The MeTaL MeN ALL 56 Issues CD-ROM Bob Kanigher: Heavy!

Character biography

The Metal Men were presented as advanced artificially intelligent robots, created by scientist Dr.

"Dc" William "Will" Magnus. "Dc" Magnus (as his creations affectionately call him) states that their intelligence and personalities are generated by devices called "responsometers". They mirror characteristics commonly associated with their namesake metals, both in personality and in substance. According to some accounts the Metal Men are actually composed of various metals, while in others, they are made of a chemical substance that can duplicate the properties of a specific metal as determined by the programming of their individual "responsometers".

The heavy metal team consisted of their field leader Gold, strong man Iron, slow-witted and loyal Lead, self-doubting and insecure Tin, hot-headed Mercury (the only metal liquid at room temperature), and Platinum, or Tina (now called Platina), who thought she was a real woman rather than a robot and was, in a Pygmalion twist, in love with creator Dc Magnus. Tin later kit-built himself a girlfriend whom he called "Beautiful" but was "Nameless" to the others. She shared some adventures with them.

While all of the Metal Men were basically shapeshifters, each of them had abilities that reflected the traits of their namesake metal; Gold could stretch his body almost infinitely, Iron was super strong, Lead could block harmful radiation and the like and usually morphed into thick shields, Mercury  could melt and reform himself through small spaces, or over vast distances, and Platinum could stretch and flatten herself, usually into coils of thin strands. while Tin seemed to prefer acting as a "can" or container, his other efforts usually failing due to his weak strength.

The Metal Men's main foes included Chemo (a mobile plastic giant filled with various lethal chemicals), the robotic alien Missile Men, the Gas Gang, and other mechanical menaces such as a robotic T-Rex, a robo-centaur, Chang Tzu, the /Sizzler/ and nefarious amusement park rides. On several occasions Doc constructed new robots of different metals such as Uranium, Silver, Cobalt, Chromium and others, including counterpart "boyfriend and girlfriend" robots. The new robots always went to the scrap heap. The Metal Men also had many adventures on other planets, usually meeting robot menaces.

The Metal Men had a broken run of sixty issues in their own comic book title. Their Silver Age run, from issues #1 to #41, began in 1963 and ended in 1970. Several issues included the "Metal Facts & Fancies" feature which featured factoids about various metals.

As part of a company-wide effort to re-tool their books to include more "hip" and "relevant" plots, the issue #33 set a new direction; Dc Magnus fell into a coma after being injured and the Metal Men found themselves being hunted by the authorities after faulty responsometers were installed. When these changes resulted in a massive sales drop, a second re-tooling was implemented which saw each Metal Man assume a human identity. The "New Metal Men" were then assigned the task of apprehending Dc Magnus who had become a fugitive after being kidnapped, re-awakened, and brainwashed by a mad dictator, turning him into a scientist dedicated to global conquest. Sales took an even more severe nosedive, and the series was cancelled after issue #41.

Metal Men reappeared in 1973 in three reprint issues (#42, 43 and 44).

The Metal Men's first run ended with issue #41in 1969/70, leaving the team in a bit of a quandry. Dc Magnus had been kidnapped by the evil dictator of Karnia (read Russia) and brainwashed to destroy his greatest creations. DC decided to revive the Metal Men in 1976 and they returned with new stories in issue #45 (April-May 1976)  and called upon Steve Gerber, who wrote the acclaimed issue #45,

"Evil Is in the Eye of the Beholder", which Grant Morrison has cited as an all-time favorite comic book story[1] and artist Walt Simonson (who would go on to work on The Mighty Thor) to bring the team back from comic book limbo.

This was the one of the single greatest Metal Men  stories ever told.

Instead of ignoring the past, Gerber decided to play along with it. While the Metal Men are back in robotic form foiling evildoers, Magnus is back on U.S. soil in a mental institution.

Despite the best efforts of Magnus' doctors, he can't seem to shake off his violent emotions.

Dc shouts three words over and over again: Trample! Raze! Annihilate!

The U.S. military has waited too long for Magnus to recover. They convince his doctors that having Magnus build a robot in the lab might be good therapy. Big mistake-- Dc builds The Plutonium Man who reflects his current state of mind.

While General Caspar is horrified, a government accountant named Whittier disagrees.

Magnus learns that he's been manipulated by Whittier--a sleeper cell agent of Karnia. Whittier allows the Plutonium Man to be unleashed--presumably so his own country can use it.

Naturally the Metal Men are called into action when the Plutonium Man starts tearing up the city. The Plutonium Man instantly recognizes the Metal Men from Magnus' programming. The Metal Men die one by one in an attempt to halt the Plutonium Man's path of destruction.

This is where the story deviates from the usual Silver Age concept of good and evil. Whittier is horrified that he's about to destroy an entire city. He sacrifices himself by getting close enough to shoot a load of bullets at the PM's chest before he dies from a radiation blast.

Whittier dies, but his bullets have cracked the PM's outer shell. Only Tina-Platinum is left to avert a nuclear meltdown. She contains the explosion by covering PM's body with platinum., but not before bidding farewell to Dc Magnus.

This terrible event snaps Magnus back into reality when he realizes that he has killed the Metal Men--and his robotic lover. The preceding panels really show the genius of Walt Simonson--his skill at panel design really enhanced the emotions in this story.

The tragic story ends on a glimmer of hope. Dc Magnus's sanity was restored and he will rebuild the Metal Men as well as his own life, once again rejoining his robot creations.

This one of the finest DC Bronze Age stories ever. Gerber's script was pure genius--a nice little self contained story that reintroduced the Metal Men and resolved a six-year old dangling plot thread. Simonson was the perfect artist to draw the Metal Men and inked his work on this story.

Simsonson was succeeded as artist by Joe Staton. The team's run as regular headliners ended at #56 in 1978 when, despite acceptable sales, the book fell victim to the DC Implosion.

The Metal Men have appeared as guests in several other comic book titles including  The Brave and the Bold (#55, #66, #74, #103, #113, #121, #135-136, and #187) where they teamed-up with Metamorpho, the Atom, and several times with Batman. Most memorable of all was #187, which explored the mysterious disappearance of Nameless, Tin's homemade girlfriend.

The Metal Men also guest-starred alongside Superman in DC Comics Presents (#4 and #70) and Action Comics after it became a team-up title under the direction of artist/writer John Byrne.

Dc Magnus helped rebuild Cliff Steele, also known as Robotman of the DOOM Patrol, and made several other appearances in that title.

A four book mini-series was printed in 1993. In a retcon of their origin story, it was revealed that the Metal Men carried the intellects and personalities of Dc's brother (Gold), his fiancee (Platinum), two lab workers (Mercury and Iron), a janitor (Tin), and a pizza-delivery man (Lead), which were accidentally transferred to blank robots in a lab mishap rather than being artificially generated by "responsometers" as the story was first told. In a fast and furious climax, Gold was permanently killed and Dc Magnus mortally wounded. Dc transferred his personality into a blank robot known as Veridium, made of a green alien metal, and became the new robotic leader of the Metal Men. This episode was itself retconned away as a delusion suffered by Dc Magnus.^[1]

 Infinite Crisis, 52, and One Year Later

As revealed in the Infinite Crisis limited series, when Superboy-Prime pounded on the walls of reality, he caused the very fabric of reality to shift, changing and merging histories. The "blank robots with responsometers" origin of the Metal Men was returned to continuity and the "human personalities and Dc as Veridium" origin was dismissed as a delusion suffered by Dc Magnus after his first mental breakdown.

The responsometers are now described as containing an "artificial soul" invented by Dc Magnus inspired by T.O. Morrow, who is revealed to have taught him at college and to have been the only one not to laugh at Magnus' theories. After the unexplained dismantling of the Metal Men, Dc Magnus is unable to recreate this soul and restore their personalities. He now takes Prozac for the bipolar disorder which caused his nervous break down and the depression which led to the creation of the Plutonium Man. It is implied that, although the medication is keeping Magnus from doing anything irrational, it is also deadening his imagination and creativity and that this is the reason he can not recreate the Metal Men.

Magnus is approached by government agents hoping to use the Metal Men as soulless smart weapons, offers Magnus always rejects. Through all of this, Magnus has been visiting Morrow in his cell in Haven. Morrow has warned Magnus that there have been numerous abductions of "mad" scientists, including Doctor Sivana, whose lair Magnus investigates.

Eventually Morrow himself disappears, leaving a note for his former student with a string in machine code. Using the code, Magnus is able to revive Mercury, albeit his robotic friend and creation is apparently destroyed again trying to save him from a conspiracy trying to kidnap all the mad scientists in the DCU. Mindless replicas of the Metal Men force Magnus to escape from his burned house before being captured by what is revealed to be a separate group "Chang Tzu's Science Squad".

This group is based on Oolong Island (said to be part of the territory of China) and has been responsible for the disappearances of the scientists (including Professor Morrow). The group is being financed by Intergang with the collusion, it is implied, of the Chinese government. The assembled scientists have been given unlimited budgets to invent various super weapons including, in particular, various types of robots.

Magnus is assigned to design and construct a new Plutonium Man robot, but deliberately makes little progress saying to Morrow that the original Plutonium Man was an expression of his pain and rage brought on by his mental illness and that the reason he takes his medication is to prevent him from doing something like that again. Morrow reveals this to the Island's leaders and his medication is confiscated.

Magnus then proceeds to work on Plutonium Man saying this time he'll "do it right." However, Magnus, while unstable due to his lack of medication, is not fully co-operating with Chang Tzu. Magnus goes about scavenging materials from various items (gold from a gold watch, lead from lead shielding, mercury from thermometers, and tin from cans of Baked Beans which Magnus adopts as his sole diet - presumably in order also to ensure the other scientists would not want to spend too much time with him) to allow him to reconstruct his Metal Men, albeit only a few inches high. These new Metal Men are shown to help Magnus remain sane despite being off his pills, such as when they persuade him to deactivate the now completed Plutonium Man after he turns it on during a period of depression.

When Oolong Island is attacked by the JSA seeking to rescue Black Adam and Chang Tzu orders the Plutonium Man activated. Magnus refuses and the Metal Men attack Chang Tzu allowing Magnus to escape and switch off the Island's defences. While he is doing this Morrow confronts Magnus and destroys Mercury. Magnus explains to Morrow that it's pointless stopping him deactivating the shields as the JSA will get in eventually and instead offers him the chance to teleport out saying that Morrow was "the best teacher I ever knew" and that he tries "to over look the psychopathic super villain thing". Morrow accepts the offer.

Magnus is then confronted by Chang Tzu who he apparently kills with the aid of Lead and a 'particle wave ray gun' screaming "You shouldn't have taken away my meds. I told you I do crazy things without my meds!". Magnus then surrenders to the JSA.

 One Year Later

In Justice League of America #1, Platinum is re-assembled, but by the end of the issue an unknown assailant decapitates both Gold and Platinum to steal the body of the Red Tornado.

The entire team of Metal Men (all with new, modified appearances) appear in a three part Superman/Batman story in issues 34-36. The rebuilt Platinum calls herself Platina, and Gold is a disembodied head, due to the expense of building a new gold body. The team also includes new female member, the sarcastic Copper. The Metal Men are hired by Lucius Fox as security for WayneTech, but come under the influence of Brainiac.

The Metal Men, featuring the new line-up, are in a new 8-issue miniseries, written & illustrated by Duncan Rouleau, the first 3 issues October, November and December 2007 are currently in print. The team find themselves up against a future version of Will Magnus, who wants to erase the act of their creation. They also meet Professor Morrow's Death Metal Men and a robotic supremacy group called Robot Renegades.