Stephen Dudzik

**Stephen Dudzik** (born 29 April 1984) is the editor-in-chief of the Daily Szczecin newspaper. He is also the owner of the company and the building where it is located.

Stephen was the first person to ever be saved by The Acrobat, after he was attacked by a minor thief. Seeing the hero's performance, Dudzik was impressed and thanks to his position, was able to expose the situation into spotlight and bring the hero instant fame, seeing it as a potential income. Hence, he was very satisfied, receiving a report of one of Acrobat's actions during the Christmas Eve from Philip Turner and soon, he decided to interview the hero, along with him. As the hero himself was always by his side, they were talking with a fake Acrobat, Gabriel Gajewski. A few weeks later, Stephen was kidnapped, as were many other people close to him, by Acrobat's three main enemies, and put on the roof of PAZIM. The Acrobat quickly showed up though, rescued them and proceeded to battle the villains, which Stephen later watched from the ground. After the fight, he was watching over the exclusive interview that The Acrobat gave to Olivia Fridayton, who later received a promotion from Dudzik.

## Biography

### Early life

Stephen was born on 29 April 1984 in Szczecin, as the fourth child in the Dudzik family. He wasn't a particularly good student in elementary school. His peers often laughed from him and his demanding parents went as far as to beat him for the bad marks. It was in high school when he finally pulled himself together and started fighting for the best grades.

It was back in his youth when his and Phil Turner's paths actually crossed for the first time, as when Turner began his education in elementary school, in 1998, Dudzik was in his last year in the same building.

After a significant improvement in his education, Stephen began to think of taking his career towards journalism. Thus, in 2001, he had joined the Daily Szczecin as an intern. He quickly began to climb up the corporate ladder and achieve much more major positions, until eventually, he became the editor-in-chief, as well as the owner of the company.

In 2013, he met Philip Turner and Olivia Fridayton, who began their internship in the newspaper and eventually became journalists.

### Acrobat's origins

Dudzik is first mentioned numerous times at the beginning of the novel, when Phil turns in his articles for the next day newspaper to Stephen's office. His first actual appearance takes place after Phil returns from Japan and becomes a hero.

#### Saved by The Acrobat

On 26 November 2014, while coming back home, Stephen was attacked by a bandit, who had just stolen from a nearby bank located in his building, the Widok apartment house. The thief wanted some additional money from Dudzik. However, due to the latter's greedy nature, he decided to run and not give away anything. He headed towards the roof of his building and when there were no ways to escape, he began to panic. Fortunately, the whole situation was noticed by The Acrobat, who was just flying over the building in his Flying Car. The hero saved his boss and had a brief fight with the thief. Afterwards, when the police had arrived on the place, with Igor Possible on the front, Stephen asked the hero what was his name and he said it was "The Acrobat".

Thanks to Dudzik and his influence, the news of a superhero in the city spreaded in no time. The next day, the editor-in-chief was a guest in the morning news show of TV Region 16, a station which was partners with the Daily Szczecin.

#### Not as he seems

Two days before Christmas, he visited Philip Turner in his office to rush him to work on new articles. However, hearing how much he had done that day and seeing how he had just came back from a medical leave, he gave him an early Christmas present and let him leave the work early.

On the Christmas Eve, he was celebrating with his wife and son, when he heard of the havoc taking place on Krasickiego street, with people being turned into werewolves. Stephen turned on the television and was watching it resolve through a news broadcast. He also immediately telephoned Turner, as he knew that he lived in that neighbourhood, so that he would write an article about it for the next day. However, due to fighting the beasts as The Acrobat, he was unavailable. It was clear that Stephen was quite worried nonetheless and thought that his worker was one of the unfortunate people who were transformed.

After the holidays, Phil Turner described the whole action after all. When Dudzik heard the whole thing, he was amazed. He granted his worker a raise and a few days later, being aware of Philip's full talent, he gave him a special task - they were supposed to interview The Acrobat together. The interview took place on 7 January 2015. Prior to it, Stephen and Philip got to know each other better, as they were strolling around the city center in hopes of meeting the hero. As Philip couldn't split himself, he found a substitute for The Acrobat, his friend, Gabriel Gajewski. Fortunately, Stephen didn't realize that and the talk went by smoothly.

#### Battle on PAZIM

Two weeks later, General John, Wolf-Man and One-Armed Man decided to kidnap people close to The Acrobat after learning his true identity. Stephen was among those people and was trapped in a cage on the roof of PAZIM building. The hero had to show up there to prevent their deaths and when he did, he was tricked and General John decided to kill all the people nonetheless. The first one to go was supposed to be Steve. However, he used the opportunity and knocked down the Transforming Robot that was leading him and rescued all the prisoners. After getting out, The Acrobat, prisoners and the redempted Edmond began to fight John, Robots and Wolf-Man in his mecha. After the chaos commenced, the shutting down of the mecha and the sacrifice of Igor Possible, the hero ordered all the civilians to leave the roof. They were evacuated very quickly and from that moment onward, Stephen was watching the rest of the battle down from the ground, on Rodła square, where a huge crowd of other citizens had gathered.

After the Battle on PAZIM, The Acrobat approached Olivia Fridayton, who was standing next to her boss, if he could give her an interview as he was a fan of her articles. The woman agreed and following that, along with Stephen, they went to the Daily Szczecin building to do said interview. Few days later, Dudzik granted her a promotion and then went with her and Turner to a grand funeral of the heroes of Szczecin - Igor Possible and Edmond Unary - which took place on the Central Cemetery.

The next day, he once again appeared in TV Region 16 news, where he was one of the many citizens to say a few positive words about The Acrobat. He compared the hero to the past Polish heroes, such as Jarowit Crucian.

## Trivia

* Originally, Stephen was supposed to be much older and more arrogant, as his inspiration was J. Jonah Jameson from the Spider-Man comics.