Speaking of which, did any of you read "Steel" after Priest took it over (before it too got canceled)? The writers before hand were not that great and Priest DID up the level of quality somewhat. However, I soon realized he was trying to put that "Ross" element in his stories as he made up this white kid who apparently sweeps Steel's niece, Natasha, off her feet within a period of two issues. This kid, to me, had the same qualities as Ross. In fact, it pretty much WAS Ross as a sixteen year old. It seemed like Priest was once again throwing in a white character who went around telling "black" themed jokes, which is what Ross did on occasion and attempting to provide comic relief for the story.
You've got your timeline backwards. Priest started writing Steel two years before his BP series began. In fact, Steel was canceled before BP #1 hit stands. So it's impossible for Boris to have been a Ross pastiche.
Okay, if that's the case, the it's
Ross who is a continuing play on the Boris character albeit more animated and some changes to the characters identity. I had believed it was Steel who came after, after reading some of Priest's notes. However, whether Steel came first or not, the point I am trying to make is to show a pattern involving Priest writing style.
Priest also makes the resident black girl wave off all potential suitors in the 'hood who approach her except a scraggly dress white kid, with holes in his jeans and long hair, who shows up on her door step and offers to buy ice cream which she immediately jumps on after dissin' everyone else (including brothas if I remember right). This romantic hook up happens in the FIRST ISSUE.
You mean this scene:

There are no suitors, there are no brothas, she doesn't jump on him, and unless you count Boris saying "So I thought we'd go out sometime" while they're eating ice cream a few pages later, they don't romantically hook up.
The point of brothas getting turned way is based off of what had occurred in the title as a a whole. I should have pointed that out so that it would have been more clear. My bad. When writing my comments I was thinking of that scene as well as other situations within the series (i.e. the ice cream parlor guy). The third panel of the example you posted is, what I took to be, a Hispanic suitor. So I don't understand how you say there are no suitors here. A guy rolls up on a girl to see "what's up", that is called suitor. Maybe not the most romantic way to approach a woman but it would still fall in that category.
As far as Boris and Natasha are concerned, they
do have a somewhat romantic hook up. Their entire interaction form the moment they meet and into the rest of the series is along that premise as Boris is continually courting Natasha. Though Natasha keeps saying he "won't get none" she still accepts his attentions and even gives in to kissing him early on in their
romance courtship.
Why does Priest come in and cut these black heroes and their stories down to the knees? I understand the idea of drama and making more challenges for the hero but why take a character and make him weaker still than he already is in the comic book universe?
He also moved him to a better home, gave him a much better job, started calling him "Dr. Irons," and put the 'S' back on his chest. And as for making him "weaker," no one put Steel on *any* DCU teams before Priest, but afterwards he joined the JLA. Granted, it was after the series was cancelled, but Priest wrote the story that had him join.
I'm not criticizing that Steel was living in a nicer house/lab nor his appointment at the hospital.. What I was concerned about was with the part that made him a super hero. His "super" powers if you will. His armor was de-powered in that he no longer had super strength and almost every other issue his armor kept getting "turned off". His previous armor (that had become a sentient creature) kept attacking which, I thought was getting kind of tired. With that going on along with other villains coming after him and he helping with city wide emergencies. So what he got the "S' back on his chest. I never could buy that this "genius" engineer could not make another suit of armor that was an advance of what he lost. When you upgrade something, you increase it's potential you don't down grade it. You know, kind of like what Tony Stark does with the Iron Man armor.
As far as Steel being added to JLA, I don't think that necessarily had anything to do with Priest. For all we know, DC was planning to move the Steel character over to that title as the Steel solo title wasn't selling. This way the character wouldn't fall off in to obscurity.
Wasn't Prest also responsible for turning Steel's family, the Irons clan from a slightly poorer version of the Huxtables into a mass of abuse and disfucntion? It's almost like he thought that his happy family was too good to be true.
Well, there's the stuff Evasive described from Priest's Christmas issue, but Louise Simonson had already put the family through the wringer. Jemahl was in a street gang at the beginning, Tyke was paralyzed and later betrayed the family, and the grandmother was killed by Dr. Polaris. And then Simonson put the whole family into Witness Protection, removing them all from the series.
Yes, Jemahl was in a gang, Tyke was paralyzed and the grandmother died. However, that were not in that extreme distressing state that Priest wrote them as when he took on the title. The mother wasn't 300+ lbs looking like the stereotypical "mammy" character. Jemahl wasn't walking around disrespecting, abusive and drinking 40's. Grandpa wasn't running around completely lost from reality. Preist took those characters to that,oh so stereotypical, extreme of an under privileged black family. It wouldn't have been so bad if the family had stayed out of the book after they went into the Witness Protection program.
Note that Steel lasted nearly FOUR YEARS at DC before Priest came on the book. This may be another case where his attempts to mainstream the book drove off its target audience.
Priest took over with #34. And while sales didn't improve, the series was already one of DC's lowest sellers before he came onboard, neck-in-neck with Aztek and Takion (both of which were cancelled very soon thereafter).
I think the point is that he might have been able to increase readership so that the title may have had
another four years. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to do that.