The Meeting Of The Metals

Another quasi-movie-continuity Superman piece, this time with John Henry Irons smackin' some sense into John Corben just like in the Animated Series episode "Heavy Metal".

This time, like with Bizarro, I went back to the WB design work for the films made and unmade, which in this case applies to Metallo as he's based on the version seen in the "Superman Returns" video game.

Steel's another story; for him I based his armor on the Ultra Shield Superman figure in Kenner's "Superman" action figure line of the mid-1990s. This line was unique from Kenner's Bat-stuff as the variations of the main hero's costume in the Superman line were mostly based on suits he'd actually worn in the comics - Hunter/Prey Superman's outfit was based on the battle gear he wore in the story of the same name depicting his first rematch with Doomsday; Laser Superman was Kal-El in his black "resurrection" suit; and Ultra Shield Superman was based on the armor he had to briefly wear in the 1990 storyarc after Luthor sapped his powers with red Kryptonite. Although there were figures in this toy line of Steel's original suit and the suit he wore for much of his own comic's run, I didn't think they'd translate very well into a real three-dimensional suit (I supposed you could say they did try in the "Steel" movie with Shaq, but open-palmed gloves and a tricked-out hammer...ugh...)

Incidentally, the poses on this one were again taken from art from MAD Magazine's Superman II parody, [link] with another manipped-20-times-over backdrop.