Customer Reviews

Showcase Presents: Metal Men, Vol. 2

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In the 1960s, Marvel changed the face of superhero comics when Stan Lee and company introduced the Fantastic Four and followed it up with other heroes. The transformation was due to the characters, which were now flawed individuals, far more interesting than the one-dimensional characters of the past. Marvel's main rival, DC, lagged in making a similar change; as shown in the Showcase volumes from that decade. Often this is grating to a modern reader, but somehow the simpler style works with one of my favorite DC superhero teams, the generally unappreciated Metal Men.

Deviced by genius scientist Will Magnus, the Metal Men were a team of robots, each made of a particular metallic element, who each had special powers, mostly focused on changing their shape. Not all the characters are equal: Iron and Lead are relatively minor and uninteresting characters, with Gold not much better, though he is the team leader. The prominent characters are Tin, Mercury and Platinum. Tin has a bad inferiority complex, though he does get some postitive reinforcement by another tin robot, a "female" without a name, hence called Nameless. Mercury is, well, mercurial, short-tempered and arrogant. By far the most significant team member is Platinum, more commonly called Tina. Tina is constantly pining for Will, but he doesn't return the favor.

Tina's love of Will often leads her into trouble, but even without her accidental mischief, there are plenty of other robots to challenge the Metal Men, including Chemo (made of toxic chemicals), robots of plastic, evil versions of themselves, alternate Metal Men (including Cobalt, Silver and Osmium) and the completely politically incorrect "Oriental mastermind" Dr. Yes. Most of the stories are self-contained, but in the last three issues of the volume, a radical change occurs: suddenly, the Metal Men are fugitives, having lost some control over their powers after Will suffers an accident and goes into a coma. The Metal Men must answer instead to Will's brother and are inactive when not needed. At the same time, Nameless is gone from the team without explanation.

I suppose I'll have to wait for a third Showcase volume to see how it all turns out, but these last issues, published in the late 1960s do show an attempt by DC to be a little more realistic. While I think that this sort of realism works for a Batman or Green Lantern, it takes away from the light tone of the Metal Men. Overall, however, this is a fun continuation of the Metal Men story.

I love this volume because it completes missing comics from the run that I used to own as a kid. As a grown up reading these stories, I can appreciate the humor of the series. These characters KNOW their in a comic book! They read and respond to reader mail and even refer to previous issues. Overall, the comic art loses nothing being in black and white with one exception, issue 32 where the Sizzler turns the Metal Men and Tina into human beings. In color the transformation from robot to human is evident as the Metal Men all have suddenly gotten Caucasian flesh tones. In black and white, the transformations are harder to notice with the exception of Tina whose hair goes from sculpted metal to individual stands of human hair. Also the aura effect of the Sizzler is somewhat diminished in black and white. I recently obtained a copy of the Brave and the Bold issue with Metamorpho and the Metal Men and it's interesting to note how different the effect is between color art and black and white line drawings. But on the whole, the comics don't suffer TOO much. I suppose my one gripe is that the writers feel it necessary to remind us that Tina is a "crazy mixed-up Platinum doll with a faulty responsometer" about every page or so, as if their readers have short term memory issues. Fun stuff in this collection include the Metal Men getting angry letters from their readers complaining that they only fight robot enemies, so they try to find real human villains to fight, but are thwarted when the villains are foiled by the Flash, Batman and Robin and Wonder Woman before our metal heroes can spring into action. It's also funny to watch the Metal Men enjoying first run episodes of Adam West and Burt Ward on the Batman TV show! It would have been nice if the Metal Facts and Fancies features had been reprinted as well. As a kid, I loved learning about metals reading these bits of trivia and it would have been nice to see them again. But this is a minor point. All in all, this is a fun volume. I expect the next book to come out will feature the '70s Metal Men when they're changed from robots to androids with plastic skin to hide from the robot hunting public in plain sight. This is the run that will also introduce Doc Magnus as a villain instead of a hero. It will also mean the end of the series because this approach completely alienated the core fans of the comic series. But until then, enjoy these fun, zany stories of the most unique robots of all...the Metal Men!