History
Origin
In 1894, the scientist Abednego Danner injected his pregnant wife with an experimental serum. Their son Hugo was born with super-human strength, speed, and nigh-invulnerability. Hugo lived with his parents throughout his teen years and left at age eighteen to attend college and travel the world. In the years that followed, Hugo's special powers led him through a number of adventures, but his unique stature among mortal men forever brought him grief. Eventually, Hugo staged his own death in the Yucatan Peninsula and went into hiding.
Before vanishing, however, Hugo returned home to Colorado once more and enjoyed a one-night affair with his high school sweetheart, Anna Blake, who became pregnant. When Hugo disappeared for good, Blake married a young businessman named John Munro, who never realized the child she bore was not his own. Their son, Arnold, began exhibiting superhuman powers of strength and invulnerability at age ten. Remembering Hugo's troubles, Anna made her son promise to keep his abilities a secret until he turned eighteen.[1]
Young All-Stars
As a baseball player at his high school in Indian Creek, Colorado, Munro earned the nickname "Iron." He was a senior there when, in April 1942, Munro saved the superheroes T.N.T. and Dan the Dyna-Mite from a burning car crash. T.N.T. died but he managed to bring Dyna-Mite to a nearby hospital. Subsequently, Munro and other new "Young All-Stars" aided the All-Star Squadron in defeating Axis Amerika. President Roosevelt asked Munro and the others to join the Squadron, about which Munro was reluctant, but he accompanied them on a cross-country War Bond promotion.[2] Soon thereafter, Arn received a mysterious diary written by Hugo Danner, his father.[3] He learned about his father's troubled life as one of the 20th century's first metahumans.[4] This led the young hero on a quest to learn of his father's fate.
After having read his father’s diary, Arn turned to the government's secret Project M, demanding to know the location of the "Dinosaur Island" mentioned in his father's diary. There he met Georgia Challenger, who led him instead to Maple White Land in South America. Surprisingly they found Arn’s father, Hugo Danner, who had spawned a new band of "offspring," the Sons of Dawn.[5] Danner used his father's formula to bestow powers on these Sons of Dawn and mentioned that the creators of the villain Übermensch had also stolen that formula.[6]
Arn was forced to oppose his father when Danner ordered the Sons of Dawn to attack Rioguay.[7] The combined might of the All-Star Squadron defeated the Sons of Dawn and Danner was killed.[8]
Legacy
During the War, Iron Munro also met his future wife, the Young All-Star known as the Phantom Lady, Sandra Knight. Before the two of them were married, Sandra conceived a child (which she never revealed to him). She confided only in the Atom, Al Pratt, who helped her give the child up for adoption. The hospital mistakenly listed Al as the father on the child's birth certificate. The child was named Walter Pratt and later became the father of Kate Spencer.[9]
After the war, both Arn and Sandra started working for the U.S. Government as members of the O.S.S. off-shoot called Argent. Arn took the code name "Gladiator One." The couple eventually married and on numerous missions came up against his WWII Nazi nemesis, Baron Blitzkrieg (calling himself simply The Baron and working for the Soviets). When the couple bore a second child, it was kidnapped by the Baron when Sandra was on a mission in Communist Poland. The child was (and still is) assumed killed at the time.[10]
The couple gradually grew apart and sometime in the 1960s, Phantom Lady disappeared while on a cover mission for Argent. Though Munro later discovered she was alive, the two were never reunited.[11]
Munro settled in Florida with his friend, Roy Lincoln (the Human Bomb). There he eventually met the young hero Damage. Munro helped Emerson search for the identity of his biological parents. For a time, it appeared that Grant might be Arn and Sandra's lost child. Eventually they learned that Damage was actually the son of the Atom, Al Pratt, and his wife.[10]
Iron Munro continues to serve as an adventurer and apparently benefits from extended youth. During the massive war between Imperiex and Brainiac 13, the Justice Society's Sand recruited an army of All-Stars, which Arn joined.[12] Afterwards, he joined the Human Bomb and Damage in the Freedom Fighters. This group was doomed and Arn lost his good friend Roy when several of the F.F. were slaughtered by the Society.[13]
Sandra Knight also learned the fate of the child she gave up for adoption, Walter Pratt. Pratt became a homicidal maniac. His daughter, Katherine Spencer had now become the Los Angeles vigilante Manhunter. Pratt died when he was cut in half midstream in teleportation.[14] Sandra met Kate Spencer[15], and months later brought Arn to Kate's house for an introduction.[16]
Munro later became a founding member of Superman's new team, the Supermen of America.[17]
Powers and Abilities
Powers
Notes
- Iron Munro was one of three heroes created in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths specifically to replace Golden Age characters who were no longer considered active during World War II. Iron was intended to fill the role and power set of the original Superman. As such, his powers were designed to mirror those of Superman as he appears in the early 1940s - fittingly enough, since Philip Wylie's novel, Gladiator, which tells Hugo Danner's story, has long been assumed to have been an influence in Superman's creation by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.
Related
- 73 Appearances of Arnold Munro (New Earth)
- 13 Images featuring Arnold Munro (New Earth)
- 1 Quotations by or about Arnold Munro (New Earth)
- Character Gallery: Arnold Munro (New Earth)
Footnotes
- ↑ Young All-Stars #11, 29
- ↑ Young All-Stars #1-3
- ↑ Ibid #9
- ↑ Young All-Stars #10
- ↑ Young All-Stars #28
- ↑ Ibid #29
- ↑ Young All-Stars #30
- ↑ Young All-Stars #31
- ↑ Manhunter (Volume 3) #23
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Damage #6
- ↑ Damage #11
- ↑ JSA: Our Worlds at War #1
- ↑ Infinite Crisis #1
- ↑ Manhunter (Volume 3) #19
- ↑ Manhunter (Volume 3) #23
- ↑ Manhunter (Volume 3) #31
- ↑ Superman #714
  This character is or was a member of the Freedom Fighters, a team of American super-heroes who fight threats to the nation and its ideals under the leadership of Uncle Sam. This template will automatically categorize articles that include it into the "Freedom Fighters members" category. |