People dressed up as superheroes are making news around the globe. In a high-profile article flagged with a photo on the front page of the national edition, the New York Times covered the phenomenon of people that dress up as superheroes and patrol their city to fight crime. The article focuses on a group called the Black Monday Society in Salt Lake City, composed of men dressed as their characters Red Voltage, Asylum, and Nihilist, which regularly patrols in costume. 

We’ve previously covered a single masked crimefighter in Milwaukee (see “Kick-Ass for Real”), and a more sinister group of rogue cops in Milwaukee that called themselves “Punishers” and wore Punisher logo-wear (see “Rogue Cops Were ‘Punishers’”).

Also in the news over the holidays, a man dressed as the Hulk arrested in Coventry for selling cocaine in costume. The Coventry Telegraph reported the story of Scott Anderson, with a green face and Hulk costume, selling drugs to another clubgoer while being observed by police (whose attention was attracted by his costume).   A repeat offender, he was sentenced to two years in prison last week.

It’s hard to draw many conclusions from incidents as disparate as the ones above, but one thing is clear: superheroes are starting to make a bigger impression on real life behavior by adults than they have at any time in memory.