According to DC reddit today mark the 28th(?) Year that Steel and Superbly debuted.
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So I've never really taken an interest in Superman's extended family besides a few characters. But going off the Superman thread I would assume he's in the top 10 important people to the Superman family. He even had the honor of getting a movie though I haven't seen it (also heard it wasn't good).
Can anyone tell me why he's important, what his appeal is, and give some recommendations of what to read for him?
He was the first black member of the Superfamily for one, and debuted in Reign of the Supermen which was one of the last “important” moments in Superman’s history. The appeal is that he’s basically SuperIron Man with a hammer.
Recs:
Reign of the Supermen
Steel (ongoing)
Morrison JLA
52 (He and Natasha are big players in this series)
Morrison Action Comics (Sholly Fisch backups with Irons are great)
Pak Action Comics
PKJ has been teasing that something with Irons is coming, he’s featured prominently on the big spread ad that kicked off the Infinite Frontier era but sadly hasn’t shown up yet. His niece Natasha Irons will be in Morrison Superman & The Authority book, which takes place in the future, but we’re hoping for an ongoing or mini to be announced soon.
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I recently started grabbing issues of the Schultz Man of Steel run from the late 1990s-early 2000s and its got some pretty cool Steel stuff. Particularly #100 where they rebuild the Fortress of Solitude and establish the Steelworks as a satellite building to the Fortress.
“Look, you can’t put the Superman #77s with the #200s. They haven’t even discovered Red Kryptonite yet. And you can’t put the #98s with the #300s, Lori Lemaris hasn’t even been introduced.” — Sam
“Where the hell are you from? Krypton?” — Edgar Frog
Man I’d love to see the Steelworks again
I miss Irons being the only other guy who could understand how Kryptonian tech worked, now they give that **** to Batman. It would be cool if Irons was the one Kal trusted to adapt Kryptonian tech for more widespread human use, and he was using the basics of said tech for his Steelworks products. Also really loved the Tesseract Fortress:
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“Look, you can’t put the Superman #77s with the #200s. They haven’t even discovered Red Kryptonite yet. And you can’t put the #98s with the #300s, Lori Lemaris hasn’t even been introduced.” — Sam
“Where the hell are you from? Krypton?” — Edgar Frog
I just realized they were basing DCAU Irons on MJ lmao
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it's a shame DC doesn't use Steel as much as they could.
I see the other company consistently pushing a variety of characters who should be in John's tier with great success.
Oh well
The J-man
Steel was pretty prominent in the Infinite Frontier Superman family promo, so hopefully there’s a storyline coming up where he’s heavily featured. Mongul was also in the image and he’s been appearing a lot lately. Hopefully that’s a sign of things to come for John Henry.
I would love to see his relationship with Lana Lang rekindled.
Seriously I want to see that romance with Lana explored. There’s a ton to unpack there that could be great fun. Priest talked about on his blog as approaching Steel as a way to gleefully deconstruct and play with the Superman mythos and Steel dating Clark’s childhood romance, his own LL, feels like a perfect way to approach an analysis of the iconic Superman/Lois relationship. That John isn’t Clark and Lana isn’t Lois is the whole appeal to me. John was the one who best embodied Superman’s ideals during Reign of the Supermen though, so even though his mindset and approach are different, his nature as a moral man who wields power in service to others is still present and key to who he is.
Right now I’ve been thinking over different ways to differentiate Irons from the other DC super geniuses. Need to give it some more thought as to what his unique traits in comparison to the others should be.
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