Meanwhile, back in Gotham City… or rather, downtown San Diego… our superheroes find themselves in a heap of trouble. It’s a sweaty, ninety-degree night and a scowling, shirtless man is bounding around them like a boxer circling his opponent. He’s well muscled, over six feet tall, sporting the abs and pecs of a professional wrestler. He is wearing white pants and polished black leather shoes that match his cropped, shiny dark hair. His eyes are glassy, but laser focused—two black, beady pinpoints fixated on the six colorfully costumed individuals who are now backing into a defensive semicircle to meet his imminent attack. The shirtless man isn’t the only problem, though. An older and clearly drunken gentleman, with tanned, leathery skin and white hair tucked beneath a baseball cap, is also instigating a fight, threatening on a second front. The air is thick with tension and humidity. You can almost see a collective thought bubble form over the heads of the superheroes, wondering: “How did we get ourselves into this mess?”
The situation arose a few moments earlier, when the shirtless man was still fully clothed. Surprised by the costumed people as they casually walked by him, he swatted at one of them, barely missing. When the superheroes didn’t react, he followed them, then again tried to get their attention by attempting to force his way into a closed restaurant. It worked—when they stopped to see what the commotion was, he approached them anew. Using the universal gesture for “I want to fight,” the shirted man thus became shirtless. The other man, meanwhile, approached from a different direction, swaying from side to side. Wearing a blue T-shirt and green cargo shorts, he was clad in the telltale uniform of a tourist. Like the shirtless man, he set to glaring at his targets, paying special attention to Grim, the tallest member of the costumed group. With a crooked smirk adorning his face, he began to poke Grim in his blue skull mask. Grim took exception. “Sir, please stop,” he said. “I’m going to have to stop you if you don’t.” The man, undaunted by the menacing skull speaking to him, grinned like a mischievous five-year-old and continued.
A showdown here outside Jolt’n Joe’s Gaslamp is now imminent. Two months ago, twenty-seven-year-old Corey Poole and a friend were engaged in a punching game inside the bar, named after New York Yankees slugger Joe DiMaggio, and they went too far—Poole took one hit too many to the chest, then collapsed and died. Eager to prevent something similar from occurring, Grim’s teammates—self-styled real-life superheroes who call themselves the Xtreme Justice League (XJL)—maneuver themselves between the poking man and the bouncing man. The XJL members know from years of experience patrolling San Diego’s Gaslamp District that bad things tend to happen when such individuals meet. They may have inadvertently created this problem themselves by virtue of their conspicuousness, but it’s also possible the two men would have run into each other independently, with a conflagration following. It happens all the time—these sorts of combustible elements have a habit of sparking larger blazes. Just like containing a fire on a submarine, compartmentalization is key.
Mr. Xtreme, wearing a combat helmet and fatigues, ski goggles and a purple cape, tries to defuse the bouncing man. “It’s okay, dude, just calm down,” he says, his hands up in gentle assurance, like he’s trying to soothe an angry bear. “No one wants any trouble, just calm down and let’s talk.”
Grim, who has had enough of the poking, takes the opposite tack. He grabs the older man’s wrist and twists downward. The man buckles like a tree felled by a chainsaw, going with the motion smoothly. “I’m sorry for this,” Grim says to the man, now prone on the ground, “but I warned you several times.”
The takedown appears to give the shirtless man second thoughts about starting a tussle. He stops bouncing and his demeanor shifts from hostile to curious; he strikes up a conversation with Mr. Xtreme and Fallen Boy, who is wearing a black flak jacket, military fatigues and a domino mask. He says his name is Aaron and he’s from Arizona. He and his friend, who had been quietly watching this encounter unfold from the sidelines, had been barhopping in the Gaslamp District. His friend explains that they were waiting for an Uber to pick them up when they spotted the costumed group. They just wanted to say hello.
That’s not entirely true. Aaron had indeed swiped an outstretched hand at Light Fist’s head as he passed by him a few moments earlier, but no one on the team had paid it any mind. Light Fist, dressed in green sweats, yellow motocross pads and ski goggles, hadn’t even noticed.
The older, now-chastened man, meanwhile, needs help. Violet Valkyrie, an African-American woman wearing a purple jacket and sequined bandana across her face, learns his name is Oscar. Marshaling his concentration, Oscar pulls out his phone and dials a number, then hands it to her; his concerned wife answers. The couple are indeed tourists, Violet Valkyrie discovers, and Oscar had ventured into the Gaslamp alone for late-night drinks. Now, he’s lost and fall-down drunk. Or, rather, takedown drunk.
A black SUV pulls into the intersection. Figuring it’s the Uber that Aaron and his friend had been waiting for, Mr. Xtreme and Fallen Boy usher the duo over to it and bid them goodnight. Grim and Violet Valkyrie help Oscar to his feet. His wife tells Violet Valkyrie they’re staying three blocks away at the Gaslamp Marriott. Mr. Xtreme and Fallen Boy drape Oscar’s arms over their shoulders and help him walk as the SUV pulls away. Fallen Boy tries to keep him cogent with chitchat. “What are your favorite kinds of movies?” he asks as they walk. “Mine are action movies.” Oscar mumbles back unintelligibly. The final member of the costumed group, Brick—wearing a black, red and white hockey jersey, camouflage pants and a red skull mask—watches his teammates’ backs as they walk.
Oscar’s wife is waiting with arms crossed, brow furrowed, at the hotel. She thanks the group and ushers her husband into the lobby. A week later, she will contact the XJL on Facebook and donate a hundred dollars to its registered charity. But for now, the team members collectively exhale in relief. The self-proclaimed guardians of downtown San Diego have put out another set of potential fires, dual situations that could have ended much differently—more violently. They may not have stopped a super-villain or even foiled an actual crime, but they served what they see as their purpose anyway. “That’s definitely our good deed for the day,” Mr. Xtreme chuckles.