Somewhere in San Diego, a Superhero arises…
In every superhero story there is a transforming moment when a superhuman talent is awakened in the average Joe. Spiderman was a 90-pound weakling until he was bitten by a radioactive spider. Batman was a self-made hero, who, motivated by a childhood tragedy, acquired martial arts skills and all the Bat paraphernalia to become super. Pro skateboarder Danny Way, likewise motivated by a difficult childhood, found his super talent when he dropped into the Keyhole.

The Keyhole was a big deep empty concrete pool at Del Mar Skate Ranch that all of the pros were broken in on at one time or another. Danny Way remembers, “A drop in that pool was a big accomplishment…” The most amazing thing—Way was only seven years old when he tried it and made it.

Born in Portland, Oregon, Way says, “My dad died when I was eight months old, so my mom kind of went off the deep end when that happened.”

His mother moved his brother and him to Encinitas where he started hanging out with a rough crowd. The boys took in a lot of things that kids that young shouldn’t see. He saw skateboarding as a way out. “That gave me a tremendous amount of motivation to do the exact opposite of what I saw everyday. [There would] always be people hanging out at the house, doing drugs and drinking and all this stuff. I always saw myself doing something with my life bigger and better….”

Way’s mother remarried when he was about six years old. The new family lived in Vista, where the skateboarding scene was happening. His stepfather encouraged the boys to skateboard, buying their first decks and taking them to the Del Mar Skate Ranch to practice. Way took to skateboarding immediately with a fierce passion, evincing an uncanny talent.

This supernatural ability to fly through the air on a skateboard proved to be lucrative in the late ’80s. There were contests, sponsors, photos and fame. By age 15, Way was earning over $100,000 a year skateboarding. He was living with his 18-year-old brother. (Their mom, now divorced, had moved to Mammoth.) Way was raw, unchecked, power-raising hell in his neighborhood. Way didn’t turn to drugs, as he knew they would rob him of his abilities. He says, “Instead, of being more self-destructive, I was more destructive outside of myself, like I was making a ruckus, riding motorcycles… I really was trying to have as much fun as possible, but it was really just making a lot of noise and not caring what the neighbors think.”

Marvel Comics’ Rocket Racer was a fellow hell-raiser, regular guy who designed and built himself a supercharged skateboard and a weapon-laden skintight costume. Way passed on the tights and mask. Instead, he designed the Super Ramp. It had a 40-foot drop, about 25 feet taller than normal half pipes. That year, on the Super Ramp, he set a world record for the highest air. It seemed like there was no limit to what he could do with this amazing new oversized gadget. That same year, he became the first skateboarder ever to drop out of a helicopter onto a ramp, a move called “The Bomb Drop.”

All too quickly Way’s powers outgrew the Super Ramp. He needed something bigger, better and faster. In a far removed, remote part of the desert, Way raised the first Mega Ramp. It’s difficult to describe or even comprehend the monolithic Mega Ramp in human terms. It’s actually two ramps; a ridiculously steep drop-in ramp with a “runway” built for speed—to launch the rider, at speeds from 75 to 80 miles per hour, across a 65-foot or more gap onto a Super Ramp. At this time, he set two more world records for Longest Distance Jumped on a Skateboard (65 feet) and Height Out of a Ramp (over 18 feet.) Then he erected another Mega Ramp in the desert and broke his previous jump record and set a new one for highest backside air at over 25 feet.

There were gold medals from X Games, accolades from his peers and more record-breaking, mind-blowing aerial stunts on the Mega Ramp captured on video by DC, Way’s sponsor. One day, while flying in an airplane over China, he looked out the window and saw the Great Wall. Ordinary mortals would think, “That’s big.” Way thought, “I’d like to jump that wall.” He built another Mega Ramp in China during July of 2002 and in front of the whole world, jumped over the Great Wall on his skateboard. The idea came to him because he wanted to “give people something that they can get some sort of visual perception of what [a jump that big] is. People know the Great Wall of China. People can grasp the magnitude of what that is.”

Way’s thoughts turned toward Las Vegas. In 2006, he dropped 82 feet off the guitar on top of the Hard Rock Hotel sign to break another world record. Then he began to imagine Mexico. He built another Mega Ramp, patented a back flip trick called the “El Camino” (translated to English, “The Way”) and broke another world record.

Photos: Grant Brittain

All credible superhero myths must have conflict, whether there’s an arch-enemy or a weakness that the hero must overcome. Mister Fear is a villain who shoots synthetic pheromones—chemicals that most animals produce to communicate with one another—from a gun at his victims. The specific pheromone he uses is flight-or-flight response, which stimulates fear reactions in animals, which, when presented with a dangerous situation, experience a rush of adrenaline to enable them to fight or run from the threat. The drug, tailored for human beings, causes severe anxiety, fear and panic in its victims. Way, like the superhero called Daredevil, has had to battle Fear to survive. For Way, it’s the fight of his career. He says, “I do have fears that a lot of people have. I have a fear of heights. I’ll go up in a high building and stuff, like hotel high-rises. I don’t like it at all. When I’m on top of some of the ramps we built, I don’t like to look around too much.”

The Origin of Batman, DC Comics, says, “As a child, fear was his weakness. As man, it became his weapon.” Although the greatest irony of Way’s life is a fear of heights, he has found a few ways to control and even use this fear to his advantage. He says, “There can be no glitch in your confidence whatsoever…Fear keeps you on the edge to take the right steps to accomplish your mission and hopefully not have any error. There are people who don’t have any fear and I feel like it gets to a point where it’s stupidity sometimes.”

Danny Way might not think he’s going to kill himself, but he has come frighteningly close. In the book Superheroes!: Capes and Crusaders in Comics and Films by Roz Kaveney, the author writes, “Part of the thrill was always that, no matter how powerful superheroes were, they always managed to find themselves in a jeopardy commensurate with their strength.” The cliffhanger is the most exciting part of a superhero story. What could be more exciting than when the hero is about to be defeated, yet with his last vestige of strength comes back victorious? Way has undergone 13 surgeries from skateboarding injuries but has never had a cliffhanger as perilous as the one from surfing in 1994. He recalls, “It was my worst injury I have ever had. It is ironic…for the most part it was a freak accident.” Way dove off his surfboard in a shallow place at Tamarack and broke his neck. It might have ended his life, if not his career. He says, “I had to rehabilitate myself out of that injury, which is probably something that most people wouldn’t be able to accomplish…It took about a year and a half to two years to come back from it….” Almost to what you can imagine would be thunderous applause he finishes, “…and I came back stronger than I’ve ever been.”

Just like Luke Skywalker, he gained a new awareness of the limitless power of his body and mind with proper training. Way’s own personal Yoda is trainer Paul Chek of the Corrective Holistic Exercise Kinesiology (C.H.E.K) Institute. He explains, “I do work out, but I’ve had so many injuries that my workouts are not what you would see at the gym. If one of my buddies were to do my workout, it wouldn’t be a workout for him because it’s so specific to my body and what I’m doing and all those imbalances and weakness I have.” Chek takes a holistic approach to health, as echoed by Way. “Spiritually and emotionally as well as physically, it all works together.”

Perhaps it’s this superhuman, mind-body connection that enables Way not only to recover from so many surgeries to skate again, but to handle pain as if it were a mere curiosity. While in Austria for a knee surgery, Way stayed awake, only numb in his knee, to actually film the procedure with a video camera. He describes the experience: “The sound effects of what’s going on, too, and the smell…the tools are like what you’d see at Home Depot. I was watching them do it. I could feel it!” In fact, he stays awake for all of his surgeries, preferring that to an adverse reaction from anesthesia.

Every superhero has a motivation; whether its revenge, the good of society or just pure adventure. Way found his passion in skateboarding. His goal is simple; to elevate skateboarding to an art form and make it a respected sport in mainstream culture. Way thinks of skateboarding as, “The ultimate creative outlet…It’s definitely an art form. Whether it’s a pen or a brush on the canvas, or whatever, skateboarding is essentially the paint brush.”

While skateboarding is not a team sport per se, the success of skateboarding companies depends upon their sponsored athletes, or ‘teams.’ In superhero mythology as well, the teams are all-important to the success of the comic book series. The first team was Way and fellow pro-skateboarder Colin McKay. They helped start DC Shoes, founded by Ken Bloch and Danny’s older brother Damon. Their team and the products revolutionized skateboarding, definitely lending the industry serious credibility and attention from the mainstream. DC caught the eye of industry giant Quiksilver, which bought the smaller company three years ago.

Prior to DC, Way and McKay founded Plan B along with H Street co-founder Mike Ternansky. Plan B was to skateboarding what the Avengers are to comics. Imagine only the most powerful skateboarders, each with their individual strengths, combining forces. They could conquer the skateboarding industry and revolutionize the sport. That was what they set out to do, and were almost successful until Ternansky died in a car accident. After trying to keep Plan B together for a few years, says Way, “We didn’t have the money or the time to do it right…We just cut it off because we didn’t want to ruin the brand. We put it on hold, saying ‘Okay, maybe one day when the stars align, we’ll put this thing back together.’”

The Avengers were wildly successful until their hideout was destroyed and their leader, Iron Man, (alias Tony Stark,) went bankrupt. Then, they re-assembled by chance and created the even more powerful New Avengers. Three years ago Way’s ears started buzzing when people were gossiping about Plan B making a chance comeback, even though the thought had never even occurred to him and McKay. Then his phone started ringing. Everyone wanted in the elite Plan B team. He says, “We had interest from… the five biggest names in the business.”

Way and McKay have come back in a big way with the new team, which includes themselves, PJ Ladd, Paul Rodriguez, Ryan Sheckler, Brian Wenning, Pat Duffy, Ryan Gallant and Jereme Rodgers. According to Way, “When we came back we were under pretty hard scrutiny from the skate industry…we had to live up to our reputation from the past…Eventually, our team has evolved into being by far the strongest and most unique in skateboarding.”

Currently Plan B is working on a video, with footage from Canada, Russia and all over Europe. Way says enthusiastically that it will be the most exciting skateboarding video in 20 years. That is a lofty claim, but all in a days work to a superhero and his dynamic team. He promises, “There’s so much to be done that hasn’t been done…There’re some things that I want to do now that are way bigger than what’s happened already.” Being completely un-ironic, he finishes with, “It’s getting to the point where it’s getting dangerous.” Cue up the loud theme song, raise the lights, more thunderous applause and you have the makings of a truly great sequel. •