4

A Superhero Maces a Bunch of Dancers

Wikimedia Commons

In case you haven't already heard of him, meet Phoenix Jones, Guardian of Seattle, who invested heavily in the Batman Forever style of presculpted flex armor on his quest to rid northwestern America of villainy.

bossip.com

3

A Man Saves Some Kids from a Shark, Loses His Job

photos.com

According to this news report narrated by British Jessica Rabbit, a man named Paul Marshallsea was vacationing on a beach in Queensland, Australia, when a 6-foot shark came swimming drunkenly into the shallows like it had forgotten where its car was parked. Marshallsea decided that the beast was getting too close to a group of children playing in the water, and rather than do the sensible thing and get the kids out onto the beach, he strolled into the waves to drag the shark the fuck back out to sea.

Via Youtube

So, a 62-year-old man strode purposefully into the ocean to put himself between a bunch of kids and a man-sized murderfish, grundle-punched the shark back out into the East Australian Current, and got put all over the international news as a result. And his name is Paul freaking Marshallsea. It's like he was born to police the ocean. All in all, it seems like it was a thoroughly badass vacation.

photos.com
"Next year I'm thinking we go to Africa and assault every character from The Lion King."

Except Paul Marshallsea wasn't on vacation. He was on sick leave. And when the video of his daring shark battle went viral, footage of his globe-trotting exploits made it back to his employers, who could see that he was most certainly not sick, unless he had come down with a fierce case of sharkpunchitis. So they did what any self-respecting organization would do when catching one of their employees in a lie and fired the shit out of him. From Marshallsea's official termination letter:

2

A Father Mistakes a Random Guy for a Bike Thief, Runs Him Over

Wikimedia Commons

Timothy Hombs came home one day to learn that his son's bike had been stolen by one or many lawless brigands. So Hombs climbed into his minivan, the most masculine vehicle in the county, and set out to find any suspicious-looking persons riding a bicycle against its will (we assume that's what he was looking for, because otherwise there is literally no way to tell if a person is riding a stolen bicycle unless someone is chasing after them shouting "Help, they've stolen my bicycle"). Against all odds, Hombs spotted a man riding his son's missing bike, so he did what any father would do and rammed the guy with his Dodge fucking Caravan.

Except, as you may have guessed, it wasn't his son's bike. It was just some guy minding his own business, out enjoying a leisurely ride on a bicycle that looked like the one stolen from Hombs' son.

photos.com
Those guys at Huffy sure do know how to make you feel like one in a million.

1

People Are Dressing Up Like Batman, Getting Arrested

DC Comics, photos.com

After being honorably discharged from the U.S. Army, Matthew Argintar found that the soul of a warrior yearning to serve his community was still burning inside him. So, he decided to spread hope the only way his advanced military training had taught him how -- by putting on a Batman costume and loitering in the parking lot of a Home Depot. And by "Batman costume," we mean "disenfranchised soldier with a bat painted on his face."

newyork.cbslocal.com
Good Bat logo, but the elbow pads aren't exactly canon.

Argintar donned his crime-fighting garb and took to the mean streets of the Home Depot parking lot to ask shoppers whether or not they needed any superheroic assistance. It is unclear why he decided that Home Depot was the ideal spot to wage his one-man war against crime, or why he failed to realize that most people don't need Batman's help to buy a ceiling fan and trimmer line on a weekday afternoon. It also didn't help that he looked like he was dressed like Expatriated Batman less than two months after the Aurora massacre. This encouraged several people to call the police, who then showed up and arrested Argintar on charges of disorderly conduct and illegal possession of handcuffs.

Strangely, Argintar is not the only self-made Batman to run afoul of the law. According to the official Facebook page of Mark Williams, he dresses up like Batman on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays and sets out from the Batcave within His-Mom's-House Manor to patrol the mean streets of Petoskey, Michigan. No part of that sentence was made up.

Via CBS Detroit/Petoskey Department of Public Safety
To be fair, pit stains and a Count Chocula symbol do send a strong message to the community.

Williams has been arrested twice, and if his Facebook status is current, he is in jail as we speak. He initially got busted back in 2011 for crawling around the rooftop of a local business, carrying a can of Mace and a baton (or Bat-on, depending on which era Batman he is attempting to emulate). The following year, Williams decided to follow a couple of cops around while they investigated a hit and run to help them interview witnesses and gather evidence. The police eventually got sick of him (because nothing says "official police investigation" like a mildly overweight man-child lumbering through the darkness behind your squad car in a pair of hellaciously sweaty Batman pajamas), so they arrested him for obstruction and interfering with an investigation. Fortunately for Williams, his partner/girlfriend Batgirl can pick up the slack during his probation.

Related Reading: Real-life heroes tend to be crazy. It isn't their fault -- eccentric people take more risks. But volunteer heroes aren't always losers. Some regular people are more than capable of outdoing Batman. Just ask the hobo who delivered a baby, or the Japanese scuba diver who rescued tsunami victims. And before you get down on our everyday saviors, remember how much movie heroism is based purely on luck.