Steel (comic series)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

Steel (Eng. " Steel ") is the title of a comic series that was published from 1994 to 1998 by the US publisher DC Comics .

In terms of genre, Steel is a mixture of classic American superhero comics as well as science fiction and adventure comics. The main character of the series is the African American John Henry Irons, who - armed with a steel battle suit - fights for "the good" in various cities of the fictional so-called DC universe in which the series takes place. The creators of the Steel series and its main character were the author Louise Simonson and the illustrator Jon Bogdanove who first introduced the character in # 500 of the US series The Adventures of Superman in June 1993.

action

The main character of the series is the engineer John Henry Irons, who in a steel hi-tech combat armor that makes him almost invulnerable, protects the inhabitants of a ghetto in Washington, DC . Because of the material from which this armor is made ( steel ), Irons is also called "Man of Steel" or "Steel" for short.

While the first few years of the series are set in Washington DC, the series will be relocated to an unnamed city in the stories of the later editions. In addition to various disputes with the criminal government organization Black Op and its leader Hazard, Steel also has to deal with the arms dealer White Rabbit, an alien bounty hunter and the giant blockbuster and embarks on an odyssey into space with the hot-blooded aristocrat Maxima.

In addition, Steel has to do with all sorts of family entanglements: While Steel's alter ego John Henry Irons lives in the lap of an extended family dominated by his matriarchal grandmother in the early editions of the series, his family abandons him in later issues of the series after his secret identity Has been publicly revealed by Hazard: Only his niece Natasha - and her friend Boris , who has AIDS , remains loyal to him and accompanies him on his new phase of life. Frequently recurring topics are the simmering racism in American society, the problems of John Henry's relationships with white women, and the unprocessed trauma of Steel's involvement in the arms industry. In the last few issues of the series, he enters into a delicate liaison with a doctor in the hospital where he has found employment.

During Steel's solo adventures, there are occasional entanglements in the adventures of his colleague Superman. The Steel series is combined with the Superman series in the form of so-called crossovers , with the actions of these big stories then running across all series involved. Examples of such adventures in which Steel Superman rushes to help include the storylines The Trial of Superman from 1995 and Millennium Giants from 1998. While Steel is traveling into space in one story to free Superman from the clutches of an alien criminal court, describes the last mentioned story is the common struggle against a horde of resurrected archaic giants.

Main character: John Henry Irons

The title hero of Steel, John Henry Irons, is a mixture in equal parts of John Henry , a hero of African American folklore, and the great father of all American comic superheroes, Superman : while John Henry - a black slave with a noble character and the The physical strength of a bear who leads his people out of slavery and into freedom - the name of Irons superhero alter ego serves as the namesake for Irons civilian identity, the name of Irons superhero alter ego goes on Superman's nickname "The Man of Steel" The steel one ”) back. The high-tech armor with which Irons fights crime gives him the superpowers typical of superheroes, the ability to fly (thanks to his rocket boots) and all kinds of extras, such as surrounding himself with force fields, firing energy beams and the like. In addition, Steel often uses an iron throwing hammer which can return to him according to the boomerang principle if he wishes, and which also increases in speed with increasing throwing distance and hits the target all the harder. Since the hammer, thanks to a technical ingenuity, connects itself to the earth's electromagnetic field when it falls on the ground, nobody except Steel himself, who can switch off this mechanism, can pick it up.

Friends

Irons family

The members of the family of John Henry Irons act as the main supporting characters in the series for the first three years of the Steel comics.

The family in these magazines lives in a single family home in a Washington DC neighborhood until, when Steel's secret identity becomes public, they are forced to go underground to hide from his enemies. It has eight members: Bess Irons , Steel's stout grandmother, who acts as the head of the family as a mild but resolute matriarch. Bess somewhat senile husband Butters Irons , called Pops, her daughter-in-law Blondel Irons , the wife of her missing son Clay Irons , who returns later in the series as Criminal Crash. Then there are the children of Blondel and Clay: Natasha Irons , Jemahl Irons and Paco Irons as well as the foster children Darlene and Tyke .

In one of the first issues of the series, Tyke is gunned down by a thug named Cowboy during an argument between Jemahl and a street gang and then sits in a wheelchair, later he intrigues against John Henry, whom he blames for his fate, and contributes to the disclosure of its secret identity. After the welfare office takes him and Darlene out of the Irons family, he is adopted by a man behind whom Steel's enemy Hazard is hiding and then - like Darlene, who comes to another family - no longer appears in the series.

The rowdy Jemahl plays an important role in the first few issues, which deal with his involvement in drug deals with a designer drug called Tar and how he bullies his mother, but later comes more in favor of Natasha, who practically co-starred the series , into the background. After playing a prominent role in the series' first two and a half years, Bess is murdered by some of Steel's enemies in a later issue. The rest of the family, except Natasha, break up with Steel and, with the help of the government, go into hiding in an unknown location. Later, the Irons appear only once, and they appear clearly marked (emaciated, neurotic, careworn) by the hardships of life in hiding.

Natasha Irons

Natasha Jasmine Irons is the niece of John Henry Irons (Steel). The character first appeared in US Steel # 1 from February 1994 (author: Louise Simonson, draftsman: Jon Bogdanove) and was the only supporting character who appeared continuously from issue # 1 of the series until it was discontinued with # 52. In issue # 1, Natasha is introduced as the daughter of Irons brother Clay Irons and his wife Blondel. As a practical and clever teenage girl, she will be a moral and physical support to Steel through his adventures until the end of the series.

At the start of the Steel series, Natasha is a girl around thirteen who lives with her family in an old house in Washington DC. After her uncle joins the house community in # 1 of the series, they both quickly become "big buddies" and experience all kinds of adventures together. In the course of the series Natasha is kidnapped, among others, by the villains Hazard and Plasmus - and rescued by her uncle - she befriends a boy with AIDS named Paul, whom she calls "Boris", she is poisoned by the terrorist Skorpio - but can thanks to a blood transfusion from her father, who returns as the villain Crash , and finally moves with her uncle to Jersey City to start a new life there - without the rest of the family - after Steel's secret identity becomes public. In most of these adventures, Natasha is portrayed as the average teenager with a deliberately outward-looking casualness.

In the series Superman: Man of Steel Natasha also appeared in the editions from 1999 to 2002 together with her uncle in the capacity of joint operator of the high-tech workshop Steelworks as a permanent supporting character. Together with Boris and the Kelex robot she programmed, she experienced various little adventures on the fringes of the main adventures of the title hero, Superman. After that, Natasha appeared like Steel in various other series such as 52 : There, after Steel is seriously injured in a fight, she is appointed by him as his successor and at times acts as the second Steel (US action in armor forged by her uncle) Comics # 806). As a participant in the Everyman Subject test program initiated by Lex Luthor, she occasionally gains superpowers and becomes the superhero Starlight ( 52 # 21). After a long estrangement from her uncle - who had destroyed her steel armor after an argument - she finally realizes the corrupt machinations of Luther, in whose service she was temporarily, and helps her uncle Luthor to put an end to the trade. After losing her Starlight powers, Natasha finally reconciles with her uncle: Together they put the Steelworks back into operation. He also builds her new armor.

opponent

Amertek

Amertek Industries is an armaments company that is Steel's main enemy in the first issues of the Steel series (# 1–5). These issues deal with Amertek, an unscrupulous, inhuman and greedy corporation, one of John Henry Irons (Steel), who as a young engineer researched, worked and developed large-caliber firearm, the BG-60 ("Toastmaster") at Amertek Youth gangs and warring states sold in order to profit financially from the suffering that wars and gang warfare cause. In the first five issues of the series, Steel wages a private war against the questionable company and gradually destroys all BG-60s produced by it, as well as the construction plans of the weapon, in order to make it impossible for Amertek to evict it. As a cooperation partner of Amertek, Rainforest Industries is also presented, a company that, under the leadership of the corrupt businessman Hazard, makes life difficult for Steel in the later editions of the series. Another former employee of the group is Steel's enemy White Rabbit.

cowboy

Cowboy is the leader of a street gang with the Steel clashes several times over the course of the series. Cowboy deals in a steroid drug called tar (" tar "), which he also takes himself, and sells weapons to young people. Steel's nephew Jamal is part of Cowboy's gang at times, while Zeke, another of Steel's nephews, is gunned down by him and seriously injured, with the result that he has been dependent on a wheelchair ever since. In a later issue, Cowboy is eventually defeated and arrested by Steel.

Crash

Crash is Steel's brother Clay Irons and his worst enemy.

White rabbit

White Rabbit (Eng. "White Rabbit"), alias Dr. Angora Lapin is one of the main opponents of Steel. The villain, named after a character from Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland", made her debut in US Adventures of Superman # 500 from 1993. The character was created by the author Louise Simonson and the illustrator Jon Bogdanove.

Lapin was a talented engineer. who had helped John Henry Irons - the alter ego of Steel - develop a weapon called the Toastmaster  - a powerful, light firearm - for an American defense company that can be used to "roast" people in a fraction of a second. H. burned very hard with heat rays. Irons destroyed the prototype of the Toastmaster after being told that the weapon would be used in the war zone in Quarci after it was mass-produced. Lapin, however, had secretly copied the construction plans of the Toastmaster and was able to reconstruct the weapon after Irons left the armaments project. Soon afterwards she began producing the Toastmaster as a utility weapon under the code name "White Rabbit" and selling it to criminals - for a short time she also worked with Lex Luthor, who was betraying her. Irons, who became aware of the activities of his former colleague and lover, finally took action against her and stopped her. The gun handler apparently died in a duel with Steel when a warehouse collapsed over her head (US Man of Steel # 24), but later returned to get revenge on Steel, but was defeated again.

Further appearances

Steel appeared at # 16 (1998) as a main character in the Justice League of America (JLA) series, which included a team of superheroes led by Superman who, as the protector of humanity, fought mostly against threats of cosmic proportions. Up to # 41, Steel was a member of the JLA's "regular cast" and one of the main characters in this team series. When he left the JLA as a regular team member, he disappeared from this series in which he has only appeared as a minor character since then.

In the series Superman: Man of Steel , Steel / John Henry Irons and his niece Natasha were permanent supporting characters during the run of author Mark Schultz from 1999 to 2002. As operators of a hi-tech workshop called Steelworks , the two were the superhero's technical advisors and outfitters in the Superman adventures of those years. With his inventions, his friendly advice and occasional own assignments, Steel Superman stood by the side as a loyal factotum in every situation, which finally culminated in a partnership between the two "men of steel". Superman revealed to Irons, among other things, his secret identity as reporter Clark Kent and the two of them built a new fortress of solitude together .

After a few solo adventures in series 52, that of Steel's conflict with a living armor from the planet Apokolips ("Entropy Aegais") that almost devours his soul, his confrontations with the unscrupulous businessman and Superman arch-enemy Lex Luthor, his alienation from Superman and the other JLA members, his infection with a drug called Exo-Gen, his difficult relationship, contraband and reconciliation with his niece Natasha, whom he finally helps to become the new Steel by forging her own armor, and his temporary transformation into a being made of living steel, Steel will be one of the main characters in the 2008 comic series Infinity Inc., according to publisher announcements.

Movies

The film Steel Man ( OT : Steel ) was released by Warner Brothers in 1997 (US film premiere: August 15, 1997). The title role of John Henry Irons / Steel took over the basketball player Shaquille O'Neal . Annabeth Gish , Richard Roundtree and Judd Nelson also starred . The director took over Kenneth Johnson . The film turned out to be a flop, both commercially and artistically, with production costs of $ 16,000,000 compared to revenues of just $ 1,686,429 in American theaters. Critics particularly criticized the film's unoriginal dialogues, the unimaginative, straightforward plot and the poor performance of amateur actor O'Neil.

In the American original, dubbed by well-known actors such as Michael Dorn and Phil LaMarr , Steel also had several appearances in various American cartoon series such as Superman: The Animated Series and The Justice League . In these series, Steel and his niece Natasha (US dubbing voice: Cree Summer ) stand with Superman and the heroes of the Justice League with their engineering skills and concrete deeds (especially in the Superman episode "Heavy Metal") and help them to create several adventures consist. As a playable character, Steel appeared in the video game The Death and Return of Superman .

publication

After the character of Steel / John Henry Irons had proven extremely popular as a character in the Superman comics, Simonson and Bogdanove were commissioned in 1993 to create a stand-alone series around the character. This was started in early 1994 and ran for four and a half years until the summer of 1998.

While Simonson wrote the first 31 issues of Steel, Bogdanove stayed with the series only for a short time until a long line of other illustrators such as Chris Batista and Mitch Byrd took over the drawing duties. After Simonson's departure, the author Christopher Priest took over the authorship of Steel who was responsible for the series until it was discontinued with issue # 52. In addition to the 52 regular issues of the series, there was also a special issue # 0 (for the miniseries Zero Hour 1994) and three extra issues called Annuals with extra length.