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Character Creation
Steel is a superhero appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. He is a genius engineer who builds a mechanized suit of armor that mirrors Superman's powers. Steel initially seeks to replace Superman, who has been killed by Doomsday. After Superman is resurrected, he accepts Steel as an ally. Steel's sledgehammer and real name of John Henry Irons are references to the mythical railroad worker John Henry. He has a niece named Natasha Irons who is also a superhero with similar steel armor.
Publication history
First appearing in The Adventures of Superman #500 (June 1993), he is the second character known as Steel and was created by Louise Simonson and artist Jon Bogdanove.
The character is portrayed by Shaquille O'Neal in the 1997 film adaptation of the same name and Wolé Parks in the television series Superman & Lois. Additionally, Michael Dorn and Zeno Robinson have voiced the character in animation.
Modern Age: New Earth: Reign of the Supermen
After the death of Superman, Metropolis was without a protector watching over it. After several weeks without a Superman, new heroes appeared and declared themselves to be Superman. One was Eradicator, dubbed "the Last Son of Krypton," who looked the most like Superman but was merciless in his approach to crime-fighting. Also, Superboy tried to take up the mantle by getting the media on his side, but his youth and arrogance prevented him from being a true successor.
Also, Cyborg Superman claimed to be the real deal, and got the federal government to back his claims. After realizing the the weapons he used to design for a living were being manufactured and sold to street gangs and inspired by the example Superman set, John created a suit of armor to help him fight crime and stop the sale of his weapons.
Due to all of the new Supermen running around, the media focused on all of them, with the press giving John the title the "Man of Steel." Also, a local psychic told the media that he was the real Superman reincarnated in a robotic body. During his adventures, the Man of Steel ran into Superboy, and explained to him how a Superman should act. He also encountered Lex Luthor, who tried to get hire him. However, he turned Lex's offer down. He later ran into Lois Lane, who wanted to know if he really was Superman. He set her straight by telling him that he never claimed to be Superman. Though she realized he was not actually Superman, Lois believed he was most like the original.
Eventually, Steel found the location of the one distributing his weapons. When he went to confront them, he discovered that his ex-girlfriend and development partner, Angora Lapin a.k.a. White Rabbit was the distributor. Having pieced together the Man of Steel's identity, she offered him a chance to join her in her pursuits, but he promptly turned her down. To escape, she shot him with a Toastmaster and fled as he recovered.
While trying to track White rabbit down, he had a run-in with the Eradicator. After watching him kill a criminal he had apprehended, John told Eradicator that he could not be the real Superman. Upset at the notion, Eradicator attacked John until Lois arrived and stopped the two. However, Eradicator got upset again and flew Steel into orbit. The two landed in California and fought to a standstill. When Steel tells Eradicator that a Superman needs to have compassion, he calms down and leaves.
Unable to fly back to Metropolis, Steel hitches a ride on an airplane. When they land, White Rabbit and her men ambush him at the airport. He manages to fight them off, grab Angora, and force her to take him to the plant where she is producing the Toastmasters. However, the plant was rigged with traps that John manages to escape. He manages to get clear of the plant as it explodes, but Angora is still inside and is presumed dead. Despite the death of the supplier, John knows that there will still be Toastmasters may resurface on day.
The Return of Superman
After Coast City is destroyed, he investigates the destruction personally and runs into Cyborg Superman. He tells John that Eradicator was responsible, but Steel does not fully trust his account. After running into Lois Lane, also suspicious of the story, the notice a disturbance near the harbor, meeting Luthor and Supergirl on the scene. As Steel attacks the suit, Superboy arrives to to warn everyone that Cyborg Superman was truly responsible for the events in Coast City, and that he's coming for Metropolis next. At that moment, the real Superman comes from inside of the warsuit. Despite being powerless, he vows to stop Cyborg Superman's plans.
No one present, including John, believes he is the real Superman, but he nonetheless goes to the ruins of Coast City with Superman and Superboy. Once there, the group sees Engine City where Coast City used to be and manage to force their way inside, but Superboy leaves to stop a missile fired at Metropolis. Once inside, Supergirl appears, having been secretly tailing them at Superman's suggestion. While talking, Superman abbreviates his title from Man of Steel to simply Steel. The three encounter Mongul, who had just activated the jets inside the city in a bid to knock the Earth out of orbit.
While Superman and Supergirl fend off Mongul, Steel heads off to shut down the reactors powering the jets. Once there, Cyborg Superman uses his connection to the machinery to control and morph the room to stop him. Eventually, he takes over his armor, but before he can kill him, John flies the armor into the gear system, jamming it with his armor and disabling the jets.
Though John survives with minimal injuries, his armor is destroyed, leaving him defenseless when Cyborg Superman uses the landscape to try to kill him again. This time, Superboy arrives just in time to save him.After Superman regains his powers and defeats his Cyborg counterpart, everyone returns to Metropolis. With no armor, he continues trying to get toastmasters off the street with little success. After a talk with Superman, Steel decides to leave Metropolis and retire as Steel.
Steel: Returning Home
After his adventures in Metropolis, Steel decides to return to his hometown: Washington D.C. Having originally stayed away to avoid being pursued by his old bosses at Amertek, he decides to take the chance that they have lost interest in him and move back in with his family. Present to greet him at the bus station is his niece Natasha, who greets him by her childhood nickname "Uncle Hunk." While the two talk, a fight breaks out between the Central Avenue Sharks, who are using Toastmasters, and the East Streeters who rely on the strength enhancing drug Tar.
Though John tries to intervene, he is distracted by the sight of his nephew Jehmal in the fray, giving a Tar-Freak an opening to knock him out. When he recovers, he and Natasha head home, where John is greeted by the rest of the family; his grandparents Butter and Bess, his sister-in-law Blondell, her second son Paco, and her foster kids Tyke and Darlene.
While the Irons family is having dinner Jehmal arrives home late. John, remembering what happened that afternoon, asks Bess how he has been, but while they talk, and group of armored thugs working for Amertek appear and attack the family. John manages to take them out, but Butter takes a stray shot. Feeling guilty about bringing danger to his family, John uses his old armor and parts he salvaged from the thugs' armor to improve the suit and become Steel once again. Knowing that his mission would require him to operate outside the law, John keeps the "S" shield off his new armor to avoid dishonoring Superman.
Steel begins balancing investigating Amertek with stopping the constant gang skirmishes plaguing the neighborhood. During on fight, Steel sees Jehmal fighting, confirming his suspicions that he was in a gang. In response, he forces him to tell the rest of the family about it and quit the gang (he actually did not quit). Steel then finds the location of the place where the Toastmasters are sold by a member named Spiral. Steel interrupts the sale and manages to get a lead on the source of the weapons.
However, Spiral, afraid of being considered as a snitch, tricks the gang leader Cowboy into thinking Jehmal sold them out to Steel. The group then captures Jehmal and turns him over to the supplier of the weapons, Amalgam. Before Jehmal is killed, Steel arrives, having tracked Spiral again. As he battles Amalgam, Steel tells Amalgam that Jehmal was innocent. Steel manages to pin Amalgam down, but he assumes Spiral was his informant and kills him. Once the police arrive, Steel leaves, but thanks to something Amalgam said, John gets the idea to use the media to fight Amertek.
Later, John confront his former boss, Col. Weston about dealing the Toastmasters, but he feigns innocence, and john trusts him enough to leave. After breaking into Amertek to find incriminating evidence, a fight involving armored guards lead to the building being destroyed, but he manages to escape with a CD-ROM with the evidence he needed to take down Amertek. Weston uses the incident to paint Steel as a criminal in the eyes of the public. To further add to his troubles, he begins orchestrating on John directly and members of his family.
In a short period, John is attacked by a Tar-Freak at a funeral, Tyke loses the use of his legs after he and Jehmal are caught in a drive-by shooting, Natasha is hit by a car, and Blondell is mugged. Realizing he can't beat Amertek alone, he enlists Detective Shauna Beryl to use the a hard disk full of evidence he broke into Amertek for to take down Amertek. While she gets the information decrypted, John learns that Jehmal found out his gang was responsible for hurting his family. Seeking revenge, Jehmal steals a more powerful, potentially lethal version of Tar and uses it to confront Cowboy. Steel findd them and pins Jehmal down until the S-Tar wears off.
Worlds Collide
After getting Jehmal to the hospital, he then goes to Amertek intent on taking down Weston. The armored guards aren't enough to stop Steel from getting to Weston. He considers killing him, but Detective Beryl arrives to arrest him, and talks Steel down. John forces Weston to tell him who has Amertek selling weapons to gangs. Weston tells about a group in Metropolis led by a man named Hazard, before John hands him over to the police. He then heads to Metropolis to track down Black Ops.
When he arrives he find the city is still recovering from recent events. While searching for Amertek, he encounters Superboy, Rocket and Hardware, the latter two having been transported from their universe into the DC Universe. Steel put his search for Black Ops on hold to help stop their two universes from merging together.
War with Black Ops
When John continues investigating Black Ops, Hazards begins sending his team to attack Steel and further his agenda in Washington. Along the way, he deals with a super-powered serial killer and helps Maxima avoid being captured by an alien warlord. At the same time, his armor begins mysteriously teleporting on and off his body seemingly at random. His fight with Black Ops is interrupted again by the return of White Rabbit, who survived her last encounter with Steel and now plans to brainwash several Congressmen to help her monopolize gun sales in the country.
She sends one of her super-powered thugs to distract Steel and a visiting Superman while her plan came into fruition. However, Natasha was interning for a Congresswoman who was brainwashed, and tipped Steel off that something was wrong. While investigating, he met and befriended actor/British spy Double, and the two team up to stop Angora. While they shut down her plan and capture her crew, Angora herself escapes.
When he returns from fighting White rabbit, he finds out that Tyke has been kidnapped. He begins searching for him to no avail. At the same time, a hi-tech bounty hunter begins targeting Steel, and he finds out that someone is offering a money reward for his armor. He then gets a lead from Detective Beryl that leads him to a child-experimentation operation.
When Steel goes to shut the operation, the bounty hunter from before arrives for another round. After John shows him that his employer is exploiting children, he decides to help Steel free them instead of continue fighting, and tells Steel that Hazard was the one who put up the bounty and that he knows where Hazard's base is.
The two head out to take down Black Ops. They storm the base and take down most of the team, but Hazard and Split escape. However, he finds Tyke inside, but it turns out Tyke went with Hazard willingly because he had promised Tyke the use of his legs again. Though he is returned home safely, he now harbors a deep hatred for his uncle.
Underworld Unleashed
A few days after Tyke is returned home, Steel is helping contain a protest that evolved into a riot when a bomb goes off at a nearby mosque. While rescuing people trapped inside the building, he is attacked from behind. He turn around to find Metallo was the culprit. Remembering Metallo's weakness from his time in Metropolis, Steel manages to knock Metallo's head off.
However, when Neron was supercharging the powers of supervillians around the world, he gave Metallo the power to survive having his head knocked off and control any nearby metal to create a new body, which he does. Steel tries again, knocking his head into the Potomac. With no metal nearby, Steel is satisfied and returns to helping people in the mosque. However, the junk at the bottom of the river and a nearby patrol cruiser provide enough metal to create a bigger and better body. He then tries to absorb Steel's armor,but he can't.
The distraction gives Steel an opening to knock Metallo's head off again, and it conveniently lands at the feet of Lieutenant (formerly detective) Beryl. She then warns Steel about another bomb threat at a local hospital. Steel instructs her to take Metallo's head to S.T.A.R. Labs and races to find the bomb. After capturing the thugs who planted the bomb, they reveal that it is wired to blow if it is tampered with. With less than a minute on the timer, Steel flies as fast as he can to get the bomb to a less populated area.
On the way, he is stopped by Metallo, who managed to reform himself before he could be taken to Star. Steel tries to keep moving, but Metallo equipped himself with rockets, allowing him to follow. With no time to move the bomb, John tosses the bomb at Metallo, but he absorbs it instead. However, while the bomb casing was metal, the explosive was actually plastique, which he couldn't absorb. The bomb then goes off, destroying Metallo entirely. Steel survives the blast, but he passes out in midair.
The Superman Rescue
Before Steel can fall, Alpha Centurion catches him. He tells Steel that Superman has been kidnapped and he is assembling a rescue team to find him before the world realizes he is missing. Steel agrees to help, but wants to get this done as soon as possible before Washington falls apart.
Steel joins Supergirl, Superboy and the Eradicator on the Centurion's ship and head out into space. Superboy tells the others he does not trust the Centurion. These fears are realized when the Centurion abandons the rest to battle an alien platoon on an asteroid. Out-manned and stranded, Steel manages create a makeshift transport. Arriving on a nearby planet, the team is confronted by the Cyborg Superman, who takes them all down. He turns them over as prisoner of the Tribunal he is allied with.
While in custody, Steel discovers the Alpha Centurion is also a prisoner. Steel manages to teleport his armor to him an escape along with Supergirl and Eradicator. While Steel and Supergirl, both in disguise, go to a local bar to try and find information, Eradicator stays behind to try and rescue Superboy. Unfortunately, Steel and Supergirl are discovered and a bar fight breaks out. It ends quickly when the Cyborg turns up and recaptures them. For escaping, they are both sentenced to death.
Fortunately, the group is taken the same place as Superman. Together they manage to escape and rally behind Superman. Thanks to the Cyborg turning on the Tribunal. Superman leads them to confront the Tribunal itself, which ultimately decides to drop the charges against them rather than keep fighting. The group then returns to Earth.
On the way back, Superman thanks Steel for going so far for his sake, John believes that they did little to help, while he saved them and an entire planet. Superman disagrees, and asks him to hang out with him when they reach Metropolis home. Though grateful, John declines in order to get home in time for thanksgiving.
Ending Black Ops
When John returns from space, he parts ways with the squad and return to Washington. However, Tyke, still bitter over having been denied a chance to walk again, was searching for a way for it to be so. Thinking he had found an operation that could restore his legs in a local tabloid, Tyke sought a way to pay for such an operation. When he learned that federal agents were offering a reward for information on Steel's secret identity, Tyke tracked them down and told that Steel was John Henry Irons.
However, they only gave him a measly $20 for the information, meaning he sold out his uncle for nothing. Also, the agents were working with Hazard, meaning his enemy now know who he is. In response, Hazard sics a cyborg named Hardwire (who, ironically, was transformed by the same process Tyke thought would cure his paralysis) on Steel. When he gets there, he guns down the Irons family as they sit down for dinner. No one is killed, but a seriously wounded John is captured..
Hardwire takes John to the agents, but before they can take him, Hardwire turns on them. He grabs them all and flies them to the Washington Monument and blows the top off. When John recovers, his armor appears around him and the two fight. During the fight, Hardwire attaches explosives on himself, Steel, and the two agents, planning to kill himself and them. As they fight, the two agents are killed before the countdown even finishes. Unable to get Hardwire to disarm the devices, Steel teleports his armor off to save his life, so the bombs only kill Hardwire. When the police and the media arrive, John had no choice but to reveal his secret identity to the public.
After his declaration, John is blamed by the police for the destruction of the Monument and is arrested. However, Hazard sends Split to bring John to Hazard's base. Angered at all Hazard has done, he rushes him, but is suspended in the air by his telekinesis. When he asks him why he broke him out of holding, he responds that he is using the "breakout" to distract everyone with a manhunt and masks his agenda. That said, he prepares to kill John.
In a desperate gambit, John tries to summon his armor. He succeeds and fights off the Black Ops members. They reach a standstill when Steel takes Shellshock's twin sister Shellgame hostage. He manages to get her to reveal Hazard's plan; he is hacking into the Pentagon's computers to gain control of America's nuclear arsenal. Once he learns the truth, Hazard nearly kills him with his telekinesis, but Steel manages to teleport himself away along with his armor.
Steel reappears in the "White Zone" his armor goes to when it teleports. However, both he cannot remain there with his armor on, so he teleports back to Washington. However, he winds up in the air with a military chopper that immediately attacks him. As he recovers, Black Ops teleports in to renew their attack, and Steel retreats with the intent to expose Hazard's plan. Steel fends them off, but realizes he still needs to warn someone about Hazard's plan.
He then teleports back to the White Zone to come up with a new plan. When he does, he teleports to his old laboratory to find something he hid there long ago, hoping never to use it but keeping it just in case. The object he finds is the Annihilator, the most powerful weapon he ever designed. Deciding to wait before using it, he begins his plan to stop Hazard.
First, he posts the details of Hazard's plan on the internet, knowing the government would have to investigate. Shortly after, part of the Black Ops team arrives to fight at the same time the FBI arrives to arrest Steel. While Black Ops defeats the agents, Steel flies off again, but they quickly catch up again. They quickly overpower him. The tides tun when Natasha, haven ingested a vial of Tar, helps him out.
Together they fend Black Ops off, but the military arrives to stop them all. Black Ops teleports away, but the grab Natasha and offer her safety for his surrender. Unable to see a better option, Steel takes the Annihilator from it's hiding place and arms it, ready to take the fight to Hazard. After a quick test, he teleports to Black Ops base, ready to take them all down.
He gives the team one chance to free Natasha, but they refuse. He then begins fighting them, but avoids firing the Annihilator. The chaos gives Natasha time to free herself and the two fight Black Ops together. When the are cornered, Steel tries to teleport them both out, but he cannot teleport others with him.
Backed into a corner again, Steel begins using the Annihilator to destroy Hazard's computers, stopping him from hacking into the Pentagon. Hazard tries to immobilize him, but Steel keeps firing into the base, so Hazard has Split teleport them back outside. The fight continues, but Hazard pulls his team back after Steel accidentally hit three of his people with the Annihilator. The two go at it, but when the military intervenes, Steel uses the opening to defeat Hazard.
Once Hazard is detained, Steel learns of the consequences of his actions. While everyone is still alive Child Protective services reclaim Tyke and Darlene feeling that being around Steel is too dangerous. Later, John meets with the government, who claim that Hazard will be dealt with. However he was secretly allowed to go free and granted custody of Tyke. In order to keep the Annhilator out of the wrong hands, he leaves it in Hazard's base and triggers it's self-destruct.
Leaving D.C.
Now that Steel's identity is out, his family has no peace. They are harassed by neighbors and mobs of people, who feel he is too dangerous to have near their homes. Later, Natasha is kidnapped by Plasmus, who is trying to blackmail Steel into creating a suit for himself. Steel rescues her by building a suit with a trap for Plasmus inside.
Though Natasha is safe, John is still worried that he is endangering his family. Steel moves out (temporarily staying with his friend Dr. Amanda Quick) but the family is still harassed. His family is attacked by both Doctor Polaris and the Parasite, both arriving seeking the Annihilator. John Henry's beloved grandmother Bess is killed in the fight when she tries to attack Parasite. Deciding it is too dangerous for his family, he enlists Double to move them somewhere secret.
After teleporting into White Zone, he sees a nightmarish looking version of his armor. He quickly teleports again, ending up at Hazard's old lair. He discovers the three Black Ops member he killed were actually still alive. They corner him, as he teleported without his armor, but the armor has followed him to the lair.
John Henry works with the other three to try and fight off the armor. They try to flee, but the armor keeps finding them. Natasha, having run away to avoid being relocated, took some Tar and followed him there and tries to help. John Henry realizes that the armor is his dark side given form. Realizing this, Steel banishes the armor to the White Zone, seemingly for good. Later, John realizes Natasha is handling Bess's death poorly.
She spends several nights sleeping at the cemetery and then attacks John in a Tar fueled rage when he confronts here there. A blind gravedigger tells them that Bess's soul is not at rest because someone stole her wedding ring and she wants to be buried with it. Steel manages to track down the thief and the recover wedding ring. To return it, John and Natasha exhume Bess's body is exhumed and rebury her with the ring, letting her soul rest. John Henry and Natasha fix up their old home before leaving it and D.C. behind.
The Death of Steel
Irons suffered mortal wounds after releasing Doomsday from the JLA Watchtower to battle Imperiex. Superman was unable to turn away the Black Racer, a being that gathers souls and ushers them into the afterlife. This time, however, the Black Racer showed mercy and delivered Irons to Apokolips, where the evil Darkseid healed Iron's body. Darkseid placed Irons in the Entropy Aegis, a burned out Imperiex-probe altered by Apokoliptan science. This new armor was far superior to his old, but the upgrades made it more of a curse than a blessing. Darkseid was able to use the Entropy Aegis to control Steel and make him serve Apokolips.
Superman gathered the members of Team Superman and challenged Darkseid on the field of battle for the return of Steel. After his defeat Darkseid removed Steel from the armor only to reveal that he was returning him as he found him in a state of near death. Natasha Irons and a Multiverse displaced Supergirl were able to act quickly and save his life. Upon his return to Earth John allowed his niece, Natasha to take up the mantle of Steel while he recovered.
52 Weeks
During the year where Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman disappear, Steel was the active hero of Metropolis. Using a new armor he had to deal with his rebellious niece, Natasha, who wants to be a superhero, the mystery of Supernova, and Lex Luthor's Everyman Project. When Natasha tries to join the Teen Titans, he stops her by destroying her armor, and tells her to build her own armor if she wants it badly enough. As part of Luthor's conspiracy, John Henry was unknowingly given new powers: a steel coated skin than he could heat at will.
When Natasha found out, she was upset as he forbade her from participating. In response, she joins anyway and earns a spot on Lex's Infinity Inc. team. When Steel comes to get Natasha away from Lex, she attacks him and drives him away. However, when Natasha catches onto Luthor's plans, she tries relaying her findings but is caught. When John comes to help her, he finds Natasha's teammates opposing him. He easily tears through them, but the Teen Titans arrive to back him up.
Steel dispatches Everyman at the cost of his armor, but he reaches Luthor. However, that Luthor used the meta-gene therapy to give him powers like those of Superman. Steel fights him anyway but is overpowered. Thanks to Luthor being overwhelmed by his super-senses and Natasha finding a way to disable his powers, Steel comes out on top. Before he knocks him out, Steel reveals that the meta-gene therapy was toxic to the human body, and he would have died in six months if they hadn't intervened.
Infinity Inc.
Several months after the Everyman Project was shut down, John realized something was wrong with Natasha. Despite going to therapy to help with her state of mind, Natasha did not get better. When Natasha refused to continue therapy, he tried to talk to her about it. When he touched her though, Natasha turned into a cloud of mist that dissipated. Distraught, he asked Superman to search for her to no avail. After checking with other former Everyman project members Gerome and Erik, he is attacked by Kid Empty, another Everyman participant who feeds on the minds of others.
Before he can kill him, Natasha regains her solid form and drives him away. John realizes that everyone involved in the project is gaining new powers and deduces that their powers reflect their mental state, with Natasha's power reflecting her fear of abandonment. At the same time, Mercy Graves, trying to avoid being found by Luthor, who is in hiding after the Everyman Project fell apart, asks to run with him to avoid being caught. Skeptical that she has changed, he gives her a chance to prove herself.
After Jerome, Erik, and Natasha use their new powers to take down an Kid Empty, John decides to have them and their new friend Lucia reform Infinity Inc. to help them round up the the participants who gain new powers and show the world that the Everyman members are not all dangerous. While the team was in the field, John remained in touch with them from Steelworks to lend support.
After a few missions Steel answers a call from Superman who found a gruesome body of an Everyman teen in the Arctic. Eventually he and the team realizes that someone is capturing, experimenting on, and killing Everyman participants. When the teams gets a lead on the killer's location, Natasha opts not to tell Steel. Leaving alone, Natasha sent a voicemail telling John what they were up to. Rushing after them, Steel and Superman arrive to find a crater where the building the killer was hiding in used to be. Supermans asks if Steel is okay, and responds that he vows to find Natasha and the team again.
Reign of Doomsday
Steel resurfaces for a fight with Doomsday. With no other heroes around, Steel is left to fight Doomsday by himself. Natasha Irons tries to persuade her uncle not to fight Doomsday, but John insist and heads off into battle. John gave the fight all he had. John even managed to hit Doomsday with a direct hit from his hammer. Steel had hurled his hammer from a thousand feet away.
During the fight Doomsday evolves growing armor out his body and also possess the ability to fly. John manages to break away a piece of Doomsday's chest armor which allowed John to introduce nanonytes into Doomsday's body. The nanonytes were suppose to paralyze Doomsday for an hour until help arrived, but the effects only lasted a few seconds. John then gets pounded by Doomsday until he is knocked unconscious. We last see John being carried off by a flying Doomsday.
New 52
John Henry Irons debuted as a scientist working for Gen. Sam Lane for Metal-0 Project, an initiative to develop an armored super-soldier designed to stop the recently debuted Superman. But he quit when he saw how Luthor tortured the captured Superman, under Lane's license.
When Brainiac, calling himself the Collecter of Worlds, attacked Metropolis and take control of John Corben, Irons donned a Metal-0 suit prototype and stopped the controlled soldier with a PC virus of his own design.
Steel has been seen within the pages of Action Comics, during a back up storyline. In this story, Steel helps Superman to fight crime. Steel was then seen in Action Comics Annual helping Superman fend off the villain called Kryptonite Man. Steel defeats the villain and managed to make his powers defunct. He is later was seen in Australia, helping the poor and searching new ways to use his technologies in less aggressive scenarios.
He has joined The Reverse Suicide Squad with Power Girl, Unknown Soldier, and Warrant. The Thinker under the guise of Amanda Waller is leading them.
After Forever Evil, Steel joined the forces than were fighting against Doomsday, but he was affected by the toxic emanations from the monster. To stop the damage and prevent more infection, Steel added to his armor a film of liquid metal. He would join to Lana Lang in a search for Doomsday possessed Superman in space to help him but they discovered than in Superman absence, Brainiac attacked the earth again.
Currently he is in a relationship with Superwoman aka Lana Lang.
DC: Rebirth
As things begin to change in the DC Universe, Steel began a new initiative in Metropolis. Having started up Steelworks with Natasha and letting Lana move in with him while she starts a new job in Metropolis while operating as Steel. Using new armors, he fights alongside Natasha and Lana, now operating as Superwoman. When Ultrawoman takes over the city in a bid to steal Superwoman's powers, Steel helps lead and coordinate the efforts take the city back and defend the people from her army of female Bizarro clones.
Once Ultrawoman is defeated, John Henry has to help Lana, whose powers have begun killing her. Desperate to save his girlfriend, he enlists Superman's help, and he stays with her while she recovers. When she does, they discover that Lana has lost all of her powers. John tries to support her while she copes, but she pushes him away instead, though they later reconcile.
John Henry and Natasha then give Lana a power suit to help her continue as Superwoman. However, they discover that the last time Lana donned it, the suit was able to permanently copy her now lost powers. With Lana's problem resolved, the three return to fighting crime and rounding up the escaped metahuman prisoners.
Powers and Abilities
John Henry Irons possess no superhuman powers. He is an exceptionally gifted intellect that specializes in various fields of engineering. A genius of the highest order, he built a bullet proof suit of armor whose computerized pneumatic exoskeletal joints gave him superhuman strength.
In specific situations Steel had temporarily developed superpowers:
Teleportation: When under unexplained circumstances he was able to transport himself to a "white void zone".
Organic steel skin: During 52 Steel was injected with the formula of the Everyman Project by Lex Luthor and developed an invulnerable organic steel skin than he could super heat at will and throw as a projectile.
Weapons and Equipment - Armors
Steel had used different armors since his first appearance:
Man of Steel armor: Homemade armor created in homage to Superman.
Shieldless armor: Used after the return of Superman and from the time Steel fought against Hazard and AmerTek.
JLA armor: From the time he joined the JLA, and used a similar yet different "S" shield.
Faceless armor: Similar to the previous one, but with a faceless helmet instead his steal coated face.
Entropy Aegis armor: Forged in Apokolips, was instrumental to bring him back to life. However it was feeding of his soul, so he had to quit using it.
52 armor: Using after Infinity Crisis and during the year of absent of Superman, he used again the El house crest as his own symbol.
Metal-0 Prototype armor: In the New 52 continuity, this was his first armor. He used it to fight Metallo and the Kyptonite Man.
Shield Armor: Using against the Suicide Squad and Doomsday. He would later add a film of liquid steel.
Armor Systems
Helmet systems include broadband communications array, VDU readouts for environmental controls, and retractable one-way visor.
Life-support systems which recycle oxygen supply, remove waste, and convert perspiration to potable water.
Independent heating and freon-compressed air-conditioning units regulate internal temperatures.
Hydraulic servomotors along his exoskeletal joints increase strength and speed tenfold
Air-cooled cannons in his forearms gauntlet fire metal spikes and rubber projectiles. They function as the launching platform for concussive sonic grenades.
Segmented breakaway boots that can be jettisoned if necessary.
Micro-jet engine compressors controlled by Pressure sensitive toggles in his gloves.
Thrusters proved a wide range of airborne manoeuvrability.
Armor is composed of breathable fire-retardant nomex fabric.
Embedded solar cells help keep his armor fully charged.
His suit is made of a composite high-tensile steel alloy treated with micron-thick reflective sealant to shield against microwave and subatomic particle radiation.
Trivia : According to JLA 1000000, his Armor is going to last all the way to the 118th Century and be worn by Steel 7 in the 51st Century, Steelman of New Centurions in the 100th Century and Lancelot Grail, the Cosmic Knight in 118th Century
Hammer Abilities
Remote-controlled
Can alter trajectory or stop mid-throw
Polarizing inertial dampers within hammer increase inertia relative to distance hurled
Magnetically attaches to back of armor.
Segmented handle telescopes into locked position.
⚡ Happy 🎯 Heroclix 💫 Friday! 👽
_____________________________
A year of the shows and performers of the Bijou Planks Theater.
Secret Identity: Dr. John Henry Irons II
Publisher: DC
First appearance: The Adventures of Superman #500 (June 1993)
Created by: Louise Simonson (Writer)
Jon Bogdanove (Artist)
First appearance cover:
www.flickr.com/photos/paprihaven/51737806513/
This is Steel's first appearance, but his namesake, John Henry, appeared in BP 2019 Day 270!
China is a likely winner of the information age supply chain through ecommerce
Peace and Ecommerce, A Global Systems View
Attending a required Masters class “Policy, Law, and Ethics in Information Management” it was only ethical to admit that I worked three months drafting and publishing policy documents for Microsoft, which was now our current class assignment, to research Web based privacy policies and other related documents such as terms of use, conditions of use, code of conduct and learn more about them, with a diary of examples in the wild, and related materials.
The educational idea is that we would then be able to contribute meaningfully to creating policy statements and understand their underlying implications to end users and companies. But I had already done this work professionally, so it would be of questionable value for me to do the coursework on the same topic as if I had never done it before.
The instructor of the class, Glenn Von Tersch assigned me to present information on freedom of speech, a topic I fell in love with, and wanted to research more. But for my final research, I needed something else.
One of my favorite things to discuss in job interviews, or with anyone in earshot, is that I believe that the networked spread of ecommerce over the Web, filtering into even the poorest nations will aid in understanding through communication; that ecommerce leads to peace. In effect I believed that ecommerce contributes in a direct way to peace because it provides the fuel to grow and maintain the Internet. Also it seemed obvious that people and countries that are invested in and perform transactions with each other are less likely to go war against their own interests. Von Tersch said, “These topics you are interested in have more research value than freedom of speech, because 1st amendment rights have been heavily legislated, written about, and researched.” He mentioned something called “The McDonald’s Effect”, how having a McDonald’s outlet or franchise appears to contribute to peace between countries. So peace and ecommerce became my topic.
What I did not expect to discover is in human society war is considered the norm and peace the exception. I did not expect to learn about how ugly the 3rd world poverty creating monster of WTO became according to one economist, even though I live in Seattle where the initial protests were. I was surprised to know how Reganomics theory hangs on, like an old B-grade movie on late night TV, because someone somewhere in the supply chain makes money. I did not expect to find that privacy and intellectual rights are so tightly interwoven, or how they relate to conflict, security, potential world dominance and growth.
I had no way to guess that I would enjoy the study of economics – statistical, yes, nicely so, but dull no; as a global topic it is juicy-rotten, full of international spies, botched security, with rogue pirate computer chips, and unintended consequences.
Who can accurately predict how patterns of global economics relate to peace, privacy, property rights, policies and their outcome in the one breath away from today, the next 20-40 years? Who would think that China - the nation, McDonalds - the corporation, and Chicago crack dealers and their foot soldiers share so much in common when you view their information through these fascinating multi-dimensional facets?
One must be educated to search effectively for information. My knowledge about the nature of search is not just intellectual knowledge; this is conditionalized through my own experience of failure to produce relevant search results within massive library databases.
My education began with a simple query on the Web “peace + ecommerce” which returned from Google “Theses on the Balkan War,” by Mike Haynes, from the International Socialism Journal, “Capitalism is inherently a competitively expansionist and therefore conflict-ridden system” , effectively laying the blame for war on the US and Western capitalist nations and on anyone claiming to be fighting a war with good intentions. I read it, thinking I would not see this relate to my project – also surprising very similar material was presented in the global economic books I read later.
As mentioned the pursuit of ‘education justifies anything’, like looking at any results, so I also clicked on an article entitled “Dinosaur Extinction linked to change in Dinosaur Culture” I read it, and it made sense that something like author Daniel Quinn’s theory of “The Law of Limited Competition” is an operant factor in global markets today, with war being genocide, and countries struggling to win economically laying waste to the very place they live. A notable example is Beijing, the air pollution capital of the world struggling to host the Olympic Games this year. I stored that URL for future reference. The theory and the reality imply that in the race to catch up and compete in global economics, the Chinese are killing themselves off before they arrive at their desired goal.
Then I queried in several of the University of Washington interconnected and extensive library databases on the same thing “peace + ecommerce” and found in all of them, zero returns, “0 Results”. My teacher was surprised and advised me to extrapolate and offer conjecture on what was likely, if few sources were available. I notified a friend studying economics who emailed related articles. Very frustrated I tried related queries and turned up articles on the economies of war . How perverse, I thought. I contacted a librarian through the online tool and chatted with her, explaining my quest. She suggested I query on “economics and public policy”. “How is public policy related to peace and ecommerce?” I asked. “Try Conflict Resolution” she replied.
Thus the reason I couldn't find 'peace' is because the term used, in educated facet writers’ metadata which is designed to expose information to search, is 'conflict resolution' or ‘conflict prevention’. Oddly the social implication is that war is the norm. Maybe peace doesn’t exist anywhere. A reason I used 'ecommerce' instead of 'global economics' is due to consulting in that field for technology firms. Searching again returned few meaningful results -- the user interface was strange, very slow, and clunky. I longed for Google .
Then I remembered the “McDonald's Effect” our teacher mentioned, and quickly I located a reference on the Web, but it was deeply nested in a staggering number of oddly worded articles. I stopped without uncovering where the concept originated. The next night I searched again, and found the author Thomas Friedman and his related books. I briefly scanned all the related Wikipedia articles. I realized quickly that to become educated enough on my two topics, I had to some understanding of economics. This is because even to scrape by enough to search among the many interrelated topics one needs to know the central facet. Very esoteric topics require specialized language and deep knowledge of the subject.
More searches turned up substantial evidence that China lags behind other nations in ecommerce.
For years I worked in ecommerce designing interfaces (for Microsoft 2003 and Amazon 2007-2008), and working with supply chain software (as a director of an ecommerce company). But because I didn't realize that one could understand it better, and that it is not as dull as computer science and its requisite cash register receipts , I never tried.
The "McDonald's Effect" is named after "The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention" created by the author Thomas Friedman's slightly in cheek comments and his book, “The Lexus and the Olive Tree” (the update now titled "The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization").
Those books led me to order Amazon ecommerce overnight book delivery, and I read, 'The World Is Flat?: A Critical Analysis of New York Times Bestseller by Thomas Friedman', 'Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything' , 'Making Globalization Work' which reports that there is hope in the world for peace. The Nobel Prize winning author helps the reader extrapolate based on significant knowledge of statistics and global economic analysis through his personal, professional, and academic connections.
Common Name Academic Name Book Title
McDonalds Effect Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention,
aka democratic peace theory Lexus and the Olive Tree
Dell Theory The Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention The World is Flat, A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century
peace conflict prevention
ecommerce global economics
"In his book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas L. Friedman proposed The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention, observing that no two countries with a McDonald's franchise had ever gone to war with one another, a version of the democratic peace theory."
"The Dell Theory stipulates: No two countries that are both part of a major global supply chain, like Dell's, will ever fight a war against each other as long as they are both part of the same global supply chain."
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Readings
The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas Friedman
Larry Page, Google Co-Founder quoted by Thomas Friedman, p. 179, entire paragraph. “The more global Google’s user base becomes, the more powerful a flattener it becomes…”
From Friedman’s conversation with Google’s director of operations in China, Kai-Fu Lee, p. 181 entire paragraph ”In time individuals will have the power to find anything in the world at any time on all kinds of devices – and that will be enormously empowering.”
The Quiet Crisis, entire pages 368, 369, chapter on research in China, beating out American innovation in research. “The Chinese government gave Microsoft the right to grant post-docs.” “They work through their holidays because their dream is to get to Microsoft.”
“What are those?” She said the researchers get them from Microsoft every time they invent something that gets patented. How do you say Ferrari in Chinese.”
p. 370 “… whether we are going to implement or China is going to beat us to our own plan.” Council on Creativeness, regarding the Innovate America report, comment to Friedman by Deborah Wince-Smith.
Introduction p. X, Thomas Friedman, “Of course the world is not flat. But it isn’t round anymore either. I have been using the simple notion of flatness to describe how more people can plug, play, compete, connect, and collaborate with more equal power than ever before – which is what is happening in the world. … the essential impact of all the technological changes coming together in the world today. … My use of the word flat doesn’t mean equal (as in ‘equal incomes’) and never did. It means equalizing.”
The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization by Thomas Friedman
Forward to the Anchor Edition, Thomas Friedman, “… my Golden Arches Theory – that no two countries that both have McDonald’s have ever fought a war again each other since they each got their McDonald’s.”
p. 7 “When I say that globalization has replaced the Cold War as the defining international system, what exactly do I mean?”
p. 8 “The cold war system was symbolized by a single word, the wall … “You can’t handle the truth,” Says Nickleson. “Son we live in a world that has walls…”
p. 8 “This Globalization system is also characterized by a single word: the Web. … we have gone from a system built around divisions and walls to a system built around integration and webs.”
p. 19 “What is information arbitrage? Arbitrage is a market terms. Technically speaking, it refers to the simultaneous buying and selling of the same securities, commodities or foreign exchange in different markets to predict from unequal prices and unequal information. The successful arbitrageur is a trader that knows…”
Chapter 3, p. 29. The Lexus and the Olive Tree
Photo: Jerusalem, December 29, 1998: Simon Biton places his cellular phone up to the Western Wall so a relative in France can say a prayer at the holy site. (Photo: Menahem Kahana, Agence France-Presse) [caused my spontaneous tears]
p. 47 “advertising jingle “Let us put a bank in your home” … office … newspaper … bookstore … brokerage firm … factory … investment firm … school in our homes.”
The World Is Flat?: A Critical Analysis of New York Times Bestseller by Thomas Friedman by Ronald Aronica and Mtetwa Ramdoo
Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Chapter 5 “Why do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms?” p. 89 “So how did the gang work? An awful lot like most American businesses, actually, though perhaps none more so than McDonald’s. In fact, if you were to hold a McDonald’s organizational chart and a Black Disciples org chart side by side, you could hardly tell the difference.”
p. 46 “There is a tale, “The ring of Gygnes,” … could any man resist the temptation of evil if he knew his acts could not be witnessed?”
p. 58 “Attendance at Klan meetings began to fall … of all the ideas Kennedy thought up to fight bigotry, this campaign was clearly the cleverest. … He turned the Klan’s secrecy against itself by making its private information public: he converted heretofore precious knowledge into ammunition for mockery.”
Making Globalization Work by Joseph E. Stiglitz
My favorite – the entire book was used to write this paper.
Web Resources
Please view attached Appendix www.crito.uci.edu/pubs/20... regarding the reasons one study concludes that hold China back in ecommerce.
[1] Waiting until the time is right, one is good at something, or has collected all the facts, without making any attempts isn’t effective. I had to begin someplace even if it is incomplete so I started with the World Wide Web. “If something is worth doing well, at all, it is also worth doing poorly.” I am not sure where that quote came from but I read it in an article where someone presented their reasoning.
[2] You never know where something will come from in free rights actions or what it will mean later. For example the person at the center of the Alaskan “Bong hits For Jesus” case, Frederick Morse, now teaches English to Chinese students in China. As an adult it appears he has his head on straight in his wish to help others communicate, more so that those he fought in court.
From the CNN news article, published June 26, 2007, “In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens said, "This case began with a silly nonsensical banner, (and) ends with the court inventing out of whole cloth a special First Amendment rule permitting the censorship of any student speech that mentions drugs, so long as someone could perceive that speech to contain a latent pro-drug message." He was backed by Justices David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.” www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/06/2... downloaded March 13, 2008
[3] Pentagon attack last June stole an "amazing amount" of data” Joel Hruska Published: March 06, 2008 - 07:13PM CT Pentagon attack last June stole an "amazing amount" of data... from “blueton tips us to a brief story about recent revelations from the Pentagon which indicate that the attack on their computer network in June 2007 was more serious than they originally claimed. A DoD official recently remarked that the hackers were able to obtain an "amazing amount" of data.
We previously discussed rumors that the Chinese People's Liberation Army was behind the attack. “CNN has an article about Chinese hackers who claim to have successfully stolen information from the Pentagon.” Quoting Ars Technica: "The intrusion was first detected during an IT restructuring that was underway at the time. By the time it was detected, malicious code had been in the system for at least two months, and was propagating via a known Windows exploit. The bug spread itself by e-mailing malicious payloads from one system on the network to another." Via email from Jeremy Hansen on Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters
[4] “Chinese backdoors "hidden in router firmware" Matthew Sparkes, News [Security], Tuesday 4th March 2008 3:17PM, Tuesday 4th March 2008 Chinese backdoors "hidden in router firmware"... The UK's communication networks could be at risk from Chinese backdoors hidden in firmware, according to a security company.
SecureTest believes spyware could be easily built into Asian-manufactured devices such as switches and routers, providing a simple backdoor for companies or governments in the Far East to listen in on communications.
"Organisations should change their security policies and procedures immediately," says Ken Munro, managing director of SecureTest. "This is a very real loophole that needs closing. The government needs to act fast."
"Would they buy a missile from China, then deploy it untested into a Western missile silo and expect it to function when directed at the Far East? That's essentially what they're doing by installing network infrastructure produced in the Far East, such as switches and routers, untested into government and corporate networks."
Late last year MI5 sent a letter to 300 UK companies warning of the threat from Chinese hackers attempting to steal sensitive data. Reports at the time suggested that both Rolls Royce and Royal Dutch Shell had been subjected to "sustained spying assaults".
The issue has been debated by government for some time. In 2001, the then foreign secretary Robin Cook, warned that international computer espionage could pose a bigger threat to the UK than terrorism.
[5] Chip Piracy Might End With Public Key Cryptography. A Web Exclusive from Windows IT Pro Mark Joseph Edwards, Security News, InstantDoc #98491, Windows IT Pro “A group of researchers from two universities have proposed a way to prevent chip piracy. The technique uses public key cryptography to lock down circuitry.
In a whitepaper published this month, Jarrod A. Roy and Igor L. Markov (of the University of Michigan) and Farinaz Koushanfar (of Rice University) outline the problem and details of how their proposed technology will help solve it.
Chip designers sometimes outsource manufacturing and that opens the door to piracy, should someone copy the design plans. The copied plans are then used to created 'clone' chips for a wide range of devices, including computers, MP3 players, and more.
"Pirated chips are sometimes being sold for pennies, but they are exactly the same as normal chips," said Igor Markov, associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan. "They were designed in the United States and usually manufactured overseas, where intellectual property law is more lax. Someone copies the blueprints or manufactures the chips without authorization."
The groups propose the use of public key cryptography, which would be embedded into circuitry designs. Each chip would produce its own random identification number, which would be generated during an activation phase. Chips would not function until activated, and activation would take place in a manner somewhat similar to that seen with many applications in use today. Via email from Jeremy Hansen.Original source - EPIC: Ending Piracy of Integrated Circuits Jarrod A. Roy, Farinaz Koushanfar‡ and Igor L. Markov, The University of Michigan, Department of EECS, 2260 Hayward Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2121, Rice University, ECE and CS Departments, 6100 South Main, Houston, TX 77005 www.eecs.umich.edu/~imark... March 06, 2008
[6] Chapter 5 “Why do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms?” p. 89 “So how did the gang work? An awful lot like most American businesses, actually, though perhaps none more so than McDonald’s. In fact, if you were to hold a McDonald’s organizational chart and a Black Disciples org chart side by side, you could hardly tell the difference.”
[7] Mike Haynes, Theses on the Balkan War, “Capitalism is inherently a competitively expansionist and therefore conflict ridden system” Issue 83 of INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISM JOURNAL Published Summer 1999 Copyright © International Socialism, pubs.socialistreviewindex... accessed March 3, 2008.
[8] Readings p.7 “When I say that globalization has replaced the Cold War as the defining international system, what exactly do I mean?” p. 8 “The cold war system was symbolized by a single word, the wall … “You can’t handle the truth,” Says Nicholson. “Son we live in a world that has walls…”p. 8 “This Globalization system is also characterized by a single word: the Web. … we have gone from a system built around divisions and walls to a system built around integration and webs.”
“What is information arbitrage? Arbitrage is a market term. Technically speaking, it refers to the simultaneous buying and selling of the same securities, commodities or foreign exchange in different markets to predict from unequal prices and unequal information. The successful arbitrageur is a trader that knows…”
[9] Shared by miles on Feb 13, 2006 3:39 pm that I located through a Gmail...
[10] “As it gears up to host the 2008 Olympic Games Beijing has been awarded an unwelcome new accolade: the air pollution capital of the world.Satellite data has revealed that the city is one of the worst environmental victims of China's spectacular economic growth, which has brought with it air pollution levels that are blamed for more than 400,000 premature deaths a year” Satellite data reveals Beijing as air pollution capital of world
[11] “What we call ‘war’ is not all bad,” according to Virginia Johnson a former governmental planning consultant, who reminded me, “Without conflict there is no life. You don’t want 'perfect peace' there is no movement. The human standard is actually what we broadly call 'war'; because without conflict, change, motion, growth we would learn nothing, we would have nothing, we would be dead.” Personal conversation, March 14, 2008, Seattle, Washington
[12] Readings Larry Page, Google Co-Founder quoted by Thomas Friedman, p. 179, entire paragraph. “The more global Google’s user base becomes, the more powerful a flattener it becomes…”
[13] Ranganathan, faceted classification, Five Laws of Library Science, S. R. Ranganathan - Wikipedia, www.boxesandarrows.com/vi... Personality, Matter, Energy, Space, and Time. (PMEST)
Personality—what the object is primarily “about.” This is considered the “main facet.”
Matter—the material of the object
Energy—the processes or activities that take place in relation to the object
Space—where the object happens or exists
Time—when the object occurs
[14] www.crito.uci.edu/pubs/20...
[15] I learned about supply chain management mainly from the supply chain wizard Marc Lamonica, Regional Chief Financial Officer at Sutter Connect, Sutter Shared Services, and our mutual friend Web entrepreneur and ecommerce product engineer Adam Kalsey, and Sacramento State University teacher Stuart Williams, of Blitzkeigsoftware.net, <a href="http://blitzkriegsoftware.net/St..." blitzkriegsoftware.net/St...
[16] Introduction to Computer software classes in the 1970s consisted of FORTRAN cash register receipt programming, which is by implication is what ecommerce actually does.
[17] Freakonomics is a must read book of comedy and connections.
[18] Golden Arches, definition on Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Golden Arches - Wikipedia, accessed March 13, 2008
[19] Readings “The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century” by Thomas Friedman, p. 421
[20] Readings p. 19 “What is information arbitrage? Arbitrage is a market term. Technically speaking, it refers to the simultaneous buying and selling of the same securities, commodities or foreign exchange in different markets to predict from unequal prices and unequal information. The successful arbitrageur is a trader that knows…”
[21] “Conservation groups say acid rain falls on a third of China's territory and 70% of rivers and lakes are so full of toxins they can no longer be used for drinking water.” Satellite data reveals Beijing as air pollution capital of world, Jonathan Watts in Beijing The Guardian, Monday October 31 2005, Satellite data reveals Beijing as air pollution capital of world
[22] “…After watching Jobs unveil the iPhone, Alan Kay, a personal computer pioneer who has worked with him, put it this way who has worked with him, put it this way: "Steve understands desire." ... Fortune CNN Magazine March 5, 2008, http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/02/......
accessed March 5, 2008
[23] Mac Margolis, “How Brazil Reversed the Curse, Latin America used to suffer the deepest gap between rich and poor. Now it is the only region narrowing the divide. Upwardly Mobile: Middle-class Brazilians” How Brazil Reversed the Curse NEWSWEEK Nov 12, 2007 Issue
[24] Mike Haynes, Theses on the Balkan War, “Capitalism is inherently a competitively expansionist and therefore conflict ridden system” Issue 83 of INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISM JOURNAL Published Summer 1999 Copyright © International Socialism, pubs.socialistreviewindex... accessed March 3, 2008. “The optimism that the end of the Cold War might lead to a new world order has been shown to be false. The hope that it would release a peace dividend that would enable a new generosity in international relations has been belied by experience, as some of us sadly predicted it would.3 Though the arms burden has declined, there has been no outpouring of aid to Eastern Europe, no new 'Marshall Plan'. The result has been that the burden of change has fallen on the broad masses of the population, wrecking lives across the old Soviet bloc in general and in one of its poorest components in south eastern Europe in particular. According to the World Bank, the number of people living in poverty (defined as having less than $4 a day) in the former Soviet bloc has risen from 14 million in 1990 to 147 million in 1998.4 Worse still, the advanced countries have continued to reduce further the miserly sums they devote to aid to the even poorer areas of the world. The OECD countries are rhetorically committed to an aid target of 0.7 percent of their output. In 1990 they gave 0.35 percent, and by 1997 the figure had fallen to 0.22 percent, with the United States under this heading giving 0.09 percent of its output, a figure in startling contrast to the expenditure devoted to destruction.”5
[25] Readings p. 46 “There is a tale, “The ring of Gygnes,” … could any man resist the temptation of evil if he knew his acts could not be witnessed?”
[26] Readings p. 58 “Attendance at Klan meetings began to fall … of all the ideas Kennedy thought up to fight bigotry, this campaign was clearly the cleverest. … He turned the Klan’s secrecy against itself by making its private information public: he converted heretofore precious knowledge into ammunition for mockery.”
Some of the research in this paper on piracy was provided by Jeremy Hansen of Seattle, Washington, USA. Mr. Hansen's email regarding economics served to inform me on this topic. Teacher: Glenn Von Tersch.
The latest issue of the Washington Free Press that Spark has obtained is Vol 2 No 18 that is undated but published around Nov. 1, 1967.
It is a special edition that covered the massive October 21, 1967 demonstration at the Pentagon—the largest antiwar demonstration in the Washington, D.C. area up to that point in time.
This issue of the Free Press does in-depth reporting on an attempt to gain access to the Pentagon and violent attacks on demonstrators by U.S. Marshals, as well as extensive photographs of the demonstration.
Their reporters somehow missed the “piss-in” at the Pentagon. Since there were no bathrooms or portable commodes, demonstrators organized a spot to urinate on the Pentagon building immortalized in the Root Boy Slim song “Used to be a Radical.”
This color scan of this issue replaces a black & white version in the Spark collection that was missing a page.
The Washington Free Press published from 1966 to 1969 and became the first of the 1960s “underground” newspapers in the Washington, D.C. area.
It began as an intercollegiate newspaper in the area and in April 1967 began publishing as an area-wide alternative newspaper.
It started as an eight-page weekly tabloid publishing investigative pieces and exposes not covered by the mainstream press but in a writing style not much different from than the three daily newspapers that served the city.
By 1968 it was publishing a 24 or 28-page issue every two weeks or so and had adopted a more free-form style of journalism where opinion was mixed freely with reporting. Its politics evolved from a left-liberal bent to youth culture to revolutionary over a three-year span.
Under pressure from authorities, internal issues, and from the start-up alternative newspaper Quicksilver Times, the Free Press began faltering in its last year of publication. It moved to a monthly and then abandoned a regular schedule. Its once lively content began to fade and it ceased publication in December 1969.
During its existence it ran in-depth pieces on the rise of black nationalism at Howard University and in-depth interviews with black nationalist Stokely Carmichael and long-time civil rights activist Virginia Durr.
It featured regular columns on how to avoid the draft and desert from the armed services, dispensed advice on drugs and carried music and film reviews.
It wrote an early in-depth article on the gay scene in the city and published the initial appeals to form a women’s liberation group in the area as well as covering the rise of the Yippies.
Their vivid descriptions of events featured writing like this from Frank Speltz covering the anti-freeway protests in the city:
“Attention SDS and SNCC organizers: if ever you control a turf as tightly as the Emergency Committee on the Transportation Crisis (ECTC) does, you will know it by the following signs: you will drive a nine-man city council from its seats several times in impotent fear and trembling, you will involve every age group and every political spectrum, you will turn out 300-400 non-movement adults who are angry and unafraid. The difference between an anti-draft demonstration of those of ECTC are the difference between a picnic and a rumble.” ---WFP, March 27, 1968.
They briefly published daily during the 1968 city-wide newspaper strike of the three dailies and covered in-depth the issue of discrimination by the all-white craft unions at the newspaper—an issue that would later haunt the unions during their failed 1975 strike at the Washington Post.
They ran a special edition covering the 1967 March on the Pentagon that exposed the brutality of U.S. Marshals and military police. Other coverage that went further than the mainstream press included conditions in Anacostia, the 1967 convention of the National Student Association following revelations of CIA funding, the protest activities surrounding Nixon’s 1969 Inauguration, police brutality, prison conditions, the shocking details of the split between Marion Barry and Rufus “Catfish” Mayfield, and the demonstrations at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention and subsequent conspiracy indictments.
Perhaps most famously, the newspaper broke the story of the 13-year-old daughter of law-and-order Vice President Spiro Agnew’s bust for drugs at the Cathedral school with 10 other young women.
The Free Press also documented the attempts by authorities to suppress the newspaper that included frequent arrest of its street sellers, the prison beating of a jailed reporter, the assault on one of its photographers by a D.C. narcotics detective, the jailing of vendors for violating so-called obscenity laws and the attempt by Montgomery County judge James Pugh to invoke Maryland’s anti-communist Ober Law against the newspaper. Toward the end of its existence, the District police and/or the FBI broke into their office by smashing a hole in the adjacent men’s room, stole the paper’s files on undercover police officers and ransacked the suite.
Some of the prominent staff included Margie Stamberg, Dick Ochs, Frank Speltz, Art Grossman, Michael Grossman, Sheila Ryan, Bill Blum, Elaine Fuller, Cathy Wilkerson, Mundo Bravo, General Marsbars, and Fooman Zybar.
This collection is mostly derived from the on-line collection of the D.C. public library and contains only a half dozen issues of our own plus fragments of other issues. There are currently no issues of the inter-collegiate edition published during its first year of existence, but most issues are represented during the paper’s city-wide run from 1967-69.
The Free Press volume number began in March, except that Volume 2 ran for two years 1967-68 and 1968-69 and didn’t change until April 1, 1969.
Unfortunately, many issues have been copied in black and white only, some apparently from microfilm, and pages are missing from many of the issues. Where color was used, it often does not reflect the actual colors used in publication. If you have copies of this newspaper or know where to obtain them, please contact us at Washington_area_spark@yahoo.com.
However for activists of today, history buffs or researchers, this collection provides a valuable window into a time of fervent social justice activity and alternative culture.
Vol. 2 No. 1 – March 26 1967 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1967-03-26-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 2 – April 2, 1967 – missing pages - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1967-04-02-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 3 & 4 – April 19, 1967 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1967-04-19-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 5 – April 26, 1967 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1967-04-26-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 6 – May 5, 1967 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1967-05-05-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 7 – May 22, 1967 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1967-05-22-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 8 – June 6, 1967 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1967-06-06-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 9 – June 14, 1967 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1967-06-14-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 10 – Not available at this time
Vol. 2 No. 11 – June 30, 1967 – missing page - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1967-06-30-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 12 – July 21, 1967 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1967-07-21-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 13 – August 4, 1967 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1967-08-04-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 14 – August 20, 1967 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1967-08-20-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 15 – September 3, 1967 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1967-09-03-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 16 – October 14, 1967 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1967-10-14-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 17 – October 31, 1967 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1967-10-31-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 18 – November 3, 1967 ca. – Extra – color scan - washingtonareaspark.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/1967-1...
Vol. 2 No. 19 – November 23, 1967 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1967-11-23-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 20 – December 12, 1967 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1967-12-12-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 21 – December 31, 1967 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1967-12-31-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 22 – January 14, 1968 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1968-01-14-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 23 – February 3, 1968 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1968-02-03-vo...
Vol. 2 No. 24 – February 20, 1968 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1968-02-20-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 25 – February 29, 1968 – pages 1 & 2 from color scan - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1968-02-29-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 26 – March 7, 1968 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1968-03-07-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 27 – Not available at this time
Vol. 2 No. 28 – March 27, 1968 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1968-03-27-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 29 – Not available at this time
Vol. 2 No. 30 – May 8, 1968 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1968-05-08-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 31 – May 18, 1968 – missing pages - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1968-05-18-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 32 – Not available at this time
Vol. 2 No. 33 – Not available at this time
Vol. 2 No. 34 – July 16, 1968 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1968-07-16-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 35 – July 26, 1968 Special Edition - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1968-07-26-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 36 – July 27, 1968, Special Edition - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1968-07-27-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 37 – August 1, 1968 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1968-08-01-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 38 – Not available at this time
Vol. 2 No. 39 – September 1, 1968 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1968-09-01-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 40 – September 15, 1968, missing pages - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1968-09-15-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 41 – October 1, 1968 – missing pages - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1968-10-01-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 42 – color scan – page 21-22 missing top half - washingtonareaspark.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/1968-1...
Vol. 2 No. 43 – November 1, 1968 – missing pages - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1968-11-01-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 44 – November 15, 1968 – missing pages - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1968-11-15-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 45 – December 1, 1968 – missing page - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1968-12-01-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 46 – December 16, 1968 – color scan - washingtonareaspark.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/1968-1...
Vol. 2 No. 47 – January 1, 1969 – missing pages - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1969-01-01-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 48 – January 16, 1969 –missing pages - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1969-01-16-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 49 – February 1, 1969 – missing pages -https://washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1969-02-01-wfp-vol-2-no-49.pdf
Vol. 2 No. 50 – February 15, 1969 – from color scan - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1969-02-16-wf...
Vol. 2 No. 51 – Not available at this time
Vol. 2 No. 52 – March, 15, 1969 – from color scan - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1969-03-15-vo...
Vol. 3 No. 1 – April 1, 1969 –missing page - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1969-04-01-wf...
Vol. 3 No. 2 – color scan – some pages damaged - washingtonareaspark.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/196920...
Vol. 3 No. 3 – May 1, 1969 – washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1969-05-01-wf...
Vol. 3 No. 4 – May 16, 1969 –missing pages - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1969-05-16-wf...
Vol. 3 No. 5 – June 1, 1969 – from color scan - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1969-06-01-wf...
Vol. 3 No. 6 – July 1, 1969 – missing pages - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1969-07-01-wf...
Vol. 3 No. 7 – August 1, 1969 – missing pages - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1969-08-01-wf...
Vol. 3 No. 8 – August (late) 1969 – missing pages - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1969-08-late-...
Vol. 3 No. 9 – September (early) 1969 – missing pages - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1969-09-early...
Vol. 3 No. 10 – October (early) 1969 – missing pages - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1969-10-early...
Vol. 3 No. 11 – November (early) 1969 – pages 11-14 from color scan, missing pages - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1969-11-early...
Vol. 3 No. 12 – December (Christmas) 1969 - washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1969-12-chris...
For other alternative periodicals, see washingtonareaspark.com/contributors/periodicals/
For other activist documents, see washingtonareaspark.com/contributors/
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsmGkArk4
Hard copies were donated by Robert “Bob” Simpson and Craig Simpson and subsequently color-scanned. Most digital images are from the D.C. Public Library Dig DC Collection.