Born In Knoxville. Tennessee, in 1953. John Henry Irons was four years old when he and his older brother watched their neighbor’s house be set on fire by the Ku Klux Klan. Father and husband John Wilson was the only one to escape the blaze, while his wife and daughter died. Although John Henry and his brother told the police they had witnessed the Ku Klux Klan start the fire and then try and lynch their neighbor, the police accused John Wilson of setting the fire himself and killing his own family, Not long after this tragedy, a vigilante appeared, wielding two hammers, wearing an executioner’s hood, and waging war against the Ku Klux Klan. In the middle of this war, the vigilante was murdered. No one was ever arrested, and the police tried to bury the incident. However, not long after, reporters broke the story behind the deaths and cover-up, causing a national scandal and marking yet another stop in the Civil Rights Movement. John Wilson was compared to the legendary John Henry and thus had a name John Henry Irons shared. That day, Irons was approached by a mysterious elderly man and given one of John Wilson’s hammers so that he might find the last of Wilson’s killers, which he did. John Henry Irons went missing himself a week later. Although several civil rights groups joined the search for the young man, he was never found, Heartbroken, the Irons family moved to Metropolis. John Henry Irons’s older brother was Butter Irons, the grandfather of John Henry Irons II, aka the hero Steel, who was named after his missing great-uncle.
John Henry Jr wields one of the hammers forged by John Henry. The hammer gave John Henry Jr. great strength, was seemingly impervious, and could create intense shock waves when striking the ground. The mysterious elderly man who gave John Henry Jr. the hammer urged him to seek out the other, believing there to be even greater power when both of John Henry’s hammers were wielded together. The other hammer was never found.