Ubiquitous needles. Photo from October, 2012

The superhero profession appears to be thriving in the Mission.

Roxanne Cai, a.k.a. “Rock N Roll,” is part of a movement of comic-book-style crime fighters called “The Initiative,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Cai patrols the Mission wearing “knee-high leather boots and purple and pink streaks in her hair,” picking up needles and handing out granola bars and clean socks to homeless people.

In the Mission, needle cleanup is no easy task: Cai tells the Chronicle that she’s retrieved more than 3,200.

Cai isn’t the only superhero watching over the Mission these days. As we reported Monday morning, a yellow-clad cartoon crusader named Narcania is also fighting drug overdoses in a Clarion Alley mural. The outreach mural is sponsored by the Drug Overdose Prevention and Education (DOPE) Program and funded by the Department of Public Health.

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Andy Mannix is a national-award-winning investigative reporter. He studied journalism at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, where he worked as in-depth projects desk editor for the Minnesota Daily, named the best college newspaper in the country by the Society of Professional Journalists during his senior year. After graduating in December 2009, Andy spent three and a half years as a staff writer for Minneapolis alt-weekly City Pages, writing long-form, in-depth stories on state politics, city government and the criminal justice system. He's now a freelance writer pursuing a master's degree at UC-Berkeley's graduate school of journalism.

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  3. this photo look very staged.. those are 2 UNUSED needles, one intact, the other with the transparent cap on still. SHAME ON YOU.

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