May 24, 2022 • 42 mins
David fires up the batmobile again, for a whistle-stop tour of the wider real life superhero universe. We meet superheroes and villains from Mexico City to the Netherlands, and hear from journalist and broadcaster Jon Ronson about his time with costumed crime fighters in New York.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Novel. Greetings, you have reached the phone number of Tamerlane,
real life super villain. Please leave a message so we
can stay in touch and most importantly, stay evil. This
(00:31):
is tammer Lane, a real life super villain whose bonkers
online videos cut our attention. So we reached out to him,
and he agreed to chat with us From his secret layer.
I had to get all dolled up for you today
and put on my best leather Tamerlane did our interview
in his full super villain regalia. If you listen carefully,
you can hear his leather pants squeaking. He has a
(00:52):
shaved head and a beard dyed bright red. He wears
a metal gauntlet on one hand, and he accents his
look with a gold grill over his teeth and a
pair of mirrored sunglasses. Well, I just think aviators just
say to me, douche bag. When I see people in aviators,
I don't don't you don't you think they look douchey?
I do. They're like trying excessively hard to be cool,
(01:16):
So I adopted that as my own. Tamer Lane took
his name from a Turko Mongol conqueror rampaged across Central
Asia in the fourteenth century. He would leave piles of
humans heads outside of cities that he was going to
sack and lay siege to, and I think he left
a clear message. So he was a good inspiration for me.
(01:36):
But tammer Lane doesn't only take inspiration from ancient warriors.
As a child, I was a huge fan of Mr.
T So he was a little bit of an inspiration
to me as well. And in his more introspective moments,
timmer Lane would say his persona came from even closer
to home. Was there some sort of Nietzschean monster within
(01:56):
us all, some sort of Carl Young's belief in the
shadows cell? Yes, I would say that the disconnect I
had with my own family and my own father helped
create this character. Also my disappointment in society, trying to
be a good citizen, trying to do the right thing
and get a nine to five job and work forty
(02:18):
hours a week and be an obedient servant of the
fascional capitalist system. I think failing at that. And again
my disconnect from my family, Yes, helped create this character.
As you might have gathered from his voicemail, an affinity
for bloodthirsty warlords timmer Lane identifies as a real life
supervillain and a bit like Rex Velvet. He sees it
(02:40):
as his duty to offer a kind of meta commentary
on the superhero world. I was at home one day
and I was stroking my beloved pet, and I noticed
on the news the story came on about real life superheroes,
and mostly it would seem that these real life shoulder
here spent their time handing out sandwiches and warm socks.
(03:05):
And I thought to myself, what arrogance. How dare they
go around calling themselves real life superheroes when they set
the ball so low. So I said to myself, well, ourself,
you all a real life super villain by comparison. So
from that day forth, I made it my goal to
(03:26):
become the best real life super villain I could become.
Timmer Lane isn't above his own heroics when the moment
calls for it. One time, he says he got into
a fight with a Wolverine impersonator at a nightclub. It
was a party and he was like squirting tequila into
a to the mouths of miners, and he had a microphone.
I thought it would be a good idea to take
(03:46):
it from him, So I took his microphone and began
riding through the nightclub, saying, a super villain's up in
here running this bitch. He didn't like that he tackled
me from behind. His other hobbies include protesting aginst what
he calls his enemies insurrectionists, fascist Republicans, Christians, even dare
(04:07):
I say. He also runs a supervillain YouTube channel where
he reviews fast food. Alright, guys, this is the Derek
We Yeah, he starred in short films and he does
charity work. My charity has saved the chips dot org.
Being that I am an anthropology major, I have a
very close affinity to our chimpanzee cousins. We didn't get
(04:33):
to hear from tamer Lane in the main series because
tamer Lane isn't a part of the Seattle superhero scene.
He's from Miami. He's just one of many people all
over America and the world who've taken up a cape
or mask, or in this case, a pair of leather
trousers and joined the real life superhero community. And the
course of making the superhero complex, I met a lot
(04:54):
more than just Phoenix and his crew. So in this
bonus episode, I wanted to fire up the Batmobile one
more time and take you on a whistle stop tour
of the rest of this wild world and the folks
like Tammer Lane who inhabited I'm David Weinberg and from
the teams at Novel and I Heart Radio. This is
the Superhero Complex, Episode nine, Unsung Heroes. One person who
(05:44):
got to know the real life superhero world as well
as I did is writer and broadcaster John Ronson, who
we heard from an episode four. John hung out with
real life superheroes from across America, but like me, his
introduction to this weird and wild world start it in Seattle,
in true Phoenix Jones style. The first time I met him,
(06:04):
he was in the emergency room. I got off the
plane in Seattle and got a message that he had
been shot. I think I was stabbed. My first thought,
of course, was a shift. I've just traveled Britain and
he's been stabbed, So that's how empathetic I was after
a twelve hour flight. So I got to the emergency
room and he's there in the superhero outfit of the
(06:25):
emergency room, and he had been stabbed. But it's like
it's okay. You know, I was stabbed earlier tonight, but
I'm gonna go out and patrol some more. And I'm like,
are you sure? And then the doctor came in and
asked him about his family doctor, and he named his pediatrician,
and I said, are you a child? But it turns
out you can. He was like, twenty three and you
(06:46):
can be with you pede addition to the twenty four,
apparently in America. I did say to him, look, you've
just been stabbed. Are you sure that you want to patrol?
Like I can honestly wait till tomorrow. No, He's like, no,
fib ing out. A couple of nights later, they went
on the patrol where they had ultimately faced down the
crack dealers in Belltown. But before that epic showdown, John
(07:09):
said Phoenix was clutching its straws, trying to find crimes
to thwart. Phoenix saw somebody pass the back to someone else.
How he went yacht sie right across the road and said,
it's got its stupid superhero fits, Sir, can I see
that baggy? And it was it was pretzels, And he
(07:34):
was like so disappointed. I was jealous that John had
even this experience while on patrol with Phoenix, I wasn't
so lucky. We never even encountered a bag of salty
snacks being exchanged suspiciously. Comparing notes on Phoenix Jones wasn't
the only reason I wanted to talk to John. He
(07:54):
spent a lot of time with other different real life
superheroes too, and I was curious to learn what he
made of the whole scene. He told me in his experience,
they fell into two camps. You've got the sort of
Phoenix type ones who are into the costumes, and sometimes
they even have like the special weapons like the web
(08:15):
gun or the grappling hooks, So you've got that sort
of which Phoenix was the clear like leader, and they
all looked up to him. He had the best costume,
He was the most charismatic. That lot were quite camp.
I remember we were looking at this group of crack
addicts that they wanted to break up at the best
(08:35):
stop at three in the morning, and the crack addicts
were looking at us and the superheroes we like murmuring
to each other, and the crack addicts were presumably thinking,
you know, what are they saying to each other? And
what the superheroes were saying to each other was, oh,
I love your black and yellow color scheme. The yellow
(08:56):
really pops. So they were So you had that genre
her superhero who were all pretty delightful, even though I
didn't agree with what they were doing. But then you
had this other sort who I thought were much worse.
John told me he met some superheroes who represented the
second camp when he was in New York City. He
(09:17):
went on patrol with the group called the New York Initiative,
and they loved him feeling deeply uncomfortable. They were barely
superheroes at all. What they really were. With the Gilantes,
they didn't make much of an effort with the color scheme.
It was more just balaklavas, and they wanted to break
(09:39):
up drug dealers in Washington Square Park. But it was
only when they ran towards this guy with lights, like flashlights.
I mean, they were terrifying this guy. They surrounded this
guy and they had like like floodlights and we're like
lit him up, and the poor guy was like running away, saying,
you don't know me, you don't know anything about me,
(10:00):
you don't know why I'm here, you know this? And
I was on his side, and this guy was selling
weed to the students at n y U and they
did all of that. You know, it's terrifying the life
out of this poor guy with lights and shaming for weed.
Now a few years later, weeds legal and you can
(10:23):
stand in Washington Square Park and smoke weed and the
police are fine because it's legal to do it. So
out of a bad vibe with them, I thought they
were very unpleasant because after My Peace came out, this
one guy who was the ringleader of the New York Crew,
it was like really angry. It was like, you know,
(10:44):
let's get ronson. And remember somebody said to me, oh,
he's really troubled. I never encountered this type of superhero
in Seattle. Everyone I talked to seemed to be more
of the Phoenix camp, well meaning folks who seemed to
have their hearts in the right place. Is But John
wasn't just uncomfortable with the real life superheroes he met
in New York. He thinks the whole movement is flawed.
(11:08):
I don't believe in real life superheroing, Like I don't
think it's something that people should do. Look at the
real place of a flawed too, but they're flowed in
a different way. And quite often when we tried better
the justice system, we bring new problems to it. You
see that with social media shaming, and I think you
(11:31):
see it with the real life superhero So one of
the main things is just that they're they're too into it.
And when you're too into something, that's when that's where
the problems starts. That's when you commit miscourages of justice.
So that was my main animus was that there were
two into it. They were into the fame. It was
like a badge of honor to to thwart a crime.
(11:54):
And I don't think crime fighters should feel about crime
that way. It should be both pragmatic and by the book. Yeah,
I found this to be true for Phoenix Jones as well.
I think his desire for fame and compulsion to find
crime don't serve him well in his attempt to live
up to the ideals of a superhero. But despite John's
(12:14):
reservations about the real life superhero communities crime fighting tactics,
he told me that Phoenix was his favorite. Out of
all the heroes he met, Phoenix was the best. I mean,
that's why you're doing him. He was just the most charismatic, funny, charming. Inevitably,
then some of them will be like angry and troubled,
(12:35):
and he didn't feel like that some of them would
be like nerdy, um kind of misfits. And I think
Phoenix was a misfit, but not in a kind of
gamer type. I mean, I'm sure he is a gamer,
but he wasn't like one of those sort of nerdy
guys who just spend two long sign front of his
(12:55):
computer and decides to buy and outfit go out into
it on the streets of what There were other superheroes
who were like that, you know, a little out of shape,
and you could tell that they were just passing through.
I asked John if he still thought of Phoenix that
way even after his conviction on drug conspiracy charges. I
(13:18):
was genuinely startled and saddened. Like like everyone, one of
my least favorite things is hypocrisy, and obviously the first
thing you think as well as her hypocrite. But mainly
I just felt sad, like I know from spending that
time with Phoenix that he's a sweet guy. He wants
to do good. You know, Phoenix is a very unique person.
(13:43):
He's this sort of weird kind of specialness to him.
It feels like it's a little sullied now because we
wanted him to be He was setting himself up as pure,
and we wanted him to be pure. John said that
compared to the New York superheroes who just seemed angry
(14:05):
and vengeful when they chased down drug dealers, Phoenix had
seemed a lot more idealistic. In fact, John said when
they faced off with the crack dealers on the patrol
we heard about an episode four, he really felt Phoenix
was genuine. The conversation that I overheard with the crack
data was like, I've got no choice. This is how
I feed my family. I've got no choice. And Phoenix
was like, sir, you do have a choice. It was like,
(14:28):
you know, trying to be a positive. Influence said, I'm
sure that was real. That was part of what attracted
him to us was that he was innocent and sweet
and pure, and yeah he was goofy, and yeah there
were definitely some bad sides to what he did, getting
too into it, but there was a kind of goofy.
This sort of purity to him. Had the problem with
(14:49):
the drug allegation is that it's not pure anymore. It's
like hypocritical And I heard that. Now people yeah, hypocritic
at him as he walks down the street in Seattle. Now,
my guests is that there's a complicated set of circumstances
as to why he ended up in that situation. But
the problem is no one likes hypocrisy. That was the
(15:13):
same problem I had with Phoenix. But John said that
for all Phoenix's flaws, there was still one moment that
stuck in his mind. My last memory of Phoenix were
all of these kids just gathered around him like so excited.
Oh my god, it's Phoenix Jones. It's Phoenix Jones. And
though he was a celebrity. As I walked away, I
looked back and I saw these kids with Phoenix, and
(15:35):
I thought, well, he's no different to a superhero. He's
giving these kids the same joy that a real superhero would.
So he is a superhero in a way. For all
the ups and downs in Phoenix's superhero career, there's no
denying that he has genuinely inspired people along the way,
and not just in the US. The superheroes John met
(15:57):
and the ones I've spent time with in this series
so far are all based in America, but since the
heyday of the Rain City Crew, the real life superhero
movement has gone international. It's time to meet the Cape Crusaders,
who are fighting crime all over the globe that's coming up.
(16:37):
America may be the birthplace of the classic comic book
superheroes and the country where the real life superhero movement
found its feet, but all over the world there are
thriving pockets of superhero activity. Who knows, maybe there's even
a Mask Avenger in your neighborhood, sneaking out late at
night in a cape and mask to ward off muggers
(16:57):
or clean up the streets. So first stop on our
Superhero World tour is Japan. I guess there are about
party heroes in Japan. This is Clean Panther. She wears
a blue, red, and black kimono and a futuristic yellow
panther mask that covers her whole head. Japan has the
biggest real life superhero scene I encountered outside of America.
(17:20):
But whereas the groups I met in Seattle were into
crime fighting and homeless outreach, the big focus in Japan
is picking up litter. That's how Clean Panther got her name.
My main activity is clean up Tongue. So named Clean
and also combined with Panther. I love Black Panther, the
(17:40):
Marvel superhero Clean Panther and her superhero crew go on
litter patrols, picking up trash in Goya, Japan's fourth largest city.
They're just some of many heroes with names like Hell Hero,
Clean Arrow and Maroons Sparrow, who gear up in fantastical
masks and buddy armor to tidy up their cities. For
(18:03):
Phoenix Jones, a patrol that isn't focused on taking out
bad guys as a patrol wasted, so I can imagine
he wouldn't fit in too well with the Japanese scene,
but they do have one thing in common. The real
life superheroes of Japan are great at social media. They
post videos of themselves cleaning up their towns, shot like
an action film with a comic book movie soundtrack. Over
(18:32):
in Europe they have their own superheroes too well. Of course,
I can give you my real name, but um I
go the Colonel Spider. The Incredible Spider is from the Netherlands.
He likes to keep his superhero activities on the download,
so he asked us to disguise his voice. I want
to protect myself and UM, I don't say that I
(18:52):
worked outside with the law, but sometimes it really has
its benefits to not work specifically by the law, A
warming he says. He divides his time between online vigilanteism
and real life street patrols, and his costume is a
tribute to his favorite superhero, Spider Man. He was basically
the one character that really inspired me to do more,
(19:15):
to do all this um, and it's also a symbol
that people trust, people feel safe around Spider Man. He
wears a red suit with a white spider on the
chest over stab proof armor and a homemade protective spider mask.
He even builds his own Spider Man inspired gadgets, like
a d i y web slinger. I got some what
shooters with the fluid that has like apers mixture in it,
(19:38):
so if somebody were to attach me, I can like
simply pepperscrate him and they wouldn't see it. Like it's
it's all covered into suits. So people want to see
you come in. The Incredible Spider has a pretty defined aesthetic,
albeit one that borrows heavily from one of fiction's most
well known superheroes. It's not easy to come up with
your own superhero identity. Sometimes it takes time to refine it.
(20:00):
There's also another Dutch superhero who went through a lot
of different alter egos before he ultimately landed on the
perfect alias. My first alias I've used was Blue Tornado.
I was called Blue Tornado because those were the only
two English words I knew back at the time. After that,
it was Black Shadow, then Green Assassin for a while,
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and I just jumped to my closet, like, what, what's
the most superhero combination of clothes I have right now?
And there wasn't all black suit. And that's when I
started Shadow Panther. And Shadow Panther was the alias I've
actually got arrested with because they thought I was trouble.
This was a few years ago, when Shadow Panther was
(20:45):
around seventeen. I was walking through a bark because the
killer clown hype was raging. Back then, if the killer
clown hype passed you by, it was an international hoax
that got a lot of traction. Around two thousand and sixteen.
They were rooms and news stories about evil clowns popping
up all over the world who supposedly preyed on children,
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and it was like, Hey, I'm going out there in
the bark trying to get killy clowns. And I had
this like a huge iron barrow with me to protect myself,
you know. And this couple of guys came by and
they asked me what I was doing, so I just
started explaining. So the two guys called the police, who
weren't impressed. And what I would give to have been
(21:26):
there to see Shadow Panther decked out in his full costume,
explaining to the cops that he was there to fight
off killer clowns. I tried to mimic like a panther's face,
but it kind of was like like like a shnake face. Um.
It had like little teeth at the mouth opening and
stuff and safety goggles in it. It was completely made
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of trash backs and dark tape. That run in with
the cops was basically the end of the Shadow Panther era.
Now he's known as Blood Slash, and he says he's
given up on ridding the world a killer clowns. I'm
there to help people out with small things, pointing the
directions and stuff, and if trouble is going down, I'm
trying to be there, to be one of the people
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that has their phone in their hands, calls the alarm
number that kind of thinks I have to say to me.
The name blood Slash doesn't really say I'm your friendly
neighborhood helper Warden. But maybe it won't be the final
alias this intrepid hero tries on for size. If he
ever decided to take up the good old iron bar
(22:30):
again and head to Seattle, I think blood Slash would
find a kindred spirit in Midnight Jack. After all, once
upon a time, Jack was just a guy in a
mask hiding in a bush with a baseball bat. Over
in Mexico, the scene is a little different. Mexico is
home to one of my favorite offshoots of the real
life superhero World. Meet political scientist Jorge Kane is a
(22:53):
k A. Jorge studied urban planning and transportation in college.
When he was growing up in Mexico City, he discovered
his true passion in life, road safety. We built cities
for cars, motorized CDs, metal machines in the streets, killing
(23:14):
everyone literally. Jorge struggled to get other people as fired
up about infrastructure as he was. You know it could
be boring to talk about pedestrians with people, and nobody
will read the academic paper about pedestrian road safety. Then
one night, Jorge and his best friend went to catch
a Lucha libre wrestling match. It was something they did
(23:34):
all the time, but that night was different. Jorge watched
the mask luchi door fighters throw each other around the
ring and they're gleaming costumes, and a crazy idea popped
into his head. We need to do something fun. Uh,
why not after the match we buy a cape and
a mask and go out to the streets to fight
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for the rights of pedestrians. And just like that, a
new hero was born El po that's Spanish for the pedestrian.
For his first few outings, Lato wore a five dollar cape,
but then he got an upgrade. A brother helped me
with the design of the mask. It's a crosswalk with
(24:18):
a pedestrian. I told my grandmother to help me design
my cape, and my cape has white and black stripes,
just like a pedestrian crosswalk. With his new supersuit, Lao
set out to brave the onslaught of rush hour in
Mexico City. He wove through road raging drivers and toxic
(24:42):
exhaust fumes with his black and white crosswalk cape streaming
out behind him. I pushed back cars that are obstructing
the crosswalk. I paint the sidewalks, and I paint crosswalks
and bikeways without any pyramids. And my most controversial action
(25:04):
in the streets is to walk on top of the
cars parked on the sidewalk, because the sidewalk is the
space of pedestrians. My mother tells me that I can
get in trouble with the owner of the cars. L
has a lot in common with the real life superheroes
I met in the US, but he prefers a different label.
(25:26):
I don't like to watch the world superhero I feel
it sounds pretentious. I don't know, but I like more
of In the Spanish the were the luchador. It's a fighter,
a fighter of the streets. Lucha libre wrestling started out
in the late nineteenth century, and it's famous for its
high flying takedowns and masked fighters who wear brightly colored capes.
(25:49):
Each luchador creates their own superhero esque persona. Some of
them symbolize good and some embody evil. It's a message
that that that we're always have this struggle with the
two sides of humanity. You know, we are all good
and evil by nature, and these representation with lucavores, with
(26:10):
these wrestlers with colorful masks and capes, and it's a
great way to express these internal bottle of human being,
just like the real life superheroes who came before Phoenix
Jones Elo has his own cape wearing predecessors in Mexico too.
In the late nineteen eighties, a Lucidor in red tights
(26:32):
and a gold cape named super Barrio Gomez for affordable
housing after thousands of people were left homeless by an
earthquake in Mexico City. But l Peotonito's main inspiration was
a man named Antonas Mochus. He was a mathematician and
philosopher with thick glasses and a sandy beard. He roamed
(26:54):
the city of Bogata, Columbia, in red spandex underpants and
a cape with a letter C painted across his chest.
It stood for super c v COO super Citizen. His
central mission was to use his superpowers of comedy and
performance to get people fired up about important issues. He
even turned up on TV naked. Apart from his superhero
(27:16):
logo and took a shower to protest the lack of
clean water in the city. And then he ran for
mayor of Bogata. He won the election and he was
Mayor of Bogotan. And during his administration, he fired all
the corrupt transit police and he hired minds to control traffic.
(27:42):
You heard that right. He hired four hundred and twenty
mimes with white painted faces and fluorescent dungarees. They fanned
out across the city, mocking people who broke traffic laws
and helping pedestrians cross the roads. The result was a
fifty drop in traffic fatalities, and this superhero mayor Supercifical,
(28:05):
also brought down homicide rates by with his other unusual policies.
At one point, he got forty five thousand citizens to
gather in the streets and inflate balloons. They were painted
with the image of someone who they felt had persecuted
them in some way. Together, the citizens popped the balloons
(28:25):
in a form of citywide performance therapy. I had the
privilege to talk with him about these and he told
me that it's a way to have a civic theater
in the streets. You know, people love to see a
theater and spectacles in the streets, and that's a great
(28:45):
way to send a message in a peaceful way. And
and then I decided, like, we need a pedestrian superhero
in Mexico City. This is a world I desperately want
to live in, one where our philosopher mayor where is
a cape to celebrate the humble citizen. A city run
by a visionary leader who hires hundreds of mimes as
(29:06):
traffic police. What a beautiful sight that must have been.
Why can't we have that? I would even settle for
a world in which one of my elected officials was
a real life supervillain, like, oh, I don't know, lord Mole,
I've got an old Russian tank commander's helmet and a
big overcoat and goggles obviously, because Mole is a mole.
(29:29):
He's short sighted, but he needs the glasses on the
goggles because he also is a scientist. Despite his supposedly
villainous persona, Lord Male is actually a good guy. He
spends a lot of his time out on the streets
of Birmingham, England, doing homeless outreach or charity fundraising with
his son, who is also a real life superhero. My
(29:49):
son Andrew was being called electro Kid by the other
heroes because of all of the treatment that he had
in hospital for a ain tumor, and then electro lad
as he got a bit older, and then he became
proton because of the proton beam therapy. So our favorite
organization to raise money for is the Birmingham Children's Hospital.
(30:15):
Lord More runs a real life superhero collective called the
UK Initiative. It's part of a larger superhero network called
The Initiative, which exists all over the world. Got groups
in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Africa, South America, and obviously
the UK. As it turned out, two of the leaders
(30:35):
were only a few hours away from me, just outside
of San Francisco. So what's it like to run the
real life equivalent of an international Avengers squad? That's coming up.
(31:03):
If the real life superhero movement has a spiritual home,
it's a bakery in the Bay Area called Superhero Desserts.
You'll find it in a red brick building with a
glass fridge out front full of cakes with elaborate fondent toppings. Inside,
it's cozy. There are fairy lights hanging up and photos
on the walls of people dressed up in superhero costumes.
(31:24):
It's run by Edwina and Mike a k A. Rock
and Roll and night Bug. If you catch them in costume,
night Bug is decked out in red and black, with
a smooth red mask that covers his whole face and
black mesh holes over his eyes. Rock and Roll likes
to switch up her look, but you might find her
with long, bright pink hair, knee high black boots, and
(31:46):
a purple cape. There are two of the leaders of
a global superhero network with chapters all over the world
called The Initiative. They're also husband and wife, but they
didn't start out their real life superhero journey together. I
had been doing it without the wife's knowledge because I figured, well,
you know what, if they are completely crazy and I
(32:08):
go out twice and I'm like, this is not for me,
I can just forget the whole thing. Ever happened. Night
Bug had heard about some heroes in his neighborhood doing
costumed safety patrols and he wanted to check it out.
So one night he pulled on a mask and stuck
out to join them. Several patrols later, night Bug figured
it was time to let his wife in on the secret,
and he said, Okay, you know, I know I told
(32:30):
you about this this movie. I want you to come
see it's it's called Superheroes. And so we went to
this theater, the Roxy in San Francisco, and there were
all these weird guys standing around in costume outside, and
I thought, while you guys really take these shows seriously,
you're all just done. It turned out the movie was
a documentary. I realized, Oh my god, this is about
(32:51):
people who are trying to be real life superheroes. And
the arc of the movie is beautiful in that you're
laughing at these people. At first, you're you're killing them,
you know, with with the rest of the audience, and
then you see the sacrifices they make, the determination and
the just the dedication they have. By the end of it,
you're rooting for these guys. I was, and so is
(33:12):
the audience. By the sound of it, they were all
clapping at the end. After the credits rolled, some of
the people who come dressed up in costumes assembled at
the front of the movie theater for the director's q
and a night bug said he needed to use the bathroom.
The questions, happened? Is not back? Ten minutes later, I'm going, oh,
my gosh, is he okay? I'm looking at my watch
(33:32):
and this guy in this costume walks up right to
the front of the theater where the other heroes are,
and he takes his place, and they go, hey, guys,
this is night Book. I went to the back and
I was going looking for just any man to go
into the bathroom and check out my husband. And then
I hear my husband's voice and I go, oh, thank goodness,
and I turned around, but it's not my husband talking.
(33:52):
It's night Bug. I felt like somebody had punched me
in the gut and I speechless. I couldn't believe it.
So that's how I was introduced it. After that, were
you like, oh this is great, or you're like I
don't know about this, or oh my god, and immediately
immediately the same things we're in through my head, Oh
my god, how long has he been doing this? How
did he keep this from me? And I love this?
(34:14):
How can I get into it? Edwena seemed to be
known as rock and Roll was pretty well qualified for
superhero work. We've been martial artists and instructors for decades now,
and I was the head of security for a night
club in San Francisco. It felt like being a bouncer,
but for the entire city of San Francisco. These days,
Nightbug and Rock and Roll are something of a superhero
(34:35):
power couple. They founded the California chapter of the International
superhero group the Initiative in two thousand and eleven. Thirteen
More Initiative chapters have sprung up since. As it happens,
the New York branch of the Initiative is the same
group John Ronson went on patrol with, though a lot
of the membership has turned over since then. From their
(34:56):
base in California, Rock and Roll and Night Bug have
become magnets for a firing superheroes all over the world.
We used to get several emails a month from people
who are like, oh yeah, I can move things with
my mind, you know, Oh yeah, can you demonstrate that?
Oh no, no no, I can't do it over video because no, no, no,
there's always some excuse. I think it's a masterpiece of
(35:17):
an understatement to say that we get a few. We
get like, like, out of ten people, I'd say seven
people are just unrealistic about dudes. We don't go out
taking down drug lords. It's not what we do. You'll
find out really quickly that you don't actually have superpowers.
To make sure their budding recruits stay grounded on this
(35:38):
plane of reality, rock and Roll and night Bug run
a Facebook page were they and other veterans superheroes offer advice.
They even have their own podcast called Heroes one oh one.
The initiative wasn't the only reason I wanted to talk
to rock and Roll. In night Bug, Phoenix Jones repeatedly
claimed to be the only true real life superhero one
(36:01):
who was flawless at crime fighting. But as you know,
I had my doubts. So every time I interviewed a
superhero for this series, I asked them who they thought
was the best example of a real life superhero out
there today, and again and again, people told me rock
and Roll and night Bug. So I was curious to
meet them and find out what they were up to.
(36:22):
It turns out it was a lot. They started out
doing community outreach to unhoused people in their community. Every
week we were going broke. To put it plainly, we'd
make two hundred burritos and you know, every week and
then bring them out with socks and water and everything else,
and and pretty soon what we can't do this anymore.
At the time, Rock and Roll had been watching a
lot of The Great British Baking Show, and so I
(36:45):
was baking so much that my friends were going, you know,
if your family is getting sick of all the sugar
and you can't do anything with it, why don't you
just have a pop up, take the money and do
something good with it. Oh my god, there you go.
That's how the Bake Superhero Desserts was born. Of their
profits go to fund superhero community outreach events. Every month.
(37:07):
We had fifties people the last time, sixty people the
time before, and they all got together wearing superhero costumes
and making burritos and things together. They also carry out
safety patrols, run free self defense classes, and according to
their website, they've personally collected eleven thousand used needles from
the streets of California. When I talked to Rock and
(37:28):
Roll and night Bug about the Seattle superhero scene, they
told me they were close with Evo and Crystal Marks,
and they were big fans of Red Ranger two, but
they were less complimentary about our old friend Phoenix Jones
to be perfectly blunt in Phoenix knows this. We've said
it before to him. Phoenix has a kind heart. But
Phoenix has made a lot of really bad decisions. It's
(37:50):
sad that he's the biggest name you see, but you know,
we don't want people thinking the rest of us are
like him. Rock and Roll and night Bug definitely fall
into the category of superhero that Phoenix derisively calls real
life sandwich handlers, though at times Phoenix has apologized for
these types of remarks and said he wants to be
(38:12):
able to get along and work alongside all types of superheroes,
but then he'll launch into a rant about how people
who give out food in costumes are assholes. So it's
hard to take him in his word when he claims
to be above the petty superhero in fighting. Rock and
Roll and night Bug told me they are interested in
doing this work for glory or fame, another accusation Phoenix
(38:35):
often lobbs at other superheroes. We try to hammer it
into the community. Look, it's awful if you think about it,
to want to be someone's hero, because you're essentially hoping
that someone will have the worst day of their life.
So for you to want to be, oh, I I
want to rescue someone today, just hope that everything's quiet.
(38:56):
And if you happen to be there for someone that's
great for you, you not so great for them. I
think that is probably an ideal attitude that any superhero
should have when they head out on a patrol of
their community. At the end of the day, I would
say that I'm a supporter of the real life superhero community.
(39:17):
I think if you're judging real life superheroes solely on
their ability to fight crime, I would say the movement
as a whole has underdelivered on that promise. But I
personally never had any experiences with the kind of superheroes
John Ronson met, the ones whose hearts did not appear
to be in the right place, So my take is
a little different than his. I don't see the movement
(39:38):
itself is flawed. I think any movement will have its
bad apples, the ones who seem to be doing more
harm than good. But at least in my experience, I
think the vast majority of real life superheroes do way
more good for society than harm. It's hard to quantify
just how much good they do but attempts have been made.
(40:00):
A study at the University of Sydney looked at real
life superheroes and found that, on average, they spent nineteen
hours a week on superhero activity, which I assume is
way more time than most people spend volunteering to help
their own community. And I love the idea of every
town having its own unique superheroes, its own home team,
(40:22):
so to speak, instead of a superhero monoculture dominated by
the large corporations that control the intellectual property of DC
and Marvel. I'm all for the diversification of the superhero universe,
and I wholeheartedly support people's individual expression. Who doesn't love
seeing a kick ass homemade costume. I wish there were
(40:43):
more of real life superheroes and every city for kids
to encounter out in the wild, for the good humanitarian
work they do, and for the sheer joy of having
eccentric characters roaming the streets, living out their own fantasies
of what it means to be a hero. The Superhero
(41:14):
Complex is hosted and written by me David Weinberg and
reported by me Amalia Sortland and Caroline Thornha. Production from
Mamalia Sortland and Caroline Thornham, Sean Glenn, Max O'Brien and
David Waters are executive producers. Fact checking by Andrew Schwartz,
Production management from Sharie Houston, Frankie Taylor and Charlotte Wolf.
(41:37):
Sound design, mixing and scoring by Rob Spate. Music supervision
by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters. Original music is composed
by Paul Housden. Special thanks to Peter Tangan, Willard Foxton,
Matt O'Mara, Katrina Norvelle Beth and Macaluso, Oran Rosenbaum, Shelby
(41:58):
Shankman and all the team e t A. For more
from Novel, visit novel dot Audio
Novel. Greetings, you have reached the phone number of Tamerlane,
real life super villain. Please leave a message so we
can stay in touch and most importantly, stay evil. This
(00:31):
is tammer Lane, a real life super villain whose bonkers
online videos cut our attention. So we reached out to him,
and he agreed to chat with us From his secret layer.
I had to get all dolled up for you today
and put on my best leather Tamerlane did our interview
in his full super villain regalia. If you listen carefully,
you can hear his leather pants squeaking. He has a
(00:52):
shaved head and a beard dyed bright red. He wears
a metal gauntlet on one hand, and he accents his
look with a gold grill over his teeth and a
pair of mirrored sunglasses. Well, I just think aviators just
say to me, douche bag. When I see people in aviators,
I don't don't you don't you think they look douchey?
I do. They're like trying excessively hard to be cool,
(01:16):
So I adopted that as my own. Tamer Lane took
his name from a Turko Mongol conqueror rampaged across Central
Asia in the fourteenth century. He would leave piles of
humans heads outside of cities that he was going to
sack and lay siege to, and I think he left
a clear message. So he was a good inspiration for me.
(01:36):
But tammer Lane doesn't only take inspiration from ancient warriors.
As a child, I was a huge fan of Mr.
T So he was a little bit of an inspiration
to me as well. And in his more introspective moments,
timmer Lane would say his persona came from even closer
to home. Was there some sort of Nietzschean monster within
(01:56):
us all, some sort of Carl Young's belief in the
shadows cell? Yes, I would say that the disconnect I
had with my own family and my own father helped
create this character. Also my disappointment in society, trying to
be a good citizen, trying to do the right thing
and get a nine to five job and work forty
(02:18):
hours a week and be an obedient servant of the
fascional capitalist system. I think failing at that. And again
my disconnect from my family, Yes, helped create this character.
As you might have gathered from his voicemail, an affinity
for bloodthirsty warlords timmer Lane identifies as a real life
supervillain and a bit like Rex Velvet. He sees it
(02:40):
as his duty to offer a kind of meta commentary
on the superhero world. I was at home one day
and I was stroking my beloved pet, and I noticed
on the news the story came on about real life superheroes,
and mostly it would seem that these real life shoulder
here spent their time handing out sandwiches and warm socks.
(03:05):
And I thought to myself, what arrogance. How dare they
go around calling themselves real life superheroes when they set
the ball so low. So I said to myself, well, ourself,
you all a real life super villain by comparison. So
from that day forth, I made it my goal to
(03:26):
become the best real life super villain I could become.
Timmer Lane isn't above his own heroics when the moment
calls for it. One time, he says he got into
a fight with a Wolverine impersonator at a nightclub. It
was a party and he was like squirting tequila into
a to the mouths of miners, and he had a microphone.
I thought it would be a good idea to take
(03:46):
it from him, So I took his microphone and began
riding through the nightclub, saying, a super villain's up in
here running this bitch. He didn't like that he tackled
me from behind. His other hobbies include protesting aginst what
he calls his enemies insurrectionists, fascist Republicans, Christians, even dare
(04:07):
I say. He also runs a supervillain YouTube channel where
he reviews fast food. Alright, guys, this is the Derek
We Yeah, he starred in short films and he does
charity work. My charity has saved the chips dot org.
Being that I am an anthropology major, I have a
very close affinity to our chimpanzee cousins. We didn't get
(04:33):
to hear from tamer Lane in the main series because
tamer Lane isn't a part of the Seattle superhero scene.
He's from Miami. He's just one of many people all
over America and the world who've taken up a cape
or mask, or in this case, a pair of leather
trousers and joined the real life superhero community. And the
course of making the superhero complex, I met a lot
(04:54):
more than just Phoenix and his crew. So in this
bonus episode, I wanted to fire up the Batmobile one
more time and take you on a whistle stop tour
of the rest of this wild world and the folks
like Tammer Lane who inhabited I'm David Weinberg and from
the teams at Novel and I Heart Radio. This is
the Superhero Complex, Episode nine, Unsung Heroes. One person who
(05:44):
got to know the real life superhero world as well
as I did is writer and broadcaster John Ronson, who
we heard from an episode four. John hung out with
real life superheroes from across America, but like me, his
introduction to this weird and wild world start it in Seattle,
in true Phoenix Jones style. The first time I met him,
(06:04):
he was in the emergency room. I got off the
plane in Seattle and got a message that he had
been shot. I think I was stabbed. My first thought,
of course, was a shift. I've just traveled Britain and
he's been stabbed, So that's how empathetic I was after
a twelve hour flight. So I got to the emergency
room and he's there in the superhero outfit of the
(06:25):
emergency room, and he had been stabbed. But it's like
it's okay. You know, I was stabbed earlier tonight, but
I'm gonna go out and patrol some more. And I'm like,
are you sure? And then the doctor came in and
asked him about his family doctor, and he named his pediatrician,
and I said, are you a child? But it turns
out you can. He was like, twenty three and you
(06:46):
can be with you pede addition to the twenty four,
apparently in America. I did say to him, look, you've
just been stabbed. Are you sure that you want to patrol?
Like I can honestly wait till tomorrow. No, He's like, no,
fib ing out. A couple of nights later, they went
on the patrol where they had ultimately faced down the
crack dealers in Belltown. But before that epic showdown, John
(07:09):
said Phoenix was clutching its straws, trying to find crimes
to thwart. Phoenix saw somebody pass the back to someone else.
How he went yacht sie right across the road and said,
it's got its stupid superhero fits, Sir, can I see
that baggy? And it was it was pretzels, And he
(07:34):
was like so disappointed. I was jealous that John had
even this experience while on patrol with Phoenix, I wasn't
so lucky. We never even encountered a bag of salty
snacks being exchanged suspiciously. Comparing notes on Phoenix Jones wasn't
the only reason I wanted to talk to John. He
(07:54):
spent a lot of time with other different real life
superheroes too, and I was curious to learn what he
made of the whole scene. He told me in his experience,
they fell into two camps. You've got the sort of
Phoenix type ones who are into the costumes, and sometimes
they even have like the special weapons like the web
(08:15):
gun or the grappling hooks, So you've got that sort
of which Phoenix was the clear like leader, and they
all looked up to him. He had the best costume,
He was the most charismatic. That lot were quite camp.
I remember we were looking at this group of crack
addicts that they wanted to break up at the best
(08:35):
stop at three in the morning, and the crack addicts
were looking at us and the superheroes we like murmuring
to each other, and the crack addicts were presumably thinking,
you know, what are they saying to each other? And
what the superheroes were saying to each other was, oh,
I love your black and yellow color scheme. The yellow
(08:56):
really pops. So they were So you had that genre
her superhero who were all pretty delightful, even though I
didn't agree with what they were doing. But then you
had this other sort who I thought were much worse.
John told me he met some superheroes who represented the
second camp when he was in New York City. He
(09:17):
went on patrol with the group called the New York Initiative,
and they loved him feeling deeply uncomfortable. They were barely
superheroes at all. What they really were. With the Gilantes,
they didn't make much of an effort with the color scheme.
It was more just balaklavas, and they wanted to break
(09:39):
up drug dealers in Washington Square Park. But it was
only when they ran towards this guy with lights, like flashlights.
I mean, they were terrifying this guy. They surrounded this
guy and they had like like floodlights and we're like
lit him up, and the poor guy was like running away, saying,
you don't know me, you don't know anything about me,
(10:00):
you don't know why I'm here, you know this? And
I was on his side, and this guy was selling
weed to the students at n y U and they
did all of that. You know, it's terrifying the life
out of this poor guy with lights and shaming for weed.
Now a few years later, weeds legal and you can
(10:23):
stand in Washington Square Park and smoke weed and the
police are fine because it's legal to do it. So
out of a bad vibe with them, I thought they
were very unpleasant because after My Peace came out, this
one guy who was the ringleader of the New York Crew,
it was like really angry. It was like, you know,
(10:44):
let's get ronson. And remember somebody said to me, oh,
he's really troubled. I never encountered this type of superhero
in Seattle. Everyone I talked to seemed to be more
of the Phoenix camp, well meaning folks who seemed to
have their hearts in the right place. Is But John
wasn't just uncomfortable with the real life superheroes he met
in New York. He thinks the whole movement is flawed.
(11:08):
I don't believe in real life superheroing, Like I don't
think it's something that people should do. Look at the
real place of a flawed too, but they're flowed in
a different way. And quite often when we tried better
the justice system, we bring new problems to it. You
see that with social media shaming, and I think you
(11:31):
see it with the real life superhero So one of
the main things is just that they're they're too into it.
And when you're too into something, that's when that's where
the problems starts. That's when you commit miscourages of justice.
So that was my main animus was that there were
two into it. They were into the fame. It was
like a badge of honor to to thwart a crime.
(11:54):
And I don't think crime fighters should feel about crime
that way. It should be both pragmatic and by the book. Yeah,
I found this to be true for Phoenix Jones as well.
I think his desire for fame and compulsion to find
crime don't serve him well in his attempt to live
up to the ideals of a superhero. But despite John's
(12:14):
reservations about the real life superhero communities crime fighting tactics,
he told me that Phoenix was his favorite. Out of
all the heroes he met, Phoenix was the best. I mean,
that's why you're doing him. He was just the most charismatic, funny, charming. Inevitably,
then some of them will be like angry and troubled,
(12:35):
and he didn't feel like that some of them would
be like nerdy, um kind of misfits. And I think
Phoenix was a misfit, but not in a kind of
gamer type. I mean, I'm sure he is a gamer,
but he wasn't like one of those sort of nerdy
guys who just spend two long sign front of his
(12:55):
computer and decides to buy and outfit go out into
it on the streets of what There were other superheroes
who were like that, you know, a little out of shape,
and you could tell that they were just passing through.
I asked John if he still thought of Phoenix that
way even after his conviction on drug conspiracy charges. I
(13:18):
was genuinely startled and saddened. Like like everyone, one of
my least favorite things is hypocrisy, and obviously the first
thing you think as well as her hypocrite. But mainly
I just felt sad, like I know from spending that
time with Phoenix that he's a sweet guy. He wants
to do good. You know, Phoenix is a very unique person.
(13:43):
He's this sort of weird kind of specialness to him.
It feels like it's a little sullied now because we
wanted him to be He was setting himself up as pure,
and we wanted him to be pure. John said that
compared to the New York superheroes who just seemed angry
(14:05):
and vengeful when they chased down drug dealers, Phoenix had
seemed a lot more idealistic. In fact, John said when
they faced off with the crack dealers on the patrol
we heard about an episode four, he really felt Phoenix
was genuine. The conversation that I overheard with the crack
data was like, I've got no choice. This is how
I feed my family. I've got no choice. And Phoenix
was like, sir, you do have a choice. It was like,
(14:28):
you know, trying to be a positive. Influence said, I'm
sure that was real. That was part of what attracted
him to us was that he was innocent and sweet
and pure, and yeah he was goofy, and yeah there
were definitely some bad sides to what he did, getting
too into it, but there was a kind of goofy.
This sort of purity to him. Had the problem with
(14:49):
the drug allegation is that it's not pure anymore. It's
like hypocritical And I heard that. Now people yeah, hypocritic
at him as he walks down the street in Seattle. Now,
my guests is that there's a complicated set of circumstances
as to why he ended up in that situation. But
the problem is no one likes hypocrisy. That was the
(15:13):
same problem I had with Phoenix. But John said that
for all Phoenix's flaws, there was still one moment that
stuck in his mind. My last memory of Phoenix were
all of these kids just gathered around him like so excited.
Oh my god, it's Phoenix Jones. It's Phoenix Jones. And
though he was a celebrity. As I walked away, I
looked back and I saw these kids with Phoenix, and
(15:35):
I thought, well, he's no different to a superhero. He's
giving these kids the same joy that a real superhero would.
So he is a superhero in a way. For all
the ups and downs in Phoenix's superhero career, there's no
denying that he has genuinely inspired people along the way,
and not just in the US. The superheroes John met
(15:57):
and the ones I've spent time with in this series
so far are all based in America, but since the
heyday of the Rain City Crew, the real life superhero
movement has gone international. It's time to meet the Cape Crusaders,
who are fighting crime all over the globe that's coming up.
(16:37):
America may be the birthplace of the classic comic book
superheroes and the country where the real life superhero movement
found its feet, but all over the world there are
thriving pockets of superhero activity. Who knows, maybe there's even
a Mask Avenger in your neighborhood, sneaking out late at
night in a cape and mask to ward off muggers
(16:57):
or clean up the streets. So first stop on our
Superhero World tour is Japan. I guess there are about
party heroes in Japan. This is Clean Panther. She wears
a blue, red, and black kimono and a futuristic yellow
panther mask that covers her whole head. Japan has the
biggest real life superhero scene I encountered outside of America.
(17:20):
But whereas the groups I met in Seattle were into
crime fighting and homeless outreach, the big focus in Japan
is picking up litter. That's how Clean Panther got her name.
My main activity is clean up Tongue. So named Clean
and also combined with Panther. I love Black Panther, the
(17:40):
Marvel superhero Clean Panther and her superhero crew go on
litter patrols, picking up trash in Goya, Japan's fourth largest city.
They're just some of many heroes with names like Hell Hero,
Clean Arrow and Maroons Sparrow, who gear up in fantastical
masks and buddy armor to tidy up their cities. For
(18:03):
Phoenix Jones, a patrol that isn't focused on taking out
bad guys as a patrol wasted, so I can imagine
he wouldn't fit in too well with the Japanese scene,
but they do have one thing in common. The real
life superheroes of Japan are great at social media. They
post videos of themselves cleaning up their towns, shot like
an action film with a comic book movie soundtrack. Over
(18:32):
in Europe they have their own superheroes too well. Of course,
I can give you my real name, but um I
go the Colonel Spider. The Incredible Spider is from the Netherlands.
He likes to keep his superhero activities on the download,
so he asked us to disguise his voice. I want
to protect myself and UM, I don't say that I
(18:52):
worked outside with the law, but sometimes it really has
its benefits to not work specifically by the law, A
warming he says. He divides his time between online vigilanteism
and real life street patrols, and his costume is a
tribute to his favorite superhero, Spider Man. He was basically
the one character that really inspired me to do more,
(19:15):
to do all this um, and it's also a symbol
that people trust, people feel safe around Spider Man. He
wears a red suit with a white spider on the
chest over stab proof armor and a homemade protective spider mask.
He even builds his own Spider Man inspired gadgets, like
a d i y web slinger. I got some what
shooters with the fluid that has like apers mixture in it,
(19:38):
so if somebody were to attach me, I can like
simply pepperscrate him and they wouldn't see it. Like it's
it's all covered into suits. So people want to see
you come in. The Incredible Spider has a pretty defined aesthetic,
albeit one that borrows heavily from one of fiction's most
well known superheroes. It's not easy to come up with
your own superhero identity. Sometimes it takes time to refine it.
(20:00):
There's also another Dutch superhero who went through a lot
of different alter egos before he ultimately landed on the
perfect alias. My first alias I've used was Blue Tornado.
I was called Blue Tornado because those were the only
two English words I knew back at the time. After that,
it was Black Shadow, then Green Assassin for a while,
(20:24):
and I just jumped to my closet, like, what, what's
the most superhero combination of clothes I have right now?
And there wasn't all black suit. And that's when I
started Shadow Panther. And Shadow Panther was the alias I've
actually got arrested with because they thought I was trouble.
This was a few years ago, when Shadow Panther was
(20:45):
around seventeen. I was walking through a bark because the
killer clown hype was raging. Back then, if the killer
clown hype passed you by, it was an international hoax
that got a lot of traction. Around two thousand and sixteen.
They were rooms and news stories about evil clowns popping
up all over the world who supposedly preyed on children,
(21:05):
and it was like, Hey, I'm going out there in
the bark trying to get killy clowns. And I had
this like a huge iron barrow with me to protect myself,
you know. And this couple of guys came by and
they asked me what I was doing, so I just
started explaining. So the two guys called the police, who
weren't impressed. And what I would give to have been
(21:26):
there to see Shadow Panther decked out in his full costume,
explaining to the cops that he was there to fight
off killer clowns. I tried to mimic like a panther's face,
but it kind of was like like like a shnake face. Um.
It had like little teeth at the mouth opening and
stuff and safety goggles in it. It was completely made
(21:49):
of trash backs and dark tape. That run in with
the cops was basically the end of the Shadow Panther era.
Now he's known as Blood Slash, and he says he's
given up on ridding the world a killer clowns. I'm
there to help people out with small things, pointing the
directions and stuff, and if trouble is going down, I'm
trying to be there, to be one of the people
(22:09):
that has their phone in their hands, calls the alarm
number that kind of thinks I have to say to me.
The name blood Slash doesn't really say I'm your friendly
neighborhood helper Warden. But maybe it won't be the final
alias this intrepid hero tries on for size. If he
ever decided to take up the good old iron bar
(22:30):
again and head to Seattle, I think blood Slash would
find a kindred spirit in Midnight Jack. After all, once
upon a time, Jack was just a guy in a
mask hiding in a bush with a baseball bat. Over
in Mexico, the scene is a little different. Mexico is
home to one of my favorite offshoots of the real
life superhero World. Meet political scientist Jorge Kane is a
(22:53):
k A. Jorge studied urban planning and transportation in college.
When he was growing up in Mexico City, he discovered
his true passion in life, road safety. We built cities
for cars, motorized CDs, metal machines in the streets, killing
(23:14):
everyone literally. Jorge struggled to get other people as fired
up about infrastructure as he was. You know it could
be boring to talk about pedestrians with people, and nobody
will read the academic paper about pedestrian road safety. Then
one night, Jorge and his best friend went to catch
a Lucha libre wrestling match. It was something they did
(23:34):
all the time, but that night was different. Jorge watched
the mask luchi door fighters throw each other around the
ring and they're gleaming costumes, and a crazy idea popped
into his head. We need to do something fun. Uh,
why not after the match we buy a cape and
a mask and go out to the streets to fight
(23:56):
for the rights of pedestrians. And just like that, a
new hero was born El po that's Spanish for the pedestrian.
For his first few outings, Lato wore a five dollar cape,
but then he got an upgrade. A brother helped me
with the design of the mask. It's a crosswalk with
(24:18):
a pedestrian. I told my grandmother to help me design
my cape, and my cape has white and black stripes,
just like a pedestrian crosswalk. With his new supersuit, Lao
set out to brave the onslaught of rush hour in
Mexico City. He wove through road raging drivers and toxic
(24:42):
exhaust fumes with his black and white crosswalk cape streaming
out behind him. I pushed back cars that are obstructing
the crosswalk. I paint the sidewalks, and I paint crosswalks
and bikeways without any pyramids. And my most controversial action
(25:04):
in the streets is to walk on top of the
cars parked on the sidewalk, because the sidewalk is the
space of pedestrians. My mother tells me that I can
get in trouble with the owner of the cars. L
has a lot in common with the real life superheroes
I met in the US, but he prefers a different label.
(25:26):
I don't like to watch the world superhero I feel
it sounds pretentious. I don't know, but I like more
of In the Spanish the were the luchador. It's a fighter,
a fighter of the streets. Lucha libre wrestling started out
in the late nineteenth century, and it's famous for its
high flying takedowns and masked fighters who wear brightly colored capes.
(25:49):
Each luchador creates their own superhero esque persona. Some of
them symbolize good and some embody evil. It's a message
that that that we're always have this struggle with the
two sides of humanity. You know, we are all good
and evil by nature, and these representation with lucavores, with
(26:10):
these wrestlers with colorful masks and capes, and it's a
great way to express these internal bottle of human being,
just like the real life superheroes who came before Phoenix
Jones Elo has his own cape wearing predecessors in Mexico too.
In the late nineteen eighties, a Lucidor in red tights
(26:32):
and a gold cape named super Barrio Gomez for affordable
housing after thousands of people were left homeless by an
earthquake in Mexico City. But l Peotonito's main inspiration was
a man named Antonas Mochus. He was a mathematician and
philosopher with thick glasses and a sandy beard. He roamed
(26:54):
the city of Bogata, Columbia, in red spandex underpants and
a cape with a letter C painted across his chest.
It stood for super c v COO super Citizen. His
central mission was to use his superpowers of comedy and
performance to get people fired up about important issues. He
even turned up on TV naked. Apart from his superhero
(27:16):
logo and took a shower to protest the lack of
clean water in the city. And then he ran for
mayor of Bogata. He won the election and he was
Mayor of Bogotan. And during his administration, he fired all
the corrupt transit police and he hired minds to control traffic.
(27:42):
You heard that right. He hired four hundred and twenty
mimes with white painted faces and fluorescent dungarees. They fanned
out across the city, mocking people who broke traffic laws
and helping pedestrians cross the roads. The result was a
fifty drop in traffic fatalities, and this superhero mayor Supercifical,
(28:05):
also brought down homicide rates by with his other unusual policies.
At one point, he got forty five thousand citizens to
gather in the streets and inflate balloons. They were painted
with the image of someone who they felt had persecuted
them in some way. Together, the citizens popped the balloons
(28:25):
in a form of citywide performance therapy. I had the
privilege to talk with him about these and he told
me that it's a way to have a civic theater
in the streets. You know, people love to see a
theater and spectacles in the streets, and that's a great
(28:45):
way to send a message in a peaceful way. And
and then I decided, like, we need a pedestrian superhero
in Mexico City. This is a world I desperately want
to live in, one where our philosopher mayor where is
a cape to celebrate the humble citizen. A city run
by a visionary leader who hires hundreds of mimes as
(29:06):
traffic police. What a beautiful sight that must have been.
Why can't we have that? I would even settle for
a world in which one of my elected officials was
a real life supervillain, like, oh, I don't know, lord Mole,
I've got an old Russian tank commander's helmet and a
big overcoat and goggles obviously, because Mole is a mole.
(29:29):
He's short sighted, but he needs the glasses on the
goggles because he also is a scientist. Despite his supposedly
villainous persona, Lord Male is actually a good guy. He
spends a lot of his time out on the streets
of Birmingham, England, doing homeless outreach or charity fundraising with
his son, who is also a real life superhero. My
(29:49):
son Andrew was being called electro Kid by the other
heroes because of all of the treatment that he had
in hospital for a ain tumor, and then electro lad
as he got a bit older, and then he became
proton because of the proton beam therapy. So our favorite
organization to raise money for is the Birmingham Children's Hospital.
(30:15):
Lord More runs a real life superhero collective called the
UK Initiative. It's part of a larger superhero network called
The Initiative, which exists all over the world. Got groups
in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Africa, South America, and obviously
the UK. As it turned out, two of the leaders
(30:35):
were only a few hours away from me, just outside
of San Francisco. So what's it like to run the
real life equivalent of an international Avengers squad? That's coming up.
(31:03):
If the real life superhero movement has a spiritual home,
it's a bakery in the Bay Area called Superhero Desserts.
You'll find it in a red brick building with a
glass fridge out front full of cakes with elaborate fondent toppings. Inside,
it's cozy. There are fairy lights hanging up and photos
on the walls of people dressed up in superhero costumes.
(31:24):
It's run by Edwina and Mike a k A. Rock
and Roll and night Bug. If you catch them in costume,
night Bug is decked out in red and black, with
a smooth red mask that covers his whole face and
black mesh holes over his eyes. Rock and Roll likes
to switch up her look, but you might find her
with long, bright pink hair, knee high black boots, and
(31:46):
a purple cape. There are two of the leaders of
a global superhero network with chapters all over the world
called The Initiative. They're also husband and wife, but they
didn't start out their real life superhero journey together. I
had been doing it without the wife's knowledge because I figured, well,
you know what, if they are completely crazy and I
(32:08):
go out twice and I'm like, this is not for me,
I can just forget the whole thing. Ever happened. Night
Bug had heard about some heroes in his neighborhood doing
costumed safety patrols and he wanted to check it out.
So one night he pulled on a mask and stuck
out to join them. Several patrols later, night Bug figured
it was time to let his wife in on the secret,
and he said, Okay, you know, I know I told
(32:30):
you about this this movie. I want you to come
see it's it's called Superheroes. And so we went to
this theater, the Roxy in San Francisco, and there were
all these weird guys standing around in costume outside, and
I thought, while you guys really take these shows seriously,
you're all just done. It turned out the movie was
a documentary. I realized, Oh my god, this is about
(32:51):
people who are trying to be real life superheroes. And
the arc of the movie is beautiful in that you're
laughing at these people. At first, you're you're killing them,
you know, with with the rest of the audience, and
then you see the sacrifices they make, the determination and
the just the dedication they have. By the end of it,
you're rooting for these guys. I was, and so is
(33:12):
the audience. By the sound of it, they were all
clapping at the end. After the credits rolled, some of
the people who come dressed up in costumes assembled at
the front of the movie theater for the director's q
and a night bug said he needed to use the bathroom.
The questions, happened? Is not back? Ten minutes later, I'm going, oh,
my gosh, is he okay? I'm looking at my watch
(33:32):
and this guy in this costume walks up right to
the front of the theater where the other heroes are,
and he takes his place, and they go, hey, guys,
this is night Book. I went to the back and
I was going looking for just any man to go
into the bathroom and check out my husband. And then
I hear my husband's voice and I go, oh, thank goodness,
and I turned around, but it's not my husband talking.
(33:52):
It's night Bug. I felt like somebody had punched me
in the gut and I speechless. I couldn't believe it.
So that's how I was introduced it. After that, were
you like, oh this is great, or you're like I
don't know about this, or oh my god, and immediately
immediately the same things we're in through my head, Oh
my god, how long has he been doing this? How
did he keep this from me? And I love this?
(34:14):
How can I get into it? Edwena seemed to be
known as rock and Roll was pretty well qualified for
superhero work. We've been martial artists and instructors for decades now,
and I was the head of security for a night
club in San Francisco. It felt like being a bouncer,
but for the entire city of San Francisco. These days,
Nightbug and Rock and Roll are something of a superhero
(34:35):
power couple. They founded the California chapter of the International
superhero group the Initiative in two thousand and eleven. Thirteen
More Initiative chapters have sprung up since. As it happens,
the New York branch of the Initiative is the same
group John Ronson went on patrol with, though a lot
of the membership has turned over since then. From their
(34:56):
base in California, Rock and Roll and Night Bug have
become magnets for a firing superheroes all over the world.
We used to get several emails a month from people
who are like, oh yeah, I can move things with
my mind, you know, Oh yeah, can you demonstrate that?
Oh no, no no, I can't do it over video because no, no, no,
there's always some excuse. I think it's a masterpiece of
(35:17):
an understatement to say that we get a few. We
get like, like, out of ten people, I'd say seven
people are just unrealistic about dudes. We don't go out
taking down drug lords. It's not what we do. You'll
find out really quickly that you don't actually have superpowers.
To make sure their budding recruits stay grounded on this
(35:38):
plane of reality, rock and Roll and night Bug run
a Facebook page were they and other veterans superheroes offer advice.
They even have their own podcast called Heroes one oh one.
The initiative wasn't the only reason I wanted to talk
to rock and Roll. In night Bug, Phoenix Jones repeatedly
claimed to be the only true real life superhero one
(36:01):
who was flawless at crime fighting. But as you know,
I had my doubts. So every time I interviewed a
superhero for this series, I asked them who they thought
was the best example of a real life superhero out
there today, and again and again, people told me rock
and Roll and night Bug. So I was curious to
meet them and find out what they were up to.
(36:22):
It turns out it was a lot. They started out
doing community outreach to unhoused people in their community. Every
week we were going broke. To put it plainly, we'd
make two hundred burritos and you know, every week and
then bring them out with socks and water and everything else,
and and pretty soon what we can't do this anymore.
At the time, Rock and Roll had been watching a
lot of The Great British Baking Show, and so I
(36:45):
was baking so much that my friends were going, you know,
if your family is getting sick of all the sugar
and you can't do anything with it, why don't you
just have a pop up, take the money and do
something good with it. Oh my god, there you go.
That's how the Bake Superhero Desserts was born. Of their
profits go to fund superhero community outreach events. Every month.
(37:07):
We had fifties people the last time, sixty people the
time before, and they all got together wearing superhero costumes
and making burritos and things together. They also carry out
safety patrols, run free self defense classes, and according to
their website, they've personally collected eleven thousand used needles from
the streets of California. When I talked to Rock and
(37:28):
Roll and night Bug about the Seattle superhero scene, they
told me they were close with Evo and Crystal Marks,
and they were big fans of Red Ranger two, but
they were less complimentary about our old friend Phoenix Jones
to be perfectly blunt in Phoenix knows this. We've said
it before to him. Phoenix has a kind heart. But
Phoenix has made a lot of really bad decisions. It's
(37:50):
sad that he's the biggest name you see, but you know,
we don't want people thinking the rest of us are
like him. Rock and Roll and night Bug definitely fall
into the category of superhero that Phoenix derisively calls real
life sandwich handlers, though at times Phoenix has apologized for
these types of remarks and said he wants to be
(38:12):
able to get along and work alongside all types of superheroes,
but then he'll launch into a rant about how people
who give out food in costumes are assholes. So it's
hard to take him in his word when he claims
to be above the petty superhero in fighting. Rock and
Roll and night Bug told me they are interested in
doing this work for glory or fame, another accusation Phoenix
(38:35):
often lobbs at other superheroes. We try to hammer it
into the community. Look, it's awful if you think about it,
to want to be someone's hero, because you're essentially hoping
that someone will have the worst day of their life.
So for you to want to be, oh, I I
want to rescue someone today, just hope that everything's quiet.
(38:56):
And if you happen to be there for someone that's
great for you, you not so great for them. I
think that is probably an ideal attitude that any superhero
should have when they head out on a patrol of
their community. At the end of the day, I would
say that I'm a supporter of the real life superhero community.
(39:17):
I think if you're judging real life superheroes solely on
their ability to fight crime, I would say the movement
as a whole has underdelivered on that promise. But I
personally never had any experiences with the kind of superheroes
John Ronson met, the ones whose hearts did not appear
to be in the right place, So my take is
a little different than his. I don't see the movement
(39:38):
itself is flawed. I think any movement will have its
bad apples, the ones who seem to be doing more
harm than good. But at least in my experience, I
think the vast majority of real life superheroes do way
more good for society than harm. It's hard to quantify
just how much good they do but attempts have been made.
(40:00):
A study at the University of Sydney looked at real
life superheroes and found that, on average, they spent nineteen
hours a week on superhero activity, which I assume is
way more time than most people spend volunteering to help
their own community. And I love the idea of every
town having its own unique superheroes, its own home team,
(40:22):
so to speak, instead of a superhero monoculture dominated by
the large corporations that control the intellectual property of DC
and Marvel. I'm all for the diversification of the superhero universe,
and I wholeheartedly support people's individual expression. Who doesn't love
seeing a kick ass homemade costume. I wish there were
(40:43):
more of real life superheroes and every city for kids
to encounter out in the wild, for the good humanitarian
work they do, and for the sheer joy of having
eccentric characters roaming the streets, living out their own fantasies
of what it means to be a hero. The Superhero
(41:14):
Complex is hosted and written by me David Weinberg and
reported by me Amalia Sortland and Caroline Thornha. Production from
Mamalia Sortland and Caroline Thornham, Sean Glenn, Max O'Brien and
David Waters are executive producers. Fact checking by Andrew Schwartz,
Production management from Sharie Houston, Frankie Taylor and Charlotte Wolf.
(41:37):
Sound design, mixing and scoring by Rob Spate. Music supervision
by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters. Original music is composed
by Paul Housden. Special thanks to Peter Tangan, Willard Foxton,
Matt O'Mara, Katrina Norvelle Beth and Macaluso, Oran Rosenbaum, Shelby
(41:58):
Shankman and all the team e t A. For more
from Novel, visit novel dot Audio
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