Steel - The Jersey City Era, Part 11 (Issue #49)

[superboyprime]

Steel embarks on a mission of mercy that runs into complications, as superhero stories are wont to do.





Flashback to how he wound up in this situation...



Speak of the devil; Natasha gets home from visiting her mom just then.





Around 6:00 AM, John gets a page from Dr. Villain.



On his way back with the heart, someone shoots him.



Namely plummet.



It's this guy!



Deadline's a rather obscure DC Comics character, perhaps best known for his rivalry with Deadshot. He's a mercenary, and in this intance his target is the heart.

At Garden State Medical, Dr. Villain receives two visitors.





Yeah, that was Steel's falling out of the sky in the last panel. I think it's fairly apparent how he gets out of this fix.

With Deadline out of the picture, he manages to get back to the hospital in the nick of time.

Comments

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

Dang, Dr. Villain has got to be the coolest anti-villain in DC yet. Damn Steel's gonna beat him.

[psychopathicus_rex]

So basically, Dr. Villain really DOES want to do the right thing, but his strategy for doing so is 'cut out the middleman, along with all kinds of moral constraints and inhibitions that would stop me from doing so'. It's an interesting twist, I'll grant you that.

[superboyprime]

Yeah, everything he does is in service of keeping the hospital afloat. Even when he's letting innocent patients die, it's because treatment would cost more in the long run than the malpractice charge. I'm not sure that counts as "the right thing," though.

I find it interesting how transparent he is about it. Not about the illegal actions he takes, obviously, but he makes no effort to hide his lack of concern for individual patients' lives in the face of the hospital's survival. He hides what he does but not who he is.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Well, as the head of the hospital, its survival is very much his job, so being public about the fact that this is his paramount goal isn't really all THAT surprising.
It probably doesn't count as the right thing, but he SEES it as the right thing. After all, if the hospital goes under, it'll ultimately cost many more lives lost for lack of treatment than the few he sacrifices - or such is the excuse he gives himself, anyway.

[mistersandman]

Aside from 52 and these posts, I don't know a lot about Steel. Did he 'drop Gs' and have an earring in his first appearance?

[superboyprime]

Not sure about his FIRST appearance, but that description fits him for a good chunk of his earlier stories, yeah.