“Reals”: Amateur crimefighters are surging in the US

There are, according to the recently launched World Superhero Registry, more than 200 men and a few women who are willing to dress up as comic book heroes and patrol the urban streets in search of, if not super-villains, then pickpockets and bullies.

They may look wacky, but the superhero community was born in the embers of the 9/11 terrorist attacks when ordinary people wanted to do something short of enlisting. They were boosted by a glut of Hollywood superhero movies.

In recent weeks, prompted by heady buzz words such as “active citizenry” during the Barack Obama campaign, the pace of enrolment has speeded up. Up to 20 new “Reals”, as they call themselves, have materialised in the past month.

– Amateur crimefighters are surging in the US – Times Online [via LMG].

I’m pretty sure most of these people (one wants to call them characters) and their anecdotes have been featured in news stories I’ve seen before, but I like the article’s rethoric, describing this as an emerging sub-culture.

Here’s a video about a group of “supes” from Salt Lake City called The Black Monday Society. They look like LARPers: