Citizen Steel

Nathan Heywood is the grandson of Commander Steel and a member of a family with a long heroic legacy. Before becoming a hero himself, Nathan had been a promising football player at Ohio State until a severe knee injury and an undiagnosed infection resulted in the amputation of his leg. His life changed again when the Fourth Reich attacked a Heywood family reunion as part of Vandal Savage’s campaign against the descendants of Golden Age heroes. During the attack, Nathan fought back against Reichsmark and was splashed with the villain’s liquid metal blood.

The metal was gradually absorbed into Nathan’s body and rebuilt him into a being of living steel, even forming a new metallic leg where his limb had been lost. His transformation gave him enormous physical power but also left him unable to properly feel texture, temperature, or pressure. Doctor Mid-Nite and the Justice Society helped him understand what had happened, while an alloy containment suit was created to keep his tremendous strength under control. Nathan joined the Justice Society in the battle against the Fourth Reich and, when others assumed he would inherit the Commander Steel name, he rejected the title and described himself as an ordinary citizen. Power Girl responded by calling him Citizen Steel, and the name remained with him.

Citizen Steel continued serving with the Justice Society despite the difficulties of living inside a body whose strength and weight made ordinary physical interaction dangerous. He fought alongside veteran heroes against threats far beyond conventional criminals and proved capable of standing against exceptionally powerful enemies. His place within the Society gave Nathan a way to continue the Heywood family’s heroic tradition without simply becoming another Commander Steel.

Appearance: Citizen Steel has fair skin and a tall heavily muscular build with broad shoulders, a thick chest, powerful arms, and large legs. His green eyes are beneath the openings of a tight fitted cowl. The cowl is patterned in red, white, silver, and blue with angular sections around the brow, cheeks, and jaw. A tall blue fin rises vertically from the crown of the head.

His costume is a skin-tight full-body suit with a reflective metallic finish. The torso is predominantly silver-white with broad red sections across the shoulders, ribs, and sides. A large blue star covers the center of the chest with blue and white striping extending downward along the abdomen. The material clings closely to the musculature of his chest, arms, and waist. His forearms and hands are covered by bright blue gloves that extend nearly to the elbows.

The lower half continues the same fitted metallic costume. Blue trunks cover the hips while red, white, silver, and blue panels run along the thighs. Tall blue boots cover the lower legs and feet with smooth fitted surfaces and slightly reinforced shapes around the ankles and calves.

Personality: Nathan is earnest and grounded, with far less interest in heroic prestige than his family history might suggest. His transformation forces him to constantly restrain himself because casual physical contact can become dangerous when he cannot accurately judge how much force he is applying. The loss of normal touch also weighs heavily on him, making his powers something he must learn to live with rather than a simple gift. Despite that burden, Nathan chooses to use what happened to him to protect others instead of withdrawing from the world.

The Heywood family shapes much of Nathan’s identity, particularly the legacy of his grandfather, Commander Steel. He respects that history without wanting to simply inherit his grandfather’s name or become defined by it. The Justice Society becomes another important part of his life after Doctor Mid-Nite helps him survive his transformation and Power Girl gives him the Citizen Steel name. Within the team, Nathan develops from someone suddenly trapped in an unfamiliar body into a dependable member capable of standing beside heroes with far more experience.

Citizen Steel possesses Organic Steel Physiology, with his skin, muscles, bones, and other tissues transformed into an extraordinarily durable metallic substance. This gives him immense superhuman strength and allows him to withstand tremendous physical punishment. His metallic body is extremely dense and heavy, making even his footsteps powerful enough to damage ordinary surfaces when his weight is not properly controlled.

His transformation also makes him effectively insensitive to normal tactile sensations, preventing him from properly feeling temperature, texture, and physical pressure. Because this makes controlling his enormous strength difficult, Citizen Steel wears a specially constructed alloy containment suit that limits his physical output to manageable levels. The suit allows him to interact with his surroundings and fight alongside teammates without constantly risking catastrophic damage from ordinary movements.

Nathan’s background as a competitive athlete gives him considerable physical discipline, while his time with the Justice Society develops his practical combat ability. In battle he relies primarily on his tremendous durability and controlled strength, allowing him to absorb attacks that would incapacitate most heroes and confront exceptionally powerful opponents at close range.