Steel: Why the Cheesy DC Movie Gets Better Every Year

Kindness is the new punk rock. That’s the message of Superman, James Gunn‘s universally-loved, big budget 2025 film about the Man of Steel. But decades earlier, a much less-loved, much cheaper, Superman-adjacent movie came to the same conclusion. And while it was mocked at the time, that film managed to marry the message to a tone that’s all the more valuable today.

Nothing demonstrates that sense of wholesomeness like the way the hero reveals himself in the 1997 Shaquille O’Neal vehicle Steel. Midway through the film, a rich couple gets mugged by a street tough (a shocking pre-Deadwood John Hawkes) and runs off to examine his ill-gotten gains. But as soon as he finds an allyway filled with steaming pipes and empty boxes to hide away, the mugger hears a voice, promising that if he returns the couple’s belongings, there will be no problem.

“I ain’t got no problem!” sneers the mugger.

“Oh yes you do,” responds Steel, striding onto the screen and directly into a hero shot.

Although not nearly as inspiring or well-constructed as anything in any modern superhero movie, let alone a top-level one like Superman, the aw-shucks cheesiness of Steel feels even more remarkable today.

Forging Steel

Steel, the comic book character and the movie, began life in the most unlikely of ways. The comic book character came first, introduced as part of the Reign of the Supermen storyline from 1993. The final part of the Death of Superman event, Reign of the Supermen saw four individuals arrive in the absence of Kal-El of Krypton, each claiming to be the new Superman. While three of the four had more or less “legitimate” claims (one was a teenaged clone of Superman, another a Kryptonian artificial intelligence who took Superman’s form, and the third was a cyborg villain who modeled himself after Superman), John Henry Irons carried on the spirit of Superman’s never-ending battle.

Irons made his debut in 1993’s Adventures of Superman #500, written by Louise Simonson and penciled by Jon Bogdanove, an engineer and inventor who once was rescued by Superman, Irons created a suit of armor to protect his neighborhood after the hero’s death. When the real Superman returned to life, Irons stood beside him and helped ward off the threat of the Cyborg Superman, earning the Man of Steel’s blessing and taking the code name Steel.

None of that makes it into the movie Steel, which stars O’Neal as Irons, now a former weapons dealer, who comes back to his home neighborhood after an accident leaves his best friend Susan Sparks a.k.a. Sparky (Annabeth Gish) in a wheelchair. Back at home, Irons realizes that former colleague Nathanial Burke (Judd Nelson) is arming local street gangs with high-tech weaponry, and so with the help of Sparky and eccentric inventor Uncle Joe (Richard Roundtree), Irons creates his own armor to be come Steel!

A Good Heart Under Metallic Armor

As that plot summary suggests, Steel has even less depth than your average DC comic of the early 1990s, veering more towards Saturday morning cartoons. Irons is an unfailingly good man, who takes all the blame for Sparky’s injury (even though it was more due to Burke’s meddling), and who loves to support matriarch Grandma Odessa (Irma P. Hall) and just wants to inspire the boys in his community.

While it’s unlikely that Shaq could handle playing even a little more depth in his character, the flatness works for the type of story that Steel wants to tell. Director and writer Kenneth Johnson, best known for the V TV series, understands his heroes and villains in the simplest terms. Good guys try to help the vulnerable, while bad guys seek their own profit, no matter how many people get hurt along the way. There’s a clarity to Steel that fits a superhero story, certainly more so than some attempts to add layers of philosophical babbling to tales about guys in bright tights (see: another Superman movie with “Steel” in the title).

Furthermore, Johnson surrounds Shaq with a supporting cast who can bring the material to life. Former Brat Packer Nelson chews the scenery as Burke, giving his best cackle at every opportunity, especially when he’s working alongside classic ’90s hoodlums, the same type of guys that Jean Claude Van Damme and Wesley Snipes would beat up. Gish manages to sneak notes of genuine melancholy into Sparks, without ever overburdening the one-note script, giving it just enough subtly to make up for her co-star’s lacks.

Best of all is Richard Roundtree’s take on Uncle Joe. Roundtree doesn’t seem to be sure of what’s going on in the movie, and he doesn’t let that bother him. He’s just happy to be involved in the goofy production, and his genuine delight at all of the crazy plot machinations infect the viewer. Whenever he flashes his incredible smile at the latest piece of junk that Uncle Joe gives Irons, we get over pretensions and laugh along with him.

Roundtree’s on-screen joy helps sell the movie’s general tone. Steel doesn’t involve a threat to the galaxy, nor do the bad guys do 9/11-levels of damage to the city. Irons has no internal evil to overcome, and Burke doesn’t represent some real-world villain who harms actual people. It’s just a movie about a good guy doing his best to help people… which, you know, is what superheroes are fundamentally all about.

Shining More Every Day

As close readers might notice, the character Steel had only been around for a few years when the Shaquille O’Neal movie came out, and was not yet the fan favorite he’s become today. But the character quickly caught the eye of music legend Quincy Jones, who liked the idea of a superhero who would appeal to Black kids. Together with his creative partner David Salzman, Jones enlisted journeyman director Kenneth Johnson to put together a movie based on Steel. And to give the film some star power, they got Superman superfan and NBA star O’Neal to take the lead role.

Of course, O’Neal ended up being more of a blessing than a curse, as he gives a performance as stiff and uncharismatic as the titular metal. Steel flopped in theaters and continues to be a regular on bad movie podcasts today, an embarrassing remnant of the days before Kevin Feige and James Gunn were making superhero films. But despite Shaq’s many limitations, Steel‘s small stakes and clarity of vision could give these big names a few reminders about how to tell a superhero story, making the movie far more enjoyable today than it was thirty years ago.

Maybe its kindness isn’t quite punk rock, but Steel‘s wholesomeness is pleasant jazz, and that’s sometimes preferable to the Wagnerian bombast of so many modern superhero movies.