It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s Peter Nowak!

Ever wanted to be a superhero? Now you can! It’s as easy as putting on a costume, concealing your identity and being a prominent supporter of your community. 

Okay, not really. But across the United States and the rest of the world, many people have done just that. And j-school alum Peter Nowak has written a book all about it.

The Rise of Real Life Superheroes: and the Fall of Everything Else is a thrilling story full of action, history, and an in-depth view into the lives of the world’s mundane masked figures. .

Nowak spoke to the School of Journalism about his book.

Can you share the inspiration behind why you chose to write this book?

Yeah, it was kind of simple and kind of silly. Actually, it was one night I just couldn't, I couldn't really fall asleep. So I was lying there. And the mind wanders, and I started thinking about Batman of all things. And I started thinking, how come nobody's tried to be Batman in the real world because this is a superhero who does not have any special powers, he just trained and had some gadgets, and so on. So I couldn't sleep, I got up, I started Googling around and discovered that there's actually a lot of these types of people, maybe not to the same extent, definitely not any billionaires that we know of, that are doing this secretly. It's like a whole subculture. So I just kind of fell down the rabbit hole. And the more I dove into the subject, the more fascinating it became. But what interested me about it was why this is happening. And looking at some of the numbers, there were estimates that probably at its height, there were maybe about 1,000 of these people around the world, and approximately three-quarters of them are in the U.S. So I thought that was interesting. And I wanted to find out why that is.

So you got this idea. And you started researching it. What was the next step to start to reach out to these people and learn their stories?

It was kind of like a web, I guess you can say. I found some real-life superheroes that were doing this sort of thing here in Toronto, or in and around Toronto. And I learned that a lot of these guys and girls are pretty active on Facebook. So I got in touch with a couple of them there and started talking with them, and went out on patrol with them in Toronto, and just kind of got to know them that way. And a lot of them are very- not just in Canada, but everywhere- they're a little bit... suspicious may be the wrong word, but a little bit wary of the media. A lot of them do try to maintain secret identities and that's partially part of it. So it takes a little bit to kind of gain their trust. A lot of the media coverage that these people have received in the past is sort of like the mocking kind, like “haha look at these losers. What do they think they're doing,” etc. And that was never really my angle, I never sought to kind of make fun of them, I kind of sought to understand this phenomenon. So once they sort of realized that, that's when they started to trust me a little bit more. And when they do that they put you in touch with, you know, their friends, from the city, and then and so on and so on. So that web ultimately grows.

So did some of them keep their personal lives anonymous to you as well, then?

It was kind of a whole spectrum. Some of them insisted on total anonymity. Others were fine to tell me, you know, their real names of what they do in real life and so on. And then others were kind of cagey about it, and they were a little bit more forthcoming after they kind of got to know me a bit. So with the ones who were less forthcoming about who they actually were, I tried to find out a little bit about what they were doing and who they were, and also tried to verify their stories by talking to others about it, and so on. So kind of standard journalism stuff. Yeah, it was kind of a broad spectrum.

Was it more difficult to write a book where some of the sources wanted to stay anonymous?

It was more about the phenomenon than it was about the individuals. Previous works have really focused on the individuals. And I think they were more concerned with who they actually were, and what was their real identity. So in my case, that wasn't so much of a priority. Like, a good example is a guy named Master Legend, he was in Orlando at the time, he's since moved around. I think he's in Arkansas now... I don't know where he is. But this is a guy who is very well known in the community. He's well known outside of it, he's a bit of a celebrityThere was a big Rolling Stone article done on him many years ago. Amazon actually did a pilot TV show on his whole persona. It never went ahead to a full series, but they did do one episode. So he's pretty well known. But this is a guy who tells crazy stories. Like he says he has superpowers. I always kind of get this mixed up, I think he said his dad was a KKK member, and his mom was a voodoo priestess or something to that effect. They're really wild stories, right? And this is one of those guys that would not reveal his identity. But to me, I mean, his stories were far more interesting than, you know, his real story. And I think that's the case for him, too. This is a guy who is kind of trying to escape his reality through this fantasy. So that, to me, is far more interesting than who he actually is. 

Is there a difference between sharing people's stories as an author of a book rather than as a journalist?

That's a good question. I think there is, as an author, there's more artistic licence than you have as a journalist.  But artistic licence can be interpreted badly. It can be used as an excuse for all kinds of things that you wouldn't do as a journalist. And that's not what I mean. When I say artistic licence, I feel like you can tell a story better. Like, for example,  the prologue to my book. The way I wrote it was very much like an action novel. It tells the story of an experience I had with the Extreme Justice League in San Diego. I patrolled with them for a couple of nights. And one of the nights there was this altercation where they kind of got into this fight on two different fronts with two different drunk people. And I really tried to write it like it was a comic book unfolding. And it was 100 per cent factual, but I tried to pizzazz it up a little bit. So I think you could potentially do that as a journalist, but it doesn't seem to fit as well, at least not in my experience.

Your two previous books are different from this one. Did you always have a plan to write a different type of book?

No, totally not. The first two books were technology books. I have been a technology journalist for many, many years, and so those are natural for me to write. This last one was a total digression.  The backstory to this book is kind of funny to me. My agent, Chris, knows me fairly well, we have kind of similar interests. We're both kind of big nerds. We like Star Wars and comic books and pro wrestling and all that stuff. And I kind of mentioned this to him. And he said I should totally do a book. He kind of pushed me towards it. I was not really sold on doing it myself. 

I was at this family Thanksgiving meeting in the before times, back when we still actually had family gatherings before the pandemic, and I mentioned to them that I've written this proposal about this real-life superhero book. And my aunt-in-law, she said, ‘Well, I'm not gonna read that.” And everybody's like “what? what a rude thing to say.” And I was like, No, no, I totally get it. Because she's an archetype. And she's the perfect demographic for who actually buys books. That is the largest market for book buyers. So I wasn't sold on it. I thought this is going to be a niche book that maybe some people will be interested in. And I had that conversation with my agent. And he kind of convinced me by saying, yes, it's a niche book, but it's a niche book for nerds and nerds spend lots of money and buy everything. And being a nerd. I was like, Yeah, yeah, I totally get that.

What is your favourite part of your book?

I kind of like the formative stuff, I like the early chapters that get into the history. I think one of the coolest discoveries I made with this book— I mean, it seems obvious to some people, but it wasn't to me -- is I found that culture starts off as something that people consume and eventually results in some small percentage of the population deciding that consuming it is not enough, and they need to participate in it. So whether it's listening to music, whether it's reading a book, whether it's watching sports, at some point, some small percentage of people who do these things are going to participate in them. So they're going to make music or they're going to write a book, or they're going to play sports and so on. So this sort of nerd subculture, if you want to call it that, it's no different. It has evolved to the point now where people want to participate in comic books and the whole genre and medium of comic books. And a lot of people will do this simply by just dressing up as superheroes and going to comic book conventions. But for some, it goes a step further where they actually want to be superheroes. So I thought that was pretty neat.

What do you want people to take away from your book?

I think the subtitle of the book is more interesting than the actual title: “and the fall of everything else.”

This book came out a year ago, and I don't know if things have gotten better since then. It was supposed to come out in April of 2020, and then, of course, world events kind of dictated otherwise. So the world is really darkened. And that's why these people are doing what they're doing. They're trying to make the world a better place. On a very grassroots level. It's very easy to write them off. And in fact, some of them can be written off, as just people who are seeking attention for attention’s sake. But I actually found that I was quite impressed with a lot of them, that they were, in fact, either trying to make themselves better or trying to make the world itself better, one small piece at a time. It was pretty inspirational. And even just for me, it did actually had an effect on me. I was talking to somebody about this yesterday about what real-life superheroes do has kind of evolved and shifted over the recent years away from hardcore vigilante crime-fighting, and more towards trying to help homeless people. There seems to be a lot more of them doing that sort of thing than trying to find drug dealers, that kind of stuff. And that's the part that was eye-opening to me. People in big cities, what tends to happen to us is where you have homelessness, and you see it all the time, you kind of become immune to it and you try to pretend it's invisible. They [the superheroes] really opened my eyes to this simply by going to homeless people and striking up conversations with them. I think one thing we forget, is how dehumanizing it can be to be in that situation because people do ignore you. And therefore, you can go for long stretches without actually talking to a human being. So that is a long answer. It feels a little bit sermon-y to me. But that's the one thing that I hope people get from this is that you don't have to put on a costume. You don't have to attract attention. But you can easily be a better person just by being a little bit more aware of your fellow human beings.