My name is Crash. This is my gun. 
- — Clay Irons src
History
Origin
Clay Irons started out as a normal boy who preferred to spend his free time hanging with his older brother, John Henry. He and his brother spent a great deal of time with their grandparents, as their parents' service as political advocates forced them to travel. This began to change after their grandparents were murdered a few days after their parents left to attend the National Black Political Convention. With his brother's help, he was able to regain a sense of normalcy until his life was upended again by the loss of his parents in a car accident, one he would have been involved in had his brother not insisted he attend his baseball game instead. After moving into a housing project in Washington D.C. with his other grandparents, Clay's bond with his brother became strained when John Henry's focus became educating himself, so he decided to join a street gang. He also found companionship in a new arrival to the neighborhood named Blondell, with whom he quickly had two children: Jemahl and Natasha. As time passed, Clay married Blondell and found steady work for himself despite the deterioration of the projects they lived in. Ultimately, Clay was killed outside of the convenience store he worked out in a drive-by shooting. [1]
The Death and Rebirth of Crash
Unknown to everyone in his life, the convenience store was a front for a money laundering operation, and Clay operated as an enforceR for Hosun - the shop owner - named Crash. While working for Hosun, Clay was taught formal subjects like psychology and economics and informal lessons such as martial arts and weapons handling. In reality, the drive-by was meant to kill Hosun, who had a hit put on him by a higher-up.[2] After surviving the shooting, Clay was flipped by a federal agent and taken into protective custody, only to be cast aside once his knowledge led to arrests. Deciding to abandon everything in his old life, he let his family believe he was dead and went on to spent a decade hiding under the alias Reggie Glover. While in hiding, he married another woman and started a new family. Unfortunately, a member of his old gang he helped put away found him and put a hit out. Rather than target Clay, he had his crew gun down his wife and kids. Consumed by revenge, he takes up the name Crash again and returns to Washington to avenge his family. After slaughtering the gangbangers who killed his second family, he later acquired a hidden cache of money left behind by Hosun and used it to search for who higher up the ladder was responsible.
Family Reunion
During his mission to kill everyone connected to both shootings, he takes a detour after a chance encounter with his brother and daughter in Jersey City. Spying on them, he discovered his brother's identity as Steel, at which point he began keeping tabs on them.Jersey City.[3] During that time, he rarely interacted with anyone unless it's to threaten them. He stays this way until he finds out that Natasha was assaulted by a local gangster going by the name Kilo. He immediately tracks Kilo down and arrives moments after Steel had finished intimidating him. Firing off a warning shot, he warns Kilo to leave the Irons be, only to be driven off when other friends of the Irons family come to scare Kilo.[4]
Crash next turns up in the house of a police officer who assaulted John Henry during an unwarranted police stop. While he was displeased by the officer's actions, he really came after him to take the flight boots that were stolen from John Henry during the stop. After killing the officer, Crash takes the boots and leaves.[5] He then breaks into his brother's home and steals the schematics for the flight boots without leaving a trace of his presence. Using the schematics and the money he acquired, he amasses a criminal unit equipped with duplicates of Steel's flight boots. He then tracks down Hosun's old business rival, the final person on his hit list - and kills him.[2]
Now backed by a small army of criminals, Crash begins taking over the drug deal trade, working his way up until he controls most of the East Coast's drug trade. During his takeover, he is approached by Skorpio, who offers to lure Steel to a meet with him in exchange for a job as an enforcer.[6] Unfortunately, Skorpio decides to flush Steel out by poisoning Natasha, unaware that she was related to Crash. When Skorpio comes to collect his payment, Crash flips on him. Before he can kill him, he is distracted by Steel's arrival. Deciding Natasha was more important than Skorpio, Crash leaves Skorpio to his brother and leaves to give his daughter a blood transfusion to save her. After Skorpio is beaten, Crash has a final conversation with his brother before fleeing.[7]
Powers and Abilities
Abilities
Paraphernalia
Transportation
- Flying Boots
Weapons
- Guns
- Flashbulb Lenses
- Neural Stun
Related
- 9 Appearances of Clay Irons (New Earth)
- 1 Images featuring Clay Irons (New Earth)
- 2 Quotations by or about Clay Irons (New Earth)
- Character Gallery: Clay Irons (New Earth)
Footnotes