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IT'S WILL-HAYNE. IT'S FRENCH. Issues #34-36, which established Dr. Irons' new status quo, may well be a record for the number of times the word "breasts" appeared in a Comics Code-approved comic book. Boris and Natasha steal the armor, engage in a watermelon speed-spitting contest, spend the day in bed without having sex, and while Steel battles for his life in a sewer beneath the hospital, Natasha tries to convince him that she's pregnant. And nobody— nobody— at DC noticed. Geez, I loved writing this book. I'm starting to think, of all the books and all the characters and all the years and all the miles under my belt, I'll miss these wacky bunch the most. For all the wonderful notices we've gotten for BLACK PANTHER, I actually think STEEL was better, funnier, and more wryly cynical. And nobody noticed. I mean nobody read this book, not even the bosses at DC, which is, I suppose, how we got away with this, our mean-spirited de-construction of the Superman mythos. This is one of those bargain deals you've been waiting for. If you can find STEEL #34-45 or so, they'll probably be in a quarter bin or, worse, the store will pay you to take them off their hands. It'll be well worth the buck and a half, tops, you'll have to pay for the entire run. We had a blast working on this book. It is one of the few projects I'd go back to in a heartbeat, if only DC had a way to sell the character and a premise that frankly sailed over the heads of most everybody at DC.
This
was something of a Life Of Brian-style turn on the Superman mythos,
about John Irons, an Avery Brooks-ish stoic everyman, relocating to Jersey
City and finding himself the only sane man in town. In stark contrast to
the supportive, inviting, friendly Metropolis the Man Of Steel operates
in, Irons is trapped in a world he never made, surrounded by nuts of every
imaginable stripe in a town that is at once ambivalent and hostile towards
his heroic efforts.
And,
of course, there was a dysfunctional Lex Luthor: the enigmatic and
eccentric Arthur Villain, who tirelessly corrected the pronunciation of
his last name, "It's WILL-hayne. It's
French." Villain, chief of staff at Garden State Medical
Center, would go to any lengths to raise money for his cash-strapped
hospital. Villain, who kept a hired assassin on staff (ER trauma chief Sam
Ellis, a.k.a. Skorpio), has vaporized crack fiends, shut down a trauma
procedure (because it was cheaper to settle a lawsuit than pay two star
surgeons to save the uninsured patient), had himself kidnapped, conducted
genetic experimentation in the sub-basement, and a host of other cheerily
eccentric psuedo villainous activities. Dr. Villain was a joy to write,
and I suppose I miss him the most.
A wry, joyful evisceration of the Superman legend, STEEL was some of the
best writing of my career and, for the most part, it was also the most fun
I've had. There were lots and lots of powerful moments, commentary on the
super-hero genre, family life, love, sex, race, etc. And, except for a
very small and very loyal fan following, nobody noticed. STEEL was soundly
and thunderously ignored by the greater comic book audience. You can now
buy my entire run (#34 to #52) for a few bucks.
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Amanda wins John's heart in issue #37, where she tries to get John to loosen up
by dancing in a city fountain (John doesn't join her). Once John abandons
her to go fight some menace, Skorpio (a Spike Lee-esque super villain who
is a surgeon in his secret identity) makes his move, and that love
triangle begins.