Since the NSA leaks began, journalist Glenn Greenwald and whistleblower Edward Snowden have both come under close scrutiny, but a new piece in The Advocate by Natasha Vargas-Cooper takes a closer look at the complex relationship between the two men. They've been working together for months now, settling into a close routine that includes daily chat sessions, but it wasn't always so comfortable.

Vargas-Cooper describes a dramatic moment during the early Hong Kong interviews, when Greenwald grilled the young analyst on why he was risking his life by coming forward. Greenwald expected to hear ideology pulled from libertarianism or critical theory, and was shocked at how simple Snowden's explanation turned out to be. "You have good guys who are forced to do difficult but good things," Snowden told him. That's a far cry from Greenwald's Nietzsche-influenced view of the world, but surprisingly close to the comic-book morality Greenwald learned from his partner, David Miranda. "All of the narratives in these comic books are about these single individuals devoted to justice," Greenwald says, "who have the willingness to be brave, who can defeat even the most powerful edifices of evil."