When Chilltown was the city of Steel

Before Ms. Marvel, comic book writer Priest's run featured DC hero trying to make a difference in wearying Jersey City

From the opening of Steel #35, with art by penciler Denys Cowan, inker Tom Palmer and colorist Stuart Chaifetz. The issue takes place in Jersey City, as does most of this run by writer Christopher Priest and artist Cowan and inker Palmer. Art used for critical commentary.

By D Menzies

Nobody read it, comic book writer Christopher Priest wrote of his (1994) 18-issue run on “Steel” for DC Comics; not even editorial, but that’s why it got to be something unvarnished — a run that begins after the character John Henry Irons finishes his solo title’s first era (written by co-creator Louise Simonson) in Washington D.C. Under Priest’s run, Irons has taken his niece Natasha to live with him and his super-powered suit of armor as he settles into Jersey City.

Several years after what would be a relatively short but complete run (storyline-wise), Priest — Queens native, the first Black editor for Marvel Comics, and former driver of a Greyhound bus from Port Authority to Princeton — would look back on it proudly on his blog, calling it wryly cynical.

Steel was originally co-created by Simonson and artist Jon Bogdanove as part of “The Death of Superman” story line, in which four figures claiming the mantle emerge after what would be the character’s temporary death. The embodiment of a literal man of steel, Irons was also obviously (and somewhat cheesily) inspired by the folk hero John Henry, the Black American freedman who beat a steam-powered rock driver at the cost of his life, and whose tale was possibly inspired by a real person — candidates for which include a John Henry born in New Jersey in the mid-1800s and a young Virginia man who worked as a particularly exploited variety of prison-laboring railroad worker until he possibly died during a mountain operation.