2: A Phoenix Rises

Speaker 1 This is an iHeart podcast.

Speaker 2 Then the space hamster flew his hot air balloon all the way to the bottom of the ocean.

Speaker 1 Where did that story come from?

Speaker 3 Book?

Speaker 4 Dream?

Speaker 1 Nope, it came from a conversation.

Speaker 6 Meet Miko Mini Plus, the AI companion that co-creates personalized story adventures with your child in real time.

Speaker 2 What color was the hamster's cape? And what did he pack for lunch?

Speaker 1 Unlock your child's imagination.

Speaker 6 imagination. Discover Miko Mini Plus and the magic of AI exclusively at Costco.

Speaker 9 Are your AI agents helping users or just creating more work?

Speaker 10 If you can't compare your users' workflows before and after adding AI, how do you know it's even paying off?

Speaker 14 Pendo Agent Analytics is the first tool to connect agent prompts and conversations to downstream outcomes like time saved so you know what's working and what to fix.

Speaker 11 Start improving agent performance at pendo.io slash podcast.

Speaker 17 That's pendo.io slash podcast.

Speaker 18 Black Friday savings are here at the Home Depot, which means it's time to add new cordless power to your collection.

Speaker 18 Right now, when you buy a select battery kit from one of our top brands like Ryobi or Milwaukee, you'll get a select tool from that same brand for free.

Speaker 18 Click into one of our best deals of the season and stock up on tools for all your upcoming projects. Get Black Friday Savings happening now at the Home Depot.

Speaker 18 Limit one per transaction, exclusion supply, full eligible tool list in-store and online.

Speaker 20 This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. Get ready for your next TV obsession, All's Fair.

Speaker 20 Starring Kim Kardashian, Naomi Watts, Nisi Nash-Betts, Tayana Taylor, with Sarah Poulson, and Glenn Close, a team of fierce female divorce attorneys leave a male-dominated firm to start their own.

Speaker 20 Filled with scandalous secrets and shifting allegiances both in the courtroom and within their own ranks. These ladies know that lawyers are a girl's best friend.

Speaker 20 Don't miss All's Fair, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers.

Speaker 19 Terms apply.

Speaker 21 Amazon has everything for everyone on your list. Like your dehydrated friend who treats water like it's an optional life feature.

Speaker 21 Get her a fancy water bottle and save big with Amazon early holiday deals. Maybe grab some chapstick, too.

Speaker 3 Novel

Speaker 5 In August 2021, I flew into Seattle to finally meet the infamous Phoenix Jones.

Speaker 5 We'd been texting back and forth and he'd agreed to meet, so I booked a hotel for a few days. On August 21st, he texted me saying he was free later that day.

Speaker 5 So I asked when was good for him, but he didn't respond. In fact, he didn't respond to any of my texts that day or the next or the next.

Speaker 5 While I was hanging around waiting for Phoenix to get back to me, I interviewed a few other Seattle superheroes and former members of his crime-fighting team, the Rain City superheroes, including one guy who'd known Phoenix since high school.

Speaker 5 And they all told me variations of pretty much the same story.

Speaker 14 You can't trust anything that comes out of the guy's mouth.

Speaker 22 He was charging people money per month for medical insurance that the teams never saw.

Speaker 24 He's got a drug problem, a gambling problem.

Speaker 9 He's been disgraced from everyone else who's ever been on the team.

Speaker 5 He's a narcissist, sociopath.

Speaker 25 He's just not a, he's not a good dude.

Speaker 5 If just one of Phoenix's former teammates had been disgruntled, I think I would have been reluctant to judge him based on their falling out.

Speaker 5 But everyone I talked to had a similar story, which made it hard to dismiss their assessment of his character.

Speaker 5 But I wanted to hear Phoenix's side of the story before I drew my own conclusions about him.

Speaker 5 Eventually, I had to go back home. I didn't hear back from Phoenix until a full month later.
When he did surface, he texted to say that a good friend of his had just died of COVID.

Speaker 5 He had started a new job as a line cook, and his life was really crazy.

Speaker 5 He said, I'm really sorry for being more flaky than I usually am.

Speaker 5 Phoenix said we could meet up, so in October of 2021, I boarded another flight to Seattle for a second attempt to hang out with him.

Speaker 5 When I landed the day before I was due to interview him, I was amped up, nervous, and excited. I also had a cold, so I decided to take some Nyquil and crash early at my hotel.

Speaker 5 I took twice the recommended dosage because, you know, why not?

Speaker 5 And then I got into bed and started to drift off to sleep.

Speaker 5 A little after 10 p.m., my phone rang. It was Phoenix.
I answered.

Speaker 5 It was the first time we'd ever spoken.

Speaker 5 He told me that he had some friends over at his place, and he wanted me to come over and hang out so we could build some rapport before our interview the next day.

Speaker 5 I said, of course, I could head straight there. He told me he would text me his address, and he hung up.

Speaker 5 I got out of bed and started getting dressed, but all my movements felt sluggish. This was not how I'd hoped to meet Phoenix, high on NyQuil.

Speaker 5 But when the bat signal goes up, you put on your super suit and you rise to the occasion.

Speaker 5 As I was getting dressed, he called me again. He said he didn't feel safe texting me his address, so he would come pick me up at my hotel.
I said that was fine and hung up.

Speaker 5 But it didn't make any sense. Unless he was going to blindfold me when I got in the car, I was going to know where he lived.
It all felt very strange and dreamy.

Speaker 5 He told me to meet him out in front of the hotel at 11.35 p.m.

Speaker 5 It was cold and drizzly, so I bundled up and stood out on the street corner waiting.

Speaker 5 And then, at 11.39 p.m., I got a text from Phoenix that said, Hey, I hate to be super flaky here. I'm having an issue over at my place and need to rain check.

Speaker 5 One of my friends needs a ride home and has been drinking, so I'll come at 10.40 tomorrow so we can talk, if that's okay. I replied, sounds good.

Speaker 5 What I wanted to say was, are you fucking with me?

Speaker 5 Was this some kind of trap?

Speaker 5 I looked around to see if maybe he was sitting in a car, like a detective on a stakeout, trying to size me up or something.

Speaker 5 I really felt like he was playing some sort of mind game with me.

Speaker 5 Had his old superhero crew been right about Phoenix?

Speaker 5 I'm David Weinberg, and from the teams at Novel and iHeartRadio, this is the Superhero Complex, Episode 2 of Phoenix Rises.

Speaker 5 I was really happy to be back in Seattle. I used to live here in 2007 at the Panama Hotel in the International District.

Speaker 5 I rented a room by the week and worked at two restaurants as a dishwasher in Capitol Hill and a bus boy in Belltown. I left years ago, but walking the streets, everything felt familiar.

Speaker 5 My favorite restaurant, Ton V, was still there.

Speaker 5 I went back to get my go-to favorite, a plate of grilled meats and vegetables and herbs served with rice paper sheets and a bowl of hot water to soften the paper and make your own rolls.

Speaker 5 The name of the dish had changed, but it was even better than I remembered.

Speaker 5 I walked the same route I used to take to work, from the ID through Pioneer Square with its old saloons and red brick walkways, and then up First Avenue. It mostly felt the same.

Speaker 5 There were a few new restaurants I didn't recognize.

Speaker 5 The Lusty Lady, a peep show venue where you sat in a booth and put quarters into a slot to look through a pane of glass at new dancers had closed down.

Speaker 5 From there, I walked along the avenue past the iconic Pike Place Market where the fishmongers were packing up for the day.

Speaker 5 I made my way into Belltown to Black Bottle, a wine and Toppas restaurant where I worked as a bus boy.

Speaker 5 The walk took me through the same neighborhoods where Phoenix and his crew did almost all of their patrols. I stopped at Black Bottle and had a drink for old time's sake.

Speaker 5 Back when I worked there, I was friends with a few of the homeless people who hung out in the neighborhood. I took guitar lessons from one of them, a crack addict named Hans, who was really smart.

Speaker 5 Occasionally, he would flip out at me and yell a bunch of crazy stuff, but I was never scared of him, or of any of the other unhoused people who hung around Belltown.

Speaker 5 But today things feel a lot different. The number of people living on the streets feels substantially higher than when I lived there.

Speaker 5 In 2007, it seemed like there were a few homeless people here and there, but today there are several tent cities with dozens of tents all over downtown.

Speaker 5 After I finished my walk walk down memory lane, I wanted to see what my former neighbors in downtown Seattle had to say about Phoenix Jones.

Speaker 23 Can I ask you guys a question for a radio story?

Speaker 5 It wasn't hard to find people who'd had interactions with him. People like these kids I met outside of a rave.

Speaker 27 Yeah, I've seen him like a lot. A lot like bothering drunk kids on the sidewalk, stuff like that.

Speaker 5 What do you think about him?

Speaker 27 Uh, I thought he was cool at first.

Speaker 27 And then I just thought he was annoying because he wasn't actually like really helping anybody. He was just being annoying.

Speaker 27 Like he would literally find kids that were too drunk and passed out or claim that people who are about to leave were drinking and driving even if they weren't.

Speaker 27 He would just find anything he thought you were breaking the law about and harass you. He was just a jerk.

Speaker 5 They told me he ended up being the real life equivalent of a quote from the Batman movie. You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

Speaker 5 Another guy I met worked at a restaurant downtown

Speaker 5 and had a a few encounters with Phoenix.

Speaker 3 One time I saw him,

Speaker 3 what was it, on the waterfront, and he was talking mad. He was talking mad shit to me and my friends.
And it was funny because, like, we work down there, right?

Speaker 5 What are you doing that made him want to talk shit to you? The guy told me that he used to hang out with some friends in a parking lot in Belltown when they got off work.

Speaker 3 Smoking weed, kicking it, you know, all that dumb shit.

Speaker 5 One day, he was there smoking with his friends, and Phoenix showed up.

Speaker 3 Him and his crew are like just staring at us like they're gonna, like, he's gonna do something.

Speaker 3 And we're smoking weed.

Speaker 3 And we're in fucking Belltown, you know, but we're in fucking downtown in Belltown. It was hilarious.
It's like, dude. And I read comic books.
I'm not gonna nerd out right now, but it's just funny how

Speaker 3 there's plenty

Speaker 3 of superhero work, plenty of people to save.

Speaker 3 Plenty of criminals to catch.

Speaker 3 And this motherfucker's looking at me smoking weed right now.

Speaker 5 All of these stories made me wary of Phoenix. And I was upset because the only reason Phoenix had agreed to do an interview with me was because we were paying him several thousand dollars.

Speaker 5 I've been a journalist for 15 years and I've never paid a source for an interview. It's generally considered unethical.
And I understand all the arguments against it.

Speaker 5 But I'm also aware that as a journalist, I have the power to shape how the world sees Phoenix. And he will have to live the rest of his life with the consequences of how I portray him.

Speaker 5 Meanwhile, I not only get to walk away from the story when I'm done, I get paid. Lots of people get paid to make this story.

Speaker 5 That imbalance of power doesn't always feel fair to me, and I see a valid argument for paying people for their time.

Speaker 5 The issue I had with Phoenix was that after hearing all these stories from his former teammates and from people around Seattle, I felt uneasy about rewarding him.

Speaker 5 But I also felt that Phoenix deserved to tell his side of the story. And the only way that was going to happen was for me to hand him an envelope full of cash.

Speaker 5 Phoenix was late, but he did show up to my hotel that morning. He was wearing glasses and a blue plaid button-down shirt.

Speaker 5 and black pants with a tactical belt that had a larger than normal canister of pepper spray along with a few other gadgets.

Speaker 5 This was deep into the COVID pandemic, and he had a mask with him, but it was made of hard plastic. It had an American flag and an eagle printed on it.

Speaker 5 I remember thinking that he looked nerdier than I was expecting.

Speaker 5 I greeted him outside the hotel and then walked him to my room, a pretty standard chain hotel room with a window looking out into the courtyard.

Speaker 5 I rearranged the furniture and set up a makeshift recording studio with a small table and a couple of mics.

Speaker 5 Phoenix actually kicked off the interview by asking me a question. He wanted to know what other superheroes I had talked to.

Speaker 28 I've talked to Red Ranger.

Speaker 3 Okay, cool. Justin Service.
Yep.

Speaker 5 Crystal Marks.

Speaker 3 She's a clown.

Speaker 28 Ghost, Midnight Jack.

Speaker 3 Okay. You talked to Ghost, Midnight Jack? Yeah.
Nice. And

Speaker 28 El Cabiller.

Speaker 3 Okay, that's everyone. Yeah, I was going to say that you probably only talked to clowns, but the list you actually gave is pretty solid.

Speaker 3 I mean, Justin Service is like, meh, but Red Ranger, for example, right? Like, he actually puts himself in the middle of scenarios and situations.

Speaker 3 He's not trained, and he's not like a skilled fighter in any way, shape, or form, but just being there is effective. Ghost, I've known him since high school.

Speaker 3 One of the best crime fighters that sidekicked you could have. Even if we don't like each other, effectiveness, effectiveness.
I don't really care. Like, he's fucking great at his job.

Speaker 3 So whether he likes me or not, he can go fuck himself.

Speaker 5 Having critiqued the rest of Seattle's caped crusaders, Phoenix wanted me to know that he was the only true crime fighter among them.

Speaker 3 I have 315 stops. 315.
What does that mean? Because you really want to stop. Yeah, I have 315 crime stops, like where a cop has showed up, arrested that person, and taken them to jail for the crime.

Speaker 3 I have. I have 315, right?

Speaker 3 No one else has even 100.

Speaker 5 And some of those claimed 315 stops were pretty extraordinary.

Speaker 3 I stopped a sex trafficking ring. I technically stopped a homeland act of terror.
I've been in 17 knife fights and I've been stabbed twice.

Speaker 3 And the guy got shot and I had to end up stepping on his arm to stop the arterial bleed.

Speaker 5 Over the course of the interview, Phoenix made a point to explain that he is not a normal person. What might cause you or I to run away in terror, he handles like a trained warrior.

Speaker 5 Like this one time on one of his early patrols where a guy pulled a knife on him.

Speaker 3 The first guy who ever stabbed me on the street, I was like, hey, that was a good one. You win today.
I caught him next time, beat the crap out of him.

Speaker 3 Like, you're not going to hurt me in any kind of physical way to cause me damage. I find it comical.

Speaker 5 And don't even think about pulling a gun on him.

Speaker 3 This guy tried to kill me. He pulled a gun and tried to chase me around the car, and I took him down, obviously.
I mean, you have a gun at close range. I'll win every time.

Speaker 5 And then there was the time he was scouted by the federal government.

Speaker 3 The FBI basically wanted to like make a list of all superheroes and kind of their activities and what they do. And I agreed to some things with the government.

Speaker 3 the government agreed to some things with me, and we went our separate way.

Speaker 5 Do you still have a relationship with the federal government?

Speaker 3 Yeah, of course. Yeah.

Speaker 5 This was one fact I was not able to verify. But in the moment, as Phoenix rattled off story after story of his crime-fighting exploits, I started to believe him.

Speaker 5 I think part of it is his charisma, which is undeniable.

Speaker 5 And when he started talking about the intricacies of the law, and the justice system, and law enforcement, I realized he's one of the most intelligent people I've ever met.

Speaker 5 And I kind of fell under a spell.

Speaker 5 At one point in the interview, Phoenix even turned me into one of his martial arts students.

Speaker 3 Check this move out. This is, so you make it make a fight stance, you got football, right? So now, see, you can touch me, and I can touch you, right? That's called 50-50.

Speaker 3 If I'm here, right, and I take a half step this way,

Speaker 3 now your hands don't reach anymore. It's about the circumference and radius of a circle.

Speaker 5 One thing that is undeniably true about Phoenix is that he was a professional mixed martial artist and a damn good one. In his 28 fights, he only lost five matches.

Speaker 5 But there were other parts of his story I had my doubts about. So after our interview, I set out to verify some of his claims, starting with his origin story,

Speaker 5 which, perhaps unsurprisingly, sounds like it's been ripped straight from the pages of a comic book. That's coming up after the break.

Speaker 29 Shh, you won't believe what my new friend just told me about dinosaurs.

Speaker 1 Is your child having conversations you never imagined?

Speaker 31 Are they learning without realizing it?

Speaker 30 It's not a tablet.

Speaker 4 It's not a toy.

Speaker 6 It's Miko Mini Plus, the AI-powered companion that turns curiosity into endless learning.

Speaker 1 Hear the future of playtime.

Speaker 6 Meet the extraordinary Miko Mini Plus. Only at Costco.

Speaker 9 Are your AI agents helping users or just creating more work?

Speaker 10 If you can't compare your users' workflows before and after adding AI, how do you know it's even paying off?

Speaker 14 Pendo Agent Analytics is the first tool to connect agent prompts and conversations to downstream outcomes like time saved, so you know what's working and what to fix.

Speaker 11 Start improving agent performance at pendo.io/slash podcast.

Speaker 17 That's pendo.io/slash podcast.

Speaker 32 From SC, launched a legacy.com. Today we're speaking with Dr.
Robert Engelhorn, CEO and President of BMW Manufacturing. And today's topic is location.

Speaker 32 BMW South Carolina produces more BMWs than anywhere else in the world and has just doubled down on their South Carolina investment. So Dr.
Ingelhorn, first question: why South Carolina?

Speaker 28 South Carolina is a great place to be. Not only the sun, which is shining most of the time here, I like the food, I like the atmosphere and the friendliness.

Speaker 28 It's about really the pro-business attitude. Again, a very talented and skilled workhorse going the extra mile.
It's a fantastic place to be.

Speaker 32 You mentioned South Carolina's pro-business government.

Speaker 28 Tell me more about that. Since the beginning, the Department of Commerce is one of our closest partners here in South Carolina.
They're doing a fantastic job.

Speaker 28 And the last 30 years, there have been a tremendous momentum of growth.

Speaker 28 Now, looking towards our future investments of 1.7 billion US dollars for electric vehicles here, and this wouldn't have been possible without them.

Speaker 32 If you'd like to hear more, visit sclaunchthelegacy.com.

Speaker 33 Life gets messy.

Speaker 24 Spills, stains, and kid chaos.

Speaker 33 But with Anibay, cleaning up is easy.

Speaker 34 Our sofas are fully machine washable, inside and out, so you never have to stress about messes again.

Speaker 24 Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics, that means fewer stains and more peace of mind.

Speaker 35 Designed for real life, our sofas feature changeable fabric covers, allowing you to refresh your style anytime.

Speaker 24 Need flexibility?

Speaker 34 Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly.

Speaker 24 Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes.

Speaker 33 Plus, they're earth-friendly and built to last.

Speaker 24 That's why over 200,000 happy customers have made the switch.

Speaker 33 Get early access to Black Friday pricing right now. Sofas started just $699.

Speaker 24 Visit washable sofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life.

Speaker 33 That's washable sofas.com.

Speaker 34 Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Speaker 18 Black Friday savings are here at the Home Depot, which means it's time to add new cordless power to your collection.

Speaker 18 Right now when you buy a select battery kit from one of our top brands like Ryobi or Milwaukee, you'll get a select tool from that same brand for free.

Speaker 18 Click into one of our best deals of the season and stock up on tools for all your upcoming projects. Get Black Friday Savings happening now at the Home Depot.

Speaker 18 Limit one per transaction exclusion supply full, eligible tool list in-store and online.

Speaker 5 Every superhero has an origin story. Spider-Man, bitten by a radioactive spider.
Wonder Woman, carved in clay and given superpowers by the Greek gods.

Speaker 5 Captain America, a frail young artist infused with a super soldier serum. And the story Phoenix Jones had been telling to the media for years sounded like one of those.
A classic comic book storyline.

Speaker 5 Though it could also be the origin story of a super villain.

Speaker 3 I was wondering if we could just start at the beginning of your life and like you could just give me your background, like where you were born and where you grew up and that kind of stuff.

Speaker 3 And I also want to apologize. I'm sure you've answered a lot of these questions a million times.
Actually, no, I haven't. Oh, because I don't answer those questions.
Okay.

Speaker 3 We can start beginning my crime fighting career.

Speaker 5 Phoenix said he wouldn't answer any questions about his life before he became Phoenix Jones, which surprised me because he had talked about his upbringing to other journalists in the past.

Speaker 5 The one thing we know for sure is that Phoenix's real name is Ben Fodor, and he was born on May 25th, 1988. That's documented in court records.
But after that, we're reliant on Phoenix's account.

Speaker 5 And according to him, he was born in Texas. and he had four siblings, but he was the only one of them to be sent to an orphanage.

Speaker 5 He says at five years old, he was removed from the orphanage and given back to his parents.

Speaker 5 According to that account, one day he was riding in the car with his dad when they stopped at a convenience store. Ben stayed in the car and his father went into the store and never came back.

Speaker 5 Apparently, he tried to rob the convenience store, but the store owner had a gun and he shot Ben's dad and killed him.

Speaker 5 Ben was around seven years old at the time, sitting in the car alone until the police police showed up and found him.

Speaker 5 Later in his life, Ben says he learned that the man who was killed was not his biological father, and that his real father was a man who'd had an affair with his mother, and that was the reason he was the only one of his siblings who was given up for adoption.

Speaker 5 Ben has told journalists in the past that his mom was also a criminal. a drug dealer who got busted trying to use her baby carriage to conceal illegal drugs.

Speaker 5 In a previous interview for a book about his life, Ben was asked about being the child of criminals. This is what he said.

Speaker 5 You have to make a choice. You can say, I'm going to be a product of my environment and grow into a criminal and just be like everyone else.
Or you can say,

Speaker 5 no,

Speaker 5 I'm not going to do that.

Speaker 5 After the man he thought was his father was killed, Ben says he was put back into the orphanage where he lived for the next three years.

Speaker 5 He says he had dyslexia and a speech impediment and he was bullied a lot by the staff and other children. One of his only friends at the time was a kid who liked to torture animals.

Speaker 5 But when he was nine years old, he was saved from all the trauma and misery of his Texas childhood. He was adopted by a woman in Seattle, a wealthy widow who had several other adopted children.

Speaker 5 He says that when he moved to Seattle and settled in with his new family, it was the first time in his life he felt truly cared for.

Speaker 5 Around that time, young Ben Fodor also discovered a new world that he fell in love with. Something that would change the course of his life.

Speaker 5 Comic books.

Speaker 3 I was in Nightwing a lot as a kid. I never really resonated with comics because they didn't really do anything I understood.
But Nightwing was something that I understood.

Speaker 5 Nightwing is part of the Batman superhero family. Like Bruce Wayne, he doesn't have supernatural powers.
He defends the innocent with his strength and agility.

Speaker 5 Nightwing wears a black super suit with the blue chevron across the chest, similar to the gold one on Phoenix's costume.

Speaker 3 Batman and Robin, right? Robin eventually grows up and becomes his own superhero called Nightwing. He's like, I don't want to be a sidekick in like little shorts.
I'd rather fight some crime.

Speaker 3 He goes through and like really trains and he doesn't win a lot at the beginning. It's a grind for him.
And it was one of those things where I was like, I see that. I understand that.

Speaker 3 You know what I mean?

Speaker 5 There are a lot of different versions of Nightwing that span several generations of the DC Comics universe. But the one that resonated with Ben was the series that was written by Devin Grayson.

Speaker 3 Devin Grayson, man, she kills it. And it's like, really realistically believable.

Speaker 5 In March of 2000, Grayson became the first woman to create, launch, and write a Batman comics series.

Speaker 5 And it's almost as if fate had set her on that path, given that she shares the same last name as Dick Grayson, the guy who becomes Robin.

Speaker 25 Nightwing is very interesting because Dick Grayson starts as Robin. You know, he's there as a kind of Watson figure, Sherlock Watson figure.
He's there so Batman can talk to him.

Speaker 25 Robin was put in to give kids somebody to identify with.

Speaker 5 This is Peter Coogan, a man with a very specific superpower.

Speaker 3 Writing and editing.

Speaker 25 I could join the X-Men, but I'd be running the writing center at the Xavier Academy.

Speaker 5 And much like the X-Men, he uses his superpower to help other people.

Speaker 25 To enable them to better pursue their ontological vocation of humanization.

Speaker 5 In other words, he's an academic.

Speaker 25 I do have a PhD in superheroes.

Speaker 5 Coogan teaches superheroes and comics at Washington University in St. Louis.
He's also the director of the Institute for Comic Studies, and he spent a lot of time thinking about Nightwing.

Speaker 25 Nightwing works as a really interesting figure. He lost his parents just like Bruce Wayne did.

Speaker 25 But because he had a parent figure, Bruce Wayne, and another parent figure, Alfred, he was able to become a more integrated adult. Dick Grayson is healthier than Bruce Wayne.

Speaker 25 And so I think that's one of the things that Nightwing represents. It represents a more healthy version of the superhero.
He has chosen to become a superhero in a way that Bruce Wayne couldn't.

Speaker 5 When Robin becomes Nightwing, he moves to the suburbs of Gotham City, to a rough neighborhood called Bludehaven and becomes a cop.

Speaker 25 He does that because he wants to be part of society in a way that Batman both doesn't and can't.

Speaker 25 Dick Grayson is available to be identified with as

Speaker 25 a healthier response to trauma than Batman. And I think that's what draws people to him as a character.

Speaker 3 As a young kid, his parents died in a circus accident, right? Sure.

Speaker 3 But he could have done whatever he wanted. Batman's is different, though, because when his parents die, he trains, but he has this financial backing, right?

Speaker 3 His, I guess, trauma allowed him to be Batman, right? Nightwings make it a choice. He goes to college, he has a girlfriend, he lives a life, tries to keep it all together, but he's no way traumatized.

Speaker 3 Children personalize trauma. They always find a way to blame themselves.
Like, I could have done more, right?

Speaker 3 And that drives Batman, but that does not drive Nightwing. Nightwing was, I was helpless and I won't be helpless anymore.
And that resonates with me more.

Speaker 3 Why do you think it resonated with you? I think as a kid, everybody has a little sense of being helpless. I certainly did.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 training for a mission or a goal, something like that, is just

Speaker 3 like empowering. Like you just feel this

Speaker 3 energy that nobody knows.

Speaker 5 Ben Fodor knows that energy well. Whatever helplessness he felt after being given away by his parents, he compensated for by throwing himself into all kinds of activities.

Speaker 3 I did double-dutch for a a while, won a bunch of skate competitions. I was a national bowling champion, as well as martial arts.

Speaker 5 There was also debate club, horseshoe throwing, and even competitive dance. He seems to have taken on every challenge he could in an effort to prove his worth to his adopted mother.

Speaker 5 In fact, he said in the past to journalists that he was driven to be the best at everything he could because he was trying to show her she made the right decision by picking him over all the other children at the orphanage.

Speaker 3 Everything I ever touched, if it was a competition for it, I wanted to try it.

Speaker 5 Although Ben has shared the story of his childhood with journalists over the years, he's left out some key details, like the names of his birth parents and the man who he thought was his father, which makes it nearly impossible to fact-check his version of what happened.

Speaker 5 But I was determined to verify at least some of his claims.

Speaker 3 If you go into the National Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame, I'm in hometown Heroics for 300 games under 16.

Speaker 5 The International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame refused to release any info about Ben without his member number, which I didn't have.

Speaker 5 But we were able to find his old high school by process of elimination and called up the old coach on the bowling team. She said she'd never heard of a Ben Fodor and then said to leave her alone.

Speaker 5 But just before hanging up, she said that hypothetically, if she were us, she'd call up the United States Bowling Congress and ask for member details. And they immediately gave us Ben's records.

Speaker 5 And they verified that Ben, in fact, did achieve two perfect scores of 300 in bowling under the age of 16. That's 12 strikes in a row.

Speaker 5 We started calling around to bowling alleys that were near where Phoenix lived and eventually found a place called Kenmore Lanes.

Speaker 5 When the owner, Joanne, answered the phone, she said with a sigh, ah, yeah, Ben Fodor. I know him.

Speaker 5 Kenmore Lanes is just northeast of Seattle, not far from the shores of Lake Washington. You don't realize just how massive it is until you step inside.

Speaker 19 Kenmore Lanes was the largest bowling alley in Washington, 50 lanes.

Speaker 5 This is Wesley. He used to work at Kenmore Lanes.

Speaker 19 When you walked in, it had like the old style of bowling alley, you know, beer on the tables, kind of dark, but it was like an enjoyable place where you can bring your family. I had the league nights.

Speaker 19 When I first got there, you know, smoking was still allowed, so it still was all smoky in there. Once smoking was banned, it got a little cleaner, a little nicer.

Speaker 19 Some nights would get a little rowdy, a little rough, but most nights were just calm. It was a really enjoyable place.

Speaker 5 Wesley worked at Kenmore up until 2007 when

Speaker 5 something happened.

Speaker 19 I'm actually not allowed in Kenmore Lanes. I'm banned.

Speaker 36 Self-inflicted stupidity.

Speaker 5 That's Joanne, the owner of Kenmore Lanes. The story of why Wesley is banned from the bowling alley is for another time and place.

Speaker 5 We're here to talk about young Ben Fodor, and more specifically, to find out if the origin story Phoenix is telling is true.

Speaker 19 Yeah, I kind of do remember the first time I did meet him.

Speaker 19 We always had people come in there and I always like to give people, help them out, like give them discounts on bowling.

Speaker 19 This lady came in once and she had foster kids and gave her some discount on some bowling. And I remember one of them was this like little skinny guy.

Speaker 19 kid wore glasses looked a little nerdy and he always enjoyed bowling and uh kept kept coming back and he just kept hanging around there learning from people how to bowl what was your first impression of him oh like he was a nerdy little kid that got picked on at school a little insecure didn't really know himself you know a little preteen

Speaker 19 i knew he was adopted he had struggled with you know being picked on and bullied as a kid and

Speaker 19 not feeling accepted. And so I think the bowling alley, like, he felt accepted there and like people wanted him.

Speaker 5 Wesley says that Ben wasn't a natural bowler but he was focused he was there all the time learning from people that worked there just watching people bowl hanging around just picking it up but yeah he worked at it a few years went by and by the time ben was in high school he was one of the top bowlers in his age group according to wesley he went from being this shy insecure kid to well the opposite

Speaker 19 Around high school, all of a sudden, this skinny little kid turns into this young man like with muscles all of a sudden.

Speaker 19 You know, he he starts like filling out and he starts bowling better, starts getting some muscle into his ball.

Speaker 19 The way he bowled is very exuberant, the way he would all of a sudden just throw the ball, be all cocky, run down the lane, start showboating.

Speaker 19 You know, this is like a 15-year-old kid jumping around the lanes, yelling at his other competitors. Very enthusiastic in his bowling.

Speaker 5 Ben wasn't just running up and down the lanes. When he hit a strike, he would run onto the lane itself and taking full advantage of the slick wood surface, he would break dance.

Speaker 5 At the time, he had a flat top haircut, a la kid in play, and Ben would taunt his opponents after a strike by strutting around and showing off.

Speaker 26 Fear the flat top, baby. What's that?

Speaker 26 He always had the flat top. He had that even before fighting.
He always had the big hair.

Speaker 3 And he would say, Fear of the flat top? Uh-huh.

Speaker 26 Yeah, he had a t-shirt, medium t-shirt, and he had the big frame, the super small shirt. So fear of the flat top.

Speaker 5 This is Marty Cocking. He still works at the bowling alley.
And he loved watching Ben. Then again, he wasn't bowling against him.
Ben's opponents didn't love being taunted by a cocky kid.

Speaker 26 He would beat people at bowling, so they always wanted to, you know, beat him, but it wasn't happening. And then the dude's doing the worm with the flat top across the approach on you.

Speaker 26 It's pretty frustrating.

Speaker 5 Even in Phoenix's version of events, he's not exactly a team player.

Speaker 3 I even got so good at bowling left-handed and right-handed that I didn't have to have a doubles partner. I could bowl with myself.

Speaker 3 I had an average with with a left and right-hand, so I was able to bowl doubles with myself, which was cool because I got two trophies every time I won.

Speaker 5 As Ben got older, he got more into martial arts and started training to become an MMA fighter. And he started spending more time at the gym and less time at the bowling alley.

Speaker 5 And then one day, Marty saw a news segment about a certain masked vigilante who was roaming the streets of Seattle.

Speaker 5 When he heard the voice of the man behind the mask, he thought, that sounds like Ben.

Speaker 26 Before he unveiled himself, I could tell the voice because I knew him pretty well as a kid.

Speaker 5 When you realized that Phoenix Jones was, in fact, the breakdancing bowler Ben Fodor, Marty thought Ben had lost his mind.

Speaker 26 I thought he was crazy.

Speaker 3 Why?

Speaker 26 Because, I mean, it's just crazy. The stuff that goes on in Seattle is not something you really want to deal with as a person.

Speaker 26 I'm a pretty big dude, but I'm not going to go out there and risk my life when I have a young family, and I just didn't understand what he was doing.

Speaker 19 Do you remember the last time you talked to him?

Speaker 26 I saw him at the store. He was actually buying diapers for somebody, just a random person.
It wasn't even his family member, but it was somebody that needed help.

Speaker 3 I talked to him a little bit.

Speaker 26 I was just like, do you have another kid?

Speaker 26 But he's like, no, I'm just helping out this family. I needed some diapers.
He literally had a cart full of diapers. That was pretty cool.

Speaker 5 As crazy as it seems to find out that a guy you knew for taunting rival bowlers decided to put on a costume and attempt to fight crime. To Joanne, the owner of the bowling alley, it all made sense.

Speaker 36 I wasn't surprised.

Speaker 5 Why not?

Speaker 36 First of all, it kind of fits his personality, in my opinion. And secondly,

Speaker 36 he always seemed like a kid with a pretty strong sense of,

Speaker 36 I guess, a good moral compass.

Speaker 5 The Kenmore Lane staff watched Ben Fodor grow up. They'd already seen him reinvent himself from a vulnerable little kid to the breakdancing showboat.

Speaker 5 But every superhero origin story needs a moment of transformation. That key incident that inspires the hero to put on a mask and turn from man to myth.

Speaker 5 That's coming up next.

Speaker 29 You won't believe what my new friend just told me about dinosaurs.

Speaker 1 Is your child having conversations you never imagined?

Speaker 31 Are they learning without realizing it?

Speaker 30 It's not a tablet.

Speaker 4 It's not a toy.

Speaker 6 It's Miko Mini Plus, the AI-powered companion that turns curiosity into endless learning.

Speaker 1 Hear the future of playtime.

Speaker 6 Meet the extraordinary Miko Mini Plus.

Speaker 4 Only at Costco.

Speaker 9 Are your AI agents helping users or just creating more work?

Speaker 10 If you can't compare your users' workflows before and after adding AI, how do you know it's even even paying off?

Speaker 14 Pendo Agent Analytics is the first tool to connect agent prompts and conversations to downstream outcomes like time saved so you know what's working and what to fix.

Speaker 11 Start improving agent performance at pendo.io slash podcast.

Speaker 17 That's pendo.io slash podcast.

Speaker 32 From SC, launched to legacy.com, today we're speaking with Dr. Robert Engelhorn, CEO and president of BMW Manufacturing, and today's topic is location.

Speaker 32 BMW South Carolina produces more BMWs than anywhere else in the world and has just doubled down on their South Carolina investment. So Dr.
Ingelhorn, first question. Why South Carolina?

Speaker 28 South Carolina is a great place to be. Not only the sun, which is shining most of the time here, I like the food, I like the atmosphere and the friendliness.

Speaker 28 It's about really the pro-business attitude. Again, a very talented and skilled workhorse going the extra mile.
It's a fantastic place to be.

Speaker 32 You mentioned South Carolina's pro-business government. Tell me more about that.

Speaker 28 Since the beginning, the Department of Commerce is one of our closest partners here in South Carolina. They're doing a fantastic job.

Speaker 28 And the last 30 years, there have been a tremendous momentum of growth.

Speaker 28 Now, looking towards our future investments of 1.7 billion US dollars for electric vehicles here, and this wouldn't have been possible without them.

Speaker 32 If you'd like to hear more, visit sclaunchthelegacy.com.

Speaker 34 There's nothing like sinking into luxury.

Speaker 33 Anibay sofas combine ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price.

Speaker 34 Anibay has designed the only fully machine washable sofa from top to bottom.

Speaker 24 The stain-resistant performance fabric slip covers and cloud-like frame duvet can go straight into your wash.

Speaker 34 Perfect for anyone with kids, pets, or anyone who loves an easy-to-clean, spotless sofa. With a modular design and changeable slip covers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style.

Speaker 34 Whether you need a single chair, love seat, or a luxuriously large sectional, Anibay has you covered.

Speaker 33 Visit washable sofas.com to upgrade your home. Sofas start at just $699.

Speaker 24 And right now, get early access to Black Friday savings, up to 60% off store-wide, with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Speaker 33 Shop now at washablesofas.com.

Speaker 3 Add a little

Speaker 24 to your life.

Speaker 34 Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Speaker 18 Black Friday savings are here at the Home Depot, which means it's time to add new cordless power to your collection.

Speaker 18 Right now, when you buy a select battery kit from one of our top brands like Ryobi or Milwaukee, you'll get a select tool from that same brand for free.

Speaker 18 Click into one of our best deals of the season and stock up on tools for all your upcoming projects. Get Black Friday savings happening now at the Home Depot.

Speaker 18 Limit one per transaction exclusion supply full eligible tool list in-store and online.

Speaker 5 There comes a time in the life of every superhero when they transform from civilian to savior.

Speaker 5 For some, it's the story of how they got their superpower, like the scientist Bruce Banner, who gets exposed to gamma rays and becomes the incredible Hulk.

Speaker 5 And then there are heroes like the X-Men, mutants who are born with superpowers.

Speaker 5 You also have your Batman and Nightwing types, who are not blessed with supernatural abilities, but achieve a kind of superhuman status through training and an arsenal of fancy gadgets and weapons.

Speaker 5 But what they all have in common is that there comes a point in their life when they look out at the injustice of the world and say to themselves, this has to end.

Speaker 5 And I am the one who's going to take on this fight.

Speaker 5 For Ben Fodor, that moment happened in 2009 at Wild Waves, an amusement park in the suburbs of Tacoma, Washington, with roller coasters and carnival games, kids with wrinkled fingers shivering in line for water slides.

Speaker 5 Phoenix had taken his son and they just finished a day of fun.

Speaker 3 We parked our car outside the fence and we were walking. It was me and my son and we were racing back to the car.

Speaker 3 Me and my son are running. And all of a sudden he falls and I'm like, oh, that sucks.
So I went to pick him up and just starts gushing blood like everywhere, right? And I'm like, what's going on?

Speaker 3 I look and he's got this big cut in his knee from like here to like there and his knee's open and you can like see the bone and he's just gushing blood.

Speaker 3 And someone had smashed my window and the glass was on the ground. He had slipped on that.
So I called Naiwan immediately, got an ambulance. It was like an ER trip, like he had to go.

Speaker 3 And I called the cops and the cops said, oh, well, there's really nothing, you know, we can do. I'm like, well, what are you talking about? Like the window was smashed.
There's cameras everywhere.

Speaker 3 Like, what? Like, well, we don't really, you know, investigate that kind of thing. It's less than 500 in damage.
And it's a, your son wasn't hurt by an actual criminal.

Speaker 3 Your son was hurt by falling on the trap. Ridiculous.

Speaker 5 Ben was furious. Not only was he convinced that the assailant had been captured on one of the many security cameras nearby, he also had a key piece of evidence.

Speaker 3 When that guy broke my window, he had taken a rock in a ski mask and slammed it into my window.

Speaker 3 And I thought I'd keep the mask to turn into cops for evidence, but the cops didn't want it and they weren't interested in any kind of evidence. It was ridiculous how unhelpful they were.
Ridiculous.

Speaker 5 Ben stowed the mask in his glove compartment and decided that he would not rest until justice had been served.

Speaker 3 I spent the next four months searching through publicly accessible traffic cams until I was able to figure out which car did it. Then I got a private investigator to track that guy's number down.

Speaker 3 And then I went to his house and actually had a conversation with that guy and drug him to where my son was at and made him apologize.

Speaker 3 It was that moment when my friends were with me, which was Ghost and another guy, they were like, Man, this is like Batman stuff, bro. You just did Batman style stuff.

Speaker 3 And I was like, you know, we got like some free time. Let's just go and Batman up our neighborhood because it sucks where we live.

Speaker 5 A few weeks later, Ben was outside a club in Seattle where he and his breakdancing crew, the Rain City Movement, were taking part in a competition.

Speaker 28 My friend comes stumbling up and he's got this big gash in his face. And I'm like, what happens?

Speaker 3 Like, that guy hit me with a stick. And I'm like, well, no one's doing it.
It's crazy. Like, you guys are stupid.
We got to do something, right? And it just hit me. I've got that mask.

Speaker 3 At this time, I'm not sure if what I'm about to do is legal or illegal. I just know I'm about to do something.

Speaker 3 So I ran to my car and I throw this mask on, ditch the shirt, jeans, no shirt, and this mask. And I take off after this dude.
I chase him all the way down the street, and I catch him.

Speaker 5 Ben trapped the guy until the police showed up and arrested him. But before the cops left, they asked Ben if they could take a photo with him.

Speaker 3 The cop and I snapped a photo, and the next day it said, costume nerds attack crime in Seattle on the small right-side corner of the Seattle Times. It was me, my arms folded, and everything.

Speaker 3 And I remember looking at it, and I was like, Yeah,

Speaker 3 that's gonna stick.

Speaker 5 Now, there is of course the question of whether or not this origin story is even true.

Speaker 5 And I have to admit that the first time I heard Phoenix tell it in an interview, long before I met him, I thought the story was preposterous.

Speaker 5 But when I heard it directly from him, in person, it all sounded a lot more plausible.

Speaker 5 But whether or not it's true, I think there is something very telling about the way that Phoenix told me his origin story.

Speaker 5 In his telling, the moment he decides to become a real-life superhero is not when he takes down his first criminal. It's not even when he takes down his second criminal.

Speaker 5 It's the moment he sees a photo of himself in the newspaper.

Speaker 3 It just like hit me and I was like, costume superhero, costume nerd attack Seattle. I'm like, that's me.
I'm going to do this.

Speaker 5 Maybe it was simply that the validation of the outside world gave him the confidence to pursue the life of a real-life superhero. Or maybe he got a taste of fame and he liked it.

Speaker 5 Or maybe it was a combination of the two. Either way, he was hooked.
But now he needed a name. Costume nerd isn't exactly the kind of moniker that strikes fear into the hearts of criminals.

Speaker 5 No, he needed something a little snappier.

Speaker 5 Something like Phoenix Jones.

Speaker 5 Phoenix always claimed that his early years had been rough, much like those of his hero, the comic book character Nightwing.

Speaker 5 And like Nightwing, Phoenix refused to let the trauma of his childhood define him. Maybe that's why he was so unwilling to discuss it with me.

Speaker 5 As origin stories go, it may well seem a little too perfect. But whether or not it's true, one thing is for certain.

Speaker 5 Phoenix did undergo a radical transformation, from concerned citizen, to kick-ass costumed warrior. And you can't take that away from him, even if he's not the most reliable narrator.

Speaker 5 Back in the parking lot at Wild Waves, Phoenix discovered that he had the power to fight crime by chance when he became a victim and could not get the help he needed from the people who were supposed to serve and protect him.

Speaker 5 In the future, things would be different.

Speaker 5 He would no longer wait for crime to find him. From now on, he would place himself in harm's way, heading out into the night looking for trouble, hunting criminals, and stopping them in their tracks.

Speaker 5 Phoenix started out as one man with a mission, standing alone against the odds.

Speaker 5 But what he didn't know was that all around him in Seattle, there were people who shared his dream of defending the streets.

Speaker 5 And when they heard about Phoenix Jones, they would rise up to join forces with him.

Speaker 5 So look out, bad guys, because Phoenix Jones is coming for you. And soon, he won't be the only superhero in town.
town.

Speaker 5 The superhero complex is hosted and written by me, David Weinberg, and reported by me, Amalia Sortland, and Caroline Thornham. Production from Amalia Sortland and Caroline Thornham.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 Sound design, mixing, and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempson. Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters.
Original music is composed by Paul Housden.

Speaker 5 Special thanks to Peter Tangen, Willard Foxton, Matt O'Mara, Katrina Norvell, Beth Ann Makaluso, Oren Rosenbaum, Shelby Schenkman, and all the team at UTA.

Speaker 5 For more from Novel, Novel, visit novel.audio.

Speaker 29 Shh, you won't believe what my new friend just told me about dinosaurs.

Speaker 1 Is your child having conversations you never imagined?

Speaker 31 Are they learning without realizing it?

Speaker 30 It's not a tablet.

Speaker 4 It's not a toy.

Speaker 6 It's Miko Mini Plus, the AI-powered companion that turns curiosity into endless learning.

Speaker 1 Hear the future of playtime.

Speaker 6 Meet the extraordinary Miko Mini Plus. Only at Costco.

Speaker 9 Are your AI agents helping users or just creating more work?

Speaker 10 If you can't compare your users' workflows before and after adding AI, how do you know it's even paying off?

Speaker 14 Pendo Agent Analytics is the first tool to connect agent prompts and conversations to downstream outcomes like time saved so you know what's working and what to fix.

Speaker 11 Start improving agent performance at pendo.io/slash podcast.

Speaker 17 That's pendo.io/slash podcast.

Speaker 32 Hello and welcome back. Today's topic, Global Companies headquartered in rural small towns.
No one knows this superpower better than Sunoco president and CEO Howard Coker. So Mr.

Speaker 32 Coker, what's the secret in South Carolina?

Speaker 23 We're in 34 different countries, 300 different operations, and everywhere I go in the world, the values from Partsville, South Carolina resonates across the globe.

Speaker 23 The culture of this company would absolutely degrade, if not disappear, if it wasn't for the small-town values that we get from this great city.

Speaker 32 Well, tell me about your experience with South Carolina's pro-business government.

Speaker 23 You know, South Carolina Commerce Department pro-business policies are supported by job creation and retention and workforce development, and it's certainly well aligned and supported for Sunoco.

Speaker 23 They're incredibly responsive and genuinely care about our company's needs now and into the future. They're approachable and have no problem sitting down with us at any time.

Speaker 23 Business in South Carolina have a seat at the table.

Speaker 32 Visit sclaunchtelegacy.com.

Speaker 37 Hey guys, it's Aaron Andrews from Calm Down with Erin and Carissa. So as a sideline reporter, game day is extra busy for me, but I know it can be busy for parents everywhere.

Speaker 37 You're juggling snacks, nap time, and everything else.

Speaker 37 Well, Gerber can help create a more parent-friendly game day because they have the most clean label project certifications of any baby food brand.

Speaker 37 So you can feel good about what you're feeding your little ones. I mean, Mac loves them.
You can't go wrong with the little crunchies.

Speaker 37 You just put him in a little bag or you put him in a little container and he's good to go. Make sure to pick up your little ones' favorite Gerber products at a store near you.

Speaker 38 This episode is brought to you by PBS, home of Ken Burns.

Speaker 38 His newest film, The American Revolution, reveals untold stories of people, some familiar, many forgotten, who risked everything to change the course of history.

Speaker 38 It's the story of a war that was bloody, complex, and profoundly consequential.

Speaker 38 Ken Burns and his co-directors, Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt, shine a light on how this historic fight for independence lit the spark for freedom that still burns today.

Speaker 38 The American Revolution premieres Sunday, November 16th at 8:7 Central on PBS and the PBS app. Don't miss it.

Speaker 1 This is an iHeart podcast.