Eleven years ago on November 15, 2013, San Francisco transformed into Gotham City and Miles Scott, aka Batkid, saved the city on a wish quest that captured the nation’s heart. Serving as his sidekick and suited up as Batman was a volunteer with a special set of skills—Eric “EJ” Johnston.

“I’m currently an engineer working on quantum computing,” EJ says. “I also used to write video games, I’m a competitive gymnast, an acrobat, and I invent stuff.”

If that sounds a little like the Caped Crusader, well, Make-A-Wish Greater Bay area staff members thought so too. Knowing EJ from past volunteering, they sent up the Bat Signal.

“They called and asked, ‘Want to teach Miles to be Batman?’” EJ recalls. “I thought it’d be a fun, small event—maybe some handstands in the kitchen.”

As more and more community members got involved, the wish took on a life of its own.

“Theresa from Make-A-Wish called,” EJ says. “And she said, ‘We got a lot of yeses. There are a lot of people coming.’ And I said, ‘Like more than a hundred?’ And she said, ‘Yep!’”

In the end, more than 30,000 people showed up to cheer on Miles. It was a lot of pressure for everyone involved in making sure the wish went off without a hitch, including EJ and his wife, Sue, who played the “damsel in distress” kidnapped by the Riddler.

“This whole thing was something that we only get to run through once for real,” says EJ. “There’s no actual kind of dress rehearsal and there were so many ways in which it could go wrong. We just had each other’s backs at every turn.”

For EJ, the big day started outside Miles’ hotel room when, dressed as Batman, he knocked on the door to deliver Miles’ Batkid gear.

“Miles was very surprised to see me,” says EJ. “And when I handed him his suit, he went from kid on vacation to kid in armor. He started getting like, all tough, and growly. It was so fun to see.”

Once suited up, they headed to the garage, where two Lamborghini Gallardos, transformed into Batmobiles, waited. “That was my first glimpse of how many people there were right at the garage,” EJ recalls. “And I thought, ‘That’s a lot of people.’ But we hadn’t even begun.”

Throughout the day, EJ found little ways to connect with Miles amid the excitement. “At each stop, I’d check in with him,” says EJ. “I’d try to make eye contact and attune and see how he was doing and check his energy levels. And then I’d say, ‘Who are you?’ Every time he’d respond, ‘I’m Batman,’ I knew we were good to go with the next thing.”

The story of that day is a familiar one to many, but people may not know that Miles’ wish began the day prior, when EJ—dressed as himself—took Miles to Circus Center in San Francisco. (Side note: EJ met his wife, Sue, there years earlier when they both took the same trapeze class.) When the duo arrived, the gym was filled with people dressed as superheroes—Catwoman, The Flash, Robin, and more. 

“They didn’t tell me they were doing this, and I was tearing up,” says EJ. Surrounded by the surprise superhero squad, EJ and Miles spent the session training for stunts and tricks in preparation for the next day.

“I wasn’t in Batman gear; I was just a coach,” says EJ. “During the big day, Miles figured out at one point that I was the same person who had been coaching him. And that was really fun. It was like a little secret.”

Thinking back, EJ remembers fondly rescuing his wife, who he describes as being, in real life, “a self-rescuing woman!” He also recalls a moment of awe while riding in “supercool Bat-Lamborghinis” and waving to crowd, hearing them cheer. “I thought, ‘Nobody ever gets to do this.’ Right? Who gets a day like this? And—so I’m glad that Miles really enjoyed it but for me, it was amazing.”

Ten years before his stint as Batman, EJ played another role in making a wish come true—mild-mannered yet heroic game developer for Ben’s wish to create a video game. In the early 2000s, developing a video game was expensive and required unique skills. The chapter was having trouble finding someone to help and put out a letter requesting assistance. One of the recipients was Sue, who shared it with EJ, who was working as a senior game engineer at LucasArts at the time.

The letter explained that Ben wished to create a video game about his battle with cancer to help other kids going through similar experiences—and that the chapter needed help to make it possible.

“I responded and said, ‘I’ll see what support I can get from work, but let’s just start,’” says EJ. “And that was that—so [then-Executive Director Patricia Wilson] brought Ben over to meet me in my office. We got permission from work to use the office, and that was my introduction to Make-A-Wish.”

EJ worked pro bono on the project, meeting with Ben weekly for six months to build what would become Ben’s Game. With each session, Ben’s story and artwork became part of the game, creating an immersive experience for players. In the game, medicine was the hero, and the villains represented common side effects of chemotherapy.

“I mean, EJ is a genius,” says wish alum Ben Duskin, of working with EJ. “He did this with no resources and an eight-year-old kid spitting ideas at him. Working with him was an absolute blast. He made every session feel absolutely incredible.”

Upon its launch, Ben’s Game made headlines across major networks like CNN and even appeared on The Today Show. The game saw over 300,000 downloads and was translated into 11 languages. Hospitals around the world used it, from India to Japan. In 2005, both Ben and EJ were recognized as Unsung Heroes of Compassion by the Dalai Lama, making Ben the youngest to receive that honor.

“If you had to pay to make a wish like this come true, you couldn’t afford it,” says EJ. "But, when you have people involved who can come together and just make it happen—then it might take a while, but it actually gets to happen.”

After Ben’s wish, EJ and Sue continued volunteering as wish granters for over a decade before moving to the UK for work. EJ has stayed in touch with Ben and Miles, checking in on their birthdays and sending cookies baked by Sue over the holidays.

In 2022, EJ was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma, a type of cancer in his neck blocking his airway, similar to Miles’ diagnosis. “While I was going through treatment, I benefited from things I’d learned from wish kids,” says EJ. “And then Ben and Miles were there for me. Ben was very encouraging and also like a drill sergeant. It was a full-circle friendship from all of this."

This year, 2024, marks the 11th anniversary of Miles’ wish and the 20th of Ben’s. Whenever his unique skills are needed in service of wishes once again, EJ is ready and waiting.

“I look forward to the next wish,” says EJ. “I see it differently now, having made it through my own cancer. I’m just celebrating having made it through what I watched these little kids get through before. I understand more now about what the impact is.”