Seattle Superheroes is a regular series on seattlemag.com wherein artists depict standout people in our community as superheroes. While we’ve taken some artistic license with the narratives, the sentiment behind them is very real.

No one knows exactly how he got here. But it’s safe to say that DJ Marco “Maneuver” Collins landed in Seattle like an asteroid hitting the earth. Except, unlike the asteroid that knocked off the dinosaurs millions of years ago, Collins’ presence magnified life here–grew it, fostered it, gave it a center.  

For many years, Collins was a DJ at 107.7 The End. He’s credited with breaking bands such as Beck, Pearl Jam and Harvey Danger at the station and was famously friends with Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. He’s a living legend who helped to put Seattle music on the pop culture map and changed the lives of teenagers in the ’90s–all with the flick of a wrist and a belief in his intuition for sound.

Collins’ strength comes from the people and objects around him and his innate super powers multiply their energies ten-fold. If a record is sitting in a corner and Collins notices it, he can absorb the disc’s energy and spit it back out, make it fly, and reach someone on the other side of the city. 

Followers of Collins will have a chance to see his powers on December 3 at a benefit show he’s hosting for MusiCares, a charity that provides financial, medical, personal services and resources to folks in the music business who don’t have insurance. At the show, bands like Fly Moon Royalty, who will be debuting tracks from their new record, The Fame Riot and violinist Andrew Joslyn with Eric Anderson will be performing the music of New Order. Collins will be there–smack dab in the middle–amplifying the whole thing with his unqiue abilities.   

“MusiCares saves lives,” Collins says. “I know this to be true because they’ve saved mine. They help musicians (and people in the music industry) when the chips are down. I don’t just mean ultra famous musicians, I mean everyone. From the punk band who practices down the street to arena-sized superstars. Rehab, sober living, counseling,12-step meetings at music festivals, funds for medical emergencies are all part of the services they provide. They give. A lot.”  

All of the ticket sales for the December 3 benefit (after room costs), will go to the charity, and all the bands are playing for free. Collins is working with FM Collective, a group of Seattle musicians including the Posies, Hey Marseilles, Heart and Tennis Pro, to put the festivities together. (FM Collective collaborated on a charity album last year.)

Collins’ own story inclues a great deal of tragedy: he’s suffered from addiction for decades and he recently lost his father. After working to stay sober, Collins collaborated on a documentary about his life called The Glamour and the Squalor, which won several awards and displayed his vulnerabilities as well as his super powers of energy magnification.  

As he continues to give back, he only asks that the city helps give back to him. His powers are dependent on reciprocation, much like the energy circuits in the mixing board that helped to make his name–and this city’s history–indelible.  

About the artist: Combining an enthusiasm for velocity with a ditch digger’s satisfaction for repetition, Max Badger simply wants to make pictures and doesn’t much care about the results. An avidness for historical modern art characterizes the varied means he indulges in when depicting his pulp subjects.