In September 2011, DC Comics cancelled and relaunched its entire line of monthly comics, in an initiative called The New 52, and in so doing, rebooted the continuity the DC Universe. In this new timeline, Hank Heywood Jr. appears as Captain Steel in the comic series "Earth-2" taking place on the titular Earth. The modern version of Hank is revealed to be a young Filipino man. It is stated that Hank was originally a young boy born with a degenerative bone disorder that would have killed him by his 18th birthday, and that his father replaced all of his bones with an experimental metal to save his life (although it also made him unable to feel emotion). During Darkseid's invasion of Earth-2, Hank's father killed himself and destroyed his research in order to prevent the Parademons from getting their hands on it.