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Quote1 We don't discriminate. We'll use a hammer or a particle beam, whatever gets the job done... Quote2
Steel (Natasha Irons) src

Natasha Irons is the daughter of John Henry Irons's brother, Clay, and his wife Blondell. Like her uncle, she has an armor and goes by the name Steel. During her time in the Everyman Project, she also went by the codenames Starlight and Vaporlock.

Early life

Like the rest of her family, she knew about Steel's secret identity all along. Contrasting sharply with her brother Jemahl, Natasha is shown to be very level headed and practical. By issue #14, she was shown to be working (presumably as an intern) for a U.S. Senator. She appeared to have aged forward to be about 16 somehow. Nat was a supporting character throughout Louise Simonson's run on the series. She was kidnapped by Hazard and Steel had to rescue her. She also used the drug Tar to help fight at the side of her uncle briefly. She was later kidnapped by the villain Plasmus and apparently killed him by shattering once Steel froze the villain (although he later turned up alive). Natasha was devastated at the loss of her beloved great-grandmother, Bess Irons, but is the only one of her family who stays with Steel when he moves to Jersey City (see the Steel entry for more details of the Irons family).

Nat later went with Steel to Metropolis when he opened up Steelworks there. She became his assistant, and even reprogrammed Superman's Kryptonian robot Kelex to speak with hip hop slang.[1]

The new Steel

When the Entropy Aegis of Darkseid trapped John, Natasha designed a suit of armor that used the Aegis's power, teleported to Apokolips, and fought Doomsday with the help of Superman, Superboy, Supergirl, and the pre-Crisis Supergirl. John was too injured to continue operating as Steel. Having intended to pass his legacy as Steel on to Natasha, John made a new, more advanced suit of armor for her to use.

When Natasha heard that Superman had been injured by a ghostly ninja, she donned her armor and became the new Steel. She teamed up with Cir-El and Girl 13 to stop the ninja. During the adventure, she used her hammer to fire an electric pulse into Superman's heart to start it again. When Cir-El heard that Superman had been captured by Lex Luthor, Natasha accompanied her and Superboy to rescue him. Natasha worked with Batman to free the others when they fell into a trap.

52

 Main article: 52

Natasha had a violent falling out with her uncle John, over John's open disgust over what he felt was the self-absorbed narcissism of the super-hero community. When Natasha discovered that the Teen Titans, whose roster was devastated by the battle against Alexander Luthor and Superboy-Prime, were holding an open call for new members, John forbade Natasha from going and instead demanded her continue the thankless and boring task of clearing out harmless debris from Metropolis and went as far as destroying Natasha's armor to "teach her a lesson", in terms of forcing her to build her own armor if she truly wanted to be a super-hero if she wished to defy John's bitter demands of her.

Natasha was further tormented when John forced her to attend summer school rather than a science colloquium that Natasha had been looking forward to attending for several months. (John's justification was that Natasha's inability to pass English Lit, despite making straight "A's" in all of her other classes, made her unfit to attend such an important scientific colloquium).

She attempted to rebuild her armor with little success, but when she overheard a phone message meant for John telling him that his DNA had been rewritten by the Luthor metagene, Natasha reached her breaking point regarding John's treatment of her.

Natasha applied for Lex Luthor's Everyman Project and became the first official subject of the project. When John, looking for Natasha, threatened to kill Luthor at a Lexcorp party, Natasha appeared, leading a team of super-powered people in Luthor's employ. John tried to convince Natasha to come home, but she refused and beat him as she felt that John was a hypocrite for cursing and sabotaging her dreams of being a super-hero while taking the easy way out via Luthor's metagene project, unaware that Luthor infected John with the treatment without his permission.

Luthor's team of heroes was later unveiled as the new incarnation of Infinity, Inc., and Natasha went by the code name Starlight. In this persona, she served with the team for the better half of a year, until her uncle managed to convince her that Luthor was planning something. Working from within the team, she was caught spying but was rescued by her uncle. She began working for his new company, "Steelworks", in her old suit of armor. She fought Black Adam during World War III alongside the other heroes.

Vaporlock

Natasha Irons Vaporlock 02

Vaporlock

Months after World War III, Natasha and the other participants in the Everyman Program suffered unusual side-effects: their physiology began mutating, granting them superhuman powers which related, in some way, to the state of their mental health. For Natasha, who suffered from a fear of abandonment, this meant gaining the uncontrollable power to transform into intangible mist. Reuniting with a few other subjects of the Program, she decided to fight super-villains who got their powers from the Program. However, the team was kidnapped by Desaad (under the alias "Doctor Bud Fogel"), who convinced Gerome McKenna to betray the team. They were subsequently press-ganged into the Dark Side Club as fighters, before they were rescued by Miss Martian and Ravager.

Powers

Abilities

Weaknesses

  • Power Instability: Natasha often had trouble shifting between the solid and gaseous state as Vaporlock.(Formerly)

Equipment

Weapons


  • Natasha Irons had taken part in the Everyman Project while they injected her with a serum that "unlocked" her mete-gene. This led to a number of powers that she was able to unlock such as Flight, Strength, Durability and Light-based abilities.

Related

External Links

Footnotes



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