Stealing Superman: Episode Seven — Strange Visitor

eleven years of searching. It's tantalizingly close. But while they suspect the comic is inside, they don't know who might be with it, so hurry. Sick shares some words of caution. Here's what Stephen remembers. And they gave me sort of the lay of the land, the how they wanted this to go down. Detective Horristic would poses my partner, And they said to me, yeah, because I'm I'm trying to do a comic deal. Obviously this is not a normal

comic deal because it's a stolen book. But he says, if there's trouble, anybody brings out a gun, hit the floor and I went golden I said, if somebody brings out a gun, don't worry. I can do that. That sounds well intense, but there are a few reasons why Donald Horresi is giving the warning. The first is that this isn't his first flirtation with people who are knowingly or not in possession of stolen art, and people in

possession of stolen art can be dangerous. The second reason is that Donald Harrisk doesn't plan on letting the men inside know he's a cop, or that several cops are hiding nearby, at least not just yet. So there's risk, but the risk is worth it for both of them.

Harrisik has an opportunity to add another recovery to his storied career as an art detective, and Fishler can put to bed a mystery that's been eating at him since two thousand, the mystery of how Nick Cage's comics were ripped off his wall during a party in a brazen and so far successful attempt to relieve him of his prized possessions. Anything could have happened to the comics. They

could have been lost, or destroyed or damaged. But if the picture sent to Stephen just a couple of days prior, was any hint the most important comic had survived the past decade in one piece. To confirm it, all the two of them had to do was walked through the door. That was it. The two walk inside, then Stephen notices something out of the corner of his eye. We get out and we go into an office and there was an individual standing outside, and as soon as we went

in he must have realized who I was. He went into the office fifteen seconds after the tective and I went in, and I went kind of weird. He was waiting outside and then I looked at his hand. He's holding the Manila folder and I go that book was pictured in the Manila folder, but I can't see what's

in it. And the individual with the Manila folder is pulled into an inner office is now sitting in this office, and the Minila folder is now open, and there's the book on like a little aprolic pedestal and we sit down. Oh yeah, that's an original action one where I heart radio. This is Stealing Superman. I'm your host, Dana Schwartz, and this is episode seven. Strange Visitor two thousand eleven was

turning out to be a tumultuous year for Cage. It was a time when, approaching his fifties, he was on shaky ground as a leading man. He was drifting away from his action star Heyday and many years removed from his last Oscar nomination. A major Disney movie, The Sorcerer's Apprentice,

had disappointed a year earlier. Cages two thousand and eleven slate of films weren't much better, with little remembered titles like Season of the Witch and Drive Angry Another turn as more All's ghost Rider character debuted at the quote Butt Namathon to a reportedly poor reception. This was the beginning of a decade spent largely in the direct to television market, where the movies were often undeserving of Cage's talents. It had happened to John Travolta and to Bruce Willis.

Cage like to say, making a lot of low budget movies was kind of like the old studio system where stars churned out movies. But there was no denying his career had stalled. Professionally, it wasn't his best year, But for our story, there was one bright spot. Art crime, as any good art crime detective will tell you, is a game of Patients extreme Patients. Art thieves may try to convert their illicit goods to money quickly, or they may decide they're far better off sitting on something for years,

even decades. The general rule is, if a piece of stolen art doesn't service immediately, you may not see it for say, ten years, long enough for cops to lose interest and the trail of ownership to grow cold. In the case of Cages Action number one, it was eleven years close enough. In an earlier episode, we Told You. Art thefts are often preceded by media coverage of lavish auctions or high dollar sales, something to make the thief think about the value of something they could steal. The

same can also hold true for art recovery. Someone in possession of a stolen item may see news of its value and how much it's increased since it was taken, and that can be the motivation to finally try and return it to the legitimate market. So what happened in two thousand eleven A few things. In February, Joanne Siegel, the widow of the late Superman co creator Jerry Siegel,

passed away. It was covered in the media, often with a mention of how rare and valuable Action Comics Number one was, And in March of that year, Stephen Fishler made some history. His company, Comic Connect, an online marketplace for comics, sold a copy of Amazing Fantasy Number fifteen. That nineteen sixty two comic introduced Spider Man, and it's sold for an astounding one point one million, a new record for the wall Crawler. So what does that have

to do with Action number one. In all of the ensuing media articles about the sale of Amazing Fantasy Number fifteen, reporters had to make a clarifying remark that while the sale was a record for Spider Man, it wasn't a comic book record. That honor still longed to Action number one. In two thousand ten, Fishler sold two copies of the comic, one for a million dollars and another for one point five million. The latter was the most expensive comic ever sold.

So whoever was holding onto the comic taken from Nick Cage's home may have felt a new sense of urgency. And if someone happened to find that comic around that time, well they'd know it was worth quite a bit. Just a couple of weeks after news of that sale broke, Dan Dotson and his wife Laura were approached by two men. Dan and Laura run American Auctioneers, a storage locker liquidation business in California. If you've seen the A and E

show Storage Wars, you've seen Dan. The premise of what Dan and Laura do is pretty simple to understand, although it's real not an easy job. American Auctioneers is hired by storage unit companies to auction off storage units that aren't up to date on their payments. Say someone rents the storage locker, stuffs it full of their belongings, then

stops paying the monthly bill. The storage company is stuck with a bunch of stuff they don't want, so to recoup what they can, they auction off the contents to buyers who hope to profit from what's inside. The buyers can't really see any of it beforehand, just a glimpse, so it's kind of a crapshoot. You might get something valuable or you might get some old clothes. Either way,

it makes for really good reality television. American Auctioneers, like every liquidator, gives the owners of the lockers every chance to come and collect their things before it's too late. They're required by law to print a public notice in newspapers with the names of the people who are past do on their bills. Those people can swooped back in even at the last minute. If they can pay up, they get to keep their stuff. If not, it's open season.

That's what Dan was doing in March when he was approached by someone he recognized, a man about forty years old. The man whom he knew only as Sylvester, had recently arrived on the storage unit scene. Like a lot of people. He may have been compelled to get into it based on the popularity of storage wars. Either way, he was a new but familiar face. Originally, he had approached Dan's wife, Laura,

who's the co owner of their company. Here's Laura. I just remember his name being Sylvester, and he had a friend with him, and they were they were shorter guys. I just know that. When I'm doing my auction and stuff like that, I try to remember the whole crowd, and I try to make you look at everybody's face so I don't miss anybody's bid and so forth. And I just remember they were maybe five ft three each

of them and smaller guys. Laura thought Sylvester and his friend had a question about the auction she and Dan were holding. That was typically why people approached them to ask questions about how it all works. But Sylvester had something else on his mind. He wanted to invite her to his home. Well, here I am in this auction place and I'm doing an auction and I'm on my like last unit, and a guy comes up with a friend and asked me. I said, okay, you're here for

the auction. Everything is. I gave him the terms real quick because I realized, oh, he's just showing up. And he said to me, do you have comic books you find in units? And so do you guys have buyers and stuff like that? And could you appraise a comic book for me? Sylvester was looking for guidance, and you know, when it's really kind of local over here, you could

just come on over to my house. And I said, no, I wouldn't be the one that would just come to your house because I had never seen this guy before. And he said, well, my name is Sylvester, and he had a another guy with him, and I recalled that they were new to the auction, and they were interested in looking at units, is what I thought. And I said, last unit, last unit, happening right now. And he wants me to please come to his house, and okay, let me look at this last unit. But if you could

just come before your next sale. And it seems like you know about comic books, I said, listen, I wouldn't be the one to come. Let me give you my husband's information. He will be doing an auction on Saturday, was the nearest time. And he said to me, okay, well great, then I'm gonna come and see your husband. And I figured, you know what my husband and I do is we will look for provenance and we will look for through a fem roun paper stuff if we

can find anything online. And I hadn't put it. I put it into my head and kind of out of my head. So Sylvester came back that Saturday and he brought something with him, and this time he approached Laura's husband. Here's Dan. So he brought it down to our auction on Saturday, and I was looking at it. You know, I was coming through that comic book and it just looked so nice and Prestine, I just you know, it was pretty sure that it was probably reproduction, but it wasn't.

Sylvester explained to Dan that he had just bought a storage locker from American auctioneers. After cleaning it out and sorting through its contents, he made the discovery of the Century, a nearly flawless copy of Action Comics Number one tucked inside of a large hardcover book. Dan knows a lot about a lot when it comes to stuff people find in storage lockers, from antiques to guns, but he's not an expert in comic books. He didn't know exactly what

he was looking at. Not not really, No, I didn't. I saw that it was June comic, but I didn't realize it was I didn't realize how special it was at the time. For Dan, there wasn't any thought to trying to get involved. No, no, I didn't even realize the value of it. Um. You know, I and I don't really have connections to by, you know, comic books. So while he figured this could be something, he decided

to pass Sylvester along to someone else. Lalo was, you know, hitting up our auctions at the time, and I just introduced them. I think the guy's name was Sylvester, and I said, Sylvester, Mark, Mark, Sylvester, you know, knock yourselves out. And then I, you know, I didn't really think anything else of it. Balalo is Mark Balalo, another storage unit liquidator.

Mark was relatively new to the scene too. He would make appearances on Storage Wars, flashing a lot of money to scoop up storage units, wearing sunglasses indoors, and generally being provocative enough to make an impression on reality television. You know, Balalo at the time, I think really wanted to be on Storage Wars. And and he pretended that we knew each other like forever, and we didn't know each other, you know, forever. But Mark did know about

comics more than Dan and Laura at any rate. So he and Sylvester got to talking, and Mark said enough to convince Sylvester that he could find a proper buyer for his discovery. He took the comics, put it in the safe of his warehouse in Simi Valley, and then he made a phone call. He called the one person whose name had been in hundreds of newspapers as the man who was earning record prices for rare comic books, including amazing Fantasy number fifteen and the very comic Mark

was holding in his hands. Of all the dealers he could have called, Mark called Stephen Fishler. Stephen Fishler couldn't believe it. The Action number one he sold to Cage, the one he had been searching for, just material realized in front of his face. An employee of Minds is the individual contacted him with an Action one, and I go to the person's word station. They look at their computer and I see in this email a picture of

an Action one. It's not in a bag. It appears to be in photograph while it's sitting in a Manila four They're on screen. Was the comic unceremoniously tucked into a Manila folder and resting on a car seat. But how could Stephen tell it was the comic? Rare comics have markings, certain distinguishable markings that distanced them from the hundreds of similar copies. Stephen felt he knew what cages Action number one looked like, the way a parent can

tell the difference between identical twins. The secret was in the blue banner. Just over the tight a logo. There were white markings. Stephen knew about markings other collectors or a thief may not even be aware of. And the markings were there exactly as Stephen remembered that. And I do a double tape, and I will say it probably took me five seconds to realize it was next book. But I found a copy of a picture of the book, just to be double short. And my employee emailed me,

forwarding me the original email. I called this individual up. His name was Mark. He was in Semi Valley, and I thanked him for contacting me. And it looks like a wonderful book, and they wanted to sell it. And he indicated that he was friends with the owner. He's representing the owner. And they said that the book was purchased in an aukstion like a storage unit auction. The question was what exactly did Mark Ballelo want Stephen to do.

According to Stephen, it was to authenticate the comic, to make sure it was the genuine article and not a reproduction or a phony like the one that had turned up in Memphis back in two thousand and two, or the ones unscrupulous ebayers sometimes tried to pass off as the real thing. If it was the real thing, then Mark would go looking for a buyer, one who would pay him at least a million dollars for the comic.

And who better to ask for help than the man who was just in the news for setting seven figure records for comic sales. I had the first million dollar sale of a comic book. It was another Action one. It was before this, and I believe that they heard about this million dollars sale because it was mine. Mine aim was well over it, and that's where they connected the figure of a million, and I think that that's

why New Contact. So what happened was I sold See an Action one for a million, then I sold an Action one in for one point five. So that was all before and that was publicized. So that was all before Mark Contact. But Mark didn't seem to acknowledge that it could be Nicholas Cage's copy, and Stephen didn't mention it either. If Mark knew it could be Cages, why go to Cages comic dealer. Isn't that launching yourself directly

in the line of fire? Not exactly. I don't think he did, And my feeling is he just knew that I dealt in Action once and I was prominent dealer. He found a lot of information about out me, but not that connection. And I also said to myself, if they know it was stolen from California, let's not get a California deal over here, because he might really know that this is stolen book. Let's get a New York guy, because if if it's New York, well maybe this is

a smaller chance that'll know it's stolen. Stephen did two things, and I said, oh, that's great. And I'm knowing the entire time that this story might not be real, but it doesn't matter because they have the book. And I called the detective horrific after I got off the phone, saying that the main book, the Action One, is in l A. And I said, I'm being contacted. I have a picture of it. This is the individual's name. I

sent him the email. That's it. That's the book, um, and he wants me to come and look at it. And I booked a ticket. So the coordination happened where I came out the next day, met the detective at the local police station that was near Simi Valley. Harrisick you'll remember is Donald Harresik, the l A. P. D Art detective whom Stephen had sparred with a handful of times over the years. To Stephen, Donald hadn't been overly

aggressive in hunting down the cage. Comics art theft was rampant in Los Angeles, and in fairness to Donald, there was always a lot going on with virtually no manpower devoted to it. Donald had one partner. If that still, Donald agreed that Steven should go and meet with the two of them, with Mark and Sylvester. Donald would accompany him as an associate. It would be a sting operation, one where the contraband wasn't drugs or guns, but a

comic book. The next day, Stephen found himself outside Mark Balelo's warehouse in Simi Valley, California, a massive struck sure where Mark housed his inventory of items he bought and sold. He dealt in electronics, a thriving eBay business, live auctions, and business was apparently booming. Stephen got the pep talk from Donald, the one where he should duck if someone brought out a gun, but Donald wasn't taking chances. He stationed a number of officers around the warehouse in case

backup was needed. The situation may have seemed funny on the surface, it was after all a comic, but one worth potentially millions of dollars, and when that kind of money is involved, people can be unpredictable. Stephen and Donald walked into the warehouse before anyone could say anything. Stephen caught sight of the man with a Manila folder. It was a light yellow office folder, the kind of stationary you tuck and earnings report in. Not a valuable comic.

It's a great way for the book to get damaged, wrinkled pages torn. Suddenly, Stephen was thinking that even if this was the comic, who knew what kind of damage it had sustained in the past eleven years. Anything from humidity to sunlight could have damaged it beyond repair. Comics can't be restored without someone noticing it, and collectors have very definitive opinions about restored comics. They're often seen as

something less valuable. This comic was from night. It needed to be treated kindly, and here was a man carrying it like he was a waiter with a menu. Stephen's attention was diverted when Mark Ballelo appeared. Stephen hadn't seen Storage Wars, had never met Ballelo, knew virtually nothing of the storage unit scene. But Mark was easy enough to profile. He wore shiny shirts, he talked a lot, He acted like the car salesman he used to be. He invited

Stephen and Donald into an office. The four of them sat down. Mark seemed loose, easy going, excited. A seven figure pay day had practically dropped itself into his lap. If he knew about Cage or that Stephen's friend was a cop, he showed no signs of it at all. He was here to be told he was about to come into a windfall, or at least half of it. That was what he and Sylvester had agreed to. Stephen picked up the comic. Anything could have happened prior to

this point. Mark and Sylvester could have gotten cold feet for whatever reason and disappeared. They could have decided to sell it to someone else. They could have sent a picture they had found online. Or Stephen could have been mistaken about the markings. There was no way for him to know for sure until he had the comic in his hands. An original action one beautiful me. I really

appreciate contacting me about it. And this individual who seemed to think his name told me his name was Arthur just off the top of my head, Arthur was Sylvester. He reiterated the story about how he got the book, and they bought a store of JUnit and it was found inside another book. I think I might have asked, was there anything else in there? Any other comic books? They said no, And there's a little ooing and eyeing over the book. They wanted a million dollars for it.

As the men talked, Stephen examined the comic, and right away he knew this was Nicolas Cage's Action number one. A tiny white splotch inside one of the blue banners confirmed it. Like a fingerprint missing eleven years, found today, and not only that, in virtually the same condition it was when it was taken from Cage's house on purpose or by accident. Whoever had been in possession of it

all this time had managed not to ruin it. For a comic that had been purportedly stuffed inside a storage unit, one that may not have even had a climate controlled environment, it was pristine. Stephen wanted to exhale, but couldn't really couldn't tip them off. He scanned the two men in front of him, Mark and Sylvester. Stephen remembers. Sylvester kept saying his name was Arthur. They were both hard to read. They didn't seem nervous, so maybe they didn't know the

comics history. Maybe they both believed they were two of the luckiest people on the planet. Stephen started talking to them to try to understand how they wound up with the comic in their hands. It is Arthur a little bit of Mark, because Mark was really really not a comic deal or so he's he's just trying to put from what he said, parties together to do a deal. I'm sure he was getting a cut for his work. I asked Arthur, who obviously walked in with the book.

You know, I'm trying to get some more details. Wanted to see what other information, and he had his story and he was sticking to it about where it came from. So I would think that if somebody bought a storage unit would be very clear on where they got it from. To see if there's anything more in there. Stephen wasn't getting much more detail from either man. They were simply two people who wanted to know if the rare comics Sylvester found was the real deal, and it was, but

that wasn't necessarily a good thing for them. Stephen and Donald had made an arrangement. Once Stephen was sure this was the book, he'd not at Donald, and then Donald, who was mostly quiet up until now, would start doing all of the talking. And then Detective Horristic, who I introduces my partner when we walked in, grabbed his business card and handed it to the two gentlemen, and just not a business card from a comic dealer, but a

business card from a police officer. Police Detective Donald announced he was a cop, and suddenly the air seemed to go out of the room. He may as well have just set the comic book on fire. And he explains who he is, and he brings out a copy of the original police report from two thousands, and I literally saw the individual I remember as Arthur turned gray. All the blood ansom. Everybody thought they had a million dollar paid day person flew out to buy the book. And

here's a cop, here's a police detective. As Mark and Sylvester winced, Donald announced he was taking possession of the comic and did just that, collecting it in its manila folder. The officers outside rushed in, making sure no one left. It was now up to Donald to determine the veracity of Sylvester's story how he had gotten his hands on the comic. The two spoke for maybe thirty minutes behind closed doors. Stephen paced back and forth, the curiosity of

a collector eating at him. Some art investigations are about finding the art, and strictly about finding the art. The how of it all can get lost amid the investigator's caseload. But here was a direct line between the comic and the and who claimed to have found it. Donald Harrisik was a seasoned detective. If there was truth to be found,

Stephen figured he'd be able to find it. When Donald finished with Sylvester and walked out, Stephen went up to him, eager to get the details, eager to share them with Cage, who was about to get some very good news. Stephen half expected to see Sylvester being hustled away by officers, dragged back to the station for further questionings, but Sylvester just strolled out unescorted. At that point, Detective Horristic takes

the individual who remembers Arthur into another room. They probably spend about half an hour talking, and they talked to Mark Allelo and Detective Horristic says, yeah, we're really not able to get any more useful information. I said, I think this is a story that they can talk that he says doable is, but they're not giving you any more information about where they the Detective one or technically seven.

I believe that they knew it was stolen and they had a cover story already in case it gets found out. Stephen wasn't sure he was hearing Donald correctly, and why did Sylvester just get up and walk out? Pretty soon everyone was clearing out of the warehouse. Donald returned to the L a p. D. Comic into Stephen immediately phone Cage, who was enthusiastic about the news outside. I called Nick and I told him that the Action One is now back,

and he was very very happy. It was a very defeating feeling having his best book stolen out of his house, and it was a bit of a victory getting the Action One back, But even though the comic had been recovered, things felt incomplete. While the comic belonged to Cage, he had been paid by his insurance company, so really it belonged to them. And then and that was assuming Donald was prepared to return it. He had an investigation to finish to see whether sylvester story held up. Donald still

needed to do one other thing. He phoned William Hughes, the man who had bought Action number one from Southebes back in and asked for the catalog. Remember back in episode four we mentioned southe Bees took a very precise series of photos of this very comic book, and it would make all the difference later in the story, well my friends later is now. Donald wanted to use those photos for comparison. In all, there were fifteen tiny but distinct markings or irregularities unique to this copy, all of

them painstakingly documented by the auction house. It was, as Stephen said, a perfect match. Beyond all doubt. This was Cages comic. But how did a man named Sylvester find it? A better question nagged at Stephen. Had he really found it at all? The story Sylvester told Donald Harresik was a fascinating one. He said he had discovered the Action number one in an abandoned storage unit he bought at auction. This seems pretty straightforward. If he bought it at auction,

then you just try to locate the original owner. Of the locker to see what information they might have. After all, the comic was in their possession, right, the storage facility would have those names, so would Dan Dotson. And even if they didn't remember that, Dan had to print the names of the locker owners in the paper as a legal requirement. So all Donald would have had to do is go to the library to grab some back issues.

But here's the problem, the biggest problem. Sylvester said he bought multiple storage units in March, and he simply didn't know which storage unit the comic had come from. Somehow the contents of all of the units had gotten all mixed up. Here's Dan Dotson, That's what he had said. And he had been coming around for a for a minute, and you know, bought a lot of units from a lot of different facilities, so it was pretty impossible for that time to figure out what or where I really

was motivated to dig into it, figure anything out. To be honest with you, I don't know which facility he may have bought it from, and he said that he bought it from one of ours, so I didn't have any reason to doubt that. Here's Laura, because I've been buying units and I put everything together because I was like, Wow, where did you buying it from? What did you get this from? What unit? And stuff from them? So excited we like to put providence and put a story together,

you know, because I just can't really tell you. I just know that it was a bunch of units, and I got a bunch of stuff, and and he was buying a lot of stuff from my husband. Yeah, and my husband said, I've been selling until Sylvester has been buying the heck out of units. So I just think, Wow, he scored. Sylvester had bought a lot of ship, so much ship that it co mingled, making pinpointing where the

comic came from impossible. But if Sylvester didn't know which storage unit the comic had come from, then Donald couldn't have any assurance. The people who owned the lockers, if they could be found at all, wouldn't simply deny the comic had been in their particular one. It was kind of like saying that the comic had just been found in the street. The providence, the ability to gauge where

the comic came from it was lost. It was either an incredible stroke of luck for the thief or one of the better cover stories the detective had ever heard. Here's Stephen Fishler. I don't believe that these guys gave the detective any specific information about any storage unit. I can't remember if they even indicated what facility they think the storage unit was. I don't remember that. But there was definitely pretty much a dead end in terms of

investigating the storage unit. If you're if you're a police detective, and you believe that this is a cover story and it really was never in a storage facility or storage unit, you're not going to spend a bunch of time, you know, dealing with the storage units. This isn't as unusual a situation as it may seem. A lot of art has been discovered over the years stolen art original art inside storage units. If you are in possession of a rare item that's been liberated from its owner, you may not

want to keep it on your property. So it's entirely possible someone decided the safest place for cages stolen action comics number one was in a storage unit. But would they simply then forget to pay the bill? Would you forget to pay the bill on the unit that had a million dollars or more inside of it. Donald Herresik was prepared to dig into this more, but then Mark Blelow, the man whom Sylvester turned to for help with the comic,

made a move of his own. Mark recognized the value of publicity in his line of work, and being the co finder of Action Comics Number one was worth the of headlines. Before Donald could blink, Mark was talking to the press. This made Donald very unhappy. In an interview of his own, he said he wished that Mark hadn't opened his big mouth. The problem was if anyone else happened to be involved or knew where cages. Two remaining comics were the Detective Number twenty seven and the Detective

Number one. They now knew the police were chasing a lead, but Mark was pretty happy to talk about it. In fact, he ran up to Laura Dotson not long after to tell her the news. And then Ballelo comes to one of my sales and he says, we'll never believe what happened. He says, you know, we're looking at that book and we're all inside the room, and then all of a sudden he's telling us, yes, this is something great, and I think, okay, the exchange is going to happen. We're

gonna make money. And you know, I had your husband in and you guys for a hundred thousand dollars. I was like, what like a commission and we had no clue. I didn't know. You know, usually I think, and well, I guess this is how this game works. He goes, but it all fell apart, like go really And he goes, well, that turned out that I thought he was going to say it was a fake. And he says, all of a sudden, the doors bust open and it was the FBI or the police, and they said this was stolen.

And he goes, oh my god. And I'm looking at the guy going, oh god, I'm so glad I didn't buy this comic book from him. If this was a big scheme, Mark was pretty happy to talk about it. He took a photo he had taken of the Action Number one surrounded by antiques and used it to announce an upcoming sale on Facebook, and then he dressed up as Superman, Cape and all for one of his live auctions. As much as Donald hated the attention, Mark was loving it.

It wasn't more than a few weeks before Donald ran out of reasons to keep the comic. Sylvester story wasn't something that could be proven or disproven, and the law says that you're only in trouble for possession and of stolen material if you know it was stolen, you should have known it was stolen, or you admit to stealing it. Donald couldn't prove Mark or Sylvester knew it was Cages comic or a stolen comic, and there was nothing linking the two back to the Night of Cages party in

two thousand. For Stephen, the news was bitter sweet. The comic was back, but it came without much of an explanation and whether the reason was Mark Ballelo talking or something else, Stephen felt Donald wasn't that interested in chasing the only lead they had, very frustrating. And then when I finally called him up, the only reason he paid attention was because I said, here's the name of the person who has here's the address there at they're offering it to me. I'm flying out, I have a flight.

You can't spell it out more than that. I think who was stolen from? I think he took it seriously. I think you know they might be overwhelmed, and unless they're given something super concrete, they don't have the time to track everything down. Cage, for his part, declared the discovery divine providence and hoped the heirloom his words would be returned to his family. Reports indicated Cage had the option of returning the money the insurance company had given

him for the comic, possibly with inflation. If he did, the comic would be handed back to him. In the fourteen years since Cage first purchased it, Action Number one had appreciated in value by a lot. Remember that Stephen Fishler sold two Action Number one for over a million dollars each, neither in as good a condition as the Cage copy. Cage wanted the book back, but he didn't want to keep it, and the police had investigation for a number of and kept it in a safe at

a secure police location. And then I eventually, in another trip to California, I came and picked up the book when the police released it, and brought it back to New York, and we eventually sold it for Nick. The sentimental value of the comic was probably still there for Cage. Once someone falls for Superman, they tend to admire him. Forever, But by this point Cage's unusual approach to financial planning was well known. It involved spending. He admitted he loved

spending money on homes and cars and rarities. There were reports he owned an island or two in the Bahamas. He owned a gulf Stream Jet, four yachts, at one point, fifty cars, and his own mechanic. A Tyrannosaurus skull was procured for two hundred and seven. The six thousand dollars then returned when it was found to have been stolen from Mongolia. Cage, of course, had no idea it was illicit. Buying hot dino bones was certainly expensive, but what really

dampened cages spending was real estate. The market took a bad turn, and the many properties he had became difficult to maintain or sell off. Even the bell Air mansion where the comic was originally stolen went up for sale. Cage didn't have much of a choice. He had eighteen million dollars in loans against it. It did eventually sell for only a fraction of cages thirty five million dollar asking price, so Superman would have to be a savior.

In another way, Cage returned the money to the insurance company, and then he put the comic up for auction with Stephen Fishler. They submitted the book to the c g C The Last Word in third Party Comic Book Grading, where it received a nine out of ten at the time, the highest ever awarded an action number one. In November of two thousand eleven, the book fetched an incredible two point one six one million dollars, a new record for a comic book sale, which undoubtedly helped Cage attend to

at least a portion of his debt. This truly was divine providence. The comic found a new home with an undisclosed buyer, one who would presumably take more precautions than Cage had in safe keeping it. Mark and Sylvester were off the hook. Sylvester had seemed to materialize on the auction scene suddenly, and after the comic deal turned sour, he seemed to disappear just as quickly. Here's Laura Dotson. Yet it was something like, how often does this happen?

And we came across this and we just don't know how to sell it or get it appraised, And this just fell into our lap from these units we've been buying and I'm thinking, well, here comes another fantastic treasure hunt story. And as quick as he came onto the picture in the scene, I had never seen him again either. There are questions left dangling. Did Mark really happen to call Stephen Fishler by pappenstance? Did Sylvester really find the comic in a storage locker? If he did, who did

the locker belong to? Stephen doesn't think there is an original owner. I believe that they concocted the story as a plausible cover, so they went all right, usual, I've got this book. I'll just say it came from a storage unit. That'll be it. But I don't I don't really believe that that was the case. But where the book was, if I was to put together reasonable details,

left Nick's house. The person who stole it out of the house sold it, and may have sold it to the individual who had it all these years, who I met and wanted a million dollars for. I don't think it bounced around for many people. However, many people it bounced around with. It landed with Sylvester and Mark. Sylvester virtually disappeared and Mark Well Mark was already in some trouble, trouble that ended tragically and under some slightly suspicious circumstances.

To try to make sense of it, We're going back to the warehouse, this time from the perspective of the people who worked there. We're going to get more help from a reformed art thief. And yes, we're going to see if we can find the elusive Sylvester and see if he is finally ready to talk. But please don't john me. As a current joined us called tweetcau as well,

that's next time on the finale of Stealing Superman. Stealing Superman is written by Jake Rawson, sound design, scoring and mixing by Josh Fisher, additional editing by Jonathan Washington, original music by Aaron Kaufman, mixing and mastering by Baheed Fraser. Research and fact checking by Jake Rawson and Austin Thompson, with production support from Lulu Philip. Show logo by Lucy Quintinia. Our executive producer is Jason English and I'm your host

Danish Sports. If you're enjoying this show, check out Haileywood and Noble Blood and give us a nice review. We'll see you next week. Five