Steel - The Jersey City Era, Part 7 (#43-44)

[superboyprime]

Still coming to terms with his run-in with racial profiling last issue, Steel pays a visit to Metropolis, which is apparently some sort of Bizarro Jersey City. He runs into Superman and Lois Lane, who gives him relationship advice.




Issue #43 opens with Arthur Villain.



The guy slams the door in his face.

At the hospital, Amanda and Skorpio/Dr. Sam Ellis have pulled an all-nighter dealer with the patient overload from last issue. Now that they can finally relax, she confronts him about his double life as a supervillain/hitman.





Elsewhere, Dr. Villain's working on his solution to the problem of the intractable junkie.





"Probably." John leaves and calls up Guy Gardner.





John called because he wanted to get in touch with the Justice League, but just then the media reports crisis in Metropolis. It involves Superman (who was going through his electric blue powers phase when this was published).

John's off to lend a hand, but he runs into a small hitch...



Natasha and Boris arrive at the hospital with his spare pair of boots. He straps them on and flies off, his mind a turmoil. Among the many things running through his head: his discovery last night that Nat's sort-of-boyfriend Boris is HIV positive.





This issue was a tie-in to GENESIS, which was DC's big crossover event dujour. It involved something called the "godwave," IIRC, but I don't really know the details. In any case, while it's an interesting idea for a superhero to psychologically react to a violent assault the way a real human would, if that's what's responsible for John's bad feeling, it's only partly responsible. Whatever psychic phenomenon was going on over in the GENESIS main mini-series is also responsible.

In Metropolis, he's escalated to the edge of a breakdown when Superman shows up.





Issue #44 begins with someone attacking one of the police who assaulted John and Amanda.





Amanda calls up Nat.



The main events of GENESIS took place in-between last issue and this one. When we first see Steel this issue, he's arriving home after having just gone through all of that. He relates to Amanda what happened in Metropolis via flashback.



He was able to activate his boots right in the nick of time.





He spent his time in the city pitching in from one emergency to the next.



"Thoom-thoom-thoom" is the sound a giant, rampaging robot makes. Steel flew off to deal with it, relieved to escape the direction the conversation was going.



Earlier in the issue, we saw Crash sneaking into the Irons household to download the boots' schematics off of the computer, which is why he's clinging to the edge of the building there.

Comments

[shanejayell]

*blink blink*

Wow. I can't decide if I like this or not, honestly....

[sethgray]

I think clearer art would help, honestly. I can't focus on the panels long enough to read the text because it hurts to look at them.

[psychopathicus_rex]

OK, Dr. Villain singing 'How do you solve a problem like Maria' cracked me up. Did he actually take the guy out, or was that just a sight gag?

[tsunamiwombat]

I think he was interuppted before he could take him out.

Honestly Doctor Villain is the only stand out interesting personality in this comic. Make a comic about him, the rest of these people are boring.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Oh, I dunno - I kinda like the cigar-chomping lady cop, and Skorpio has had some interesting moments.

[salad_barbarian]

That is one huge gun.

I want it.

I wonder if Santa can fit it down the chimney?

[wizardru]

I have very mixed feelings about this run. On the one hand, the art is not that great. Composition seems fine, but I don't care for the...scratchiness...of it. It feels very much like a different inker could really improve this. The writing is not bad, but feels kind of stilted, at least in terms of dialogue.

On the other hand,I do kind of find the perspective a refreshing change, here. The story feels like it has some depth to it, even if some of the supporting cast seems to bleed together a bit. I kind of like the idea of a hospital run by a super-villain (sorry super-whil-han-e, it's French), with an assassin in the E/R and superhero on-staff. It's a little slow, but it feels a little more mature, too.

[icon_uk]

Genesis was a John Byrne-driven, incredibly bad, crossover which no one seemed to really want to take part in. IIRC The notion was that superpowers were somehow originally part of the Godwave, the event which triggered the Fourth World, and which had rippled out through the universe, the Godwave was now rebounding, removing random powers along the way and instilling a worldwide case of the blues, so everyone got depressed. I kid you not, the main cause of this event, which we were supposed to be interested in and excited by, was an outbreak of spontaneous depression in our heroes. And if it depressed the heroes, imagine what it did to the rest of us.

There was a core mini-series (which I can honestly say I've never met anyone who got past the first issue of) which had to do with tracking the Godwave and a bunch of heroes/NewGods/the Salvation Army for all I know trying to either stop it or send it back to REtrigger the powers and sense of purpose.

I have no idea how it ended, and I really don't care, some new metahumans appeared, and made less of an impact than the New Bloods, and the only things which I _think_ resulted from it were the Atom gaining the power to shrink AND grow and Lightning Lass gaining the powers an earlier iteration of her had had as Light Lass, which lasted about four issues before reverting to the original.

Seriously, AVOID!

[fifthie]

I mean if you're gonna write a story about some cosmic-level shit affecting everyone on Earth, do like that Mageddon story and make everyone crazy and wanna kill and pick a bigass fight with everybody else.

That's just Stories 101.

[icon_uk]

I have to give Genesis some credit for not going to the same plot-well as everyone else. On the other hand, there's often a reason why the other plot-wells are left alone...

[arbre_rieur]

I don't know. It seems to be working out pretty well in these scans. Then again, it's the sort of plot much more suited to Priest than Byrne.

[icon_uk]

Yeah, a story set with the hero in a suit for most of it, and doing things like discussing whether there is a god with his boss, is not a standard superhero comic,

[thanekos]

that gun and its mechanisms are made of some light but sturdy stuff if Dr Villain (who looks like his strength level'd be classified as ' average human male who engages in some regular exercise ') can hold it that long without his arms sagging

[icon_uk]

Or a weapon that advanced has an anti-grav unit built in so it can be carried.

[jlbarnett]

It seems Steel's armor either works on the Looney Toons law of gravity or he took a long time to notice he was falling.

[jlroberson]

And then there's that gun. How 90s is that? I had a rule in that decade that if I saw a gun like that on the cover or inside, I wouldn't buy the comic. One reason I didn't read any 90s superhero comics outside Vertigo till Morrison's JLA.

Try to hold a gun that size, if one existed, at all, let alone like this guy's holding it(and if he's trying to do a hit, is that really a good choice anyway?). That thing is the size of battlefield artillery. Lift one of THOSE while sitting in an office chair.

If the scene was supposed to make me laugh uncontrollably, mission accomplished.

And his head. His tiny tiny head.

[superboyprime]

"If the scene was supposed to make me laugh uncontrollably, mission accomplished."

It's a man named whose last name is Villain singing a song from "The Sound of Music." I'm pretty sure that's exactly what it's trying to do.

[jlroberson]

He's called...?

Okay, sorry. I didn't realize it was MEANT to be ridiculous.

[wizardru]

It's a running gag in the comic. His name is 'Dr. Villain', but he continually insists that it's prounounced 'wil-han-e' and that 'it's French'.