There’s a hero inside everyone. It’s inside our nurses and doctors, who have battled COVID-19 relentlessly in the hospitals. It’s inside our first responders, who run toward threats instead of scrambling away.

And there are heroes inside the men standing before me in the lobby of St. Rose Dominican Hospital Sienna Campus, too. They’re just taking it a bit more literally.

Chase Cutler is a porter at the Caesars Forum convention center. Lydon Grossi is ex-Army and a personal trainer. But the kid they’re talking to has no idea those are their day jobs.

Cutler is fully suited up as DC’s lightning-fast hero The Flash. Grossi has donned Wolverine’s signature yellow suit, though without the winged mask. Today he’s an “agent,” out of costume but still on duty—comic book duty, that is. Grossi has stacks of comics to give away to sick children, and he’s determined to hand out every one of them.

This is the mission for Critical Care Comics. During the nine years the local nonprofit has served the Valley, its heroic volunteers have visited countless kids in hospitals, shelters and treatment facilities dressed as their favorite superheroes.

“They’re kind of an extra piece in my puzzle for helping kids get out of here, be happy and have fun while they’re here,” says Brianna Snipes, child life specialist at St. Rose Hospital, as we hustle down the hospital halls alongside The Flash, Wolverine, Doctor Strange and Luke Cage. “I have kids who are sad to go home,” Snipes says. “Those are the kids who you’re like, ‘Yes, we made a difference.’”

Every hero has an origin story.

Critical Care Comics founder Jason Golden’s began in a hospital bed. Back in high school, Golden was diagnosed with acute non-lymphoid leukemia. He lived in and out of hospitals, looking forward to Wednesdays, when his parents would deliver comic books from a local shop. In a room filled with uncertainty and whirring machines, Golden found solace in those pages.

“Critical Care Comics started with our founder’s personal comic book collection,” says Richard Tango, president of the nonprofit. “Jason’s intent was to bring the comic books back to the kids.”

The concept soon evolved into heroes from those pages handing out comic books to kids. “It was a ragtag bunch in the beginning of, I think, six volunteers,” Tango says. “Now we’re at about 60.”

Tango moonlights as Iron Man, but behind the scenes, he’s dogged about expanding Critical Care’s influence. “My big mission with our expansions is becoming the largest cancer survivor scholarship fund in the country,” he says.

Pushing toward that goal, Critical Care Comics will host its annual Heroes & Villains Ball on November 20, designed to raise $10,000 toward a $50,000 college scholarship for cancer survivors.

Tango knows the financial and emotional hardships that come with a diagnosis. At 12, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma and endured two years of chemotherapy. “You grow up really fast when you go through something like that,” he says.

Tango’s first visit as a hero also made a key impression. “I remember being at the pediatric emergency room, and there was a child wailing in pain down the hall,” he says. “It was distant and quickly familiar, and it triggered something in me.”

Tango stepped away, and his heroic friends came to his aid. “We surrounded each other in a group hug, and they comforted me. I had a private cry, just a gentle one,” he says. “Just a moment.”

Our first patients really love Luke Cage. A 2-year-old girl with pom pom buns and a butterfly T-shirt looks up in awe at Willie Winds, a stocky gentle giant with a deep drawl. There’s a glimmer in the girl’s eyes. After she and a 4-year-old boy take a photo with him, she rips the phone out of her parents’ hands to see the picture.

In pediatric intensive care, we see another 2-year-old girl with an oxygen mask over her nose. A relative holds her in her hospital bed as she stares in wonder at The Flash, Doctor Strange and Power Man. She lights up as Doctor Strange, played by Evan Deiro, hands her a Wonder Woman doll.

Cutler seems especially in tune with his role today, strutting from room to room. He joined Critical Care shortly after losing his mother to cancer. The Flash struck a chord with him. “The one thing that really sold me was that even with his ability to go back in time, he can’t save his mom. I really resonated with that,” he says. “I wanted to be there for kids in a way that I needed someone.”

Cutler recently got that chance, when a child asked for him one-on-one. “He’s not calling Chase into the room, he’s calling The Flash in. I wanted to give him the whole experience,” he says. The boy’s speaking ability was limited, but he took Cutler on a tour of the hospital, “point[ing] me out to the other doctors and nurses, like, ‘Fastest man alive.’”

During the height of the pandemic, in-person visits paused, but the heroic work continued. Critical Care raised funds to buy kids Nintendo Switch game consoles and iPads for virtual visits and ran food drop-offs for frontline workers and nurses.

Now, Critical Care volunteers have resumed attending improv classes and child psychology courses with child actors, learning how best to interact with kids, especially those who can’t speak or are in pain. Still, sometimes the experiences can be overhelming for the heroes.

“I’m really glad I get to be one of the characters that has a full face mask,” says Michael Mutzhaus, Critical Care Comics’ vice president, full-time U.S. government and history teacher and part-time Spider-Man. “I don’t know how these guys do it sometimes,” he says, gesturing to Cutler, Deiro and Winds.

Winds has been on the team for three years but only recently started visits. He sees every aspect of the charity as an opportunity to help.

“Bruce Lee said it best, ‘When you take a pebble and you throw it into a pond, it starts ripples. The ripples don’t stop until they cross the entire pond. I am that stone,” Winds says. “I want to be able to create ripples that cross the entire pond. That inspires somebody else to want to do [what] we do, or do other things that inspire them to be helpful in their community.”

HEROES & VILLAINS BALL November 20, 7:30 p.m., $40-$50. Meet Las Vegas, 233 S. 4th St., To get involved or donate, visit criticalcarecomics.org.