7: From the Ashes

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Novel. On April 10th, 2015, Phoenix Jones made a comeback of sorts.
Ladies and gentlemen, this fight is three rounds in a World Series of Fighting. He returned to the Decagon, the ten-sided cage where the mixed martial arts world series of fighting takes place.
In one corner, you had 28-year-old Emmanuel Wallow. In the other corner, you had Phoenix, who decided to fight under his superhero name for the first time in his career.
The vigilante, Phoenix Jones! This was Phoenix's first fight in the prestigious World Series of Fighting. It was a chance for him to rebrand himself after his falling out with his superhero teammates.
It was also a chance for him to get his finances in order. He stood to win $10,000 if he won the fight, and winning would put him on track to get more fights for bigger payouts.
And it seemed like the world was ready to believe in Phoenix Jones again. He was going into this fight undefeated in his professional career.
And in an online poll by the MMA site Topology, 92% of the respondents predicted Phoenix would beat Emmanuel Wallo. Look at this arena.
Double stacked seats. This is where the legacy starts.
This is where the Phoenix rises. For someone like Phoenix, who has an admittedly disastrous personal life, I totally see the appeal of MMA.
There's nothing messy about it. Hand-to-hand fighting is clean and simple.
You can't misinterpret a punch to the face or have a difference of opinion about a roundhouse kick to the groin. It just happens, pure and visceral.
Once you step into the cage, all the noise of your life melts away. The ring is the only true place in the world where no lies matter.
Like nothing you said matters, nothing you claim to have done matters, none of it. Where two people were gonna fight and my machine is better than yours and this is where I live, it's gonna be okay for me.
And even if you win, you have to be spectacular. So you're gonna knock me out and I don't have to deal with it because I'm not gonna be conscious, right? The hard part is losing and having to stand there and watch yourself lose or not completing your goals.
But getting physically hurt, who fucking cares? Like, you can't possibly hate me as much as I hate me sometimes. Phoenix was back where he longed to be, in the spotlight, about to take on his latest opponent.

I'm pretty much known for saving people.

But the one thing that you have to know, when they close the Decagon doors, not even Phoenix Jones can save you.

We are set to go here in Connecticut.

It would be a fight for the ages.

You ready? You ready? Fight!

I'm David Weinberg, and from the teams at Novel and iHeartRadio,

this is The Superhero Complex, he vowed to continue fighting crime. But based on his social media posts, he seemed to be patrolling a lot less than he had with his team beside him.
He only posted two patrol videos for the rest of 2014. In 2015,

he posted five videos in January, one more in November, and then went silent on his official

Phoenix Jones YouTube channel. To this day, he hasn't posted anything there since.
But before

he went dark completely, Phoenix posted a video from another channel, a video that was unlike anything he'd ever put out before. Hey, this is Phoenix Jones.
I'm putting this on my YouTube channel, but it's really for other real-life superheroes. I'm going to be sharing it on my Facebook page.
Phoenix is in street clothes. He has a massive high top haircut, black rimmed glasses, and he's looking directly into the camera.
He seems sincere, acknowledging that maybe he'd made some mistakes in the past. And I realized I harbor a lot of resentment for a whole lot of superheroes in this community for various actions, I mean, different things.
But when it really comes down to it, you guys are the closest I have to anyone who understands what I wanna do. And like inside, I felt this crazy excitement that I wasn't alone, that I was gonna put on the suit and I was gonna make a difference with my family, you know? And as time has progressed, it's really been depressing to think that it's not that way.
And someone has to start the trend. Someone has to eventually give up the pissing match.
And I guess it's going to be me. So I'm sorry.
I'm sorry for anything that I've done that's offended you or any of my actions that have caused you guys discomfort or trouble or pain. It was never really my intention to do that.
I just wanted to be the best. I still feel like I am.
I feel like I am the best. Ah, there it is.
The moment he couldn't stop himself from proclaiming his superiority. But seriously, it must have been incredibly difficult

and humbling for him to post a video like this,

to admit publicly that maybe he did need all those people

who he called clowns and losers by his side.

When you break it down, being a superhero

isn't all about fighting crime or being effective.

So as far as I'm concerned,

I'm dropping all of the negative talk about other superheroes. And before I recorded this, I deleted my entire banned list.
So if you were once banned as a superhero, you are unbanned. I hope we can really just move forward.
It's so funny to say this. If there was none of you, there wouldn't be any of me.
After that, Phoenix offered to bury the hatchet with El Caballero, and he even did the unthinkable. He volunteered to help a different team of superheroes, the Emerald City Heroes Organization, which El Caballero founded, also known by their acronym ECHO.
No more negative stuff. No more garbage.
We're all a team, and I'll see you guys in the streets. Was the self-proclaimed only true real-life superhero suddenly turning over a new leaf? Was he humbled by his loneliness? Was he growing as a person and coming to terms with his own shortcomings? It was certainly looking that way.
Perhaps he used his downtime for self-reflection. I do know that during this time, Phoenix turned back to the one thing he'd always found comfort in when he was growing up.
Martial arts. Martial arts was how I got away from all of the bad stuff in my life.
Martial arts was what saved me. Do you remember your first MMA fight? Yeah, Ken Berringer.
Sometimes in life, you are presented with an opportunity to do something brave or stupid, depending on how you look at it. And for young Ben Fodor in 2006, this was one of those moments.
He says he went to see an MMA fight. He was sitting there in the audience with all the other fans of brutality when it happened.

And they're like, oh sorry, one of the fights bailed.

Got me to joke, anyone from the audience want to fight?

And I was like, I'll do it, you know?

And that was me versus Ken Berenger,

the guy was 35 years old.

Phoenix was only 18,

but even though he already knew he wanted to be a fighter,

he hadn't quite developed the stomach for it.

Before every single cage fight,

I always like projectile vomit

maybe 15 minutes before it's my turn.

Thank you. he wanted to be a fighter, he hadn't quite developed the stomach for it.
Before every single cage fight, I always like projectile vomit, maybe 15 minutes before it's my turn. Every time, like clockwork.
And right as we're warming up to get ready to go, I'm just like, oh! We know what's going to happen, so we just carry a bag with us. But I mean, I have crazy nerves until I don't.
It turned out that Ben Fodor was much better at kicking and punching people than he was at holding down his lunch. He won fight after fight, eventually racking up 11 wins and only one loss in his amateur fighting career.
He says he even teamed up with the MMA trainer Eric Weissman to run a gym. The world of fighting and training was a comforting place to be.
Fighting is easy for me. Fighting has never been a thing that is a hard concept for me to understand.
There's no like, oh no, someone wants to harm me. Like, I feel like people want to harm me all the time.
Fighting grounded Ben, and it solved another big problem in his life. Money.
MMA was a lucrative way to make a living. Fame may have played a big part in the disillusion of the Rain City superheroes, but it also gave Phoenix new opportunities.
In 2015, he signed a big deal with the World Series of Fighting, in large part because of the celebrity status he'd acquired as a costumed crime fighter. In fact, that was how Manny Wallow first heard about Phoenix.
What was your first impression of him? Honestly, man, and don't judge me for saying that, I thought he was a weirdo. At first I got confused, because the contract said Ben Forda, but when I kept putting Ben Forda in, I kept getting Phoenix Jones, I'm like, who is this? I hit up on my trainer, and he said, I think they're the same person.
So that's why I was like, oh, shit, this guy got an alter ego. I loved talking to Manny.
He was gregarious and candid, and he's still fighting. And like Phoenix, he likes to do some good when he's not trying to choke people unconscious and the decagon.
It don't last forever, you know? You got to have what's next for you. So for me, one of my passions was always to serve my community and everything.
So I went on to become a firefighter. Manny is also pragmatic about his opponents.
Fighting is impersonal. It's something I do because I love it.
So if I sign my name, we could fight. Like, me and you fight and we could be friends afterwards.
It's no big deal to me. So he says he was surprised when Phoenix started attacking him on social media in the weeks leading up to their fight.
Before I could even look to see who he was, he was already talking shit on me. Like, you know, so it's like he came looking for me.
I don't hit up opponents or nothing. I just go on YouTube and stuff and find shit.
But he started with the whole making videos and everything about me, and I'm like, okay. When I spoke to Phoenix, he said Manny had challenged him to the fight, and that made it personal, whether he liked it or not.
Apparently, all the smack-talking did get under Emmanuel's skin. In the video of the weigh-in before the fight, it's actually Manny who looks furious.
And so they didn't wait for the fight to get inside the cage. This thing started at the weigh-in as Wallow… He taunts Phoenix, gets right up in his face as if he's about to hit him.
President Ray Seppo having to step in and back the fellas up. They were ready to go down right there.
It's Phoenix who stands there playing it cool. At one point, he holds his hand like it's a mouth, opening and closing it as if to say, yeah, keep talking, buddy.
Everybody, you know, I'm an easygoing guy. You know, I don't talk shit, but he got me out of my character.
Like, so at the weigh-ins, when I finally saw him, I just went off, like, and I'm forgetting, like, this is the weigh-ins, the camera's there, everything. Sometimes the effects of the weight cut plays out at the weigh-ins.
The fight was on. Phoenix Jones, Emmanuel Wallo, we go inside the cage.
Fight! Phoenix came out on the offensive, throwing the first punches and launching himself to Wallo, we go inside the cage. Phoenix came out on the offensive,

throwing the first punches and launching himself to Wallo.

Jones walks right into Wallo.

That's not something you want to do.

No fear.

But it's Wallo who gets the first takedown,

picking Phoenix up and slamming him to the mat on his back.

A beautiful takedown coming from Wallo in the red trunks.

Phoenix Jones so far not having a lot of success.

Phoenix manages to get up, but then immediately gets taken down again.

Beautiful timing, beautiful takedown.

And Manny said he continued to taunt Phoenix in the ring while they were fighting.

I was like, this is not some drunk guys down in Seattle that you're beating up.

Every time I was taking him down, I was like, oh, another one.

Every time I was talking about it, I was like, DJ Khaled. I was like, oh, another one.
I was just mauling him. Pick him up, slam him, pick him up, slam him for 15 minutes.
Coming up on the final 15 seconds of round number one. This one will go to a second round when we return to Connecticut.
By the end of round one, Phoenix doesn't have a single takedown. He looks exhausted, his mouth open as he gasps for air, revealing his mouth guard, which has vampire fangs printed on it.
And then, before Phoenix can even catch his breath. This is round two of Phoenix Jones trying to figure out the puzzle that is Emmanuel Wallo.
The next two rounds don't go much better for Phoenix. He gets taken down again and again.
He spends most of the fight on his back, being dominated by Emmanuel. Phoenix Jones going to the guillotine.
Big uppercut. Phoenix needs an absolute miracle here.
But there is no miracle.

All three judges score 29-28 for your winner by unanimous decision,

Emmanuel Woe!

Phoenix hates losing.

And I'm sure this loss in particular stung.

It was supposed to be his grand comeback.

But Phoenix takes things personally.

And he seems to have burned bridges in the MMA world as well as the superhero world.

We reached out to a lot of people for this story.

And many of them declined to talk to us. But some responded with vague warnings, like Phoenix is a bad person and the attention just makes him worse.
One person who knew Phoenix from the gym told us that we were violating journalistic ethics for even doing a story about him. But Phoenix's MMA career wasn't over after his loss to Manny Wallow, though he did go on to fight an opponent that got a lot of attention.
He went on to go fight his own brother. Like, what kind of crazy shit is that? I don't give a fuck if me and my brother hate each other.
I'm not going to fight him to entertain people I don't know. Like, so there was a lot of demons that he has.
Phoenix's brother, Keros Fodor, is also an MMA fighter. He didn't respond to our requests to speak with him.
But one thing we do know about him, his relationship with Phoenix is tense. I hate my brother, and I hope that he's a terrible person.
Horrible person. Okay.
I want to hurt him physically. I would like to hurt him now physically.
If there was a legal way for me to hurt him, I would do it as we speak. In 2016, Phoenix and his brother agreed to fight in the ring, and it was a media sensation, a real-life violent family feud.
If this sounds weirdly familiar, the same thing happened to superhero Luke Cage, who publicly fought his half-brother and arch-nemesis Willis Stryker. But unlike Luke, a fictional superhero, the outcome was a little different for Phoenix.
Phoenix says Keros instigated the fight behind his back. I'm like, yo, you remember that time that you signed a cage fight behind my back to fight me without telling me because you were my coach? Kicked me out of the fight gym I'd been training at while you had been training me and then talked shit about me on the internet? In the lead up to the fight, Phoenix posted videos trying to talk Keros out of it.
I tried to call you, but you didn't answer your phone, so I figured I had just one last chance. We don't have to do this.
I know you want to do this, and I will do this, but we don't have to. It's your call.
See you in a few hours. Keros told journalists at the time that his brother was only pretending that he had nothing to do with setting up the fight.
Either way, it seemed like Phoenix was enjoying the attention and that it was a good marketing strategy. Kairos is the older brother, Ben the taller brother.
For all his posturing, Phoenix went forward with the fight. He wore his signature American flag shorts with the words, Ben Flattop Fodor.
So here they go. Wow.
Adopted Foster Brothers. The commentators initially refer to Phoenix as Ben.
Ben said he wanted to be called Phoenix Jones tonight. They are the Fodor Brothers, but we will call him Jones in the red, white, and blue trunks.
They both come out swinging, each landing a few quick punches. And then they lock arms, and Phoenix takes a few knees to the face.
Karros gets the first takedown. There he takes that.
He wanted to get it to the ground quickly, and he does, less than a minute into it. From the get-go, it's a struggle for Phoenix.
Phoenix Jones having all kinds of trouble, trying to keep this fight standing up. He's not been able to do it so far.
At the end of the final round, there's no decisive winner. So they go to the judges.
The judges. The judges all score the fight 30 to 26 for your winner by unanimous decision, Keros, the future photo!

In the end, Phoenix was no match for his brother.

When we hung out, I asked him about the fight.

And even still, all these years later, he's not over it. He's like, it's all about good fun and making money.
Yeah, not to me. The most insulting thing you can do to another human is look at them and say, I want to take something you love, like fighting.
I would think I can beat you. I want to sell tickets to my friends and family to come watch me beat you up.
Oh, by the way, we're just kidding. Fuck you.
You're crazy. You are a crazy person.

We're not shake hands.

We're not be friends.

I hate you.

I absolutely hate you.

Phoenix had been defeated again.

But in videos he posted online,

he decided to double down on his MMA career.

I'm going to focus on becoming a well-rounded MMA fighter.

I'm going to take some jiu-jitsu classes,

and I'm going to come back.

I mean, you guys deserve better.

I'm going to give this a good shot. So for the next two years, I'm going to give this MMA thing a real shot, 100% effort.
At least that was the intention. In reality, he only fought twice more, and neither of those fights attracted nearly as much attention as the one with his brother.
After a final loss in 2017, his career ground to a halt, leaving him to question his future. You get out of martial arts and there's nothing left.
There's no more fighting. I have no skills that I think apply to the world I live in.
I was better off 4,000 years ago running a dramatic tribe of warriors. Like, I don't have a place anymore.
The world evolved to where computer people and pushing buttons are more important than physical attributes, and who am I? And then you go, what am I going to do with that?

Phoenix Jones was adrift. He felt like he'd lost his purpose.

Who was he if he wasn't fighting crime on the streets or opponents in the cage?

Meanwhile, back in Seattle, the members of the superhero community,

who had once been inspired by Phoenix, were having to pick up the pieces

and defend the innocent without him. That's coming up.
Transcription by CastingWords We guide you step-by-step, offering everything from legal advice to financial planning, so you can find your way back to solid ground. Start your divorce journey with the support you need at hellodivorce.com, because you deserve a better path forward.
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All right, it is about 1030 p.m. on Thursday, and I am about to roll up on Justin's service and

Thank you. All right, it is about 10.30 p.m.
on Thursday, and I am about to roll up on Justin's service and Red Ranger for my very first ever patrol with real-life superheroes. Here we go.
From the moment I started working on this story, one of the things that excited me the most was the prospect of going out on a crime-fighting patrol with some costumed heroes.

And last year, when I was deep in the world of real-life superheroes, I met up with two Seattle superheroes in a parking garage downtown.

I was greeted at first with a powerful stench of urine.

In a far corner of the garage, I saw two superheroes unloading equipment from the back of a station wagon. Hey, you must be Red Ranger.
David. Hey there, David.
Are you recording video right now? Just audio. Okay.
I might snap some photos. Snap photos of us? Cool.
Not the car, just because secret identities are important to us. Thank you.
Red Ranger was dressed in a black and red outfit, made up of the type of protective gear that hockey players wear. Plastic shoulder and knee pads, and he wore a menacing-looking red mask with black mesh eye holes and carried a big metal shield with a peace sign made of red tape on the front.
Justin Service was clad in green and white gear similar to Red Ranger's, with a bulletproof vest underneath his plastic armor. He wore a pair of goggles that he had accented with neon yellow tape and a gray mask that muffled his voice.
They both had GoPro cameras mounted on their chests. I felt a little underdressed in my street clothes.
I have a sort of practical question. Where do you guys go with me? You guys go to the bathroom? I just have to pee.
We've got the setup. Without going into too much detail.
Make sure our seats are not just flashy, but functional. In the absence of Phoenix Jones, his old teammates had splintered into a few different groups that patrolled together.
Red Ranger was a part of Echo, a group that El Caballero founded and sometimes patrolled with. Justin's service was relatively new to the Seattle superhero scene.
He'd moved to town in 2020. Tonight it was just the two of them on patrol.
They were getting ready by loading supplies onto a cart with wheels that they would tow behind them as we walked the streets. So we will start rolling around Pioneer Square with our supplies, doing our safety watch, and also looking for people who might be in need of some help tonight.
All right, let's roll. And with that, we were on the move.
Two armored do-gooders and an intrepid reporter in search of people in distress. We started out in Pioneer Square, one of the oldest parts of the city, home to a lot of historic buildings, old saloons, red brick streets, and several large homeless encampments.
As we made our way through the streets, nearly everyone who saw us had some kind of reaction. Yo! What's up? Are you guys Transformers? There were double takes and wide eyes, and some people shouted things at us.
What are you guys. Just on patrol.
Giving out supplies to the homeless. And Red Ranger wasn't kidding.
You guys want food, water, socks? Okay, you want some water? Y'all need socks. You want some water, my friend? We also got masks, hands and gloves.
You all need masks? Do you want a mask, ma'am? Oh, you got one. It's beautiful, too.
Yeah, yeah, we got it. Okay, no worries.
We're giving out free stuff tonight, including the beef sticks. Take care now.
The superheroes seemed unfazed by all the attention they got on patrol, and maybe even a little flatter. You guys look like you on a video game for pizza.
No, man. Seattle superheroes, brother.
Oh my gosh. Back in the scene, man.
Along with all the water, food, hand sanitizer, and socks,

the superheroes were also outfitted with some more hardcore supplies.

What's on your belt and all that? What kind of gear do you typically have?

We've got our ballistic gear and self-defense weapons in case anything happens.

We employ de-escalation and non-violent tactics always as a primary intervention. I do like to carry medical supplies on me at all times.
Red Ranger was the more formidable of the duo. He was a big guy.
In his civilian life, he works as a nurse in a hospital. He put these skills to use numerous times on the patrol, giving medical advice and first aid to many of the homeless people we encountered.
I used to do some time in an emergency room. You know, I would see some things there,

like victims of gunshot wounds, things like that. And I would be there trying to help these people.

And when you can't help them and they end up succumbing to their wounds,

I just kind of made this resolve to myself that said, as long as I can prevent this happening, I'm going to do everything I can to prevent it from happening. Red Ranger came onto the scene at the tail end of the Rain City superhero movement, and he went on a few patrols with Phoenix and his team before the group disbanded.
At the time, you know, I was still kind of getting to know all the drama, so I was a little bit farther removed. At at first I saw him as a really good guy.
I didn't really have any problems patrolling with him for a while. We kind of have a rule in the superior community.
You know, you take care of your own house first, right, because you can't pour from an empty cup, right? You still have to take care of your own life. And if your own life needs work, you can't put yourself out there to try and help other people if you can't help yourself.
He kind of got into this space where it was definitely not good for him to be patrolling for a while and I think that's why he took several hiatuses and has been less active recently in the recent years. I got the feeling from patrolling and talking with Justin's service that Red Ranger was very much his mentor.
Justin was younger, also smaller, a skinny guy who was relatively new to Seattle. He was soft-spoken and had a gentleness that I found endearing.
I hate to brag, but I do have the bitter flashlight. You do tonight.
I didn't bring my big one. Justin grew up in a small town in Idaho.
I was just the nerdy kid that would avoid confrontation all the time and got beat up a lot. But courage is something you build on.
He heard about the real-life superhero movement after seeing a documentary on HBO called Superheroes.

They genuinely wanted to help, and they had a creative way to do it, and I was like,

I want to try that out.

So he put together a costume and started patrolling the streets of his small town,

looking for crime to stop.

It was nerve-wracking at first.

I was just a guy in a costume, wandering around in a very conservative area.

And in small-town Idaho, there wasn't a whole lot of crime to fight. It was also a particularly difficult time in his life.
My dad was diagnosed with cancer and getting treatments and stuff at the time. So it was kind of hard and I didn't want to like, I don't know, put any extra on him.

He wasn't exactly the best father, but he was a good guy.

So I alternated between like taking care of him and going out at night.

But he recently passed July 2019.

Justin had also lost his mom.

And without his parents, he struggled to figure out what exactly he was going to do with his life. As he started looking into the real-life superhero movement, he met some of the Seattle superheroes like Red Ranger on Facebook.
And it made the possibility of becoming a hero more real. He decided to move to Seattle and join them.
Red Ranger, Skyman, Spirit Fox, El Caballero, all of them, they welcomed me in and helped me out. Does Seattle feel like a dangerous place to you? I wouldn't call it safe, that's for sure.
As luck would have it, during Justin's service's very first patrol in Seattle with his newfound friends, they happened to run into Phoenix Jones. Well, technically, they ran into Ben Fodor.
He was in street clothes, not on patrol. The first thing he said to me, he was like, hey, new guy, do your job or I'll kill you my fucking self.
I was just kind of taken aback by that. I was like, geez, this guy is supposed to be a superhero.
When I first came out here, my mindset, I'd watched the videos of Phoenix Jones and all that. And I was like stoked.
I was like, oh, this is the guy. Yeah.
And then he says off the wall stuff like that. And I'm like, oh, okay.
That was my first time meeting the famous Phoenix Jones. When I asked Phoenix about this exchange, he admitted to saying it.
He claimed he was only joking, but it didn't seem that way to Justin's service. How can you claim to be a defender of the innocent and be a bully at the same time? After spending time with Justin and hearing his story of losing his parents, I just felt this paternal instinct to protect him.
And knowing that he was inspired to uproot his life and move to Seattle precisely because of Phoenix, only to meet him and have him threaten his life, it really angered me. We got like socks.
We're doing it. We're totally free.
Seattle superheroes. Not cops.
I'm actually a nurse. I will also say that I'm very grateful for Justin's service, because he ended up protecting me on patrol that night.
I had not expected things to go down the way they did. I figured we'd help a few homeless people, and maybe, if we were really lucky, we'd find a bar fight to break up.
Because the vast majority of the time, superhero patrols are pretty uneventful. Even if you patrol every night, the odds of encountering a crime in progress seems insanely low.
But that's also one of the arguments I've heard for these patrols, that the presence of these crazy-looking characters can actually deter crime. I mean, would you snatch a purse from an old lady if a dude in head-to-toe body armor and a metal shield was glaring at you? What I was not prepared for was the profound mental health and addiction crisis that we were wading into.
At one point, we were standing on a street corner handing out food when this guy with a crazed look in his eyes came running at me with a metal pole. Justin's service jumped in between me and the guy.
So we just had a guy threatening other residents of this homeless camp with a pole and Justin's service and I just put ourselves between him and the residents of this camp, and he walked away.

He's coming back, though, so never mind.

That's why we wear the armor.

He ended up stopping short of attacking us,

but he was clearly distressed, rambling incoherently.

So Red Ranger and Justin Service decided to try a different approach. They asked the guy about his weapon.
Is it a flue? What is it? It's a compressed in spots, like… Looks like a flue. Do you want some water or food or anything? We can give you that right now, brother.
I'm sorry, it's just you guys are walking. Oh, yeah, we're going all around the city tonight.
Alright, brother. Be safe with that thing tonight.
It looks cool, but be safe with it, okay? Red Ranger and Justin Service handled the situation extremely well. It was impressive.
In fact, they were so kind and gentle with the man that he decided he wanted to join us. And he walked alongside us for several blocks while Red Ranger deftly tried to get him to go off on his own so we could continue our patrol.
All right, brother, take care. Well, can I roll with you and see if I can learn some shit? It's all right, man.
We're going to be moving all around. Howdy, folks.
Do you guys need me to do the water? There were other encounters that still haunt me. One woman came up to Red Ranger when she heard him say that he was a nurse.
Are you a registered nurse? Yes, I am. She showed him her arm, which was covered in horribly infected sores from using intravenous drugs.
Even Red Ranger seemed a little alarmed. That's a serious infection, and you need some antibiotics for that.
Make sure you get to a hospital as soon as possible, okay? Yes. Can you walk there? Can you get there? Are you hurting right now? No, I'm okay.
I put my medicine in my needles, so... All right, dear.
I have to shoot up, but it's good. I understand that, but you've got to be safe with that, okay? Make sure we get clean needles, and go see a hospital as soon as you can.
Maybe I was just paranoid, but we came across so many people who were clearly struggling with mental health issues. I was worried they would see the superheroes in their armor and think they were a threat, and they would attack us.
But no one did. Instead, they accepted our socks and food and were grateful.
Red Ranger administered first aid to several people who seemed to be in really bad shape. It was pretty remarkable to see the superheroes in action, and it was an experience that has stayed with me, especially after hearing the way Phoenix talked, specifically about Justin Service and the other members of the superhero community who were drawn to the humanitarian aspect of this work.
Seeing Red Ranger and Justin Service changed my opinion of the real-life superheroes. Before going on patrol, I was a lot more skeptical of the good that these superheroes were doing.
But I came away from my patrol with a lot more respect for them. I did wonder, though, how it affected them to wade into so much pain and suffering as often as they do.
What is, like, your regular day-to-day life like when you're not fighting crime? I won't go into too much detail, but I am currently homeless myself and trying to work towards housing and all that. So fighting crime on top of all that is a little tricky, but I try and make it work even when I'm not in the mask and everything I'm I have a an app called citizen yeah and so I use that a lot to find incidences near me and and I'll rush right to it armor or not just to make sure everybody's safe and if there is anything I can do to help I'm I'm there you.
Yeah, it's pretty amazing that you do all this work and you're also struggling to find housing yourself. What is that like? I suppose it's just a matter of I've experienced a lot of loss myself with my parents and being homeless and stuff.
I just understand what it is to be struggling and if I can help another person not struggle as much that helps my life you know. So yes I'm homeless and I'm working towards finding housing, but I have ways to feed myself.

I have ways to work with housing navigators and stuff like that.

So I want to help the people who don't have those resources.

It's kind of the same with the armor.

If I'm the one with the armor, I want to take the damage, not the person who doesn't have the armor.

I'm just in service. I'm here only to serve, not to receive.
I was shocked to learn that just in service was homeless. I think if anyone deserves to be called a real-life superhero, I'd like to nominate him, a guy who's struggling to find housing and spends what little money he has buying food and socks for other homeless people.
And learning that he was homeless made me more angry at the way Phoenix talked about people like Justin. The way he labeled them with his trademark insult.
Real life sandwich handlers. PJ said that a long time ago.
And it's like, you know, from my perspective of being homeless and all that, I wish that there were superheroes handing sandwiches on the times I was on the street and all that. I'm in a shelter now.
But yeah, it's just crazy to think that helping someone is bad or ineffective in some way. Like, that's what heroes do.

We help people.

It's not always comic book action and fighting kaijus in the street.

It's helping people, first and foremost.

Thank you for coming out here with us, David.

Oh, thanks for letting me tag along.

I hope I wasn't in the way at all.

No, no.

It was time to bid farewell to my new superhero friends. It was the early hours of the morning.
I was exhausted, physically and emotionally. I got into my rental car and shut the door.
For the first time that night, all the noise of the city went quiet. I sat there for a good while, feeling heavy with sadness,

after seeing so many people suffering.

It was impressive to see the superheroes

dedicate themselves to helping.

But the scale of the problem felt overwhelming,

and the need for housing and supportive services

far greater

than anything the superheroes could provide.

Eventually, I started my car and headed back to my hotel.

Meanwhile, all was not well with the city's most famous masked adventurer.

Phoenix Jones was about to find himself in a mess he couldn't talk his way out of. That's coming up.
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Intrant must follow AMDA on Instagram. In the years after Phoenix's departure from the Rain City superheroes, his old teammates kept an eye on their old leader from a distance.
And they noticed a pattern start to emerge. Phoenix would disappear for a while.
Then suddenly, he would be back out on the streets patrolling. He always makes a comeback every six months or so when he's ready to up his MMA career.
This is Crystal Marks. He does a patrol, invites media along, and then all of a sudden he's like, oh yeah, and I have a fight at Key Arena or wherever, Showwear Center in Kent.
I'm like, oh, okay, that's why you're doing it. You're no longer doing it because you care.
I think you still do, but it's because you want to promote your fight. The Rain City superheroes had moved on with their own lives.
But watching from afar, they were getting indications that things in Phoenix's life were not going well. Here's Evocatus.
I still remember the day I got a phone call asking, you know, can I speak to Benjamin Fodor? I'm like, may I ask what this is in regards to without saying yes or no? and basically there had been some altercation or crime or something, and he had put my contact information on the police report for whatever crime or whatever it was he got stopped for. I don't know what it was he did.
She wouldn't disclose that. But used my name, my phone number, and I explained that to the attorney that had called me.
I'm like, no, this is, I used to be on his team. I don't know why he would do that.
No, I live in a completely different city. And she's like, yeah, you don't sound anything like him.
I'm like, yeah, I'm, thank you. I'm aware I don't sound anything like him.
She apologized and thanked me for my time. And that was that.
Evo wasn't the only one. Almost everyone on the team at some point had been contacted by either the Seattle Police Department or someone within the King County court system asking for Phoenix Jones.
Evo told me he and the other superheroes were still getting calls from the police in 2018, years after the Rain City superheroes had disbanded. Phoenix's former teammates had some theories about what might be at the root of Phoenix's unusual behavior and all of the run-ins he seemed to be having with the cops.
He pawned a bunch of team equipment for drugs. Here's Midnight Jack.
Phoenix Jones is a sociopath, is what I think. The only thing Ben cares about is Ben.
That's why he has no friends. All his friends have left him.

He just kind of got beaten down, started using.

The man's just not in a good place, is what it is.

This wasn't the first time there had been speculation

that Phoenix might have a drug problem.

Many of his former comrades told me they'd had suspicions for years,

even back when the Rain City superheroes were still together.

His proximity to drugs seemed to kind of increase with frequency. He'd keep going to more and more of these parties where he would be, air quotes, accidentally slipped something.
Lord knows what it could be that made him feel very woozy or stuff. He was kind of gauging the water to see how people would react to him actually taking some kind of drugs.
Evo said that Phoenix also repeatedly made excuses to be around drugs when it came to his crime fighting. Once a fellow team member said, hey, did you see his Twitter? I'm like, no.
I said, no, no, no, his other Twitter. And he showed me a new profile he had made talking about going undercover.
He would dress up in just regular civilian clothes and try to do drug busts and things like that. But, you know, he had to get real close to them first.
And it's like he had watched a couple episodes of Breaking Bad and, you know, got a couple light bulb moments there. But Evo said the stories Phoenix told didn't add up.
The other superheroes had heard conflicting versions from Phoenix. He was trying to take down this crack dealer.
And this other person, no, he's trying to take down this weed dealer. No, he's trying to take down this meth dealer.
And, you know, I had to earn their trust before they let me in. So I had to, you know, deal some stuff from time to time.
time to time. But that was just for the mission, right?

And it would change so many times.

I just kind of like, okay, well, there's a problem here.

I am not qualified to address this.

I don't even know what to do.

I'm just here to patrol, man.

And I would just keep on with it.

Evo said things got so bad that at one point,

one of Phoenix's close friends,

someone from outside the superhero world, called him up, worried about Phoenix's relationship with drugs. She had lost somebody to drug overdose who had had very similar tendencies.
Like, oh yeah, I was just hanging out with some friends and somebody put something in my drink and I had no idea what it was. And it bothered her so much that she couldn't talk to him anymore.
Evo told me another story from back in their patrolling days when Phoenix had been acting really strange. He just seemed like a non-responsive zombie, just kind of walking but not talking to anybody.
There were rumors of some kind of potential substance being in the system. We had two medics on our team at the time, and one of them could recognize immediately that there was something off, and made some kind of sideways joke about, yeah, he would set fire to a urinalysis test right now.
If we were to test for drugs or something like that and get a urine sample, he said, yeah, that would probably combust. Now, mind you, that's rumor mill, and, you know, I'm certainly no doctor, but the shoe would fit, and I don't think anyone would be surprised.
Evo wasn't happy with the potential risk of patrolling with someone whose judgment might be impaired by narcotics. So he followed up.
Right before the team had actually disbanded, I had purchased several urinalysis tests, drug tests. It's basically urinate on a little strip.
It detects like seven or nine different types of controlled substances and see if, you know, if the color shows up, that means you have something in your system, that kind of a thing. And I bought all those and I intended to bring that and kind of spring it as a surprise on everyone on a patrol due to some of these rumors and such like that.
But Phoenix had disbanded the team just before it had happened. So no one ever knew, and I suspect that someone may have leaked that to Phoenix or had mentioned that, hey, just so you know, there's going to be what we call a whiz quiz coming up soon.
So I can't verify whether or not he knew in advance or just he was having a temper tantrum and decided to take his ball and go home.

There was enough rumor mill to substantiate me actually getting drug tests for the entire team ready. El Caballero was concerned too.
I mean, it was something he had actually talked about quite a number of times. Like, I've never done drugs.
Like, I can't believe people do that. In fact, that was his coming-of-age superhero story,

is that someone high on drugs broke his window and his kid almost got cut with the glass coming in in the morning because a junkie or something broke his car window to steal his stuff and now he's doing these kind of party drugs it it's frustrating because, you know, you love someone,

and you care about them, and you want them to do the best,

and then they do other things.

I mean, you're a parent, you know, you want the best for them,

but at the same time, they're going to do what they're going to do.

I also had an encounter that made me believe that Phoenix may have been involved with drugs over the years.

One night when I was out interviewing strangers on the street about Phoenix,

a guy told me that he had a ton of dirt on Phoenix. He said that Phoenix was not a good guy and he had a lot of inside information on his dealings with drugs.
This was around three in the morning and the guy said he was heading home to crash, but he gave me his phone number and said he was willing to do an interview with me. But when I texted him to set up the interview, he said, quote, I don't really like the guy.
I don't know how I feel about trashing his name in an interview. I'd feel weird doing that to anybody.
I told him he could be anonymous or even off the record, but he never responded to any of my texts after that. But the whole exchange made me believe there was something more to Phoenix's relationship to drugs than he was willing to admit to me.
I was Facebook messaging with Bennett Jack, and I said something about how I committed up with you, and he was like, oh, he was probably on cocaine. And I was like, okay, is that a thing? Did you have a cocaine problem that I didn't know about? That's hilarious.
I'll never know. Because when I met Midnight Jack, he was a drug addict, and that's why he started patrolling.
So his comments on me doing drugs is really weird. If I ever did do drugs, I would never i would never do them with midnight jack like i'm not talking about drugs in any direct fashion but what because i'm not going to but what i'm saying is like even if i had a problem where i peanut butter every single day i wouldn't eat peanut butter before an interview because it makes your mouth sound like well no one's saying you know but he is but that's what he's saying right he's like but think about what he said right he's like he was probably on this for the interview right that's what he's saying and not only that i've been on usada do you know usada is the united states anti-doping administration i've been a member of usada since i was 16 years old the anti-doping administration for the fucking olympics yeah i'm a world-class athlete and you think that i'm showing up on fucking cocaine but just you saying it is so fucking stupid to me.
You know? Yeah. 17 years.
I've never failed a drug test in 17 years. They're randomly done.
But I know from 2016 to 2019, I was actively being tested for USADA, right? Which is once a month testing and then a random one every three months, right? That leaves me eight days in every month that if I timed doing drugs perfectly, I could do them, I guess, and be high for, I guess, two days. So there's 60 days in the last five years that I could have actively done drugs and not gotten caught.
And you're telling me that those days are the days that I, one, scheduling an interview, probably will sign on cocaine and two I have my life regimented enough when I can't even show up on time to patrols that I care about because I'm terribly late at everything and you think I've scheduled my life to the point that these random 60 days I could do all of these fucking drugs yeah during my super care career I was arrested 119 times every time you get arrested they take you to jail and you pee you have to because what if you're on drugs and you go in there you start having like a comedown right yeah only one person on our team has ever failed a pee test and it fucking wasn't me so if we're gonna accuse people of things somebody's on record has actually i've done that on record while you were supering with us but i mean if y'all want to come at me there's records of you doing that while you were supering with us. But I mean, if y'all wanna come at me,

there's records of you doing that

while we were fighting crime.

If I wrote a book about the fucking shit

these assholes did, I mean, Jesus Christ.

I think we're definitely on par with each other

for being assholes.

Congratulations, we're the biggest crew of assholes.

Good job.

But none of that has anything to do

with chasing a gunman or stopping a crime.

It's like everyone has such a short memory.

Like, I remember everything that I did.

And I wish you guys would just bring up one of the things I actually did wrong.

I wish they would, too, because I could talk to you about it, but you won't tell me.

No, why would I ever do that?

I get it.

I get it.

I mean, no, I don't.

I'm not.

No shade against you.

I wouldn't do it either.

I wouldn't be, like, volunteering all the terrible things I'd done to other people. Right.
But there are some. But it is ironic that they're talking all no shade against you.
I wouldn't do it either. I wouldn't be like volunteering all the terrible things I've done to other people.

Right.

But there are some.

But it is ironic that they're talking all this shit about you.

But then it's like, well, tell me the real things that he did so we can talk about it.

But instead, and I see your point.

Like, I would agree that it seems highly unlikely that you've ever had a drug problem.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

I'm just so frustrated.

Just fucking irritated. I'm just fucking furious.
I just want to beat the fuck out of those guys, which I would not do because it's illegal. But if I could, I would.
I tried to lighten the mood, but Phoenix didn't take the bait. Have you ever thought about doing like a charity fight against Midnight Jack or something like that? There's a lion ever thought about doing a charity fight with a mouse.

Midnight Jack or something like that. There's a lion I ever thought about doing a charity fight with a mouse.
Midnight Jack has 12 to 20 crime stops. None of them are without me and none of them are hands-on stops.
Never been in a fight his entire life. I fought all over the fucking world as a professional fighter.
And I'm going to take out my petty personal grievances by going out and punching these guys in the face. In the moment, I was skeptical that Phoenix had a drug problem.

He's very convincing when he's talking to you directly.

And he was a professional athlete for a long time.

But I wasn't able to verify his claims about his USADA testing,

as he isn't listed in their public databases.

Now that I'm no longer in the room with him, I don't know what to think.

Because there's also the elephant in the room.

The moment where this whole series began. One day in 2020, Evo was at home with his family when the news dropped.
I remember helping my little girl with some homework when I got messages from a former team member who said, get a load of this.

The crime-fighting persona of Phoenix Jones

has taken an interesting twist.

Jones, an MMA fighter whose real name is Benjamin Fodor,

is in some very real legal trouble.

Ever since Phoenix put on his super suit

and took to the streets,

he's claimed that the police have been out to get him.

He said they arrested him 118 times, and each time he went free. But they had finally succeeded in nailing him.
And this time, the charges would stick. Yeah, that was pretty hilarious.
Not surprising, but just like, wow, he actually got caught. What do you know? Phoenix had made many transformations in his life, from bullied orphan to champion bowler, cocky breakdancer, and then champion MMA fighter.
And now he'd gone from real-life superhero to convicted drug dealer. So how does the great Phoenix Jones react when he's the one in the jail cell? Next

time, Seattle's perfect crime fighter gets well and truly busted.

The Superhero Complex is hosted and written by me, David Weinberg, and reported by me, Amalia Sortland, and Caroline Thorne. Production from Amalia Sortland and Caroline Thorne.
Sean Glenn, Max O'Brien, and David Waters are executive producers. Fact-checking by Andrew Schwartz.
Production management from Cherie Houston, Frankie Taylor, and Charlotte Wolfe. Sound.
Thank you. by Paul Hausden.
Special thanks to Peter Tangen,

Willard Foxton, Matt O'Mara,

Katrina Norvell, Beth Ann Macaluso,

Oren Rosenbaum, Shelby Schenkman,

and all the team at UTA.

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