Louise Simonson [w], Chris Batista [p], Rich Faber [i], Dave Grafe [c]
DC Comics
By Leonardo Tomas
The White Rabbit's plans shift into high gear when she sends her super-powered agents after Steel, who still doesn't know she's alive.
$1.99—comiXology
STEEL #15 is far better than I expected it to be. I don't know how or why, but whoever assembled the team behind it surely knew what they were doing. Or maybe they were lucky. Either way this is a nice little comic, and I need to understand how it came to be. For this, I'll break my “no Wikipedia rule”, but only after a bit of conjecturing. Let me see if I can guess this right.
Okay, first of all this is Steel, one of the four dudes that claimed the Superman mantle (quite literally, in his case) after the death of Supes. As it should be obvious by his appearance (in comparison to the other ones) he's one of the most “traditional” ones. With the exception that he's black.
Steel is a “working class hero,” as can be seen by his appearance. He's a hard working smart man, with an armor that grants him power. In this issue he's trying to figure out some kind of conspiracy that is making anti-gun senators turn pro-gun. For all the grimness of 90's comics, this is pretty nice. Superman was killed, Batman was crippled, and here comes this guy, and not only is he a black dude that claimed Superman's cape with half of his powers, he's trying to dismantle conspiracies in politics? That's kickass. I always loved this kind of story, which, in fact, is an important part of the Superman mythos: what use do you have for super powers when the villains are politicians? You can't punch a law or a lawmaker. Specially good ol' Superman. What kind of hero breaks the law?
I really, really like when comics try to tackle this. It doesn't matter if it's usually done in a simplistic way, it's the kind of questioning that's important for kids. Sometimes the law is wrong, sometimes politicians are not interested in the common good. But how to question it? How to fight systemic injustice? Do super powers even help you?
I saw a couple of storylines about this with Superman, and I followed a bunch of them in Spider-Man too. I remember some issues of Captain America facing similar situations. And it makes sense. How do you keep such absolute powers from corrupting someone? At the same time, how do you keep from giving up when the very system you vowed to protect, that was supposed to be the law and the morals of society, is not only corrupt but controlled by the evilest people?
Well, you’ve got to have even higher morals. And a lot of hope.
As I was saying in previous articles, there's a lot of religious subtext to comics, and as my editor reminded me, Superman himself was created by Jewish folks and is filled with religious symbolism. I said this before: I don't think he's the right “opposite” for Batman, even if he represents some old school ideals. I think Green Lantern (specifically Hal Jordan) is the guy that's the actual Batman opposite, because he too is a man, he too trying to hold himself to an impossible ideal.
Superman IS that ideal. He is superior to humans in every conceivable way, but more than all, and this is the intellectual check-mate to the whole “master race” bullshit, right from the beginning, he's especially superior in his morals. He's good. When the law fails, the system's broke, the president is a villain, Superman still prevails. His notion of right is unimpeachable. He's Uberman and Beyond Good & Evil all packed into one. Heck, he's beyond American, he's from outer space.
Okay, so now imagine a Superman that's not as powerful, but still has to fight systemic oppression on a daily basis. Heck yeah, he's black! I know it's probably the opposite, they first came up with the four dudes that were supposed to be the new Supermen and later came up with storylines, but damn if this ain't the perfect angle for Steel. As my colleagues said before, it would be better to have black people writing this, and as I said too, we're not really fighting systemic injustice while the owners of the money are still white old dudes, but hey, who wrote this? Louise Simonson, says the credits. A woman writing a black Superman? Now that's a start.
And unlike what those racist 4chan kids would tell you, she's not interested in portraying a black male as a superior sexual mate for a white woman. In this issue we explore Steel trying to get into said conspiracy, and making some allies along the way. The senator that turned pro-gun is sister to a theater actor, and Steel befriends him while taking his niece to watch the show. Said actor is son of some kind of powerful magnate and, while being raised to be some kind of secret agent, decided to be an actor instead. So when his sister turns Republican he decides to use all of his abilities to find out the truth. During his mission, Steel invades the same place, for the same reason, and after a brief fight the dude reveals himself, after all “I'm pretty sure Steel is on the right side here” (his rationale, not mine).
Steel is not a hacker, but secret agent dude is, so they start hacking into the computers that, apparently, caused some kind of brainwash on the senators.
At that point the villain of this arc (a woman, the fourth in this story if you're keeping count) sends her henchman to attack them.
What could be a simple exposition issue turns into a character building exercise, and a good one at that.
Steel is shown as a guy that's good and has some degree of power, but is not a hacker. Were this a newer comic I could claim prejudice, but at this time it was still par for the course to have a main hero and a hacker sidekick (Neuromancer broke this mold in the 80's by having a main hacker dude and the muscle being a woman, but y'know, totally different situation and theme), so it makes some sense.
It also makes sense when we're presented with the dude that was raised to be 007 but decided to stay out, because he noticed there's no super-heroes in real life, that morals in politics are shady as heck, and that he was being raised to simply work for whoever had the power. Not only does it makes sense, it’s a pretty good allegory for a lot of the disillusionment of my generation towards morals and law in general. I too once wanted to be a lawyer, until I learned how the game is rigged. But much like said dude, I'm white and middle class, I can make a living and not get involved. In theory I could find a place within the system if I tried really hard (I'd still be a lackey to whiter richer folks but I do have that choice).
Not Steel. He's black. The system will never let him in. He'll never get lucky and get some super powers from space (there's a whole discussion about John Stewart here but I already have enough in my hands for today), so he has to make his own suit. He also has no choice about “not getting involved”. He sees injustice everyday, wether he wants to or not. I don't remember his backstory, but I'll bet he's taking care of his niece because crime claimed her parents. So of course, when Superman dies, he has to step in. Much like the prototypical medieval epic, the King is dead, so the blacksmith has to don an armor and sword for himself and fight evil anyway, even if it's considered taboo. If with Superman black folks are still suffering, imagine without him? If not even Superman could end corruption, how can a black dude in a power suit do it?
He can't afford to doubt, to hesitate. He has to do it.
As I was saying about Superman, Supes was created as a figure to empower, to endow with hope, to draw on faith in a good way, to represent an oppressed group in a time of hopelessness. As I said about Spider-Man, took ‘em long enough to make him a black super-hero, if we're talking about oppression, minorities and the big city.
So yeah, not only did Louise manage to get that on point, they managed to do it with special consistency, as far as I can see. This was supposed to be a filler issue, there are barely any action scenes, and still, it's filled with character construction, interaction, and a nice piece of social and political allegory. And it features more women than men, none of them as romantic interests.
The art is pretty decent too. Steel looks awesome, for real. They also managed to do a lot with little space, which always surprises me. The rest is a bit par for course, it looks a lot like other artists of the time, down to that 90's square superhero hair Cyclops and crew were always sporting, but I can excuse that when the dude that sports it is supposed to represent white america anyway. And they had the decency of not painting all the black folks with the same tonality of brown, which is a nice touch. I don't know if there were any black folks involved in this, but I hope there were. If there wasn't, at least the crew did a very good job at what they were supposed to be doing here.
VERDICT: This comic is very good. It doesn't feel groundbreaking, but it is, in the sense that it takes the structures of comic book plot we're used to and uses it for social commentary. It made me want to read more of it. If anything I'd like the drawings to be as bold as the plot here, but since it is not bad in anyway, only average, I'll give the whole package a 5 out of 5. I'm under the impression that with some iconic art and if Steel wasn't fated to be thrown in the B-list when Superman returned, this comic book run would be much more famous than it is.
P.S. My Wikipedia investigation presented me with the great news that Louise is indeed a woman, and a well known editor and writer for comics (that I didn't know, shame on me). And it makes all the sense: the started as assistant and worked her way to senior editor. She worked with X-Men (makes all the sense) and only after being senior editor was she able to become a writer. On more than one occasion she was brought in to fill in for a dude but ended up doing such a great job that she kept the gig. She was part of the crew that wrote “Death of Superman” and went on to make Steel into its own series. Louise kicks ass. Of course this comic is awesome, it all makes sense now.
Wikipedia also tells me Steel is inspired by John Henry, an African American folk hero. I'm Brazilian so I wasn't aware of this dude, but y'know, extra awesome. Also interesting: Steel created his own suit, he was a scientist but got disgusted by the fact that his inventions were used for evil. So extra points for portraying a black super hero that's not “an athlete” but actually an intellectual.
