John Henry Irons

42 years ago - John Henry Irons is born to a family of high-steel workers in Metropolis.

24 years ago - 18-year-old John Henry Irons leaves home to begin his studies.

20 years ago - 22-year-old John Henry Irons gets his bachelor's degree & begins studying for his masters in engineering.

17 years ago - 25-year-old John Henry Irons accepts a contract to work with Cyber-Tech instead of returning to his family.

11 years ago - 31-year-old John Henry Irons builds his first prototype of his weapons systems. Without his knowledge, Cyber-Tech illegally sells his weapons to Bruno Mannheim and Intergang.

9 years ago - 33-year-old John Henry Irons realizes that Cyber-Tech are selling his weapons to Intergang. He attempts to battle them in court and loses everything. Realizes that Bruno Mannheim has put a price on his head, he returns home to protect his family & finds work in their high steel business, finally meeting his 8-year-old niece, Natasha Irons.

6 years ago - 36-year-old John Henry Irons falls from high steel and is saved by Superman, who reminds him to make his life count. He begins working on his new weapons systems, machining & forging them himself.

5 years ago - 37-year-old John Henry Irons builds his Steel armor, with the help of his niece Natasha Irons, to fill in for Superman after his death. He works to dismantle Cyber-Tech and get his weapons off the streets. He assists with the battle against Mongul and Hank Henshaw.

2 years ago - 40-year-old John Henry Irons joins the Watchtower to retrofit it's technology.

1 year ago - 41-year-old John Henry Irons retires from superheroics after the battle against Mageddon. He takes a post as the Justice League liaison with the United Nations and passes ownership of his labs & ironworks to his niece Natasha Irons, who builds her own Steel armor.

We absolutely love John Henry Irons. Any time a non-superhuman character elevates themselves to a level where they can hold their own alongside the god-like members of the Justice League, it's something special. John, however, would be an awesome character even without his armor. His physicality is amazing (he could probably fight crime based on that alone), but it's his characterization that makes him so unique. He's probably the most level-headed superhero we've seen, approaching his calling with a refreshing pragmatism you have to admire.

This, and the fact that his niece and long-time supporting character Natasha Irons had taken on the role of Steel a few times in the comics, lead us to decide that John was a character whose role in the world could actually grow BEYOND superheroics.

John's Comic History

Steel appeared for the first time in 1993 during the Reign of the Supermen arc after Clark Kent's death. Each Superman book focused on a different character, each one an attempt to continue Superman's legacy. The book "Man of Steel" took its name literally, making a character that bound up the idea of Superman with the American folk legend John Henry. Irons continued to play a supporting role even after the return of Clark Kent.

Steel had his own ongoing series that ran for 4 years (and was also featured in the absolute worst superhero movie of all time. Looking at you, Shaq). His solo book was canceled shortly before he was recruited into Grant Morrison's Justice League (which is of course the inspiration for our Watchtower team). Morrison was making his lineup an allegory for the Greek Gods, and John was his stand-in for Hephaestus. His time as a leaguer really cemented him as one of the best characters in DC at the time. He was a major player in the Imperiex War crossover where he was injured, which lead to a period of retirement.

Our John Story

We've kept our version of John's story as close to his comic counterpart as possible, although we've made a few tweaks to his pre-superheroic timeline to make it a little more cohesive. His being on the run from his former employer after they stole his weapon designs is a great source of drama. This was actually the source of a lot of conflict in his early comic appearances, and we plan to do the same thing.

Of course, the biggest change we made came AFTER the Justice League, when we move his story forward into a new and arguably even more important role. We're establishing that the massive battle against the world-ending superorganism Maggeddon had widespread effects across the world, and it stands to reason that the United Nations would want a spokesperson among them who speaks for the superheroic community. John is always depicted as one of the clearest thinkers among them. He's actually a perfect candidate to set aside his usual role as a superhero and to instead become their voice on the world stage. Not many people would be able to command the respect of all the myriad competing egos that make up all these groups, but it seems a natural fit for John. The fact that his niece could take up the mantle as Steel makes it an even better fit.

John's Costume

While John is officially retired, he's obviously not going to refuse a call to action. I have to imagine that he's never that far away from his armor.

It's very easy to look at Steel and think of him as DC's Iron Man, but his suit is actually way more focused that Marvel's resident Howard Hughes allegory. Steel's armor isn't built for a wide variety of applied technology purposes, but is instead all about focused power. His strength is enhanced to nearly ridiculous levels. His ability to take a beating is almost on Superman's level. The suit doesn't even fire laser beams; instead it shoots rivets out of his wrists. That's insane.

Of course, yes, John is also a resident tech genius. He has all of his computers and whatnot... but the distinction is that he doesn't carry all of that stuff with him in his battle armor. He's not wearing a supercomputer into a space fight. While he has the option to bust out his hacking skills, generally he's too busy launching a kinetically accelerated hammer at people.

John's Future

Generally, when a hero steps down and a younger version of that hero takes over their mantle, the original hero is reduced to a roll as a mentor and supporting character. That's probably not going to be the case with John. Oh, I'm sure he'll be a wonderful mentor for Natasha, but she's been right by John's side for all of his history and is a member of the Justice Society, she has plenty of people to show her the way. John is also very likely to continue to be Superman's go-to tech person; but Clark will be stepping back to raise his son while Kara & Conor step up to fill his shoes. Both of them have huge groups of teammates they can rely on. This all frees up John to really dedicate himself to his new role as the spokesperson and liasion for the entire Superheroic community.

Of course there's no reason he wouldn't still put on his armor and join the fight. He wont be using the name Steel anymore since he's bequeathed that to Natasha, but even his normal name carries a certain heroic bombast. The United Nations is a backer for the Global Guardians and Checkmate, so the're going to be involved in a number of stories. Also, whenever any political entity needs to interact with any of the major superteams, they're likely going to do it through John.

One final note; in the post New 52 era, one-time Superboy love interest Lana Lang actually started a relationship with John. Lana's characterization in modern comics hasn't been terribly consistent so it's hard to say that they're a good fit, but there is definitely something to explore there.

Related Characters

Steel