Seattle: Real Life Superheroes and Villains??

Phoenix Jones 

Seattle has a SuperHero. His name is Phoenix Jones. They also have a villain.  And their superhero has a cool outfit.  Of course, you do have to take a leap of faith and believe that pepper spray is a powerful superhero weapon.  It got our hero fired from his State job when he was arrested for spraying protesters last fall.

The latest villain (yes, there was one before this) is Rex Velvet.  He is more like a satirical Villain than a true evil person.  He makes nice videos about villainy and he pokes fun at our city's super pepper hero.

The result of Velvet's attacks? Phoenix Jones does not like Rex very much.  Sounds like a battle for the minds of the people of Gotham Seattle is underway.

Rex Velvet's Clever Campaign of Imagined Terror

So what the heck is going on here?  From what I can gather, and I am playing a three year catch-up with the story, Phoenix Jones is a 22 year-old former MMA fighter named Ben Fodor.  He has proclaimed himself "Guardian of Seattle".  Most recently he prevented an attempted car theft.

Last month Phoenix used his ummm Phoeny powers to umm..well, he didn't actually do much of anything. He did look swell in defense of a few downtown buildings when the real-life destructive bad guys starting tossing rocks at buildings.

The local press love their superhero but that hasn't landed him any book tours, movie roles, or serious notoriety cash.  At least not yet. But he has shook hands with a few famous people we know. He also loves to collar drunks in the Belltown section of Seattle, ridding those city streets of pestilent behavior and vomit.

But what about the villain, Rex Velvet?   According to the latest Seattle Weekly, Rex Velvet claims he is descended from a "long line of villains." He wants Phoenix to hang up his superhero costume for the last time and has placed posters around the city urging all super villains to join him in his battle to defeat Phoenix Jones.

Phoenix Jones took Rex's proclamation seriously and challenged Rex Velvet to a duel using any type of weapon other than a gun.  (It is rumored that Jones wears a bullet-proof and stab-proof costume.)  Jones threw down the challenge on a local Seattle radio show.  Velvet declined.  Smart villain.  An ex-MMA fighter with super phoeny powers?  You want to drop a piano on that guy.

There is also a beautiful side-kick.  We have to have one of those too.  Just like in the movies.  Her name is Purple Reign  (she and Jones are legally married) and she acts as oracle, researcher, charity organizer, and patrols the streets for crime prevention- just like her super hero hubby.

On Seattle's KISS 106.1FM, where he called Rex out to battle, Jones took a few good shots at Velvet,

" You're like the Kim Kardashian of villains."  and then " Villains fight superheroes, and fake villains make YouTube videos."

Velvet responded by pointing out a major character fault of our own superhero - Jones is known to respond to posts online in ALL CAPS.  Quoted in Seattle Weekly,  Velvet retorted, " Clearly Phoenix Jones needs to figure out where the caps lock button is first.


To read more about this subject, go to Seattle Weekly's Feature Story
here: http://www.seattleweekly.com/2012-06-13/news/rex-velvet-s-goldmine/