Steel - The Jersey City Era, Part 14 (Issue #51)

[superboyprime]

Job-hunting's the subject of this issue, as Natasha searches for a job, Skorpio applies for a job, and Steel hires extraterrestrial bounty hunter Glenn Gammeron (who was a Justice League member for five minutes) for a job.



No preamble this time. The opening page speaks for itself.





The only lead Steel has on the bus incident is an old wino, who claims he witnessed an angry woman with six arms throw the vehicle into the building.

Glenn Gammeron, alien bounty hunter and brief Justice League member, shows up to offer Steel his professional aid in finding the perp. For a modest fee, of course.



Elsewhere, Skorpio meets Crash.









Steel and company track down the spore and separate it from its host, an elderly woman who had sued Betton Accounting for age discrimination. With this latest collar, Gammeron is finally free to leave Earth. Steel calls it a day.



After first failing at a bold attempt to become President of Warner Bros., Nat winds up working at the local ice cream shop. There's already a mutual hatred between her and the boy who works there, so neither's happy about it.



Shortly after this, she gets fed up and quits. Only to run into something unexpected when she marches out the door.



Hit by a bunch of the poisoned blades that are Skorpio's trademark, Nat lies dying on the floor as the issue ends.

Comments

[psychopathicus_rex]

Nat is just a LITTLE bit over the top here. I mean, humorous attitude, check, but sometimes you've got to turn that snark OFF, Miss Irons.
Also, I like how Glenn and Villain bond immediately, despite being total opposites, and how HORRIFIED John is at this fact.

[sadoeuphemist]

The "Of course. It's Hugo Boss." line totally got me.

[icon_uk]

Likewise! :)

[joasakura]

Doctor Villian? REALLY?

:hee hee hee:

[bewareofgeek]

"*SIgh* It's pronounced 'Will-hane'. It's French."

Of course, that's not accurate French (or even close) but nobody ever called him on it. :)

[okkult3000]

Crash is the best dressed man in comics.

[icon_uk]

Second best, I'm guessing he doesn't have a Hugo Boss battlesuit.

[okkult3000]

Does Hugo Boss make rocket boots? I rest my case.

[wizardru]

Okay, hold the phone, here. What happened?

Previously, I thought Skorpio was sort of an anti-hero. Rob from gangsters, only kill criminals. Now he's working with Crash (himself something of an anti-hero, I thought) and he's attacking Nat to get to Steel to...what, exactly?

I know Skorpio clearly hates John for clearly winning their little love-connection battle (and yeah, it's been implied from previous scans that he's the murderously jealous type)...but I didn't see him doing something like this.

Also, isn't Crash, in reality, Steel's brother? I thought he was just a hitman...and now he's a drug kingpin? This seems....like out of left field, a little.

[superboyprime]

Crash took over Parliament a few issues back. It was in one of the posts. His first act as leader was to ban the drug trade in Jersey City. He's working to keep them out of the city (as part of his massive effort to protect his family) , not deal in them.

Skorpio never targeted innocents... until now. Ostensibly, it's to get Steel's attention, which would pave the road for an alliance between Crash and Steel. It's not an especially sensible plan because it's obviously just an excuse on his part to get back at Steel. Also, keep in mind that all he told Crash was that he was going to get Steel's attention. Crash's reaction would no doubt have been substantially different if he knew the sentence ended with "by attacking your daughter."

[wizardru]

Ah, OK. That part with Crash didn't fully register.

I'm not sure if I like this or not, still. Parts of it I like a lot...parts of it seem odd to me. But I still applaud it's attempts to not be Just Another Superhero Comic.

And for what it's worth, it's rekindled my interest in Steel enough to get me to pick up Steel #1 today, so there's that.