Plot summary: When a new and improved Metallo wrecks Superman, John Henry Irons takes up arms as Steel. Unfortunately Shaquille O’Neal does not reprise his role.
Notes and Trivia
Episode: 36 (S2.E23)
Original Air Date: November 8th, 1997
Directed: Curt Geda (10)
Written: Hilary J Bader (8)
Animation: TMS-Kyokuichi Corporation (16)
Music: Lolita Ritmanis (10)
John Henry Irons and his experimental battlesuit appeared just a couple of episodes ago in ‘Prototype’. Here he takes up his famous alias Steel, played perfectly [S] by Shaq in the 90s . Much like that film his origin is changed, as in the comics he adopted the mantle while Superman was suffering from a nasty case of ‘Being Dead.’
We last saw Metallo baked into lava and left for dead in ‘Action Figures‘. Apparently Intergang rescued him for… reasons. They also chose to craft new artificial skin onto him after he lost it… but only enough to replicate his half-and-half look from ‘The Way of All Flesh‘.
Bibbo alludes to ‘helping’ Superman fight Titano the giant ape from ‘Monkey Fun‘
Recap
John Henry Irons (remember him?) forges a metal mask in his personal… well, ironworks, as part of his efforts to rebuild a safer version of his Battlesuit.
Irons is testing the weaponry when a crew of bankrobbers that have been making headlines recently drive past, so he springs into action and helps stall their getaway long enough for Superman to finish the job.
Unfortunately for Clark the thieves’ muscle is none other than Metallo, who Intergang rescued from his volcanic fate. He and Superman brawl through the street, with Metallo enjoying some ‘upgrades’.
Irons tries to help but is just a man and gets batted aside with ease. Luckily his niece, Nat, is the smartest person in the room and just hits the fucker with her car.
Driving a weakened Superman back to the ironworks to help him recover, Irons has no choice but to deploy the battlesuit as Metallo is wreaking havoc in the neighbourhood trying to find our hero.
Thus ‘Steel’ makes his debut, easily taking down two Intergang thugs with his lasers, hammer, super strength and power of flight. No cape though 😦
Metallo is another story however, and they brawl back into the ironworks where Superman is able to recover long enough to save John’s life… but then Metallo starts murdering him instead.
Steel flings his hammer at Metallo’s chest, knocking him through the wall and shattering the Kryptonite within. Superman shakes John’s hand and everybody celebrates.
Best Performance
Bold decision to not include Dana Delany for the first time since she debuted in Episode 2! But plenty of opportunity for literally anyone but her or Clancy Brown (also not in this episode) to get a win.
It felt like they were aware they were missing their main comedy weapon, so leaned on the likes of Lauren Tom as Angela Chen and Brad Garrett as Bibbo Bibowski, with Angela in particular being awful at her job in a fun way.
But even a half-engaged Malcolm McDowell is hard to top. It’s his most generic dialogue to date but he’s able to elevate it a little with his charisma, especially with the lines about the best alloy winning. He’s just extremely good at making Metallo sound like an irredeemable asshole who gets off on beating up Superman. I’m going to do him a favour and ignore the cringe “I’ve still got some business in the ‘hood.”
Episode Ranking
Bruce Timm has called this one of the worst episodes in the DCAU and while I agree it’s one of the worse ones in this series, we’ve had WAY worse.
Perhaps its biggest strength is also its greatest weakness, as the story essentially plays out in realtime. That gives it a sense of urgency and momentum, as they never get a reprieve from Metallo hunting them versus the standard ‘bad guy temporarily scampers away and attacks again another day’ stuff. On the other hand it makes it feel like very little actually happens, as we don’t get much variety of scenery and it’s just an extended bank robbery gone awry and the fight that ensues after. If you’re only in this show for the action you may even enjoy this more than the average episode as it’s kind of wall to wall on that front, but I need my clever writing and pathos and whatnot, I’m afraid.
I did enjoy the opening robbery and first brawl from a visual standpoint, with Metallo making a mockery of security and the cops, Superman stuffing two crooks into metal drums and then squeezing them closed to prevent escape and then Metallo conversely ripping them free. The Superman/Metallo fights have almost always been good as they totally wail on each other, but there are diminishing returns on it. They throw hands, they chuck each other through things, they hurl heavy objects at each other, Metallo unleashes Kryptonite on Superman, Superman gets a reprieve, repeat until Metallo is ostensibly murdered only to come back next time.
But that’s about all I can conjure in terms of praise, as the writing isn’t very good. It feels a little sloppy to have Superman and Natalie give away John’s name in front of the crooks that he just helped catch, but cartoons, I guess. Likewise I found it clumsy for Metallo to tell Superman he’d had some upgrades twice in a minute. Plus the ending is pretty flat.
More concerning though is that while they thankfully used black actors for black characters, and while I think Hilary Bader was a good writer in general, this was painfully ‘written by a white lady’. The only truly egregious thing is Metallo’s use of “the hood” (way worse coming from a Brit too), but I began to cringe a little over the interactions between the bystanders and our heroes and villain. The dialogue is just a little too stilted, and I don’t buy Michael Dorn yelling “Yo!”, personally.
But hey! Black superhero in 1997! That’s pretty cool, I guess! Any Steel fans in the house? Well he’s not coming back until Justice League Unlimited!
- The Late Mr. Kent
- Brave New Metropolis
- World’s Finest
- Livewire
- Double Dose
- Fun and Games
- Father’s Day
- The Hand of Fate
- The Last Son of Krypton
- Ghost in the Machine
- Stolen Memories
- Action Figures
- The Prometheon
- Tools of the Trade
- The Main Man
- Mxzypixilated
- Blasts from the Past
- Target
- The Way of All Flesh
- Solar Power
- Protoype
- My Girl
- A Little Piece of Home
- Feeding Time
- Speed Demons
- Two’s a Crowd
- Identity Crisis
- Heavy Metal (NEW ENTRY)
- Monkey Fun
- Bizarro’s World
Rogues Roundup
Metallo (Macolm McDowell) (fifth appearance)
Seeing how easily Big M rips through the police while only participating in the bank robberies under protest is a lot of fun, as it draws a clear line between the common criminals and the heavy hitters in Superman’s rogues gallery. Simply impossible to try and pull off a mystery over who the super strong masked thief is when Malcolm McDowell sounds like he does though.
Anyway yeah, he’s back! And now he can shoot Kryptonite-powered eyebeams! I joke but that does end up being his most dangerous weapon as he doesn’t have to open his chest cavity to fuck Superman up, and in fact returning to his original method is what leads to his downfall. I also liked the touch that when Superman grabbed him from behind (Kryptonite core pointing away from him), Metallo is able to just turn his head 180 degrees and shoot him in the face.
He ends up coming across as an even bigger physical threat than ever, which was their intention, but his takedown ends up being anticlimactic and like… is he dead now? Or can you just keep popping in new cores?
Fundamentally I like Toyman’s gimmick better, and Metallo’s only really upgraded from a fighting perspective, but I’ll let him maintain his tenuous lead over Parasite.
- Livewire
- Darkseid
- Lex Luthor
- The Joker
- Toyman
- Metallo (–)
- Parasite
- Karkull
- Brainiac
- Mr. Mxyzptlk
- Kalibak
- Harley Quinn
- Lobo
- Luminus
- DeSaad
- Detective Bowman
- The Preserver
- Bruno Mannheim (and Intergang!)
- Kanto
- Mala & Jax-Ur
- Mercy Graves
- The Prometheon
- Corey Mills
- Earl Garver
- Titano
- Bizarro
- Weather Wizard
The Matt Signal 
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