Black Superheroes: Natasha Irons

John Henry took sick and went to his bed
Polly Ann drove steel like a man, Lord, Lord

Name: Natasha Irons

First Appearance: Steel #1 (1994)

History: Natasha Irons is the niece of superhero and scientist John Henry Irons, better known as Steel. From early on into his hero career Natasha had been his steadfast supporter and ally, to the point where she was the only member of the Irons family to accompany him when John relocated back to Metropolis. One day, John was trapped under the influence of the Entropy Aegis, a powerful armor created by Darkseid. Designing her own armor using Aegis tech, Natasha teamed up with Superman and others to rescue her uncle from the clutches of Apokolips. While they were successful, John was too injured to continue on as Steel. Therefore, he passed the mantle to Natasha, something he had always planned on doing, and with his blessing and support she began her own heroic career as the new Steel.

Sometime later Natasha ad John had a falling out and he stripped her of the armor. Unable to recreate her own, she signed up for the Everyman Project, a superhuman creation program sponsored by Lex Luthor. The program gave her superhuman strength, the ability to fly, and the power to emit light blasts from her hands and she soon took up the name Starlight. However, after realizing that Luthor had criminal ulterior motives with the project she betrayed him to her uncle but was stripped of the powers for her efforts. Later still it turned out that the experiments had lingering effects and she developed new powers, the ability to phase into a gaseous form, and she took up the name Vapor.

Beta Says: Natasha is a bit of a difficult character to write about as she is a spin-off character of a spin-off character; a derivative of a derivative, if you will. Steel has never been all that successful as a character beyond being loosely associated with Superman and a lot the time that Natasha ends up donning the power suit herself it usually feels like current DC Comics’ current writers aren’t interested in John Henry Irons at the moment for whatever reason, and tag her in instead like she’s a back-up character when they need to add a woman or a black person or both to story. Considering she spent so many years as a supporting character to John in his solo series, I to this day wonder why exactly DC felt the need to replace him with her, and then keep replacing her back with her uncle anytime someone decided they had a use for him again. It makes me tired.

More on Natasha Irons after the jump.

Black Superheroes: Steel

John Henry was a man just six feet high,

Nearly two feet and a half across his breast

Name: John Henry Irons (…for real) 

First Appearance: The Adventures of Superman #500 (1993)

 History: A brilliant engineer and weapons designer, Doctor John Henry Irons (…sigh) diligently worked for AmerTek until he discovered weapons he created were being used to kill innocent people. Faking his death in order to escape his employers without facing blow back he relocated to Metropolis, living as a construction worker. One day while on the job he saved a co-worker from falling to his death in an accident, only to himself nearly die in the attempt. Irons was rescued by Superman who told him to live a life worth living. Later during the battle between Superman and Doomsday Irons was left buried in ruble. By the time he escaped he learned that the man he looked up to so much had died saving the city. Soon after this John discovered that upgraded versions of his weapon designs from AmerTek had made it onto the streets and become the focal point of a gang war. Hoping to right his past wrongs, as well as honor Superman, Irons created a high tech piece of battle armor and took to the skies as The Man of Steel to act as the new protector of Metropolis.

When Superman returned to life he endorsed Irons and encouraged him to continue his heroic career, but suggested he take a name that was less of a mouthful: Steel.

Beta Says: Seriously, his name is “John Henry Irons.” Honestly I can’t tell if this is racist or not. Naming your cool new, hammer wielding black character after that specific folk hero is absolutely intentional and absolutely weird as hell. Maybe if this had been 1973 or 1966 I’d be less bugged by this but one would assume by 1993 people writing comics would have understood how problematic naming a black character that could potentially be. I feel like calling him “John Henry” is only one step above creating a comic book superhero named Br’er Rabbit with a straight face. 

Bring me back a TWELVE-pound hammer, please,
And I'll beat that steam drill down, Lord, Lord

I bet who ever came up with that name really patted themselves on the back for that one.

“Guys, get this? What if his real name was John Henry? Maybe give him a last name that invokes metal. We can’t call him 'John Henry Steel', that’d be silly. What’s another alloy…? Iron! John Henry Irons! Holy cow, guys! We just made certified gold! This guy will be a top hero for decades to come!”

More about this modern day black folk hero after the jump.