6: Kryptonite

bar fights. Among the many Seattleites watching Phoenix's troubles unfold was a mysterious figure lurking in the shadows. Eventually he would emerge from the darkness, but for now, he was watching the coverage from his secret layer. You gotta have a villain, can't be a hero without a On the rain City superheroes had their detractors, but a single voice rose above the rest. A new enemy was about to surface. Hello and welcome Rex Velvet. Seattle's greatest real life supervillain

was born. Though he looked more like a character you might find on a bottle of mustache wax than a super villain. He wore dapper outfits like velvet waistcoats and shiny suits, sometimes with a bow tie. He had an eye patch, a cartoonish mustache, and a flair for the dramatic. My Dean Citty, I can recall a time when I could leave this layer and conduct my duties proudly and without distraction. But now he's out there while with this

silly gang of mismit power ranges, disturbing the peace. He called himself the people's villain, and he vowed not to rest until he destroyed the famous Phoenix Jones. It's time to get real, Jones. The community would be better off without you. You're doing more harm than good, and I'm willing to bet that a sensible, sane majority would agree with me. You're a nuisance, a snitch shake. He must be stopped once and for all. Bollocks. Rex Velvet burst

onto the scene in two thousand and twelve. He made his entrance into the world in slick, high production videos that he shot and released online. If this grand battle was to be judged on the quality of the videos they posted, Rex would have been the clear winner. His videos mocking Phoenix and his team started attracting hundreds of thousands of views, these days. Like Phoenix, Rex Velvet doesn't have a secret identity. He posted his videos under his

real name, Ryan Corey. He's the social villain. He's the culmination of all those old comic book villains that are part campy, part comically cowardly. You know, if Batman and Robin were to show up, the Riddler would just laugh and run away. In his civilian life, Rex is a video producer. He'd been watching the rain City superheroes growing popularity and increasingly frequent TV appearances, but he was skeptical

about them, especially after Phoenix's pepper spraying controversy. He had the idea of coming up with a character to call out what he saw as hypocrisy and to hold Phoenix to account, to make people think about, Okay, well, is this really serving the community or is this serving an individual. Unlike Phoenix, Rex saw his supervillain identity as a make belief character. It was kind of like playing WWF bad guy wrestler. This is a soap opera where Phoenix has

told me many times he's not playing a game. And that's not the only thing that Rex and Phoenix don't see eye to eye on. Rex said he tried to reach out to Phoenix several times. When a friend of his approached Phoenix in the gym on his behalf, Phoenix seemed annoyed and flat out refused to speak to Rex. I thought back then, oh, maybe we can do some fundraising work. Maybe we can work with some nonprofits. Rex told me he'd done some work as a super villain

for to make a Wish Foundation. When you're being involved at levels like that, you think, huh, why wouldn't this guy want to also be involved in charity work. Rex wasn't convinced by Phoenix's approach. I believe you want to lead a good life, and you see this as your maybe method for helping. I just wonder about the tact in which he's executing the vision and is it effective, is it getting the results you want? And is it

serving the community or is it playing dress up? I can see why Rex would have rubbed Phoenix the wrong way with his over the top comedy villain persona. As you know by now, Phoenix doesn't think there's anything funny about crime fighting. I also wonder if maybe it was an ego thing as well. The Phoenix didn't want to share the spotlight. But when I asked Phoenix about it. He said he had other reasons for his hatred of Rex.

His whole thing was like, oh, I thought it would be fun to like play up our rivalry and use it as a way to raise money for charity. Basically, that's not what he wanted to do. He went to vodka he called me trying to get me to get on T shirts to sell vodka and make money, and he was talking about shopping the profits and going on fucking tour. What a fucking liar. You wanted to sell T shirts go on a fake crime fighting tour and fight each other in the city with fake fights and

sell tickets and T shirts. That's what that do want to do? That he is a liar. After hearing Phoenix talk openly about lying to the media to promote his own cause, it was curious to hear him get so fired up about truth telling. To strike back at Rex, Phoenix says he concocted a dastardly plan of his own. I copyrighted the name Rex Velvet and took the copyright leagal ownership of it and then told him to season desist.

Really yeah him. Rex never mentioned this or the alleged vodka deals when we spoke, but when we put it to him afterwards, he replied, I'll say this, none of that information is true. This is the first time I've ever heard of it. Rex also said he never met Phoenix and that all his attempts to reach out to him so they could quote meet as men and discuss

potential superhero collaborations had been unsuccessful. Just f y I. If you search the U S Copyright Office database, the only copyright filings for Rex Velvet are three videos and a logo, all registered to Ryan Corey, not Phoenix Jones or his alter ego Ben Photo. If you believe Phoenix's side of the story, Rex Velvet as an opportunist who tried to make a buck or maybe just promote his work as a video producer. According to Rex, Phoenix is

stuck up and delusional, taking himself way too seriously. But as Phoenix himself told me, history is written by the winners, and either way, it wasn't long before Rex Velvet was sucked into the world of Phoenix Jones and his team. People started coming to Rex with allegations about Phoenix as if he were a real villain in search of dirt on Seattle's own hero. The magnet of Rex Velvet was drawing people in that really wanted to destroy, and you get threats aims not at you, but at the hero

people would play informant on the Internet. I don't think he understands how far I've gone to make sure that people aren't attacking the guy. I don't want to see this guy hurt. I don't want to see the city attacked. And I go, whoa, whoa, whoa, not signing up for that. No, thank you. I'm gonna put a pause on this. They weren't all just random internet trolls either. Some of the people coming with stories about Phoenix and about Ben Fodor

seemed like they were close to him. I'm like, wow, like you call yourself Ben's friends, Like you're kind of talking smack about your your boy here behind us back. It's funny. It's as if everyone that joined his cause doesn't like him, and the only person left who really is more than ever interested in liking him is me. And the most sinister thing that Rex could say is well, well, well no more, friends, guess you're stuck with me. In Seattle in two thousand and twelve, the line between heroes

and villains looked thinner than ever. Fresh from the trauma of the Nicole Westbrook shooting, Phoenix was going rogue out on patrols. Meanwhile, his fellow superheroes were dishing dirt to his arch enemy, and soon the world of the Rain City Superheroes would descend into costumed chaos. I'm David Weinberg and from the Team's at novel and I heart Radio. This is the Superhero Complex, Episode six, Kryptonite. By early

two thousand and twelve, Phoenix was struggling. He had clashed with the authorities over the Pepper Sprayer arrest, He'd lost the job he loved working with artistic kids, and he was also having to spend a lot of his time trying to prove to the state that he wasn't insane. A lot of his personal life it often be in shambles. His words, actually, that's Evocatus Phoenix is former right hand man an unofficial chauffeur. He says that it was obvious

that Phoenix was having money problems. I knew things weren't going well because he would always be sniffing around for money, or one time he came up this idea. And this was one of the many nights I was giving him a ride. There's a long avenue full of bars and clubs way north of Seattle, up in the U District. He pitched this idea to me. Alright, but what do you think of this? So all these bars, all these clubs.

What if I talked to the owners and say, we can watch and pay special attention to your club, stand out front of your club. You know, we'll end up a contract. It'll be all over formal, you know, if you give us, you know, say a hundred dollars a week or something, or you know, we'll write it to the team. You know, I'll manage the funds of course. And uh, I'm like, dude, this is the mafia. This is what a mafia does. Your offering air quotes protection

from businesses who paid. What are you hearing yourself? This is the worst idea and the long sad history of bad ideas. You can't be seriously, Oh oh yeah, that's that strike. I guess I didn't think about that, but

he would end up actually doing exactly this. I think maybe two out of over a dozen businesses you know give I think one gave him like forty bucks, and he did with one of them, and you know, he would like get a bunch of selfies and like he would kind of be like almost like an Instagram influencer of that, like, hey, come on down to whatever the name of the bar was. And money was a big thing for him, and that would also affect his mood pretty significantly. Evo had a theory about what was driving

Phoenix's fixation on money. He sent me text messages or he would show me pictures of Hey, is what I was at last night. It would be a picture of him both arms holding kind of like a hug pose of a giant stack of poker chips, and like you could tell now this was legit at a casino, and it's like, oh man, I should quit my job and just do this full time and and be living a

high life. And the very next patrol everybody. I know, it's only the tenth of the month, but if everyone can have their dues for next month paid, that would be great, thank you. I mean, like that would happen all the time. So in my particular case, you just flat out admit that, you know, I love gambling, and he's incredibly smart, and you know, probably borders on like card reading levels of genius there. But gambling is gambling too, and that comes with its own dangers. Other members of

the rain City Superheroes told me similar stories. Here's Midnight Jack. I think that he was really trying to be a good dude in the beginning. He was focusing all his energy into this superhero stuff, and over time he's kind of got beaten down started gambling. I mean, the man is just not in a good place. I asked Phoenix about all of this, and he flatly denied it. You who also said that you had a gambling problem? Is

that true? No, that's weird, Like what kind of gamling from you were really into gambling, and that he worried that some of the money that had been going to stuff got gambled away, and that you would send him photos of you at like a poker table and things like that. That's all true, absolutely, Okay, now I know he's talking about absolutely yet. So I played a ship ton of poker, but it would have been a hard

to have a gambling problem doing that. Phoenix told me he played tournament poker, where you just pay a flat fee of fifty dollars to buy into the competition. So I play a tournament every Friday, And I said, my friends pictures of me with like thirty thousand ships. So they're seeing these poker tip things and they're thinking I'm making mad cash. But that's not how it works. Do

you play poker at all? Not really, I've been I went through a poker phase when it was popular, so you understand when you bind too a tournament, the chips in front of you are not representative of money. This seems like a reasonable explanation to me, and for what it's worth, I believe Phoenix, but I do think it seems credible that he might have had some financial difficulties after his arrest. And as for charging nightclubs money to protect them, Phoenix says that is one accurate sort of Yeah.

I definitely suggested that, but but not in the mob shakedown way. I don't see. I just feel like he was saying, like it's a murky line to be like some of you get extra productions and some of you we're gonna let go. I don't think it's an extra line. Like, for example, we had sixteen shootings take place outside of one nightclub, and they're like, we love when you're out here. Fuck you, bro, if you want me to come and stand out front of your club, you're gonna give me

a some money for that. Like, that's stupid. We're supposed to be helping random real crime. This is crime. It takes place because of your establishment. So if you want me to stand outside your stabution so you can use Phoenix Jones to pimp that, everybody's okay, you're gonna at least paying me money for that. I don't even consider that a bad thing. Yeah, but I definitely said it, and I shared it with the team because you're supposed to. And then the money never happened, so we didn't do it.

We just did regular as patrols. I could go on and on letting Phoenix respond to the many wrongs that his former teammates accused him of, and in fact, I spent a lot of my time with Phoenix doing just that. There are moments when Phoenix did admit to some of those wrongs. Other times, like with the quote unquote protection money, it just seemed to be a difference of opinion on

the morality of what happened. But at the end of the day, Phoenix says that all of these disputes with his former crime fighting friends are issues of the past, and rehashing them is a waste of time. These guys are so petty and stupid. There was just so many more important things. I mean, even if everything they assumed was right and everything they told you was right, Let's say I had a crazy gambling problem. Let's just say

these things right. None of them change any of the patrolling or effects we did zero, So why are you still talking about that? I do think that Phoenix is wrong on this point. Phoenix's teammates all felt that his erratic behavior and failure to communicate did in fact have an impact on their ability to fight crime, which makes total sense. Phoenix was always the leader of the rain City Superheroes, and a group is only as effective as

its leadership. And if Phoenix is going to take credit for all his team's success, shouldn't he also take responsibility for some of their failures. But then to do that would mean that Phoenix would have to admit that he is not perfect at crime fighting, and he won't. Over time, the tension between Phoenix and his teammates built up, until finally, one day, it all came to a head on a disastrous patrol that would tear the team apart. That's coming up.

In late April of two thousand and twelve, the rain City Superheroes were preparing for their biggest patrol of the year, but according to Evocatus, Phoenix had become an absent leader. We patrol and we we're from three to five nights a week, and we would get wildly different results kind of based on the day he said, or you know, if he was hurting for money, or if he was having relationship problems or something. That would always be kind of something going on, and we never quite knew what

we would get. Anytime you didn't want to be answered to anyone or didn't want to be accountable for anything, he would just shot off. He would get real angry and real pouty, call everyone traders, and would disappear. Everything came to a head on May Day, two thousand and twelve. May Day has always been a big day in Seattle. Thousands of people take to the streets to march for labor rights. There are protests all over the city. I asked Phoenix if he thought that day was a turning

point for the team. You mean, clowns got caught as clowns, and then eventually you have to ask yourself why you didn't show up. I don't think that's a turning point. I think you were bitches before and that showed it. Phoenix and the rain City superheroes often showed up on May Day to keep watch over the crowds and to help keep the peace if things went awry, which is exactly what happened in two thousand and twelve. El Caballero was right there in the thick of it. There's always

two big protests in Seattle. The first one was the labor unions and the Native rights and stuff, and that was always peaceful, and there was another element that would show up, well, I guess they call them black block They would go out and look like hooding ninjas and go and break windows and spray paint. And I think we all agree that there's a lot of corporations and entities that are ripping people off and taking money and

don't really care. But there's ways to go about things, and these people are just terrorists, terrorizing people, terrorizing things and scaring the Bejesus said, folks. The Rain City Heroes didn't go blindly into these situations, They came prepared and that year it was Eva who made detailed plans for the May Day patrols. There's an awful lot of like logistical planning that would go into something like this because

we have people. That was literally a contribution to the team was to do a lot of research ahead of time. How do we safely patrol? How do we access vehicles if we need to get out of there? How do we get first ato somebody if we need when roads are closed. According to Evo, Phoenix had decided on his own unusual strategy for monitoring the crowds the night before May Day had happened. Phoenix said, tell you forget all that. Here's what we're gonna do. I gotta buddy of mine.

He works at the front desk at this hotel, and he's gonna let us go in and using one of his hotel rooms. We're gonna turn on the TV. We're gonna party in a music and we're just gonna be watching all the local news stations. And when some fight breaks out on TV, we'll put on a gear and we'll run out the door and don't save the day. The entire rest of us are just kind of sitting around blinking, just what what on earth? No, I mean by the time we'd see it on TV, I mean,

it's obviously will long have passed. Well, what about all the research we did and all the intel work ahead of time and the Index didn't want anything to do with it. The next morning, when a disgruntled set of rain seedy heroes gathered in a parking garage to start

the patrol, Phoenix turned up empty handed. He was really really upset because his buddy or something was sick that day or he couldn't make it, and basically we didn't have a hotel room with our name on it, so it's kind of like, well, okay, we're just gonna walk. Then they followed the crowds through Seattle and began the patrol.

People of all ages had come to protest with painted faces and colorful signs, bearing irreverent slogans, But even in this eclectic crowd, the superhero stood out with their costumes and shiny masks. They jostled through the pack streets. Ebo says Phoenix wasn't sticking to the plan or communicating to

the team. He wouldn't listen to anyone on the team you had people that were professionally trained medics and e M t s. He had former military that was me and uh, you know, we'd have a couple of the former veterans from time to time on the team with actual boots on the ground combat experience. He wouldn't listen to the inputs anytime. He didn't want to be answered to anyone, or he didn't want to be accountable for anything. He would just shot off. Around twelve thirty, the protests

started to escalate. Explosions and pepper spray in downtown Seat may Day breaks down to Mayhem in Seattle. Demonstrations turned violent. There's thousands of people clogged downtown streets. A group of about seventy five anarchists entered the fray. They streamed into the downtown area and mixed in with the crowds marching

towards Westlake Park. They were dressed all in black, and many of them were wielding bats and hammers as they snaked through the protest, hurling rocks and shattering the windows of shops and banks. Police officers in riot gear clashed with the crowds. If we are disappointed in the police, people launched flares and smoke bombs into the air. Paint bombs and blood red and fluorescent green streaked the pavements and buildings. The downtown streets, normally packed with tourists, were

filled with the smell of smoke and pepper spray. At the epicenter of the chaos was the old Federal Courthouse. Here's midnight Jack. This big, huge standoff ensues at the Federal courthouse where they're throwing improvised explosives into The building is occupied with people that worked there. A roving group of the protesters had gathered outside the courthouse. They smashed in the glass doors and windows with flagpoles and bats. Someone tried to fire a smoke bomb into the building,

but it bounced off and burst into flames. Phoenix told me that's where he wanted to be, in the heart of the action. There was twelve of us. Right we get word that they're gonna put a bomb in the Federal building and blow it up. I don't I put out the radio call that I need my team to show up. I need to got the family right now. We gotta get it together. Club about people, Oh yeah, I got with Guess who shows up? El Caballero with Jack.

That's it, so Cavy, Jack and Phoenix assembled at the courthouse. I'm looking out and see like sixty people in front of us. They're throwing stuff. Ses heros held off a group of sixty protest It's been I'm destroying a federal building. I'm like, where's my team at? You know, were you at Ebo? Oh, I'm in the military. I'm big. I'm gonna go fight some crime. You're not gonna fight sixty

iron clad terrorists, are you. You're just gonna make me look like the clown I'm standing in front of the building. I got Midnight Jack, the least trained of us all, never been in a fight with batons that don't know how to use. Got El Caballero in hot pants, girls hot pants dragging on the back of his shirt, a luchador mask, and a sombrero that served no prayers but to offend Mexican people, and short it was a highly costumed shit show. We're trying to fucking stop them from

storming the building and throwing explosives and firebombs. It's just me in front of that door, cleaning Mike Tyson punch out with the dudes who come up while Midnight Jack just douses everything you can see with pepper spray while screaming, and El Caballeros on the phone with I didn't have anything. I was just moving my arms and holding people back, and people were like, oh, that one guy. Pepper sprayed people. Pepper sprayed people. I sprayed probably sixty people that day.

I don't regret any of it. If you stepped up, asked a certain point, I sprayed you. You threw something at me, I sprayed you. You try to hit me with something, I sprayed you. Go look through the world. It might sound exciting, but El Cavallero was really not a fan of the situation that Phoenix had put him in. There's this romanticized Hollywood version of fighting criminals, and any battle I've ever been in is ugly. It feels awkward, it sucks, it's lame. That whole moment in space time

is frustrating, lame, and annoying. It's not sexy, it's not cool. It's not a fucking thing that's awesome. It's lame. And the violence, the hatred, the anger, It's like, where are these people coming from? Why are you trying to hurt other people? Why are you doing these negative things. It's like and then to know that people's lives are in danger at the same time. It's not like a cookie

cutter movie. It's like real life, intense stuff. By three PM, the Mayor of Seattle had signed a proclamation of civil emergency, and just before seven PM, a rainstorm hit the city, causing the crowds to finally dissipate. An independent report commissioned by the Seattle Police into the May Day riots singled out the Rain City superheroes and said their involvement resulted

in allegations of assaults and crimes. The report recommended that next year, the Seattle Police Department should collaborate with the City Attorney's office to determine legal strategies to restrict superheroes from creating time and interfering with law enforcement operations. Phoenix took to social media to complain, this is crazy and I am super mad. We see crime, we call police, and we stop people from getting hurt. That's not against

the law. What you're saying is you don't like us, you don't like that work different, and because we're different from you, you're gonna make these rules and try to shut us down. He even called out the author of the report by name Michael Hillman. I hope your kids don't have Batman posters or anything in their house because you're a superhero hater. When we hung out, Phoenix claimed that Homeland Security and the FBI actually thanked him for intervening.

Homeland Security comes up to us with these shotguns at the end, and I'm thinking, so I get on the ground and you're like, what are you doing? Like we means like, Jones, get up, You're fine. I was like, okay. They gave over, They shook her hand, and they brought us to this like a suv. There was this guy in of like the leader of our regional branch of

the FBI. Phoenix told me that the FBI agent asked him for help and identifying violent protesters from the courthouse, and that he said, quote Jones, I like your work. He was like, I'm gonna tell the Seattle please to leave you alone. But you sunk up. You sunk up. He's like, you don't think you have superpowers. It's like, no, I don't want superpowers. He's like okay, And that was the beginning of our relationship. I wasn't able to confirm

any of this. When we asked the FBI about it, they said, quote, we will not be able to provide any information on this inquiry. The FBI has conversations with individuals for a variety of reasons on a daily basis, whether they are a witness, victim, subject, or someone providing information. We cannot verify whether the FBI spoke to a particular individual, but if this was supposedly the beginning of Phoenix's budding relationship with the FBI, it was also one of the

final chapters of the Rain City Superheroes. When asked about Phoenix's view that his team had hung him out to dry that day, Eva was having none of it. It's the ultimate irony to hear that he didn't feel backed up or in reality, he was just doing whatever came across his head at the moments. That's what he would say.

It's like, well, I just felt, you know, abandoned, or you know, you guys betrayed me, or you know, I just didn't feel like you know, you guys, you guys just wanted to get up on me, or no one wanted to follow my expertise. No, dude, you just stopped showing and it would be so wildly unpredictable and sporadic, nobody could trust him or rely on him, or have any idea what version of Phoenix for getting any particular night if you would show So that's a long winded

way of saying that's rich coming from him. Whatever the truth is, the way Phoenix told it. May Day was the final straw. That's when I stopped caring. I'll go, fuck, they don't care. That just didn't feel different between everyone after that. I mean, I guess there's no feeling because you guys matter. You did not show up. You left me in front of a fucking riot. Who cares what

they fucking think? Fuck that I wrote with you guys, untrained, out of shape and ridiculous outfits, acting clowns every single day when I'm a professional warrior and you can't show up one time when I have sixty people trying to murder me with a bomb. Evening arrived on Mayday and the dust began to settle across Seattle. The police cars filled with the protesters who've been arrested made their convoy to the county jail. The swap police headed home, and

the last stragglers from the march dispersed. Shop owners boarded up the jagged holes in their windows, and the debris on the streets was swept away, But there's no cleaning up the mess that the rain City Superheroes were in. That's coming up. When you talk to Phoenix, he makes it sound like he stopped trusting his teammates after the

May Day debacle. He claims he decided to go it alone after that, But actually that's not how things went down, because after the May Day protests, Phoenix continued to patrol with some of the rain City superheroes for over a year. And that, dear listener, that's how we get to what is maybe the most fitting way I can think of for a team of comic book inspired costume warriors to dissolve, not in a blaze of crime fighting glory, but in a petty dispute over a piece of clothing, a controversy

that has come to be known as helmet Gate. How did your relationship with the rains City Here's end or what caused you to leave the life that was all about my purple helmet. This was news to me kind of because I had heard the story of the falling out between El Caballero and Phoenix long before I met either of them. But the story that I found on blogs, long lost Facebook pages, and podcasts was that they went from best friends to despised enemies because Phoenix had stolen

El Kaballero's sombrero. Apparently, no one fact checked any of those accounts, because while it is true that these two grown men did in fact have a falling out over a piece of headwear, it was not a sombrero, but a purple army helmet, a mitch helmet, a nice tactical bulletproof helmet with the padding inside so I wouldn't get scrambled brains. It all started on a typical downtown patrol one night and two thousand and thirteen, after the patrol ended Caddy forgot his helmet, I left it in Phoenix

Jones's car for an evening. It was another night where we had fought real criminals and done real stuff, and I just, act said, minorly left it in his vehicle. Evil remembers the saga of the purple helmet. Well, he says, at first, the helmet just went missing. No one could find his helmet, and it was the most aggravating series of I guess backwards drama that honestly started getting pretty embarrassing.

I would start losing sleep over stuff like this, where people would call me because I was a guy that kind of ran the team on the back end. Evil claims that Phoenix accused his girlfriend Purple Rain of stealing the helmet that dr hearns, like, what are you talking about? Why on earth would I want l caberleiro stinky helmet? That's gross? For whatever reason, we think he just gave it to, you know, a pretty young fan or something like that. It all sounds so petty to me, But

for Cabby it was no joke. It really struck a chord with me. This guy who I trust with my life. I mean, we're literally dodging bullets and knives and crazy terrorists. This guy trusted in my life made my helmet disappear and it got it weird? Why did it get weird? Like, I don't know. For what it's worth, Phoenix has a response to the purple helmet story. He says it was in his car, which got towed and impounded, and that he was too embarrassed to admit this to his crew.

Helmet gate wasn't the first time things had allegedly gone missing around Phoenix, Crystal Marks told me that Phoenix couldn't be trusted when it came to money. He was charging people like money per month for medical insurance that the team's never saw the benefit for. He would say, yeah, I'll buy you a tactical vest, give me money, and then he would never provide the vest. Evo said he

personally had to reimburse team members. He sent me a photo of a receipt he kept for a vest he paid for out of his own pocket to give to a fellow superhero. Soon these disputes spilled out onto the Rain City Superheroes social media accounts. P J has been proven to be consistently dishonest, unreliable, and untrustworthy. He's a liar and a bump. You shouldn't be asking people for money or playing to the media the way he does here is replaceable. Friendship, loyalty, and trust are not the

theft allegations and the mud slinging escalated. Phoenix held a fundraiser for Purple Rains anti domestic violence campaign. Someone accused them of embezzling funds, and things got nasty. If you want to show how honest. This campaign is usink. Slanderous language is illegal. Some people don't deserve to have any secret identities. Never understood by that cow was not on patrol. She does not have any athletic ability or street skill. She flirted with all the guys on the team and

wanted to be the center of attention. I refused to involve myself in this textual spewit and ask that my name we kept out of these theatrics. Hi strong and suggest you research the term harassment and take a good hard look in the mirror. The accusation of embezzlement turned out to be false. The Seattle Weekly did a piece about it. The charity confirmed that they had received the money. Phoenix was vindicated, but then he launched another fundraiser for himself.

This time he wanted to raise ten thousand dollars for a new supersuit. The campaign offered incentives for donations. For the entry level ten dollars, you could get a rubber Phoenix Jones bracelet. It went all the way up to two thousand dollars or more. For that you were promised the whole pile of Phoenix merch of Phoenix Jones replica helmet build as fits most normal sized heads, is bullet and blunt trauma resistant, plus the honor of having your

name engraved on phoenix brand new suit. He posted the link for donations on Purple Rains Anti Domestic violence website. It even caught the eye of actor Rain Wilson, who plays Dwight in the Office. He posted about it on Facebook. Given her previous experiences with Phoenix, Crystal Marks was not impressed. I think Phoenix Jones is a liar. I mean, come at me for whatever you need to for saying it. But raising money for his supersuit, which so ridiculous to

say those words out loud. But like this high end, like tactical suit that was like super bullet proof and like stab proof. He did to go fund me for it? Tons of money. Where's the suit, dude? Like it never happened. The tide of public opinion looked to be turning on Phoenix. More allegations against him started surfacing. A superhero named Urban Avenger called Phoenix an ego centric glory hound, and a blog post titled Phoenix Jones sells snake oil calls it

a supersuit. The Seattle Weekly ran a piece called the Emperor's new suit, with a cartoon of Phoenix straining to pull his rubber supersuit on over his bloated belly, which is labeled Hubris. One of the rain City superheroes took to Facebook to claim that Phoenix had stolen his go pro to boot. Then The Seattle Weekly published another story that quoted a superhero saying Phoenix Jones is a con artist, thief, steve link from his closest friends and fans, with zero

integrity for his community. El Caballero went to the press too, telling the Seattle Weekly quote, I've always thought of Phoenix as our quarterback, but I feel betrayed by his actions and certain trusts have been broken. Soon after that, Cabby formally announced his departure from the rain Ceaity Heroes. On his Facebook page. He said quote effective immediately attention family and friends, fans, law enforcement, and even my entities. I will no longer I said that part louder because it

was in all caps. I will no longer be working with Phoenix Jones. After three years of patrols, I see loyalty is worth nothing to him. I feel betrayed by a man I called my brother and that hurts his dishonesty, manipulation, and Deceit has caused me to not want to be associated with someone I can't trust. I will continue to wear my mask and patrol the streets of Seattle, but will henceforth not be aligned with him or the rain

City Superhero Movement. I respect the team members individually. The Phoenix has nose dived into the flames, and I'm done with him. After El Caballero's departure, Morale also took a nose dive. Phoenix's girlfriend, Prebble Rain, announced that she was officially leaving the team too, and that she and Phoenix were no longer together. Discontent was brewing in what remained of the rain City Superhero movement. Even said everyone came to him with their grievances. They wanted to know what

had really gone down between Cabby and Phoenix. Everyone was very much on edge, and every person on the team stop me if this sounds familiar, had heard a different version of this same story, and we had all been talking about and realized that, Okay, someone has fallen. Shipp called the denominator. Here is Phoenix Jones. The superheroes gathered for a crisis meeting. Their plan was to challenge Phoenix on everything that had been going down and to hold

him accountable. So we get to this meeting just kind of like, Okay, here's what we're gonna do with forward and stuff like that, and here's what actually happened, and here's how's al it. You want nothing of the sword? He said, all right, well, all medical insurance stuff is going to go through my friend Dave, so any questions go through him, and we're gonna put schedules on a new Facebook page, and uh, everything's fine going forward. Any questions,

all right, let's go on. I'm like, oh, hold up, and then nothing has been answered? What this? What? We have so many questions about what just happened. And you know, if this happened to El Caberro, one of your most trusted allies, and you're doing this stuff to him, like what else are you gonna do. The more his teammates challenged him, the more Phoenix dismissed their claims, and things got heated. I almost threw a table out of mo so mad they confronted their former leader, and Phoenix lost

his cool. He through the world's biggest internettangent, which I still have screenshots of him talking about while you're all betrayers and you're all traders, and I started a team so I can end it. So the r C s M is officially resolved. P J out and that was that. Soon after the final blowout, Phoenix posted his resignation from the rain City Superheroes on his Facebook page. It was written in all caps and full of typos and grammatical errors.

Here's a condensed version. First off, I'm sorry. I started fighting crime years ago and inspired a lot if people to do the same. I really thought of having a large group of civilian crime fighters was a good idea. I was wrong. It takes a certain type of person to do this job correctly, and unfortunately I have inspired, worked with, and even taught some of the wrong kinds of people. As of today, the rain City superhero movement is over. I will be patrolling solo with supers I trust.

I will not go into many details, but I feel you deserve a few reasons why we can no longer work together. Certain members cannot run two point five miles in thirty minutes, or do five pull ups or sit ups in two minutes, or believe it is okay to carry illegal weapons or want to patrol with other superheroes that have a track record of making bad choices that are potential dangerous. I love being a superhero, and I believe there's a certain level of professionalism that goes with that.

When I or any member of the r C s M show up to help you, I want you to know that we have first Aid CPR training, we have taking blood borne pathogens training, and that we will only work with others who are equally physically and medically trained. I'm sorry if I let anyone down. I will continue

to patrol and help people. I just can't, in good conscience continue to put my seal of approval on people I feel are not loyal or properly trained as always be safe, make good choices, and I'll see you in the streets. When we talked about the team breakup, Phoenix said that people are fickle and driven by the attention, and that no one on his team brought up these disputes back in their crime fighting heyday. It was only later after things went south with the team that he

says these grievances started surfacing. When we had these arguments and disagreements that was pre people knowing my identity. After my identity came out, we got all popular and everyone was doing these interviews and everything was going on. So

all of us were all buddy, buddy, Fine. Then we went and have these arguments later and they brought up all this ship from past, saying when we never solved all this and we stuck with you for four years and you're this and you're that, And I'm thinking, if you want to come with me, Slee, than fuck you. Maybe I'm a sucker. But I always believed Phoenix whenever I was with him, From the first moment I met him, he told me that he would answer me honestly about

any accusation someone made against him. He also told me there were other things that he'd done that were wrong, but he would never admit them to me. I would have to find out for myself, and if I did, then he would answer truthfully about the incident. This policy felt reasonable to me, and I took Phoenix at his word, and I thought it was an indication that he was

willing to admit when he was wrong. I bought into his logic because it seemed to make sense to me, and I also agree with him that so much of the beef between him and his crew always felt a little petty, like who cares about what happened to a purple helmet? Does it even matter in the grand scheme of things. But looking back on it, I don't think he lived up to his promise of answering everything truthfully. A lot of it I think is tied up in

his desire to be the best at everything. I think that desire was what made him a champion bowler an mm A fighter, but I think it is also the quality that made him an ineffective leader. It blinded him to the possibility that he could be wrong, or that someone in his group might have a better idea for how to be good crime fighters. And I felt like he was still blinded by it when he talked about his former crew. I don't know how I associated with these clouds for so long that, Like, that's the one

thing I am curious about. Like, on one hand, you seemed because I carried them to stay and because I carried them, I carried these motherfucker's. I carried them because you were lonely or like well, because they believed in what I believed in when no one else believed in it. You always like to get up and get dressed every day and put on a rubber suit and people laugh

at you in the streets like it fucking sucks. So even if you're huge and fat, or you're out of shape where you're former freaking drug out a homeless kid, if you're gonna say, I believe in you too, let's go walk together. I would rather do that with you. People who believe in me, believe in the concept. If it's about me letting them down, you let me down.

I gotta stab for you, out cavaler because you want how to do a disarmed lydon said you want to do knife fighting skills, You fucking don't, And I can stab, like for real, I got fucking stabbed and you want to talk about a helmet? Fuck you, Jack Jack. Jack can't even run. He has asthma. He can't even run. There's videos where I run into after bad guys and he can't run, Like what the fuck? It's clear, but there's genuine hurt and betrayal behind Phoenix's anger and also

on the side of the other Rain City superheroes. Just because they wear goofy outfits doesn't mean they aren't people with real feelings, and for all the bitterness, I think the reason there's so much hurt involved in this highly costumed severance is because all of them once bought into the belief that Phoenix talks about the mission that had

united them. And maybe that's hard to understand from the outside, but to enter into the world of real life superheroes, you have to rethink certain beliefs about how the world works, because the belief in their mission is to believe that a guy in a sombrero and purple hot pants is actually the man who might at any moment save your life from a hammer wielding mugger lurking in an alleyway.

That's the thing I find so fascinating about all of this, the mash up of the absurdity with the seriousness of what these masked adventurers were trying to pull off. Their dream was powerful, too powerful to be totally crushed by a purple army helmet and some snarky Facebook comments. After all, this wasn't the end for Phoenix Jones. After the breakup, he would set out on a bid to conquer the world in a different arena, and in a way, it

wasn't the end of the rain City Superhero movement. Either the team may have disbanded, but the legend they built together lived on and out of the darkness, a new generation of superheroes would rise up to unite behind it. That's coming up next time. The Superhero Complex is hosted and written by Me David Weinberg and reported by me Amalia Sortland and Caroline Thornhum. Production from Mamalia Sortland and Caroline Thornhum, Sean Glenn, Max O'Brien and David Waters are

executive producers. Fact checking by Andrew Schwartz. Production management from Sharie Houston, Frankie Taylor and Charlotte 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 Boxton, Matt o'mera, Katrina Norvelle Beth and Macaluso, Born Rosenbaum, Shelby Snkman and all the team at U t A. For more from novel, visit novel dot Audio