Commander Steel
60 years ago - Hank Heywood is born, the son of a third generation Army Ranger.
42 years ago - 18-year-old Hank Heywood enlists in the US Army, attends Ranger school, and becomes an Army Ranger.
36 years ago - 24-year-old Hank Heywood is one of the soldiers on site of the impact crater of an interdimensional Meteorite. He was bathed in liquid Dilustel being extracted from the meteor, which invades his musculature and begins dissolving his bones. Dr. Heinrich Megala designs his cybornetics to use the Dilustel to replace and enhance his biology. He takes the callsign Commander Steel, giving the American Military it's own dedicated superhuman.
34 years ago - 26-year-old Hank Heywood joins the All-Star Squadron.
27 years ago - 33-year-old Hank Heywood leaves the Army & the All-Star Squadron. He becomes an Argus operative.
25 years ago - 35-year-old Hank Heywood is selected as the leader of Team 7.
23 years ago - 37-year-old Hank Heywood is killed on mission with Team 7. There's no evidence that Slade Wilson killed him.
Commander Steel was originally just called "Steel", but that name has obviously been taken by a much better character. Adding the rank to his name is a pretty obvious addition, since he clearly has a more than passing conceptual resemblance to Captain America. Interestingly, Commander Steel has had a few different ranks; the New 52 version was Captain Steel, while the version in the 2007 Justice Society (which was also adapted to the CW Legends of Tomorrow series) is Citizen Steel.
We actually considered giving him a different rank entirely; Major Steel sounds pretty cool. Given that he's a noncomissioned officer, however, the top rank he could have is some variant of Sargent, and believe it or not, there's already a DC character called Sarge Steel. We could have taken that name and applied it to this character, but I think we all realized we were overthinking it at that point.
We actually considered giving him a different rank entirely; Major Steel sounds pretty cool. Given that he's a noncomissioned officer, however, the top rank he could have is some variant of Sargent, and believe it or not, there's already a DC character called Sarge Steel. We could have taken that name and applied it to this character, but I think we all realized we were overthinking it at that point.
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Commander Steel's Comic HistoryHank Heywood is a creation of legendary comic writer Gerry Conway, appearing for the first time in his own series Steel the Indestructible Man #1 in 1977, although the character's story actually took place in 1939, in the years leading up to World War 2. It's austensibly a superhero story (Heywood survives a bomb explosion and is granted a steel alloy skeleton, micro-motor joints. artificial lungs and heart valves and sub-dermal steel mesh plating to become a cyborg superhero). The more interesting thing happening here is that this is a story set in World War 2, but published in the seventies. DC has plenty of "Golden Age" characters, but Steel actually ISN'T one, he's just being written in that era. It's still a comic book, it's very much a story about brightly colored characters punching each other, but the absence of cartoon hitler or blackface sidekicks is refreshing.
Steel ran for 5 issues before it ended as part of the DC Implosion... DC basically cancelled dozens of series for a variety of reasons in 1978, and Steel the Instructible Man was one of them. |
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Most of the characters and series lost in the Implosion were folded into other books, and Steel was no exception. In 1984, DC decided to try to do with the Justice League what had been so successful with the Teen Titans; to revamp the team with a mix of lesser-known or original characters (who weren't starring in their own series). Among that new membership was Hank Heywood III, the grandson of the original Commander Steel, who showed up with cybornetics of his own, and offered the new League his grandfather's hidden headquarters in Detroit. Why was he included? Well, it's probably relevant that Gerry Conway was writing this new team.
The original Hank Heyward actually made a few appearances of his own, both as the team's financeer and sometimes antagonist, and the current Hank had a few stories of his own. The book went on for a few years before it was cancelled in favor of Keith Giffen & J.M. Dematteis's new Justice League series in 1987. While both characters would still make the occasional appearances, they had mostly served their purpose. |
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In 2007, Geoff John's continuity redefining series JSA was replaced by his new series Justice Society of America. In it they started playing with new members, bringing up different comic legacies. Among them was a new character, Nathan Heywood, another grandson of the original Commander Steel and cousin to Hank III. This version of the character was a victim of a super villian attack whose body became living liquid metal. He became Citizen Steel rather than Commander, and went on to appear in much of the Justice Society series that ran through the rest of the aughts, and just barely eeks out more total comic appearances than his grandfather or cousin. The version of CItizen Steel that appears in the live action series Legends of Tomorrow is a rough adaptation of this character.
In the new 52 there have been several series set in a new version of Earth 2, which is where we see one more take on this legacy; this time it's Hank Heywood Jr, and his superhero name is Captain Steel. He doesn't stand out that much, but it's definitely one of the best looking versions of the character. |
Our Commander Steel StoryAs you can see, there's been quite a few takes on what amounts to the same character. None of them have exactly been unsuccessful, but they've also never been so important that we would feel compelled to include them. We just happened to have some very specific story needs that Commander Steel just happened to fit perfectly.
The first was Team 7. That group of spies and assassins just makes way more sense with a by-the-book government agent leader. It works even better if that person is an actual superhero, and Heywood actually fits in with the All-Star Squadron really well. He does feel a little redundant with Robot Man, so we wanted to find ways to make him more than just a cyborg, but to make him infused with a sci-fi metal that enhances him physically as he needs it... and the answer we found here actually connects him to a larger story within the American military. Captain Atom was empowered by enclosing him in a strange alien metal and detonating an atomic bomb next to him, but there's some room there to question where the metal came from and what it does on its own. Commander Steel is the military hero that predates Captain Atom, and it makes perfect sense that his powers come from a similar source. What started out as a character we looked into just to fill a few niche rolls actually became a lynchpin of a larger story that we're really excited to include. |
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