Over the last couple of years, I bought many DC Comics 500 page black and white collections of classic comics and most recently, finally read "DC Showcase Presents: The Metal Men" Volumes 1 and 2. I love the characters and had never read their debut comics run until now. The stories were good, but there was otwo repetitive themes throughout all of them that became tiresome... Today's blog is about those trade paperbacks.
MY TAKE - The metal man had been around since 1962 and it's a great concept. It's about a scientist named Doc Magnus who created robots who were extremely malleable and made out of different medals like lead, gold, platinum, tin, iron, and mercury. All of them are in the likeness of men except for platinum who is in the likeness of a woman.
THEME 1: Although I liked the early issues, one theme that ran through all of them that got to be really annoying was that platinum, the female robot, pined over her creator and was "in love with him." In Every single issue including the four debut issues in showcase magazine and the 35 issues of the metal men series itself platinum, known as Tina, cried over Doc Magnus not returning her affections. It got to be extremely tiresome.
THEME 2: In the first 20 stories of the Metal Men, it seemed like they were always getting totally destroyed and were rebuilt relatively quickly. That also became tiresome!
ODD NOTE: The creators did develop and conceive a villain known as Chemo, an animated chemical villain who is still popular 62 years later (although "chemo" is known today as a cancer treatment- but they would never have known that).
DC Showcase Presents: The Metal Men V1 & 2 B&W Archive 1962-1969
ABOUT THE BOOKS: DC's showcase vol 1 and 2 of the classic Metal Men contains the complete early run beginning with four issues of showcase before the Metal Men got into their own series! Plus, these two volumes also contain metal numbers 1 through 35. Presented in black and white , this is an archive of DC Showcase Comics Volumes 1 and 2. Spanning the years 1962 to 1969, this also includes the classic Brave and the Bold issue #55 with guest the Atom!! Artists and writers include: Robert Kanigher, Bob Haney, and Mike Esposito. **these are long out of print!**
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