- You may be looking for the comic story.
Mr. Steelman is one of the world's foremost villains, with aspirations of ruling the world. He is a regular antagonist of Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward, and appeared in many of her comic and prose stories.
Biography[]
The Luthvian Affair[]
After Parker steals plans for a hydromic device from the Luthvian Embassy in Mr. Steelman, Steelman hires and sends a mercenary army to Creighton-Ward Mansion in order to steal the plans for himself, with the army under orders to get them "at all costs". During the attack, Roger Lyon sneaks into the mansion and smuggles the plans out, taking them to the Dunwell atomic plant in order to destroy them.
The army notices the plans have been taken and in response, Steelman sends two of his thugs - Gardoni and Luigi - to Dunwell, so they can kidnap Roger and take him to Steelman's ship. Believing that Roger would have glanced at the plans before destroying them, Steelman plans to take him to his lab underneath Mt Vesuvius, where he has a device capable of controlling minds - hoping to extract the memory plans from Roger's brain. Steelman is, apparently, entirely encased in metallic armour, making him look like a robot.
Arriving in Naples, Steelman has Gardoni and Luigi take Roger to the lab, while Steelman doubles back in order to "check in" on Lady Penelope, who he correctly suspects are on his trail. Eventually encountering her in Seabird I, Steelman launches a torpedo from his ship and sinks her vessel - with Lady Penelope and Parker only narrowly escaping by seeking refuge in the bomb-proof garage.
Steelman prepares to read Roger's mind (Mr. Steelman)
Returning to his lab, Steelman hooks Roger into the mind-control device, but is interrupted by Lady Penelope and Parker before the device can get to work. Meeting for the first time, Steelman promises death for Lady Penelope - and she is quickly captured by Steelman's men and strapped into a ramp, set to drop her into the crater of lava below the lab.
Steelman grants Lady Penelope one last request before her death, believing it was customary to do so. She asks for her lipstick, which is really a gas canister, and promptly uses it to knock out one of his men - with Roger quickly reacting and overpowering the remaining goon. Steelman tries to beat Parker to the ramp's controls, but Parker head-butts Mr Steelman out of one of the lab's windows and sends him tumbling into the lava below, surely meeting a firey end.
Later on, while returning to England, Lady Penelope and Parker wonder if it really was Steelman in the armour, or just a robot.