John Henry...

Sometimes, by a slip of the tongue or the pen, we get a word, name or phrase wrong and sometimes we worry and have to check whether we did. Checking, I find that I did write "John Henry Reeves," not "John Henry Irons," in The Lessons Of Life.

John Henry Reeves is a character in Poul Anderson's "The Star Plunderer" whereas John Henry Irons is a completely different character in a different medium. See Steel (John Henry Irons). One of the things that we like to do on this blog is to compare Anderson's works with other authors' works or with works in other media. 

The character, Steel, exists because Superman was, temporarily of course, dead. Series characters rarely die, even in a concluding episode, if there ever is a concluding episode. 

In Anderson's canon, van Rijn must be long dead when Flandry is alive and Flandry must be long dead when Daven Laure is alive but we are not shown any of these characters' deaths. Harald Hardrada is the title character of Anderson's The Last Viking Trilogy and he has to die at Stamford Bridge in 1066 in Volume III because that is historical. And what a great cast of characters this post has mentioned:

John Henry Reeves

John Henry Irons

Superman

Nicholas van Rijn

Dominic Flandry

Daven Laure

Harald Hardrada

Read and reread.

Addendum: I have conceptualized two retellings of Superman in one of which he dies. See:

Getting Superman Right