Iron Train (Hero)
Code-name: Iron Train
Full Name: Tony Miragliano
Faction: Heavy Metal
Tony Miragliano is the first generation of his family born as an American. His parents came to Pulp City from Sicily more than sixty years ago. Brought up in a loving home and in admiration for hard work, Tony respected his father for his skill as an engineer, keeping the trains running on the Pulp City Line.
As Tony grew up, the most obvious career choice was to follow in his father’s footsteps and start working at railroad. Thanks to the Miragliano men’s hard work, the train tracks that ran from Pulp City like an intricate spider web, reaching New York, Chicago and San Francisco, were always smooth running and almost no problems; the lines were the envy of the nation. Praised for his dedication, young Tony was quickly offered the position he always dreamt of, working as an engine driver. For twenty-five years, he served as a driver on the Pulp City-Chicago connection (naming his train Francesca). He loved his job, and proudly helped to firmly establish the name and brand of NAMTRAK, the company he worked for.
But life was not meant to stay that way for Tony. As it became more successful, NAMTRAK was taken over by French millionaire Guillaume Sanguine, owner of the mighty Royal Investments group, and the new owner’s corporate raiding policy was simple; he would sell off the tracks to bigger players on the market, and shut down the company after asset-stripping it into inconsequence.
Tony protested vociferously to his mangers and anyone he could get to listen, even for just a few minutes. He was not the first to try to stand in Sanguine’s way; he was only the ruthless businessman’s most recent victim. In a vain attempt to thwart Sanguine’s plans for NAMTRAK, Tony organized a strike by all the unions. This cost him his job and Tony started to suspect something dirty and rotten was at play when not a single court verdict went in his favor. Left depressed and a broken man by the lost battle, now fifty years old, Tony left the station on his long, slow trip to degradation.
When it seemed that nothing could lift him out of his alcoholic mire, Tony read about Sanguine’s most-recent outrage. The French millionaire refused to retire the old trains to the City Museum, instead Francesca and all other engines ended up in the junkyard, destined to become scrap.
In a drunken delirium, he broke into the metal recycling facility, ignoring the warning calls from the guards. As bullets bit into his body, he collapsed over the wreck of his beloved train. Not even Tony Miragliano knows what really transpired next on that fateful night, but he woke up in the desert to the north of the city, healed and now clad in iron armor, obviously made of parts from his beloved Francesca.
Tony stopped speculating over what truly happened that night some time ago; today he is thankful to whatever power that intervened to give him a second chance and literally a second life. Taking that belief to heart, Iron Train is the iconic defender of Pulp City, loved by the public and his colleagues in Heavy Metal alike. Relying on the preternatural resilience granted by his armor, Tony can withstand almost anything that Villains bring to the battlefield, and he is a beloved and steadfast defender of the city he loves.