• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Superheroes: Has Anybody Tried It For Real?

LINK

NYC's own superheroes
By JAMES FANELLI

With great costumes comes great responsibility.

“Kick-Ass,” an action movie opening this week, spins a tale of average Joes becoming masked crime fighters, but New York has been home to real-life caped crusaders for years.

Gotham’s legion of real-life superheroes includes a leather-clad martial-arts expert who battles drug dealers, a masked religious hipster who feeds the homeless and an engaged pair of relationship counselors, Arjuna Ladino, 42, and Shanti Owen, 50, who don star-spangled spandex as the “Transformational Warriors” to spread the power of love.

“We are just people who really care and try to go out and make a difference,” says Chris Pollak, 25, whose alter ego, “Dark Guardian,” strikes fear in the hearts of drug peddlers in Washington Square Park. “The idea is to be this drastic example of making change in your community.”

The Staten Islander has been patrolling city streets for the last seven years, frequently putting himself in harm’s way. A drug dealer flashed a gun at Pollak once, and he has almost come to blows with thugs.

“My fiancée is very supportive, but she gets worried if I’m doing anything that involves danger,” Dark Guardian said. “When I met my fiancée, I told her I liked to do this thing where I go out and help the homeless and patrol the streets. I didn’t get into the whole costume thing — I waited until a little bit into the relationship.”

Occasionally, Dark Guardian gets an assist from two fellow superheroes, Chaim “Life” Lazaros, 25, and Ben Goldman, 23, a k a “Cameraman,” who has videotaped the Washington Square showdowns. The plucky pair also hands out food to the city’s homeless at least once a week.

Lazaros, who shares a Harlem hideout with Cameraman, said it takes a certain type to don a mask and do good. “They all have extremely strong personalities and a desire to change the world,” he said.

That’s not to say all real-life superheroes seek change through crime-fighting.

“The Phantom Zero,” a 33-year northern New Jersey-based superhero, raises money for charities and donates to the homeless. He has also accompanied Dark Guardian on some of his patrols. “I was scared out of my gourd,” The Phantom Zero said, declining to give his real name.

But his 20-year-old masked sweetheart, “Nyx,” has shown some gumption. Before moving to New Jersey to be with her super man, she lived in Kansas, where she would secretly snap shots of meth labs and send them to the authorities.

“I used to carry weaponry with me. But seeing as how I’m in New York . . . I don’t,” Nyx said.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/evil ... z0l56QJqSz

And a video-montage of Dark Guardian:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCpjY8q8Dhg
 
Dark Guardian looks like he can handle himself... though over her you;d get nicked or at least a warning for going out in that vest.
 
My wife would be OCD woman- put anything out of place in our house and feel her wrath!
 
A bit unwise to reveal the location of his 'secret lair' perhaps.

I approve of this in theory, but can;t help wondering how long we have now, before someone shoots one of these guys in the head?
 
Better than being shot in the face i guess. :(

Masked 'Superhero' Suffers Broken Nose

Phoenix Jones, who dons a mask and costumed body armour to thwart criminals and keep his US city safe, has suffered a broken nose while trying to break up a fight.

Speaking to a television station, Jones explained how after witnessing the scuffle he called police and put one of the men in a headlock.

The other man then pulled out a gun, forcing Jones to release the man he was holding. That man then kicked him in the face and broke his nose.

But Jones remains undeterred, saying his injury is part of a superhero's job. "I endanger my life with a reason and purpose," he said.

Jones has been dubbed a real-life Kick-Ass by some, with his life as a masked vigilante mirroring that of the hit 2010 movie.

His adventures on the streets of Seattle have seen him stop a car theft and gain international fame as a costumed crusader.

But Seattle Police have urged the wannabe superhero to hang up his tights before he gets seriously hurt.

Speaking of vigilantes like Jones, Detective Mark Jamieson said: "They insert themselves into a potentially volatile situation and they end up being victimised as well."

The detective urged people not to involve themselves in dangerous situations unnecessarily and said they should report any crimes to police.

Sky News
 
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/05/11/zimmer-real-life-super-hero-defends-his-own-mother/

Zimmer, Real Life Super Hero, Defends His Own Mother
Submitted by Rich Johnston

Zimmer Barnes is a Real Life Super Hero, working in New York. But now he’s gone to Texas, this time to defend someone accused of gun crime. His own mother.

Attorney Carolyn Barnes, specialising in medical malpractice, was arrested a year ago for allegedly shooting at a census worker on her doorstep. She had previously been arrested for assaulting a court officer after she tried to pass a multi-tool knife blade through X-ray machine at the Heman Sweatt Courthouse a few months earlier, as well as charges of bail jumping.

Zimmer however isn’t having any of it. “This accuser, Kathleen Gittel, has changed her story twice. When the police searched my mother’s home, ammunition, bullet holes, casings and gun powder residue couldn’t be found. They didn’t even find a gun. Bullet holes and gun powder residue can’t magically disappear, they weren’t found because they don’t exist.”

“Kathleen Gittel alleges that she walked over a mile to get to Carolyn Barnes’ very rural residence, even going over a low water crossing and ignoring “No Trespassing” signs. However, she originally stated that the incident had occurred at 33 Indian Trail, an address in another town over, and her description of Barnes’ residence does not match its actual appearance.”

Refused coverage by Texas’ so-called “Castle Doctrine” which means that people can defend themselves in heir home by, basically, shooting anyone they think is a threat, she was released on bail with a tag until that was revoked in February.

Zimmer says “While the conditions that lead up to Carolyn Barnes being detained in jail are troubling, the conditions inside the jail are even worse. Carolyn Barnes is in solitary confinement, shackled at the ankles and wrists. She is under 24 hour surveillance, including when she uses a toilet or shower. She is forbidden from making phone calls or having any visitors”. This included Zimmer, currently authorised as her attorney-in-fact.

He concludes “There are convicted serial killers, pedophiles and terrorists that get better treatment than what she’s getting. From a civil liberties standpoint, it’s totally inappropriate for someone that should be assumed innocent until proven guilty. I’ve patrolled high crime areas, removed gang tags and defended people from violent attacks. I’m currently helping to coordinate the NYI to stop the recent muggings in the West Village and track down the Long Island serial killer. But this is the toughest challenge I’ve ever faced. I’m not leaving until she’s free.”
 
Going a bit further, I looked at the link for Zimmer in the original article from Bleeding Cool, and he makes an interesting claim:

http://www.gaytimes.co.uk/Magazine/InThisIssue-articleid-7891-sectionid-748.html
The real life superhero community has changed drastically over the years.
The very first anonymous crime fighting team in America was one composed entirely of gays and lesbians, back in 1973. They were called the Lavender Panthers and they were formed to fight gay bashing in San Francisco.
Those roots are not forgotten in the RLSH community and it’s a very diverse crowd, though bigotry is still a problem at times.

S0 - Lavender Panthers... maybe the world's first superheroes? So I went to see if I could find an article, and there was one from Life contemporaneous with the events:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,908008,00.html

The Sexes: The Lavender Panthers
Monday, Oct. 08, 1973

Four San Francisco teen-agers recently got the surprise of their young lives. Tooling around in their souped-up car looking for a little fun, they spotted two homosexuals leaving the Naked Grape, a well-known gay bar. The youths roared to a stop, jumped out of their car and began to push the homosexuals around. Suddenly a brawny band, led by a man in a clerical collar, leaped from a gray Volkswagen bus and lit into them. "We didn't even ask questions," said the Rev. Ray Broshears, 38. "We just took out our pool cues and started flailing ass." The teen-agers fled into the night, only to return ten minutes later, begging for their car: "Look, man, we don't want no trouble."

The group they most assuredly did not want trouble with was the Lavender Panthers, a stiff-wristed team of gay vigilantes who have taken to the streets of San Francisco to protect their confreres against just such attacks. Formed by the Rev. Ray, a Pentecostal Evangelist and known homosexual who himself was once beaten severely outside his gay mission center, the Panthers patrol the streets nightly with chains, billy clubs, whistles and cans of red spray paint (a substitute for forbidden Mace). Their purpose, as the Rev. Ray candidly puts it, is to strike terror in the hearts of "all those young punks who have been beating up my faggots."

San Francisco has long had a reputation for permissiveness toward homosexuals, and the police department claims that there are only a couple of isolated incidents of gay beatings on their records. The homosexuals say that that is precisely the point: gays will not file I complaints because the police are likely to accuse them of having invited the beating by propositioning someone. The Rev. Ray's own log shows 300 incidents of muggings and beatings of homosexuals in San Francisco during the past six months, usually by roaming teen-age gangs. A pudgy, confessed coward, Ray says he finally got fed up on the Fourth of July after he had complained to police that some young toughs were setting off fireworks in a parking lot outside his Helping Hands Gay Community Service Center. According to Ray, when the cops arrived all they did was tell the youths he had ratted on them. The toughs proceeded to beat him senseless. Two days later Ray announced that the Lavender Panthers were coming out.

Kung Fu. The basic band numbers 21 homosexuals, including two lesbians who are reputedly the toughest hombres in the lot. Besides their goal of halting the attacks, the Lavender Panthers want to gainsay the popular notion that all homosexuals are "sissies, cowards and pansies" who will do nothing when attacked. All of the Panthers know judo, karate, Kung Fu or plain old alley fighting. For gays without defensive skills, the Panthers hold training sessions with instruction from a judo brown belt and a karate expert. Although Ray has a working arrangement with Elliot Blackstone, the police community relations officer who deals with homosexuals, not to carry firearms on his patrols, he does keep a shotgun in his office, which, he boasts, "will leave a hole in a man big enough to drive a s « tank through Georgia."

Beyond their stipulation against the Panthers' carrying guns, the police have not interfered with the patrols, nor have they received any complaints from anyone the Panthers have accosted. Indeed, the Panthers have gotten more heat from their own brethren than from the police. Bill McWilliams, owner of three gay bars, says, for example, that the patrons of his Boot Camp bar can take good care of themselves. Moreover, many of the city's affluent gays do not like the idea of hard-eyed homosexual toughs causing commotion in the streets. But Ray insists that his Draconian measures are necessary. "Middle America has always had a little tinge of homophobia," he says. "But I've had it up to here. All this queer bashing has simply got to stop."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... z1M3FZZqI7
 
'Heman Sweatt Courthouse'. I just spotted that in the earlier post.
:)
 
Mythopoeika said:
'Heman Sweatt Courthouse'. I just spotted that in the earlier post.
:)

There's a Norwegian guy who posed as He-Man, walking around malls, etc, but had repeated run-ins with the police over his real sword.I'll try and find the link.
 
Kellydandodi said:
Mythopoeika said:
'Heman Sweatt Courthouse'. I just spotted that in the earlier post.
:)

There's a Norwegian guy who posed as He-Man, walking around malls, etc, but had repeated run-ins with the police over his real sword.I'll try and find the link.

So...He-Man is being made to sweat...at the courthouse? :)
 
Article is by Jon Ronson, who will be speaking (about something else) at this year's unconvention.
 
He gave away his secret identity PDQ. Pretty basic mistake.
 
A different kind of story from Bleeding Cool:

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/10/04/the-man-who-went-under-the-knife-to-become-superman/
Herbert Chavez is an Philippine man who not only adores Superman, but wants to be like him, to the extent that he has had his face, his body physically altered through surgery to be more like his fictional idol. Chin, nose, lips, eyes, skin, thighs…

In this report, we see him take a news reporter around his Superman-filled home, and we see the shocking transformation.

And, no, the surgeon didn’t have to use a kyryptonite-coated scalped…
 
He needs to work on the muscles.
 
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/10/10/phoenix-jones-arrested-for-assault/
Bleeding Cool have covered the real life superhero antics of Phoenix Jones, who patrols the streets of Seattle challenging the like of drug dealers, car thieves and, now it seems, clubbers.

He was arrested by Seattle Police yesterday morning after he is alleged to have pepper sprayed a group leaving a nightclu at at 2.30 am

They claim they were having a good time leaving the club, only for Jones to walk up behind them and spray them. Jones was then chased by two of them and fought, before the police stepped in.

Jones claims that the group, rather than innocent dancers, were involved in a fight. His spokesman Peter Tangen says there is video evidence showing how “somebody had just been body-slammed onto the concrete” and the pepper spray incident was intended to break up the fight.

Handily, Jones was being filmed by a camera crew at the time. The release of that video should prove educative, one way or another.
 
It looks pretty clear to me. Phoenix and the guys with him did nothing wrong, and they helped protect a man from some crazy druggies.
The police have probably arrested him because they don't like vigilantes.
 
Anyone seen the film Super yet? Could be a sign of vigilantes to come: masked nutters shouting "Shut up, crime!" and smashing drugs dealers' heads open with a wrench.
 
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/10...reveals-identity-vows-to-keep-fighting-crime/
“I’m Phoenix Jones”: Real Life Superhero Unmasks, Reveals Identity, Vows To Keep Fighting Crime
Submitted by Mark Seifert on October 14, 2011 – 9:51 am (5) comments

Earlier this week, Bleeding Cool showed you video of a conflict on the streets of Seattle which led to assault charges for Phoenix Jones, even though the video appeared to show that Jones was in fact breaking up a fight as he had claimed.

Now, the saga of the world’s best-known Real Life Superhero has taken another interesting twist, as Phoenix Jones unmasked in front of cameras after appearing in court to answer the charges, and revealed his identity on camera as Ben Fodor. As procecutors delayed a decision about whether to file the assault charges, Fodor announced he would continue to patrol the streets as Phoenix Jones.

“I’m Phoenix Jones. I’m also Ben Fodor. I’m a father. I’m also a brother. I’m just like everyone else. The only difference is, I decided to make a difference and stop crime in my neighborhood and my area,” said Fodor.

The 23-year-old was accused of assaulting several people outside a nightclub early Sunday morning, but no charges were filed in Thursday’s hearing when prosecutors told a judge they would need more time to decide whether to file charges in the case.

“The charges were false. The video shows that, the court hearing shows that. And I’m going to continue to do what I’ve always done and if you want to help me in any way, send me a message. Find me on Facebook,” said Fodor.

He invited the public to accompany him on a “patrol” in Seattle on Saturday at 10 p.m. at First and Pike, and then in true superhero fashion, he signed off by saying, “I’ll be on the streets.”
 
That’s the worst ... taste I’ve seen in a long time.
 
All I could think is Kid N Play... but I respect his attempt to do something he thinks of as a good idea against the grain, as it were. I just hope none of these folks trying to bring the superhero concept into reality gets killed.
 
MrRING said:
All I could think is Kid N Play...

Yeah, his hairstyle is kinda retro...
 
Unfortunate? Surely not legal?

If he was convicted of assault there might be a case for it, even then, I think that's a bit shaky in context.
 
Back
Top