5: The Rogue Era

there waiting for him. He's trying to convince me not to fight crime, Like, if you don't stop fin and crime, I'm gonna tell your identity. I'm like, you can't threaten me with something like I will not be threatened. You have nothing to threaten me with, Like it's ridiculous for you to think you're gonna threaten me, ridiculous. The concepts offensive you threatening me ridiculous, Like, oh, you're gonna tell everybody in my identity you already did. Jerk off. I'm

in court. Do you think we can keep all these court documents sealed? I'm aware of the clocks ticking. That's why you did it. You did it to expose me and to make fun of me, because you thought that people would think of was a clown. It was at this moment that Phoenix decided he would turn the tables on his nemesis. That was one of those moments where I was like, everything sucks, but if it's gonna suck,

it's gonna suck my way. He looked to Iron Man for inspiration, specifically the scene where the inventor Tony Stark reveals his identity at a press conference and now Mr Stark has prepared a statement. Phoenix watched that lip over and over again, like five or six times in a row. Truthish, I am, I right man, And it was like, I'm

gonna do my version of that. Phoenix set up a press conference outside the courthouse on October two thousand and eleven, wearing his black and gold superhero costume, flanked by people in business suits. He turns to the reporters and speaks, I'm Phoenix Jones, I'm also Ben Voter. I'm just like everyone else. The only difference is that I decided to make a difference and stop crime. In my neighborhood, in my area. The reveal didn't quite have that Hollywood polish,

but it was an impressive thing to witness. Phoenix had made it clear to Pete Holmes and the rest of the Seattle Police Department, the whole world really that he would not back down from his mission to fight crime. As Phoenix saw, he called their bluff and they folded. Life only is a certain amount of moments, right, and I think sometimes people are conflicted by how they feel their emotions, right were as I'm not so so it really have a chance to look at them as how

can I add to my legacy? At this moment, Phoenix concluded his press conference with an announcement the city Attorney could take his request that Phoenix stopped fighting crime and shove it. I'm paraphrasing. What he actually said was that he was heading back out on patrol that weekend, but the point still stands Phoenix Jones would not be deterred. I'm David Weinberg and from the team's at Novel and I Heart Radio. This is the Superhero Complex episode five

the Rogue Era. When Phoenix Jones revealed his identity outside the Seattle Courthouse it was a moment of triumph. Shortly after Pete Holmes's office announced that they were dropping the charges for the pepper spray incident. I think they just went perfectly. Other than having my identity, it really went perfectly because I think that legitimized me as a superhero in a weird way. How well, because when I revealed my secret identity, every news article said, hey, superhero revealed

secret identity. You have to be a superhero to have a secret identity. And I revealed it because the cops were coming after me for stopping crime. Phoenix said that in a way, revealing his identity actually helped him because before now nobody had been able to check whether he had bona fide superhero credentials. People thought it was a guy running around in spandex trying to fight crime. It

was kind of a clown. But when you expose y and behind it, you find out that I'm a four time regional champion martial artist, a black belt in taekwondo. Have over crimestops now they can look up because they know my school name, and then they see all these legal police stocks where my name is mentioned in crime reports, including an attempted murder stop right, and all of a sudden you're like, oh, that guy is not a clown. So in a weird way, it legitimizes me further than

I ever could. If Seattle's law enforcement were out to get Phoenix by charging him for a crime, they had failed. If anything, the arrest made Phoenix more confident and more defiant. Shortly after he revealed his true identity, he made an appearance on Fox News on Megan Kelly's show, Phoenix. Is it true that at the end of the court hearing yesterday you tore off your dress shirt to reveal your

signature black and green superhero costume? It was black and gold. Yeah, I was wearing my super suit because this wasn't about the guy under the mask. They were charging Phoenix Jones because I'm Phoenix Jones. If I was a regular person and I had just regularly pepper sprayed someone who was in a fight, they would have shook my hand and sent me away. So I wore the suit because that's what this was about, and I took my mask off because the person suffering for it is the person under

the mask. Phoenix may have one his first major battle with the police, but it was really just the start of the war. When Phoenix was arrested, the Seattle police confiscated his beloved super suit and they refused to give it back. Phoenix complained about it on the local Seattle radio program The Bob Rivers Show. Why did they confiscate your There's two answers. There's the politically correct answer and

then the truth. So Phoenix says that the police claimed his suit was evidence and they needed it to identify him. He says that doesn't make any sense because he'd already identified himself publicly. He ends up complaining to the host about the fact that he's having to use a substandard replacement suite proof vest staff plating and doesn't have stay and the police confiscated that suit. This one is not

so expensive. The other one that that police confiscated as quotations evidence evidence was like seven thousand seven in what are they doing with that? That makes me mad? They're probably wearing it and taking photos. Call every day and ask about the sup several times day. Phoenix assigned to my suit, so there's not an officer I can call it directly. In the moments right after Phoenix revealed his

identity and his dramatic press conference. It felt like he'd won a massive victory over the system, but the reality was that Phoenix had just opened up a huge can of worms, and the repercussions of his decision to out himself were about to hit with disastrous consequences. It was hard for me is when my identity came out. I was working with autistic children. So they yanked my state license and much other stuff and said I was crazy.

When Ben Photor wasn't putting on a superhero costume and chasing down criminals as Phoenix Jones, or training at the gym, or competing as an m M A fighter, he was at his day job caring for kids with autism. He went to their homes or to state run facilities, and he took them out shopping and help them learn other life skills they would need to navigate the world as adults. Well. My parents own foster home that works with autistic children for a living. When I turned eighteen, the first job

I ever had was working with autistic children. I worked with autistic children until I was twenty five, and I got like a bunch of different awards for like, you know, a Teacher of the Years and all kinds of different stuff for working with autistic kids and helping them cope with their general life skills. I found him incredibly easy to like understand and like incredibly easy to help, So

being somewhat on that spectrum would make that easier. I guess. Obviously, any person who becomes a real life superhero probably thinks outside of societal norms. But there were also these small moments I had with Phoenix that revealed something deeper about how he sees the world, about his thought processes. For example, one night I was driving with Phoenix when he got a text from his girlfriend Dre. He pulled over to respond, and then he explained this bizarre system he created for

talking to friends over text messages. I don't always understand how to explain things to other people, are like, uh, what you? How you As a way to show that I like, he was not ever going to be something that I value, So I came up with the system with my friends where when I think about them, I'll send a number, like if it's like so three one three is like a sandwich. Any number has a sandwich, or run like one to three, like one in morning in the morning, like two numbers on the ends and

once number in the middle. Right. When I'm thinking of my friends, I'll send him a random like the random set of numbers, you know what I mean, because math always makes sense three seven right, Three plus four equals seven, so I'll send him like three plus four and then an equal sign and seven right. So we all send each other numbers back and forth. It's kind of like saying I'm thinking about you at a specific time, or I waited till that time because you're an important person

to me and math makes sense to me. I didn't quite understand Ben's system. It just sounds a little like autistic to me. Yeah, well, like on the spectrum people have said that about me before you know, I started explaining, I don't know. I feel like autism is a negative thing, Like people are always saying something negative about being autistic. In my mind, and if I am autistic, then I guess I'm one of the most successful autistic people that there is, Like I win at every game I play.

So whatever label people want to put on that they can, I don't care what the the funk I guess. After Phoenix was arrested, the Department of Social and Health Services notified his employer who barred him from working with any of the children in their care. Phoenix was told to leave immediately. He says he had to walk out of his job in the middle of the day. The department spokesperson said they were just trying to air on the side of caution and that he could have his job back if

he wasn't convicted. But after the charges were dropped, Phoenix says he still had to prove that he wasn't mentally ill before they'd consider letting him go back to work. One test he says he was given was supposed to determine whether or not he was autistic. At the end of the test, Phoenix got a score, a number that determined where on the autism spectrum someone is. Phoenix says he scored a fifty seven out of a hundred. Anything above fifty could be autistic, anything above sixty is autistic.

So what then does that mean? The part of the test that really tripped Phoenix up was the facial recognition questions. There's a part where they play like a video of these faces and people make weird faces, right, and they're supposed to say what emotion the person's feeling. Had no fucking clue. Like it was just like random faces. It didn't make any sense, no one could have done it. It was crazy. So afterwards I was like, this is insane. So I told my doctor about it. He's like, oh, yeah, yeah,

the facial recognition recognizant tester or whatever. Right, So they were like, well, we'll give it to you again. So I did again. I scored the exact same thing. Right then he was like, what's your son do it? Because my son was with me. Right then, my son did it and he just straight up was like sad, happy, confused, angry, and nailed all of them. So I was like with this weird moment where I'm like, Okay, there's something happening

here that I'm not seeing clearly. Phoenix told me that the autism assessment was just one of several psychological tests he was given. So it took me like three years of like proving I'm not a crazy person. What was that three year process of trying to prove that you weren't crazy? What did that look like? Well, like, first

I had to go to stupid hearing. Then after the hearing, I had some many piece of paper and then they wanted me to do a mental evaluation, and then they did a I e. P. Meetings, which are like between like the kids that you work within the parents, and the final process was something called a judgment review, which is like where they just ask you a bunch of questions basically. But I mean, it wasn't it wasn't hard,

because I'm not crazy. Eventually, Phoenix says he did everything he needed to pass the psychological tests, but in the meantime, he was still out of a job and a super suit. But Phoenix was determined to continue protecting the citizens of Seattle, so he put on his budget backup suit and hit the streets looking for action. For Phoenix, the only thing that mattered was the work protecting those in danger and helping those in need, even if everything else in his

life was a total mess. I'm deficient in these areas over here, but none of them have to do with crime fighting. That is the one place I am sucking flawless. Now Here is one issue that Phoenix and I will never agree on. I wholly reject the idea that Phoenix is perfect at crime fighting. I mean, this is a guy who almost drowned in a puddle because he got caught in his own net and then got robbed by

the criminal he was chasing. Also, every time I hung out with Phoenix, we had to use my rental car to get around because his car had either been towed or broken into by thieves who he was never able to apprehend. So yeah, I think we have different ideas about what crime fighting perfection looks like. But Phoenix was adamant that he had achieved it. There's no crime he can't stop, nobody he can't save. But there was one tragic incident in two thousand and twelve that Phoenix admittedly

failed to prevent. It was a night that changed everything that's coming up. On April two thousand and twelve, a young businessman named Dennis was in Seattle for a work trip. I had brought my wife and one of my kids up there to spend the weekend. They did some shopping and cruising around while I did all my work. After he wrapped up the day's business, you went to see the Supercross at the Football Stadium with a friend. They were grabbing some food and heading back to the hotel

where Dennis's wife was waiting for him. It was two o'clock in the morning on Saturday, night, so bars were closing and it was busy down there, so there was a ton of people. They walked from the stadium to Pioneer Square, where the streets were filled with tourists and folks from the surrounding suburbs who came into the area

for the bars and clubs. There was also a large community of homeless people and drug dealers who catered to them alright, which was why Phoenix was a few streets away on patrol with Ghost, Midnight Jack, Captain Karma, and a few other members of the Rain City Superheroes. How so far, it had been just like any other night on patrol. They looked for bar fights or drunk people in need of assistance, and as usual, Phoenix had snapped

some photos with late night revelers. Yeah, we definitely Yeah, Well you gotta hurrying great there, We have a good night. By the time Dennis was setting off back to his hotel, the Rain City Superheroes had stopped a couple of blocks away outside a night club called Trinity. A lot of people out here, right, bot right. Phoenix was preoccupied with some communication problems. Then again, we're losing contact. Brother, radios were trash. We had literally good radios that we had

painted Garma, what's your code? I tried to hail Captain Karma on the radio and he didn't answer, Karma report, make him give me good radio contact? All right, who's running your radio? Phoenix was getting frustrated. Can you hear what I call you? Yeah? I called you three times? You didn't respond? Really? Yes? Really? What are your pocket? At this point locked in a petty argument about communication, they had no idea that their night was about to

be turned inside out. And I couldn't hear what code you wor so I freaked out because bang bang bang gun shot gun shot gun shot. Three gunshots go off, and I'm like, yo, follow me, well me. Phoenix immediately started sprinting towards the sound. Within seconds, it arrived at a street called Yesler Way. People were screaming and fleeing in all directions. There's a person standing on their cell phone.

There's a guy who's kind of crouching, you know, and then over here there's like a car that's driving by, and then I see it, the guy crouching. He's got a gun. M H. Dennis said he and his friend were there too. In the midst of the chaos. They've been crossing the road when the shots were fired. You could hear the panic. It was chaos, like scary. Over on his side of Yesler Way, phoenix froze out of

the corner of my eye. The person on the cell phone just like drops, and it's a weird kind of drop because it's like like everything just stopped working versus like someone laying down or being her was like it just was like, oh. The person who dropped to the ground was te year old Nicole Westbrook. Nicole had been shot in the face and the bullet had gone through her cheeks and shattered her spine. Dennis said he ran towards her. Everything's slowed down, it went into like slow motion.

I was just trying to keep her alert and awakened talking to me. So I had my hand kind of underneath her neck to kind of have her like look at me and talked me. And I felt blood underneath her neck. I could tell that's where she had been shocked, and uh yeah, I just sat there kind of screaming and yelling for police to come. By this point, Dennis said the square had emptied. It was scary quiet after the shooting because everybody was gone. There wasn't a soul

around me. Phoenix was gone too. He had taken off in pursuit of the person he had seen crouching, who he thought was the gunman. He tore down the street past the confused onlookers, and he says he ran into the cops who were arriving on the scene, and I'm like, yeah, the shooting with this way, and the cops like hold up Phoenix. Phoenix says the police wanted to wait for backup. I'm like, that's ridiculous. I didn't come into this game to play these rules and like do this ship like

but it was too late. It's mathematically not intelligent to run around a blind corner into the dark with the doodoo as a weapon. But it could have done it if I kept going when I started it, if I hadn't stopped. I wanted to do something, you know, we all got just up to do something. In the body cam footage available online, Phoenix talks to the police a few times, but I couldn't hear the cops telling him

to turn back either way. Phoenix says he'd lost sight of the man he was chasing, and he blames himself for giving up the chase back at the intersection on Yesler Way. Dennis says he sat with Nicole and her boyfriend until the ambulance arrived. The couple had just moved to Seattle three weeks earlier. Nicole had just started class as in a culinary program at the Art Institute, and her boyfriend had recently been hired at a screen printing shop.

They were out that night to celebrate their good fortune and landing a job and starting a new life together in the city. When the ambulance arrived, Nicole was alive but in critical condition. Dennis watched the medics pull away and walked back to his hotel with his shirt covered in blood. I remember seeing like a he's dressed up like a superhero ocape. You know you're in downtown Seattle. It's another crazy guy dressed up in a costume. I I really didn't think anything of it. It's all gonna

stay with me, probably forever. Um. It just changes you when something like that happens. Phoenix says that after he gave up his pursuit of the gunman, he returned to the scene of the shooting. The cops wouldn't let me leave because I was the key witness of the thing, and I'm sitting there on the curb right there, like

on the corner. And then after a little bit of time, like the crime tape, they just take the crime tape down, and then I'm sitting there and I'm just just me and I'm just like sitting next to this pile of blood on the street in my suit. And it's like the morning, and like people are coming to work and like living their lives and doing their thing. And then like maybe like seven, a firetruck comes by and just sprays all the blood into the drain. And that was it,

you know what I mean. Like nothing got fixed, nothing got solved, None of us helped in any way. The shooter never got captured. We all just didn't do our job. Nicole never regained consciousness. She died in the hospital three days after she was shot. It's still an unsolved case. Her family keeps a Facebook page running, hoping for new information that might lead to an arrest. There are just

moments in your life that you are never going to forget. Um. I took a long portion of my life and dedicated it stopping bad people from doing bad things. And I don't care if people don't like me. I don't care if people don't agree with what I did, but I live with the repercussions what I did every day. You know. Yeah, I'm just realistically, there's nothing Phoenix could have done to save no Hole. He was blocked away when the shots were fired, but maybe that's why he was so affected

by it. When Phoenix told me about how he'd been inspired by the Night Wind comics as a kid, he'd vowed that he would never be helpless again, but when it came to the senseless act of violence that ended in Nicole Westbrook's life, he was just as powerless as everyone else. Several of Phoenix's former teammates told me that

he was never the same after that night. Ghost, who was with Phoenix during the shooting and has known him since they were in high school, put it bluntly, that was when my friend, in my mind died, and what we have now is not who I used to know. But he he did used to mean a lot to me as a person. I followed him into gunfire multiple times. He did too. You know, we all did against our better judgment often, but in my opinion, he took that the fact that we couldn't save that one person that night,

way too personally. And I don't know, it sounds terrible coming out like that, but like there's a nature to this and we're not gonna win everything, you know, But he somehow took that upon himself in a way that I think changed him. Phoenix returned from that devastating patrol a different man, and the transformation would have consequences for everyone around him. That's coming up in the days after

Nicole Westbrook's murder, Phoenix is in bad shape. Didn't come inside a house, take a shower, and take my supersuit, including my mask off. For four days, I was like patrolling at night and then just like just sleeping outside wherever I wanted. I mean, I lost my mind. I just like stop living for like four days. Phoenix was fixated on the man he'd seen crouching at the scene of the crime, and he was determined to find him. How would you able to find him? Because because knew

what he looked like. I knew what he looked like. I knew most likely from his clothes. He didn't have a car. And there's this place called the Jungle. It's like a lot of homeless encampments just stretched next to the side of the city freeway, and I was like, I bet you he's in that place. The jungle stretches for three miles in a green belt directly underneath Interstate five. It's a sea of tents with a constant drone of

traffic from the cars fifty ft overhead. According to some reports, unhoused people have lived in the jungle since as far back as the nineteen thirties. Phoenix made his way to the jungle in the hopes of finding the suspect, and I went through every single ten a ripping part and gotten fights and destroyed things. This is one of the few times Phoenix has ever admitted to losing his cool

and going against his own strict moral code. Despite his objections in the past about homeless outreach not being a central part of his mission as a superhero, he's always claimed to offer assistance to those in need when he comes across them. But rampaging through a homeless encountment and destroying people's only belongings, Phoenix was out of control. Eventually, some was like, yo, stop it, this is where that dude's had And this took me there, and then me

and him. At a conversation, Phoenix told me that when he finally found the man he'd been hunting for days, it turned out that he'd been after the wrong person. Phoenix said the man talked to him and convinced him that he wasn't the shooter. The police investigating believe it was a drive by and that the shots had been fired from a white sedan. When he heard this, Phoenix felt totally deflated. I went back to like under the

bridge on James Street, there's like a parking lot. I was sitting up against a pole and ask guy's got to sleep under the parking lot? And then Ghost found me because of my cell phone tracker that we had on. He's like, yo, you gotta stop patrolling. Ghost had been there the night of the shooting as well, but he told me he had a different perspective on it than Phoenix. It does get to me in that way. I have severe PTSD and I managed it every day in my life.

You know, there'd be something wrong with you if it didn't get to you. But you can't let one loss define you, you know, And I think that's what he did. In the aftermath of the shooting, some team members were skeptical about how sincere Phoenix's reaction was. Fellow real life superhero Crystal Marks told me that she always felt that Phoenix used Nicole Westbrook's murder to his advantage. I think

it definitely left an impact. You can't be a human and know that that happened and not be changed in some way. But he keeps coming back, like I can't rest until her killer is found and and it's again he uses it for media attention, Like I don't know if he really was all that impacted Phoenix that interviews with the media about the murder. Nicole's family thanked him on their Facebook page for raising awareness, But Phoenix also had a comic book made which featured the shooting, starring him.

It included graphic images Nicole laying in a pool of her own blood. Phoenix said on a radio show that it was intended to shine a light on the unsolved case. But there's something about making a comic book about a tragedy like that and making yourself the star that just

feels a little gross to me. Whenever Nichol's murder came up when I talked to him, Phoenix was still very emotional about it, even all these years later, I just I cannot explain why this event it hurts me so much inside this person I don't know, getting shot by someone I don't know, in a scenario when the guns were already done before we could do anything. You know, there's nothing we could have done. There's no amount of training, there's no amount of superhero suits or movies or ideas

or beliefs that they are changing. That nothing changes that. Phoenix told me that after the shooting his approach to

crime fighting totally changed. A start patrol, right about an hour into patrol, I'd be like, all right, guys, if I need you, I'll give you a call, and then I would go tear up the jungle and getting fist fights with like crazy like just crazy ship, you know, or like me and Jack would break into an abandoned house that was full of like homeless people who were selling drugs in there, and like we would just do reckless things. I was on a reckless mission. I was

just on one. Phoenix was acting increasingly wild and impulsive. Evo called him out on it. Eva was the street shooter. Like every time I tell him about a plan, he would be like, no, you want to go break into an abandoned house. No like no right. But the crew of guys wanted to patrol, and Eva was the secondary guy that they would follow. Eva grew more and more frustrated with Phoenix's erratic behavior. You wouldn't answer anything. Do

you want to answer calls? You want to answer text, voicemails, emails, messages on Facebook or Twitter or anything like that, Like he was unreachable in the meantime, Like, okay, well the show must go on. So almost out of necessity, I would leap into this thing, like, hey, everybody, I just heard from Phoenix that we're doing Kept Hill tonight. So meat at our usual spot at eleven o'clock and we'll figure out roles there and be safe. I asked Phoenix

about what Evo had told me. I think he got frustrated because he said, oftentimes you would just disappear and not be reachable, and you'd have to kind of like step in, And I feel like he felt like that hindered the patrols. I would agree to what was going on with you at that time, like that I was going rogue. So when he's talking about it's like the rogue era, the rogue era, Phoenix made no apologies about

that chaotic period. Maybe you should go save its sex trafficking occasionally, or maybe you should do something Evo, because the thing that Evo has done was just what was Ebo done? Devo, take any of his cool crimestops. Tell me when the Evil's cram stops? Oh wait none? Yeah, but I mean because he have any. I mean you just interviewed him, right, What was one story he told you about where he stopped a crime because he doesn't have any, stopped the bagel Evil stopped zero crimes, full bagels.

I'm not being mean none, So what are you talking about? Bro? Oh? Phoenix would leave all the time and go fight real crimes while you walked around and gave food to homeless people and smiled for photos and ship because you're like a Captain America and that's great, dude, congratulations for you. But like I'm in some real ship. We're out here, people are dying. I want to do some real fucking shit.

As things started to unravel for Phoenix, there were other troubling lapses in judgment that caused alarm among his teammates. One incident in particular really rattled Evo. It was a bottle eleven am and I showed up to his house and he has passed out on the couch half naked, and like, hey, dud, gotta get up, man, we gotta go. As Phoenix was waking up, EVA went to use the bathroom.

That's when he noticed the bottle of pills right next to the sink of this little medical bottle on its side, half empty, looking at it's real hypnol, Like, what the fuck is he doing with fucking date rape drug? What the hell is that? So I come out and say, hey, what's the little bottle of Ruffy's out there? And he just started, like almost panic, speaking at a million miles per hour, talking about how this friend of his had roofied purple. So Phoenix got some Roofi's and he was

going to roofy this friend of his in revenge. It clearly made sense to him, but I was so lost on like this is something you call the police, Ford, bro, this is what? How is this helping any or? Like what does this fix? I asked Phoenix about this incident and he didn't deny it. That's true, Yeah it happened. Can you tell? Man? Shouldn't shared that? See when I said there were things have actually done that are bad, right,

this is one of those things I've actually done. Phoenix says he'd seen a guy put real hypnol and his girlfriend's drink, so he threw out the drink, stole the hypno, and decided to take the matter into his own hands. I was like, yo, evil, you gotta help me, and uh, I stole the bottle and he was like, I'm not going to commit a crime with you. He's like, how dare you want to hypno someone? I don't even know if that's where you got it? And I got all

like ridiculous about it, which made sense. Phoenix went through with this plan without Eva. So then I immediately got on the phone and called someone else, super friend of b who was like, down, that's terrible. So we went to this party and I dropped in this dude's drink and he just out right. So I rented a hotel, put him in the hotel, took all of his clothes off, wrote a note on the door as it thinks for the good time, and dipped with the guy passed out.

Phoenix says they took his credit card and ordered shrimp and thirty seven bottles of champagne. We threw the shrimp all around the room and just put like put cooks bottles, and then we put condomns over the tops of cooks bottles. So he just woke up in this room with just like shrimp and cook's bottles. So was that was that a Phoenix Jones operation or was that a Ben Photo operation? I wasn't in my uniform. I would in my regular clothes.

I would never do that as Phoenix Jones. There's no reason to me this whole story just seems like an example of Phoenix's immaturity. But it was also an example of yet another way in which Phoenix was not, as he keeps insisting perfect. The first time we talked, you kept insisting that you were perfect at crime fighting. But then but then today I feel like you just keep telling all these stories about when you weren't perfect. I'm curious how you like square those two ideas in crime fighting?

Is just this not breaking the law, not harming other people, and stopping the crime. Right, moved on it every time. But what about Nicole. I mean, that's not a win, not possible to win. But isn't that a little bit like no, no, no, no, Well, I'm just saying the person who did it never got caught, right, Well, that's not a success. Then my job is not to catch the people who do crimes, is to protect the people

who are getting hurt from the crime. You have a misconception of what crime fighting is because you don't have any experience on the streets. There's no tidy closed corners, not even in police work. Never right. But there's not one story where I showed up and it got worse, where I showed up and no one got helped. Where I showed up and they're like, you broke the law, or like they see me twenty seven times trying to say I broke the line. I fucking didn't. There's never

been any of that. It's been flawless. So I don't care if you don't agree, you're just wrong. I hate to beat a dead horse here, but I am fixated on this claim of Phoenix is that he is perfect at crime fighting, largely because I want to believe in Phoenix strongs and I want to believe in what he stands for. I see the need for real life superheroes

and the potential benefit to society that can provide. But Phoenix's life is messy, and there are so many people who say he's betrayed them that it's hard to know if he is to be trusted. And Phoenix has claimed that he is perfect is one of the instances where I feel entirely confident. Pushing back against his version of the story. We have had this debate where you say

you're perfect crime fighting. I disagree. What I'm more interested in is like why because you are admittedly have this disastrous life, Like you're always like late to things like your cart, you have a lot of personal struggles. And the reason I find the idea that you can be perfect in crime fighting is like when you put on

the suit, you don't become a different person. So like, how in your mind you justify this compartmentalization where you're perfect at this thing, but everything else in your life is a mess. And more importantly, like why do you feel this need to be perfect? I don't. I'm single minded to the point of recklessness, and that's why I'm so good at crime fighting and why I'm so bad

at everything else. Like I've got to come to an interview today, right, But my car got told because of something, so now I'm focused on that car Tale and I'm late for the interview. But when you walk up to a crime scenario, it happens in front of you and it involves all of your attention. It's not ideal. They need to be per but it's just what I am. Every time we get into this debate, we reach a stalemate.

But regardless of whether or not you believe Phoenix is logic, I think it's safe to say that what he sees as as great as failure as a superhero. Nicole Westbrook's murder changed his life forever. I don't know it was weird, but if we like makes chapters of people's lives were like in like our time, we use before Christ like B C N A D. My life would be like before Nicole and after it just never got better. And

it's really like where the team started unraveling. That unraveling would ultimately lead to a superhero breakup on a mass scale. Next time the rain City Superheroes come crashing to an end. The Superhero Complex is hosted and written by Me David Weinberg and reported by Me, Amalia Sortland and Caroline THORNA production from Amalia Shortland and Caroline thornha Sean Glenn, Max O'Brien and David Waters are executive producers. Fact checking by

Andrew Schwartz. Production management from Sharie Houston, Frankie Taylor and Charlie Wolf. Sound design, mixing and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempson. Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters. Original music is composed by Paul Housden. Special thanks to Peter Tangan, Willard Foxton, Matt Olmera, Katrina Norvelle Beth and Macaluso, Born Rosenbaum, Shelby Shnkman and all the team at U t A. For more from Novel, visit novel dot Audio