Over the course of Superman’s long and storied history as DC Comics’ resident “Boy Scout,” he's had to deal with more world-ending, death-defying, seemingly impossible scenarios than most other superheroes have experienced combined. Yet after his tragic death at the hands of Doomsday in the iconic storyline Death of Superman, the hole where a Superman used to be needed to be filled, and luckily, one John Henry Irons, aka the armored hero Steel, answered the call.
But who exactly is Steel, and how did he forge his own identity after filling the role of a character who's often considered to be the definition of the superhero concept? What has Irons done since, and what about him made him the perfect stand-in for DC's flagship hero in the first place?
Introduced in 1993 by Louise Simonson and Jon Bogdanove as the Death of Superman event was shaking the very foundations of the Superman books, Dr. John Henry Irons was originally a genius weapons engineer for a company called AmerTek Industries before he left their employ after his work fell into the wrong hands. Deciding to move to Metropolis in the aftermath, John has a chance meet-up with Superman after a fall from a building during a steelwork gig leads to him being saved by the Man of Steel himself. Telling John to “live a life worth saving” after John thanks Superman for the catch, it wasn’t long before Superman himself was declared dead at Doomsday’s hands and the hero Steel was born.
Though Steel's official origin has varied as the history of the DC Universe has been altered over time - at some points necessitating the removal of Superman's iconic death entirely - Steel’s original stories see him build a high-tech suit of armor and don the iconic “S” shield in Superman’s memory, kick-starting his career of being a respected hero and consistent ally to Supes himself. Using a sledgehammer as his weapon of choice, Steel gets his inner Iron Man on with a fully armored suit that gives him increased strength and flight capabilities along with whatever new gadget he has dreamed up for the situation at hand. With his genius intellect and penchant for invention, John formed his own workshop called Steelworks, and along with his niece and eventual Steel armor holder, Natasha Irons, uses their skills to quite literally hammer out new suits and weapons as needed while using their smarts to develop unique tech and gadgetry.
But perhaps one of the coolest aspects of Steel is the fact that his iconic sledgehammer is actually a reference to American folk hero and “steel-driving man” John Henry. Obviously taking cues from the character in regards to his name, John Henry is known in legend as a hard-working man who – with his trusty sledgehammer in hand – unbelievably beat a steam-powered steel-driver machine in a contest, proving his personal mettle was the equal of any machine.
John Henry Irons might not be the original Man of Steel, but the fact that he’s a self-made hero who doesn’t rely on the benefits of being an alien from another world to help him fight the good fight puts him in a category all his own, making him close to DC's version of Tony Stark, though with way less of an ego. One of the first black superheroes to get his own movie - in which he was portrayed by Shaquille O'Neal - and a constant ally of Superman, Steel is a fixture of DC Comics, having forged his own legacy as the hands-on tech genius who can be trusted to hack a world-ending robot or, if that fails, pound it into the ground.