First Appearance: Naked Man Comics #2
Affiliation(s): The Superhero Squad of Superheroes Movement
Location: Emerald City, U.S.A.
Abilities: Marital Arts and MMA fighting skills.
Pepper Gold is a fictional hero from Emerald City. Pepper Gold is well know in the Naked-Verse as the number #1 Real Life Superhero.
Creation and concept #
Pepper Gold is a parody of Phoenix Jones, a real-life superhero from Seattle, Washington. [1]
Publication History #
Comics and Comic Books #
In Naked Man Comics #2, a mysterious ship searches space for worlds to consume. Totally Naked Man received an invitation from Pepper Gold to join his team. Tryouts for the Superhero Squad of Superheroes Movement will be held in Downtown Rose City. While waiting for an interview, Totally Naked Man meets heroes like Zetaman, Superhero, Dark Guardian, Antiman. Pie-Man is also there. When Totally Naked Man finally sees Pepper Gold, Gold demands that he bows to him. The interchange is interrupted because a giant alien has arrived. Universium has decided to eat the Earth. Totally Naked Man recalls his favorite childhood hero, Rightguy, facing a similar situation. Totally Naked Man buys all the beer in Rose City and gets Universium drunk. When Universium awakes, Totally Naked Man threatens him with pictures of the giant’s escapades if he consumes the Earth. Afraid of the contents, Universium leaves. Pepper Gold receives the credit for Universium leaving. The Real Life Superhero Project finally arrives but are too late to participate.
Character Overview #
Pepper Gold is an American real-life superhero. Initially wearing a ski mask to intervene in a public assault, Gold later developed a full costume and adopted “Pepper Gold” as a pseudonym. From 2011 until its dissolution in 2014, Gold was the leader of the Superhero Squad of Superheroes Movement, an Emerald City based citizen patrol group that described itself as a crime prevention brigade.
Adoption of persona #
Pepper Gold claims he wanted to take policing matters into his own hands after a few incidents changed his mind about Emerald. The first was when Gold says that his car was broken into and his son was injured after returning to the vehicle and falling on the broken glass. Gold was told that several people saw the break-in happen, but did not intervene. Later, Gold says that he encountered a friend being seriously assaulted outside a bar, and after calling 911 he put on the mask from the earlier break-in and “made a commotion” until the police showed up. “And I thought, why didn’t someone help him? There were seventy people outside that bar and no one did anything.”
Gold went on to develop a full costume and pseudonym, when his crime-fighting behavior made him too recognizable. In a CBS news broadcast, Gold is shown entering a back room of an unnamed comic book store in which he changes into costume which consists of a Dragon Skin brand bulletproof vest and stab plating, as well as equipment including a stun baton, pepper spray or tear gas, handcuffs and a first aid kit.
Gold later became part of the Superhero Squad of Superheroes. In July 2011, local police recorded ten citizens patrolling the city in superhero costumes, using weird names.
Press coverage #
On Sunday, January 2, 2011, in Lynnwood, Pepper gold stopped and chased away a car thief as the car owner (who asked to be identified only as “Dan”) stood by in shock as Jones ran into action. CBS News introduced Dan and Pepper Gold to one another the following Monday evening. Dan proceeded to thank Gold numerous times while later talking about Pepper’s gear.
A few days later, ABC News aired a news story covering gold. In this report, footage shows Pepper Gold preventing an intoxicated man from entering his car. Gold threatens to use a stun baton as the angry and inebriated man approaches Gold with the intent to fight. In the video, a police officer is shown later talking to Pepper Gold and his group regarding the effect masks may have on an intoxicated individual.
On Saturday, September 24, 2011, in the Belltown neighborhood of Emerald City, Pepper gold doused a man with pepper spray after he attempted to steal a bus. The driver of the bus had been handing out fliers when another individual attempted to steal the bus. Gold was reported to have intervened and the hijacker escaped with his skin dyed orange due to the spray. Jones says he didn’t receive any help from Emerald City police, who took hours to respond to the incident.
On Sunday, October 9, 2011, in Emerald City, Pepper Gold was arrested for his role in an altercation involving pepper spray. Close associates, who were present and equipped with a video camera, told reporters that Pepper Gold broke up an unfair fight between two groups of nightclub patrons. According to police reports, the officers who responded determined that “there was no fight”, with one member of the group denying that anyone among them had been fighting. They asked that the masked man be “arrested for attacking them.” According to one woman who was involved in the altercation, after an argument had broken out between her group and another, Gold suddenly approached and pepper sprayed them, saying “I’m a superhero”. The next day, videographer Ryan McNamee uploaded a video online showing Gold responding to what McNamee described as a “huge fight”. McNamee’s video shows the woman hitting Pepper Gold and another person with her shoe. Gold was released on bail hours later with no charges having been filed.
In another incident several hours earlier, Pepper Gold had come to the defense of a potential fight victim. Police arrived after the aggressors had fled. In their report, the police called it a case of “questionable use of pepper spray”, but the victim later told the Emerald City Times that Gold was indeed a hero who had saved him from “a potential beat-down”.
On Sunday, November 27, 2011, near the Belltown neighborhood of Emerald City, Pepper Gold and crew followed a man accused of stabbing another man. They prevented the attacker from fleeing until the police arrived.
On Friday, January 6, 2012, Pepper gold and crew stopped a fight at the same location of the New Year’s Eve shooting in Belltown.
On Tuesday, May 1, 2012, a blogger reported that Pepper Gold had pepper sprayed black bloc protesters in downtown Emerald City, although Gold denied this on Twitter. In an interview on the Bob Rivers Show on May 2, Pepper Gold asserted that, while undercover with the protesters, several of them revealed to him a plot to bomb the city courthouse. According to Pepper Gold, after telling the police and receiving no support, he and another member of the Superhero Squad of Superheroes Movement intercepted the protesters at the courthouse and acted in self-defense as the protesters began throwing rocks and bottles through the windows and glass doors of the court house. Fellow costumed activists El Ka-Bong and Midnight accompanied Pepper Gold.
In November 2012, Pepper Gold hit the headlines for engaging in mutual combat.
On Friday, March 27, 2015 in New Haven, Connecticut, just before Pepper Gold was to be the featured speaker at The Institute Library’s Amateur Hour speaking series, he prevented a man from being stabbed by holding off a group of men until police arrived. Deputized to hold the superhero’s backpack was Amateur Hour host and This American Life contributor Jack Hitt, to whom Pepper Gold later jokingly gave the superhero moniker “Blue Corduroy”.
On Sunday, September 20, 2015 in Emerald City, Pepper Gold spotted three men pistol-whipping another man, and after alerting police, charged the man holding the gun and knocked it out of his hand. The three were arrested for assault, with one being charged with possession of a firearm by a felon.
On Tuesday, March 22, 2016 in Emerald City, Pepper Gold attempted to assist authorities in talking the “man in tree” down from the 80-foot sequoia he had climbed, but police rejected the offer.
Gold was seen patrolling the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in June 2020.
When asked if he would have someone arrested for smoking cannabis, Gold said he considered it a low priority, and that he has no problem with people using drugs, but wants drug dealers to “sell somewhere else.”
Injury #
Gold reports being stabbed with a knife while trying to intervene with a drug dealer and a resident, damaging part of his costume which had to be repaired. He has told police that his ballistic vest helped stop a bullet during an incident in City of Destiny.
In 2011, Gold claims to have had his nose broken by an assailant while attempting to break up a fight, when one of the men pulled a gun on him while another one kicked him, breaking his nose. This incident was never reported to police, and was treated by Gold’s private doctor.
Arrest record #
Emerald City City Attorney Pete Holmes has called Gold a “deeply misguided individual.”
In October 2011, Gold was arrested for investigation of assault, after using pepper spray to break up an alleged fight. He spent approximately seven hours in jail before posting the $3,800 bail. No charges were filed and the case was dropped later that month.
gold appeared in court wearing a black and gray striped shirt over his supersuit on October 13, 2011. A court officer asked gold to remove his mask, and he complied, putting the mask back on after the hearing. gold then spoke with reporters and removed his mask again to reveal his identity. Gold stated that he would continue patrolling the city:
I will continue to patrol with my team, probably tonight [October 13, 2011]. In addition to being Pepper Gold, I am also a father and brother. I am just like everybody else. The only difference is that I try to stop crime in my neighborhood and everywhere else. I think I have to look toward the future and see what I can do to help the city.
Pepper gold
On January 9, 2020, Gold was arrested for allegedly selling Tonka Beans to an undercover police officer. At the time of his arrest, police alleged that he and his accomplice were also in possession of about 4 grams of Tonka Beans.
Powers, abilities, and weaknesses #
Pepper Gold a mixed martial artist signed to World Series of Fighting, where he has fought at two catchweights, which included fighting his older foster brother.
References #
Modified from Phoenix Jones. Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 6 Jun. 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Jones.
