1: Out of the Shadows

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Speaker 16 Novel

Speaker 22 One night in 2011, a guy named Dan was walking through a parking lot in downtown Seattle when he came upon a menacing-looking dude trying to break into a car.

Speaker 25 Dan pulled out his phone to call 911,

Speaker 26 but before he could reach the police, something totally insane happened.

Speaker 30 From the right, this guy comes dashing in, wearing this skin-tight, rubber, black and golden suit, and starts chasing them away.

Speaker 34 Dan isn't the only one to have a chance encounter like this.

Speaker 33 Around 2009, the rumors started to spread.

Speaker 39 Stories of a masked vigilante jumping out of the shadows to help the citizens of Seattle.

Speaker 41 People kept seeing this masked man patrolling the streets at night.

Speaker 35 One person said he stopped a mugging. Someone else caught a glimpse of him sprinting through the back streets downtown.
Rumor had it, he even stopped a terrorist attack.

Speaker 33 The accounts all said he was tall and pretty ripped.

Speaker 43 He wore a hooded rubber mask that covered his eyes like the Batman cowl.

Speaker 44 He had black gloves and a black chestplate molded into a six-pack with a gold chevron across the chest and an American flag on his bicep.

Speaker 38 When Dan tried to tell his friends about what happened the night he witnessed the attempted car break-in, they were skeptical.

Speaker 31 People are saying, no way, dude.

Speaker 22 No way. They're like, oh, you were probably drunk.

Speaker 47 But Dan wasn't drunk.

Speaker 48 Well, maybe he was.

Speaker 20 But what he saw was real.

Speaker 49 The rumors were true.

Speaker 42 There was a dark knight out there patrolling the streets of Seattle, and he called himself Phoenix Jones.

Speaker 31 An ordinary citizen becomes a dark knight known as Phoenix Jones.

Speaker 7 Self-appointed crusader, Phoenix Jones, Phoenix Jones, Phoenix Jones, Phoenix Jones, Phoenix Jones, a real-life superhero.

Speaker 55 Superman can fly, Batman has his gadgets, Spider-Man has his webs and super-sharp senses.

Speaker 55 And then there's Phoenix Jones. Maybe not quite Superman, but an extraordinary

Speaker 38 Real-life superheroes are people who, inspired by comic book characters, create their own superhero persona, make their own costume, sometimes weapons, and then head out into the streets to fight crime in the real world.

Speaker 20 And Phoenix Jones, at his peak, was the most famous of all the real-life superheroes. His goal was to strike fear into the hearts of Seattle's criminals.

Speaker 56 But in 2020, it was Phoenix who was led away in handcuffs, caught with four grams of suspected cocaine.

Speaker 13 So how did Seattle's greatest independent crime fighter end up getting busted on drug charges?

Speaker 61 Well, it depends on who you believe.

Speaker 39 Phoenix says he's the victim of a corrupt and ineffective police department that snagged him in a classic case of entrapment.

Speaker 46 And the police, well, they have their own version of the story.

Speaker 58 So what exactly is real in the world of real-life superheroes?

Speaker 38 Is Phoenix Jones a shining example of a brave citizen fighting for justice?

Speaker 25 Or is he a misguided vigilante who used a superhero persona to disguise his own criminal activity?

Speaker 43 I'm going to take you inside the world of real-life superheroes as I try to answer these questions.

Speaker 42 Along the way, there will be danger and heartbreak, friendship and betrayal, and of course all the elements you would find in any story about criminals.

Speaker 13 Drugs and violence, and a good chase scene here and there.

Speaker 34 And maybe, if you're like me, you'll come out on the other side of this adventure with a deeper understanding of these people who are often treated as a joke.

Speaker 52 Going into this story, I never thought I would identify with the type of person who puts on a homemade suit and claims to be a superhero.

Speaker 60 It's hard to take someone like that seriously.

Speaker 13 It's much easier to dismiss them as crazy or naive.

Speaker 58 But now that I've gotten to know some of the men and women who call themselves real-life superheroes, I'm starting to think maybe it's the other way around.

Speaker 41 Maybe we should question our beliefs about who the real heroes are.

Speaker 54 I'm David Weinberg, and from the teams at Novel and iHeartRadio, this is the Superhero Complex, Episode 1, Out of the Shadows.

Speaker 66 I can only imagine what it must have been like for those lucky few people.

Speaker 20 in the midst of distress who were suddenly saved by a real-life superhero.

Speaker 24 And just like in the movies, the police and the citizens of Seattle wanted to know who is this masked crusader chasing down bad guys in the streets.

Speaker 67 Phoenix broke up a brawl and one of the guys turned on him. Phoenix called 911, put the guy in a hold and waited for police to arrive.

Speaker 40 What the police saw when they arrived was a guy who looked a lot like Batman.

Speaker 44 Phoenix clearly put a lot of work into his costume.

Speaker 59 By the way, he hates it when you call his superhero getup a costume.

Speaker 68 I find it offensive, like ridiculous.

Speaker 33 Phoenix prefers the term super suit.

Speaker 61 It's bulletproof, it can't be lit on fire.

Speaker 68 It has a heart sensor monitor in it. It's connected to fucking Wi-Fi.

Speaker 45 If someone calls Phoenix, it connects to a headset in his helmet.

Speaker 68 My suit does its job. It's made of D3O, non-Newtonian fluid.

Speaker 45 That means it's soft to touch, but it gets harder when you hit it with force.

Speaker 68 My suit is so awesome that the government of Seattle said I couldn't wear it anymore because it gave me too much protection if they decided they wanted to fucking get me.

Speaker 44 Before long, Phoenix became a local celebrity.

Speaker 22 Several nights a week, he carried out patrols of downtown Seattle where he'd search for criminals to apprehend or those in need.

Speaker 43 And people came up to him and asked for photos.

Speaker 61 Reporters flew in from all over the world to interview him.

Speaker 45 Writer and broadcaster John Ronson even did a profile of him for GQ.

Speaker 70 Phoenix said, we'll go to Belltown to break up a gang of crack dealers. There was about five or six different groups of crack dealers on different street corners.

Speaker 70 And they came back and walked towards us. And Phoenix said, are we standing? Are we leaving? And they all said, we're standing.

Speaker 38 It helped that Phoenix had something the other superheroes in the comic books didn't.

Speaker 40 His own media strategy.

Speaker 62 He filmed his exploits and posted the videos online.

Speaker 63 He even added his own commentary.

Speaker 68 All douchebags depicted in these videos are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Speaker 59 One thing's for sure, it's fun as hell to watch videos of Phoenix taking down bad guys.

Speaker 40 One of my favorites is a video titled Phoenix Jones vs.

Speaker 41 Helicopter Dick, which is a surprisingly accurate description of what went down that night.

Speaker 47 Phoenix rolls up to a bar where something bad is clearly going down.

Speaker 43 According to a caption on the video, a guy has exposed himself to some women at the bar and then attacked a bouncer.

Speaker 41 And Phoenix is talking to the bouncer. While they're chatting, the suspect appears, pulls his dick out again, and starts twirling it while yelling helicopter dick.

Speaker 38 Phoenix rushes over and grabs the guy by the ear like an angry father disciplining his kid and drags him down the sidewalk until someone steps in and pulls them apart.

Speaker 37 But helicopter dick, who is clearly drunk, lunges at Phoenix.

Speaker 24 Phoenix takes a step back and says to the guy, if you do that again, I will pepper spray you.

Speaker 20 Eventually, the police come and cuff Propeller Penis and load him into the back of a squad car, while Phoenix has a quick chat with one of the officers, telling him that he has the whole thing on video and can hand it over to them for evidence.

Speaker 64 Phoenix says,

Speaker 38 When you start showing your drunk to girls, that's a different kind of sick, and you end up in a police car.

Speaker 20 He signs off with his signature phrase, have a good night, and I'll see you in the streets.

Speaker 20 Not all the videos that Phoenix posts are about crime fighting.

Speaker 64 Sometimes he makes videos hyping himself up.

Speaker 30 You want to blaze? Nah, man. I'm already blazing.
Yeah. Blazing attractive, son.
Wow. Got my gold spangly boots on.
How could you beat that? Well, I wasn't going to say it, but yeah.

Speaker 49 Man, seriously, I make Elson John look straight, right?

Speaker 16 That's the sub.

Speaker 41 He gets vulnerable.

Speaker 72 I wanted to be a superhero my whole life.

Speaker 72 The first year of fighting crime, I was arrested. I've been shot.
I've been stabbed. I've had so many bad things happen to me for something that I believed in.

Speaker 72 And this is as real as it gets.

Speaker 45 He buys ice cream for kids.

Speaker 71 The ice cream shucks showed up in my neighborhood, so I bought all the kids ice cream because I'm rich now, so I can do crazy things.

Speaker 57 And even if he is the self-proclaimed greatest living superhero and a model of perfection, he still likes to sing in the car like us mortals. Superman got nerfed

Speaker 57 on that day.

Speaker 57 I'm only one

Speaker 57 call away.

Speaker 37 And it seems that being a superhero comes with perks.

Speaker 45 He's landed several sponsorship deals with local health and fitness brands.

Speaker 73 After a hard workout, that's pretty much only one thing that your boy needs.

Speaker 28 And thank God they gave me the secret sauce.

Speaker 61 Epic smoothie, babe.

Speaker 56 He even got invited on a press tour to England to promote a new model of cell phone.

Speaker 20 Phoenix became a sensation.

Speaker 45 He seemed to tap into people's mistrust of the institutions that are supposed to keep us safe.

Speaker 58 But long before his drug charges, Phoenix Jones was not popular with Seattle's law enforcement.

Speaker 47 In one video, Phoenix comes across a bartender on the street who says a guy assaulted him.

Speaker 40 Phoenix sees the suspect in a bloody shirt outside the bar.

Speaker 24 Don't touch me, man.

Speaker 71 Hey, don't touch me. What's behind you? What's behind you?

Speaker 29 Hey, give me a 911 call, please. Thank you.

Speaker 30 A chase ensues.

Speaker 71 let's go. Let's go.

Speaker 23 The suspect hides in the back of a truck, and Phoenix and his sidekick pretend that they don't know where he is while they call the police.

Speaker 74 I don't want to ever call again.

Speaker 20 But when the police arrive on the scene, they seem more pissed off at Phoenix than the alleged criminal.

Speaker 16 Excuse me, ma'am.

Speaker 75 Um,

Speaker 32 can I talk to him a second? I'm not back yet.

Speaker 40 Phoenix tells the police he has video that would be useful evidence.

Speaker 32 But we have to give you a statement in our video, and

Speaker 20 they don't seem interested.

Speaker 76 Well,

Speaker 76 could I I have an incident number though, please? Because I like to file all my stuff.

Speaker 74 No, it's just gonna work.

Speaker 20 The video stops.

Speaker 25 Text appears on the screen, which criticizes the Seattle police for their incompetence and says that Phoenix is going to file a formal complaint.

Speaker 77 It ends, quote, It is the job of the police to arrest and investigate suspected criminals.

Speaker 77 Your feelings about my protective outfit and your politics should not impair your legal obligation to the people.

Speaker 77 Sincerely, Phoenix Jones.

Speaker 38 This scenario plays out time and time again on Phoenix's YouTube channel. Whenever he encounters a criminal, he detains them, calls 911, and waits for the police to arrive on the scene.

Speaker 40 The same police that he says are out to get him.

Speaker 74 I've been arrested 118 times. I've only had four charges ever stick and none of the charges as Phoenix Jones have ever stuck because I'm flawless at that job.

Speaker 38 The police have repeatedly told Phoenix to leave the crime fighting to them.

Speaker 78 Unless you are the victim of a crime, you are not allowed to corner somebody, hold somebody. You cannot do that because then it becomes a crime where you are the suspect.

Speaker 26 And they have also taken to the media to discourage copycat superheroes.

Speaker 53 Police say it's not illegal to dress up in costume and patrol, but they're asking the superheroes to just call 911.

Speaker 23 Perhaps unsurprisingly, the dislike between the police and Phoenix is mutual.

Speaker 74 The police are just a gang, man. I mean, I hate to be like that, but they're a gang.
And then people are going to get mad at me for this, but that's because you're stupid.

Speaker 60 As Phoenix got more famous, the tension between him and the police escalated.

Speaker 38 When it finally boiled over, it spilled out of the superhero world and into his civilian life with disastrous consequences.

Speaker 39 But we'll get to all that later.

Speaker 35 First, we've got to meet Phoenix's superhero ancestors.

Speaker 34 That's coming up.

Speaker 2 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 4 Are they learning without realizing it?

Speaker 3 It's not a tablet.

Speaker 5 It's not a toy.

Speaker 7 It's Miko Mini Plus, the AI-powered companion that turns curiosity into endless learning.

Speaker 10 Hear the future of playtime.

Speaker 6 Meet the extraordinary Miko Mini Plus, only at Costco.

Speaker 79 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 79 Coker, what's the secret in South Carolina?

Speaker 80 We're in 34 different countries, 300 different operations, and everywhere I go in the world, the values from from Partsville, South Carolina resonates across the globe.

Speaker 80 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 79 Well, tell me about your experience with South Carolina's pro-business government.

Speaker 80 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 Port Sunoco.

Speaker 80 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.

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Speaker 27 This is Erin Andrews from Calm Down with Erin and Carissa.

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Speaker 34 Phoenix Jones was not the first person to don a mask and attempt to become a real-life superhero.

Speaker 54 But it's hard to know for sure who the first, the original real-life superhero was.

Speaker 45 Some say it was Master Legend.

Speaker 40 And that's a lesson for all all those people who like to abuse little kids.

Speaker 43 In the 1980s, he was a fixture on the streets of New Orleans, handing out water to the homeless in a cape and stormtrooper vest with long hair sticking out from under an old army helmet.

Speaker 45 And he's still at it today in Florida, though his methods are questionable. Here he is shooting eggs out of a cannon he made out of PVC pipe and spray-painted silver.

Speaker 31 Master Legend, hard-boiled egg there.

Speaker 16 There it is.

Speaker 54 The yelp Splattered.

Speaker 60 He's one of the only real-life superheroes who claims to have supernatural powers.

Speaker 64 Super strength, speed, and the ability to see the future.

Speaker 43 There's even a TV show about his life, The Legend of Master Legend.

Speaker 36 Hey, who the hell are you? I'm Master Legend.

Speaker 54 I'm a real-life superhero, registered in two counties.

Speaker 66 I love Master Legend, but the idea that he fights crime with his beer gut and goofy outfit does seem a bit preposterous.

Speaker 60 More like a piece of performance art than an effective crime fighter.

Speaker 63 And before Master Legend was Master Legend, there was Willie Perry.

Speaker 51 Aka the Birmingham Batman.

Speaker 38 Willie drove around Birmingham, Alabama in a souped-up 1971 Ford Thunderbird with a Batman license plate and rescue ship painted on the hood.

Speaker 62 Mostly, he focused on helping stranded motorists.

Speaker 84 My car had a flat tire. I didn't have a spare and I was stranded.
I was on the highway meeting my kids. No one stopped to help us.
And along came this strange car.

Speaker 13 And in 1960, Chicago, A school teacher called Jim Phillips called himself the Fox.

Speaker 47 It's said that he took his name from from the Fox River, which runs through northern Illinois, west of Chicago.

Speaker 38 He defended his community against the heartless corporations that were dumping toxic waste into rivers.

Speaker 33 His calling card was a note signed with a fox face in the place of the letter O.

Speaker 38 Legend has it he'd canoe down the river to put caps on drainage pipes that were releasing pollutants into the water.

Speaker 40 Once, he even dumped 50 pounds of sewage from Lake Michigan into the office of the company responsible for it.

Speaker 50 There's a sort of one-man guerrilla force against pollution. He has become a local hero of sorts.

Speaker 13 And then there are groups like the Guardian Angels, a nonprofit started in New York City in 1979 by Curtis Sleewa, who recently ran for mayor of New York City.

Speaker 85 We are going to do what we can in a nonviolent way without having any weapons available to us whatsoever to curb this violent crime that is on a continuous rampage.

Speaker 38 The Guardian Angels started by patrolling the subway in New York, a bit like Phoenix Jones on the streets of Seattle, and their numbers grew.

Speaker 46 Today, there are thousands of members spread out in chapters around the country. Also like Phoenix, the Guardian Angels prided themselves on their ability to stop crime without carrying guns.

Speaker 38 But there are lots of examples of groups who did arm themselves. Like the Minutemen, for example.

Speaker 40 A few different groups using using that name have been around since the early 2000s, and they execute armed border patrols looking for undocumented immigrants.

Speaker 56 They name themselves after the civilian militia groups who fought during the American Revolutionary War.

Speaker 86 Robert Crooks, a 67-year-old retiree from Las Vegas, patrols the U.S.-Mexican border and tracks what he calls invaders and enemies of the United States of America.

Speaker 42 They're not coming this way, and if they do, I'll be here waiting for watching.

Speaker 33 And long before any of these groups, there was the Bald Knobbers.

Speaker 75 This group that wore masks and executed vigilante justice in the Wild West.

Speaker 45 T. Krulos is the author of the book Heroes in the Night.

Speaker 20 Inside the Real Life Superhero Movement.

Speaker 75 I put a lot of research into any sort of vigilante movement that I thought

Speaker 50 might be

Speaker 75 sort of a precedent for the real-life superheroes?

Speaker 41 The Bald Knobbers dispensed vigilante justice in Missouri from 1885 to 1889.

Speaker 38 They took their name from a mountaintop where they met.

Speaker 63 Their leader was a bar owner named Nathaniel N.

Speaker 57 Kinney.

Speaker 38 They wore suit coats backwards and donned homemade masks with devil horns protruding from the top and red and white stitching around their eyes and mouth.

Speaker 60 It must have been a terrifying sight to see them tearing across the plains on horseback with their whips in hand, looking to kill suspected horse thieves.

Speaker 20 Each member of the group lived by this oath.

Speaker 54 Our purpose is to punish the evildoer among us.

Speaker 47 The courts have failed us.

Speaker 34 We administer punishment to those the arm of the law cannot or will not reach.

Speaker 38 In doing this, we do not break the law because we have no evil intent.

Speaker 75 So they started out by, you know, hanging people that were cattle thieves or stuff like that.

Speaker 75 But as their reign sort of went on, they became a little bit more petty. Like you could be visited by the bald knobbers and whipped if you were accused of being ornery.

Speaker 41 And it wasn't just people with an irritable disposition that the knobbers went after.

Speaker 37 Back then, many of the poorer couples in the community couldn't afford to pay marriage license fees.

Speaker 21 So they were technically not married, but lived together as though they were.

Speaker 37 The bald knobbers believed these unwed couples were living in sin, and so they went around beating them.

Speaker 33 One day, some of the knobbers set out to kill a man who'd criticized them.

Speaker 20 They ended up killing two of his family members in a shootout, and they were jailed.

Speaker 51 Their leader was also killed, and as Krulos writes in his book, the condemned knobbers were hung on a poorly constructed gallows in 1889 in a scene described as gruesome.

Speaker 40 The knobbers' feet dragged on the ground as they writhed in pain.

Speaker 38 The gallows were quickly fixed and the knobbers were hung again.

Speaker 75 It's kind of an example of vigilanteism that spun out of control.

Speaker 56 One of the main arguments I've heard people make against the real-life superhero movement is that they are nothing more than modern-day bald knobbers, vigilantes, people who take the law into their own hands.

Speaker 38 But Phoenix and the other real-life superheroes I've met don't consider themselves vigilantes because when they apprehend a criminal, they immediately call 911 and hand them over to the police so they can be prosecuted within the legal system.

Speaker 38 In fact, Phoenix argues that it's the police, not superheroes like him, that act like they're above the law. It's one of the reasons he's not a fan of the cops.

Speaker 68 The job for the police union is to make sure that police officers do not get in trouble, right? They have the inner policing system. All of the inner policing system is run by police.

Speaker 74 There is no outside accountability in the police department at all.

Speaker 38 There are lots of examples throughout American history where the police have often been protected from punishment by the very system that is supposed to keep them in check.

Speaker 38 So where does that leave Phoenix Jones?

Speaker 35 Well, it's complicated.

Speaker 40 He relies on the police to complete the work he started, but he despises the way they do their job.

Speaker 34 Phoenix isn't alone in his standoff with the cops, though.

Speaker 26 After all, what's a superhero without sidekicks?

Speaker 34 That's coming up.

Speaker 2 You won't believe what my new friend just told me about dinosaurs.

Speaker 1 Is your child having conversations you never imagined?

Speaker 4 Are they learning without realizing it?

Speaker 3 It's not a tablet.

Speaker 5 It's not a toy.

Speaker 7 It's Miko Mini Plus, the AI-powered companion that turns curiosity into endless learning.

Speaker 10 Hear the future of playtime.

Speaker 6 Meet the extraordinary Miko Mini Plus, only at Costco.

Speaker 79 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 79 Coker, what's the secret in South Carolina?

Speaker 80 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 80 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 grape city.

Speaker 79 Well, tell me about your experience with South Carolina's pro-business government.

Speaker 80 You know, South Carolina Commerce Department pro-business policies are supported by job creation and retention, workforce development, and it's certainly well aligned and supported for Sunoco.

Speaker 80 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 80 Business in South Carolina have a seat at the table.

Speaker 79 Visit SCLaunchTheLegacy.com.

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Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Speaker 82 This is Martha Stewart from the Martha Stewart Podcast. Hello, darlings.
I have a little seasonal secret to share. It's the new Kahlua Duncan Caramel Swirl.

Speaker 82 Kahlua, the beloved coffee liqueur, and Duncan, the beloved coffee destination, paired up to create a tree that is perfect for the holidays.

Speaker 82 Imagine rich, velvety caramel swirling through bold coffee flavor, kissed with that signature Kahlua warmth. It's like wrapping yourself in a cashmere blanket, but for your taste buds.

Speaker 82 Whether you're hosting a holiday brunch, trimming the tree, or just escaping your relatives for a moment of peace, this is your go-to indulgence and what your cocktail cart has been missing.

Speaker 82 Kalua and Duncan, a pairing so perfect, is like me in a well-organized pantry. So go ahead, treat yourself.

Speaker 82 After all, the holidays are about joy, celebration, and the little caramel swirl never hurt anyone. Cheers, my dears.

Speaker 83 Must be 21 or older to purchase. Drink responsibly.
Kahlua Caramel Swirl Cream Liqueur, 16% Alcohol by Volume, 32 Proof. Copyright 2025, imported by the Kahlua Company, New York, New York.

Speaker 83 Duncan trademarks owned by DDIP Holder LLC, used under license. Copyright 2025, DDIP Holder LLC.

Speaker 27 This is Erin Andrews from Calm Down with Erin and Carissa.

Speaker 27 Now, I know I didn't invent being a busy mom, but during football season, between the sideline gig, everything else I have going on, and my little one, it's a lot.

Speaker 27 That's why I'm seriously excited to be teaming up with Gerber. They do so much to make football season a more parent-friendly experience.

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Speaker 45 You know how in the Batman series, Commissioner Gordon shined a giant bat-shaped spotlight into the sky whenever a hero was needed to save Gotham City?

Speaker 23 The bat signal.

Speaker 33 Well, Phoenix Jones never had one of those, but his rise to fame turned him into the human equivalent of that call to action.

Speaker 60 Because as news stories about Phoenix spread around the world, of him stopping car thieves and breaking up street fights, regular citizens were inspired to join him in his fight against evildoers.

Speaker 35 And before long, Phoenix had a crew of masked avengers who fought crime by his side.

Speaker 40 Together, this band of ragtag heroes, former soldiers, reformed criminals, aspiring activists, and medics all patrolled the streets of Seattle under the leadership of Phoenix, striking fear into the heart of Seattle's criminal underworld.

Speaker 40 They called themselves the Rain City Superheroes, and the media ate it up.

Speaker 31 Rain City Superhero Crime Fighting Movement.

Speaker 75 Real life superheroes.

Speaker 9 Real life superheroes. Superheroes.

Speaker 73 Real life superheroes.

Speaker 20 Vigilante crime stoppers in Seattle.

Speaker 18 The Patrol Seattle looking for crime.

Speaker 31 Prepared to fight it.

Speaker 16 Are they for real?

Speaker 13 To find out more about Phoenix, I needed to speak to the one group of people who knew his crime fighting days better than anyone else.

Speaker 39 When you watch any video of the Rain City superheroes on patrol, It's easy to see where they got so much media coverage.

Speaker 26 They are a spectacle.

Speaker 37 Phoenix wears his black and gold super suit and he does look like a superhero from a movie but the rest of the crew looks a lot more how can I put this without sounding mean?

Speaker 26 Ridiculous.

Speaker 38 There's Midnight Jack who claims to be a former gang member with a new set of skills.

Speaker 89 Charity outreach, homeless handout, animal rescue, and pedophile investigations.

Speaker 44 He's wearing regular street clothes, black cargo pants and a black and gray fleece and a black Spider-Man mask.

Speaker 20 Basically the kind a kid would wear on Halloween.

Speaker 48 There's Ghost, a veteran who joined Phoenix's band of crime fighters after returning from a tour of duty in Iraq.

Speaker 73 I put on my white bandana for the first time and someone tried to stab someone else and I did a palm strike right in their diaphragm. They collapsed and then I was Ghost.

Speaker 20 He looks like a waiter who just got off work.

Speaker 37 He's wearing black slacks and a white button-down collared shirt and a black ski mask.

Speaker 38 There's Phoenix's girlfriend, Purple Rain.

Speaker 38 She's wearing a cross between a leather jacket and purple spandex with a black leather beret and a purple mask that looks like the one that Scorpion from Mortal Kombat wears.

Speaker 90 I helped out from the sidelines kind of behind the scenes and then it was only a matter of time before I took on a mask of my own.

Speaker 61 There's Ivakatis, another war event.

Speaker 38 He's in black motorcycle leathers and a silver mask that covers his entire head.

Speaker 47 He looks like a cross between a medieval knight and a member member of Daft Punk.

Speaker 16 At least once a week, I'll be asked, are you a cop?

Speaker 87 And just like, why?

Speaker 16 What cop do you know that looks like this, but okay.

Speaker 36 And then there's Phoenix's best friend and right-hand man.

Speaker 61 My name is El Caballero

Speaker 82 about protection and safety for all human beings.

Speaker 13 El Caballero looks like a cross between 70s era Hugh Hefner and a Mexican luchador.

Speaker 38 He wears a purple top that straddles the line between cape and vest.

Speaker 41 It has a purple fur collar and giant fur-covered cuffs and a gold embroidered dragon on the back.

Speaker 24 And he's wearing black bell bottoms with a tactical belt similar to Batman's.

Speaker 56 And to top it all off, a red and purple sequined Luchador mask with some sort of pyramid-looking emblem that he's sewed onto the forehead.

Speaker 74 This is the camera guy. You make sure he does not get punched.

Speaker 47 It is very hard not to laugh out loud when you see them together.

Speaker 21 The video footage of their patrol has the feel of a mockumentary about nerds who think they are warriors.

Speaker 40 And this is pretty typical of the type of media coverage that the Rain City superheroes got at the peak of their fame.

Speaker 38 A mix of, look at these goofballs, and a heartwarming snapshot of some passionate do-gooders.

Speaker 33 And while it is easy to mock them, you can see in the videos of their patrols that Phoenix and his crew are actually doing good in their community.

Speaker 38 They help stranded motorists and make sure drunk people get home safe.

Speaker 29 Are you a cab? Can you give my friends a ride back down here?

Speaker 60 They administer first aid to the injured, and sometimes they save lives.

Speaker 91 A man was getting violent with security at a nightclub. He proceeded to get violent with me and my group of friends.

Speaker 38 Here's a clip from the daytime talk show Life Changers, hosted by Dr. Drew, featuring a guy named Fabio who says that Phoenix saved his life.

Speaker 91 Phoenix ran in and pepper sprayed the guy and diffused the entire situation.

Speaker 60 Dr.

Speaker 38 Drew then turns to Phoenix and Purple Rain, who are seated on stage in their superhero suits.

Speaker 26 How did you hear about it?

Speaker 32 Had you eaten dinner in the restaurant or? You know, most situations aren't like this one. I happened to be on top of the parking garage across the street and

Speaker 32 I saw the thing, the thing happened and I was able to, there's like a little pole and I was able to jump from the top, shimmy the pole down and get into the situation.

Speaker 38 Racing over rooftops, descending drain pipes, icing bad guys, the Rain City Heroes had a good run. From 2011 to 2014, they were a fixture of downtown Seattle.

Speaker 44 They were local celebrities, but a lot of the media coverage felt like it was laughing at them rather than with them.

Speaker 38 But it also legitimized them.

Speaker 41 They formed the type of bond that comes from being in the foxhole together, risking their lives for a righteous cause.

Speaker 33 But it didn't last.

Speaker 20 And when things went wrong, it seems to have started Phoenix's downfall.

Speaker 28 Maybe the group's demise was inevitable, given Phoenix's belief that he is the only one who is a real superhero.

Speaker 68 I'm not a part of that group at all. Like, me, I'm a crime fighter.
I'm a mass adventurer.

Speaker 74 That's what I do.

Speaker 49 You know what I mean?

Speaker 68 You guys are playing superhero.

Speaker 16 I am a superhero.

Speaker 68 I'm the world's first legally defined superhero.

Speaker 50 It's in legal documents.

Speaker 74 The FBI has me as a superhero.

Speaker 50 I'm not playing a game.

Speaker 74 You guys got dressed up.

Speaker 50 I put on my uniform. It's different.

Speaker 40 I tried to verify Phoenix's claim, but when I asked the FBI about this, they said, The FBI does not provide endorsements.

Speaker 23 There's no single moment in time you can point to and say, this was the day the Rain City superhero movement died.

Speaker 38 Each member of the team had their own reasons for quitting, but they all blame Phoenix in one way or another.

Speaker 64 Here's Midnight Jack.

Speaker 89 Phoenix Jones was so hooked on the attention and was so hooked on the media following and the celebrity status and things like that that it it was a problem, which kind of led to a lot of us kind of losing respect for him and uh and wanting to be disassociated from things um admittedly i was the last person to leave him

Speaker 89 but uh you know i mean when you're in a cult you don't necessarily understand you're in a cult and and that's really what rain city was at the end was a cult midnight jack was not the only one who referred to the rain city superhero movement as a cult here's evacadus

Speaker 87 There's one person in charge, fundamentally, for better or for worse. If you say anything that challenges this person, it all falls apart.

Speaker 87 If you question it or ask for further clarification or anything to say, it all falls apart and you are ostracized. It's cult-like in the, we had a cult leader, I guess.

Speaker 26 Today, none of the Rain City superheroes who I spoke to are on good terms with Phoenix.

Speaker 89 I think Phoenix Jones is a sociopath. is what I think.

Speaker 87 He's a master gaslighter.

Speaker 61 I think Phoenix Jones is a liar.

Speaker 32 100%.

Speaker 89 He pawned a bunch of team equipment for drugs.

Speaker 16 Dude,

Speaker 87 this is the mafia.

Speaker 30 This is what a mafia does.

Speaker 39 At first, the Rain City superheroes were inspired by Phoenix, and they were willing to risk their lives because they believed in his mission.

Speaker 38 But over time, they came to see Phoenix Jones as less than a hero and more of a fraud.

Speaker 37 So how did it all go so wrong? How did the world's greatest real-life superhero fall so spectacularly from grace?

Speaker 38 Alienated from his crime-fighting friends, a defender of justice who used to chase down drug dealers, but ended up pleading guilty to a drug charge.

Speaker 34 Over the course of the last year, I've spent a good amount of time with real-life superheroes.

Speaker 41 I've patrolled the streets with them, seen firsthand what their version of crime fighting looks like, and I've gotten to know the people behind the masks.

Speaker 23 I have to say it's been a wild ride and disorienting.

Speaker 54 At times I've been convinced that Phoenix Jones is an egomaniac who uses his superhero persona as a means to enrich himself.

Speaker 13 Other times I've felt that Phoenix is the only sane person in a society that has lost its goddamn mind.

Speaker 38 Everyone in Phoenix's orbit has their own version of what happened. Each of them is the hero of their own story.

Speaker 60 Honestly, I'm still trying to make sense of it all.

Speaker 68 You never know what anyone says is true, ever, right? You should always know that.

Speaker 17 So, what do you say we fire up the old Batmobile and take it for a spin?

Speaker 40 We've got a lot of superheroes to meet and the truth to uncover.

Speaker 60 Oh, and I forgot to mention the real-life super villains.

Speaker 38 So, you better bring your grappling hook because we might get into some sticky situations.

Speaker 49 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 49 Sean Glenn, Max O'Brien, and David Waters are executive producers.

Speaker 35 Fact-checking by Andrew Schwartz.

Speaker 38 Production management from Cherie Houston, Frankie Taylor, and Charlotte Wolfe. Sound design, mixing, and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempson.

Speaker 38 Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters.

Speaker 62 Original music is composed by Paul Housden.

Speaker 51 Special thanks to Peter Tangen, the Unplanned America team, Willard Foxton, Matt O'Meara, Katrina Norvell, Beth Ann Makaluso, Oren Rosenbaum, Shelby Schenkman, and all the team at UTA.

Speaker 35 For more from Novel, visit novel.audio.

Speaker 2 Shh, you won't believe what my new friend just told me about dinosaurs.

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Speaker 7 It's Miko Mini Plus, the AI-powered companion that turns curiosity into endless learning.

Speaker 10 Hear the future of playtime.

Speaker 6 Meet the extraordinary Miko Mini Plus, only at Costco.

Speaker 79 Welcome back. Today's topic, Successful Women-Owned Businesses in the Southeast.
Today's guest, Donna Brin, CEO of B540 Sustainable Technical Textiles. So Miss Brin, why South Carolina?

Speaker 31 The collaboration across the state is just amazing here in South Carolina.

Speaker 31 We have so many resources available to us and the amount of partnerships that are formed and the networking opportunities being able to have access to major corporations and then be considered as a supplier, there's just so much opportunity.

Speaker 79 Talk to me about how South Carolina supports entrepreneurs.

Speaker 31 The South Carolina Department of Commerce will host different events here around the state, matchmaking opportunities, opportunities at really big corporations that give women-owned businesses, minority, diverse businesses, a seat at the table.

Speaker 31 That's the hardest part, is just getting in there. And the South Carolina Department of Commerce, that's what they do.

Speaker 79 Visit sclonstegacy.com.

Speaker 92 A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers. But it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught.

Speaker 88 The answers were there, hidden in plain sight. So why did it take so long to catch him?

Speaker 88 I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, Hunting the Long Island Serial Killer, the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York since the son of Sam.

Speaker 92 Available now.

Speaker 88 Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 14 On an all-new episode of iHeartRadio's Las Culturistas, Emmy, Golden Clove, and Tony Award winner Sarah Paulson spills on red carpet hacks.

Speaker 93 We saw these pictures and we were like, what is the story with this?

Speaker 14 She gets real about the inspiration behind her roles.

Speaker 93 Oh, no, there is no end to how people will behave.

Speaker 14 And she puts hosts Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang on notice.

Speaker 93 I don't think so, honey.

Speaker 81 I feel very, very triggered by this.

Speaker 14 Open your free iHeard radio app, search Lost Culturista, and listen to the full podcast now.

Speaker 18 The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved for years until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

Speaker 16 America, y'all better wake the hell up.

Speaker 61 Bad things happen

Speaker 16 to good people in small towns.

Speaker 18 Listen to Graves County on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 1 This is an iHeart podcast.