic game show eliminations. Stanley was peering
down on them from a big screen. Once again, here's Lemuria.
(22:14):
So it's all very dramatic, and none of you know
who's leaving. You're all packed. I think we had to
pack up every single time. Stan was disappointed at the
six contestants that missed the little girl. This obviously wasn't
a test of speed. The girl was practically screaming for help.
Stand calls on three of the failures to explain themselves,
and in the end, Nitro g gets sent home Nitrogen
(22:38):
Turn into your costume. He changed out in plain sight
and totally missed the girl. He was both the youngest
contestant and the biggest comic book collector of all of them.
When he heard the news, he solemnly pulled off his
gloves and threw them into a nearby trash can. Fat
Mama felt relieved. I laughed so hard because I said
(22:58):
I thought I was gonna be the wanted to go home.
So I'm like, okay, so Fat Mama didn't go home.
Feedback took the results of the challenge to heart. I
was crushed. I felt like I had disappointed stand and
disappointed myself. I thought I knew the trick, and therefore
(23:20):
I closed my mind off to other things, and so
being authentic was really the right way to go. And
my most authentic self is Captain Oblivious. The contestants all
lived together in a house and were filmed intensively every
(23:40):
day for two weeks. Each episode took about three days
to film. There wasn't a huge budget for the show,
and the contestants suffered as a result. You go into
the bath room, it was like it's no white the
seventh Awards. There's these lines of twin side beds and
I'm like, we gotta sleep in here, all next to
each other. We all thought we would getting their own
(24:01):
bed room, so maybe two to a room. So you
never thought she was gonna be sleeping in a room
for growing the dope. You know, at night they say
good night John. You know you say good night to
each person going down the line. As well as sharing
a bedroom, there was only one bathroom between them all.
They often slept with their shoes next to their beds
(24:21):
in case a challenge was sprung on them during the night.
Living on top of each other for days and days
on end, the contestants started to get more and more tired.
According to La Mauria, tensions were starting to build. Okay,
so fat Mama really got reality, Like she really understood,
like she was gonna push buttons and kind of make
things happen and be in the middle of all the craziness. Right.
(24:45):
But she, oh man, she got so she would just
pick at me a little. She was just a little.
It was something you're like, Okay, cool, I can handle that.
That's fine. Just get on my nerves, Okay, she just oh,
I was getting pissed. There wasn't time for the contestants
to hold drudges for long. The filming schedule was packed
with challenge after challenge designed to put their superhero qualities
(25:05):
to the test. By the second week of filming, the
superheroes overcrowded bedroom was getting emptier and emptier. There were
only four superheroes still standing, Lemuria, Fat Mama, Major victory
and feedback. They had to battle it out in a
questionable challenge that would prove fateful for the ending. The
remaining heroes were standing in the kitchen eating fruit before
(25:27):
Stanley appeared on a screen. He said, very shortly, you'll
meet some hardened criminals. All of them are incarcerated as
we speak. They'll spend some quality time with them in
an effort to show them the error of their ways.
The challenge was to prevent these criminals from reoffending. The
superheroes were genuinely nervous as they got taken to the
(25:48):
prison to meet the convicts. It was a big sandy
yard surrounded by tall fences and barbed wire. The whole
setup was fantastically absurd. The spandex, the minivan, the orange
jump suits, and the camo clad prison guard brandishing liability
contracts that assumed any in all risks, including death. What's
(26:08):
more is that the superheroes had also been given secret
tasks to complete. In their encounter with the prisoners, La
Mauria had to sit on an inmates lap for ten seconds.
This challenge felt particularly gross to me, especially the use
of prisoners comic relief. Unsurprisingly, Lea Maria felt uncomfortable with
the situation that the producers had put her in. I
(26:29):
was really tired. I was so tired, and I hadn't
been sleeping. I tried to give people a great deal
of respect for their personal space, for their personal body.
So for me personally, I kind of felt a little
bit weird being in somebody's personal space that had already
been in prison, that had already been um it was
already paying their dues. I didn't want to be more disrespectful.
(26:51):
It doesn't matter if I'm on a TV show, it
doesn't matter if I'm you know, in a really cool costume.
It does not give me the right to invade another
human being space, and especially a human being there's a
point in their life that they're not doing great. But
in the world of Stanley, all is not as it seems.
It turns out the prisoners were all actors. Lamuria was
(27:12):
actually talking to dot Marie Jones, who would go on
to play Coach Sheldon on Glee. She was sitting on
a chair with an angry demeanor, legs sprawled out in
front of her. Her red hair was messy and unkempt.
In a desperate attempt to complete her challenge, La Mauria
abruptly tried to sit on the coach's lap without consent.
The actress shoved her away and angrily stormed off again.
(27:33):
I'm sorry if I disrespected you in anyway. I really,
I really are. Feedback, on the other hand, had to
hug an inmate three times. I don't think being phony
has any part of being superhero. So the only way
that I'm going to hug that person is if I
feel a genuine response to hug. The fake convict asked
(27:55):
to have his handcuffs removed. The man was apparently in
jail for four counts of murder. Feedback asked if he
felt any remorse for his victims families, and the man
replied no, because my own father was murdered. In return,
Feedback opened up with his own story. He revealed, and
when he was a kid, his father took his own life.
(28:16):
I don't know what your life was like, but I
know what it's like to leave to dad when my
dad died. I started getting back into the Spider Man
comic books, but for me. I was searching for father
figures and the character of Peter Parker, the decisions he
would make. I took that and was integrating that like
(28:39):
a father figure almost. But it wasn't Peter Parker that
I was looking at as the father figure. It was
the creator of the stories, the writing, and that was
stan Lee. The producers had no idea. This emotional exchange
turned into a big hug, and Feedback managed to complete
his secret task. Later, at that night's elimination ceremony, Stanley
(29:00):
announced that he'd won a place in the next round.
Feedback thanked his father figure with tears in his eyes.
The episode was a real emotional roller coaster and reminded
me of a lot of the time I spent with
the real life superheroes, especially those moments where one minute
I would be thinking this is all so ridiculous, and
then the next moment I would be so moved by
(29:21):
the work the superheroes were doing and by their dedication
to bettering their community, even if it was in this
really bonkers way. Unfortunately for Lemuria, she was the only
one who failed to complete the prisoner challenge. Stan told
her it was time to pack her bags. I was
incredibly sad to leave from outside. It's kind of like
this wacky show, I think, but for inside and being
(29:44):
with the people that were on it and doing these challenges,
and we got to go in an amazing adventure and
experiencing that adventure. And then when stance like, well, you're done,
and then these other people get to keep on going,
you kind of you just just want a little our taste,
a little half. And you know, I think I cried
a lot because I wasn't going to be able to
(30:04):
do that. In the Battle of the Real Life Superheroes,
there were now only three contestants remaining. Superheroes can lonely
get harder from here, but I suspect the three of
you will be up to it. Yes, sir, Yes, sir. Sleepwell,
Tomorrow is a new day that's coming up. As Who
(30:44):
Wants to Be a Superhero reached its climax, the challenges
got even more absurd. The three remaining contestants, Fat Mama,
Feedback and Major Victory had to win over a tough
jury of fourth graders with their origin stories and super hours.
Then they hunted for a super villain and a shopping center.
(31:04):
They were also shown their potential comic book covers a
k A their passport to immortality. When our first side
to be honest, I was like, why do you make
me look so mean? The face was so mean. Fat
Mama wasn't sure about her own comic book, but she
could see from Feedback's face how much surprise meant to him.
(31:26):
Back in the Secret Layer in between challenges, Fat Mama
was worried. She had a bad feeling that Feedback was
going to be eliminated. The fourth graders had been confused
by the explanation of his powers, and he lost out
in the race to hunt for the super villain. At
the mall, Fat Mama and Major Victory, we're going to
be finalists. The producers had already planned to fly Major
(31:48):
Victory's daughter out for an emotional finale. He wanted to
be a hero in her life, and the producers could
smell the tears. Fat Mama locked herself in the bathroom
and asked to speak to the production team. I told
them to eliminate me and let the two boys do
it and have it because they really wanted it, and
I couldn't see taking that from someone. When I came
(32:09):
in and I wasn't really even into the prize, and
when I look at Feedback, it was like I couldn't
do it to him, you know, I was like, I
need to go fat. Mama wasn't even into comic books. Now,
maybe if it was two or three million dollars, we
might be talking something something totally different. The producers were
in a difficult position. Feedback didn't want to go home,
(32:32):
but he understood their dilemma. It made sense for her
to win this show. As an audience member, I would
have wanted her to win the show because then it
would send the message of everybody can be a superhero.
It's about how you treat other people and how you
face different challenges. There was another complication too. Before his
Superhero days, major victory was in a dance group called
(32:55):
the California dream Men. They were a bit like an
off brand Chippendale's. Apparently they were huge in Italy stand
and the producers were conflicted about major victories dancing days. Apparently,
according to them, stripping didn't qualify as a heroic activity.
I'm noticing a pattern with you. No matter what I say,
(33:18):
no matter what I do, you just can't see to
keep your clothes up. Personally, I think it takes a
lot of courage to get naked in front of strangers.
It also seems like a skill that would come in
handy if you wanted to, I don't know, seduce a supervillain.
But ultimately Major Victory's fate was in the hands of Stanley,
(33:38):
known skeptic of male strippers. Up on the roof of
the layer stand, summoned the three remaining superheroes for one
more elimination ceremony. They took their places on the glowing
cube shaped podiums to face the music one more time
before the grand finale. From up on a giant TV
screen disguise as a billboard, Stanley glared down at them
(33:59):
and now that one hero would be eliminated, Major Victory,
the whole thing surreal because you're up there, They're trying
to dissect everything you did wrong, you know what I mean,
to justify you leaving, and you just felt, wow, this
is coming to Then Stanley told him it accomplished his mission.
(34:22):
He had become a hero to his daughter. The producers
handed him a phone and they put my daughter on
the line, and I lose it and it just feels
so final, and it felt good um to connect with her.
It was cathartic and I really grew from it, and
(34:44):
I got to connect with my daughter. I got to
meet some amazing people, do some really fun things, to
meet my wife. It's like one of the best experiences
I've ever had in my life. It was time for
the final showdown between Fat Mama and Feedback. Okay, my
money was on Fat Mama. For the next challenge, our
two remaining heroes were sent to stunt school to learn
(35:06):
the action packed moves that any self respecting superhero should
be able to perform with ease. We're going to teach
you to flaw using that green screen over there. Under
the watchful eye of a Hollywood stunt coordinator, Feedback launched
himself again and again onto a crash mat. Fat Mama
(35:26):
traded punches with an instructor before flooring Feedback with a
right hook and a kick to the stomach. Here we go.
Then they were grilled by Stanley in a final interview.
This is the last chance I'll have to speak with you,
and I want to learn more about you, not your character.
(35:48):
And finally, Fat Mama and Feedback were taken to the
Universal Studio CityWalk shopping center. They were greeted by a
cheering crowd and Stanley beaming down from his giant screen.
We wrote around the World's Next Grade. High up on
a balcony podium, overlooking the crowd, Fat Mama reflected on
(36:11):
what she and Feedback had shared. Me and him are
the only two that went through every single task, and
we got to experience everything. We got to see the
heartache and the laughter and the joy. Feedback's heart was pounding.
I had no idea what was happening. They told us
to write two different speeches, one as a winning speech,
(36:31):
one is a concession speech. And I didn't spend any
time on the winning speech because I completely convinced that
Fat Mama was gonna win. For the final showdown, the
producers rolled an action movie sequence of the two heroes
dueling and evil villain called dragon Breath in the Last
Chance to prove their super credentials. Well, if it isn't
Mr dragon Breath, we're going down, Fat Mama. The producers
(36:56):
through in all the special effects that a mid tier
reality TV show could forward. There were meteors, fire breathing dragons,
and even a giant chicken rampaging Godzilla style through skyscrapers.
Then the dust settled, intense music ramped up up on
his godlike TV screen, Stand bowed his head solemnly and
(37:19):
declared the time had come for him to make the
ultimate decision. After evaluating all the challenges over the course
of the season, the winner was Feedback. And then stan
Lee comes out, and so my my mind was just
jumping up to different levels que the big fake explosions.
(37:41):
As Stand the manly strolled over to meet Feedback in
real life. They shared a big hug, which was a
dream come true for the nerd of all comic book nerds.
Then Feedback literally flew off into space in a big
flurry of bad c g. I. There were a lot
of people that thought I was just this attention seeking
(38:01):
crazy guy. But it wasn't about getting attention. It was
about fulfilling something inside of me. And at that moment
of winning, I felt validation. I felt a purpose fulfilled
After blowing all that money on the giant c g
I chicken, maybe the producers didn't have any budget left
or stands appearance fee because he didn't stick around to
explain what exactly the superhero qualities were that made Feedback
(38:24):
a winner. If you ask me, it seems like kind
of a cop out considering that it was meant to
be the whole point of the show. But talking to
his fellow contestants, they had some theories. An incredibly humble,
loving human being that would literally you could see himba
a fireman that would just save people's lives without any
thought of their own. That is that man. But Feedback
(38:45):
sees it differently. It was Fat Mama's competition. In my mind,
Fat Mama is the one, you know who won, and
I'm still runner up to her because I think she's amazing,
and I still think the only reason why she didn't
win this because basically she said she didn't want to win.
As for me, I was happy for Feedback. Being a
(39:07):
superhero clearly meant a lot to him. After all, he'd
been dressing up like Spider Man since he was young,
and Fat Mama seemed perfectly happy to let Feedback have
all the glory. After the show, many of the contestants
remained friends, and some went on to make appearance as
at comic book conventions and gigs within the superhero community.
Some of them used their superhero characters to become real
(39:28):
life superheroes who went out on the streets and patrolled,
just like Phoenix Jones. As for feedback, he never became
the next Spider Man. Despite overcoming six episodes worth of obstacles,
his character faded into obscurity. He was even promised a
role in a TV movie on the Sci Fi Channel,
but all he ended up getting was a cameo. At
one point, he was asked to do a new TV
(39:50):
show with our old friend Phoenix Jones. In true Phoenix
Jones style, he was mid crisis on his way to
the hospital one night he gave me a call because
he had been He had like a shaft of a
knife like stuck in his leg. The show they talked
about never came to fruition and the two heroes never
spoke again. But for feedback, it was never about the
(40:11):
TV deals. They offered this prize of immortality and getting
your own comic book and stuff like that. But for
me then end now, the prize was always being on
the show. And I think what the show is about
is identity, you know, finding your people and making them
feel like, wow, there's some validation there. This It's not
(40:33):
just me who likes this stuff. It's enough people where
they're going to make a TV show about it. We
live in the age of the slick, six pack filled
superhero industrial complex, where a new Marvel or DC movie
gets pumped out every couple of months. It's easy to
forget there was a time not so long ago and
being into superheroes wasn't that cool to me? Who wants
(40:56):
to be a superhero? Feels like an extension of the
real life superhero movement. It's one of the few places
in popular media that represented regular folks who created their
own original superhero personas. In the years following the show,
superheroes became a dominant force in popular culture. But strangely,
the rise and popularity of comic book superheroes was not
(41:16):
accompanied by a rise in real life superheroes. I've always
found that puzzling. Maybe it's because we are increasingly living
our lives online so there's less actual real life happening
in general, or maybe he was always going to be
a fringe movement. But even if they are small in number,
I'm glad they're out there suiting up and patrolling their neighborhoods,
(41:38):
helping people in need, and making the streets a little
more exciting. I do wonder what Stanley would think of
the real life superheroes who were inspired by his writing
to take on the real world problems dressed as superheroes.
I did come across a quote of his and which
he talked about why he created characters like the X
Men and the Fantastic Four. He said, vote we were
(42:01):
fascinated by science and awed by the mysteries of the
great beyond. Today we consider a nearer, deeper, unknown one
inside ourselves. We asked, what is more real a world
that we were born into or the one we create ourselves.
(42:31):
The Superhero Complex is hosted and written by Me, David Weinberg,
and reported by Me, Amalia Sortland and Caroline Thornham. Production
from Amalia Shortland and Caroline Thornham. Sean Glenn, Max O'Brien
and David Waters are executive producers. Fact checking by Andrew Schwartz,
Production management from Shari Houston, Frankie Taylor and Charlotte Wolf.
(42:54):
Sound design, mixing and scoring by Eli Block and Daniel Kempson.
Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters. Original music
is composed by Paul Housden. Special thanks to Peter Tangent,
Willard Foxton, Matt o'mera, Katrina Norvelle Beth and Macaluso, or
(43:14):
In Rosenbaum, Shelby Shenkman, and all the team at U
t A. For more from Novel, visit novel dot audio
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