June - July 1964 |
Children run through city streets to the Settlement House. The Metal Men are going to put on a show! But a lone boy, Timmy, sits on his stoop. "What's the good of going?" The Metal Men glide down the street in their jet platform, another invention of the brilliant Dr. Will Magnus. Tina insists they stop to tell the lonely little boy. Doc can't: they're late already. Tina goes AND stays: by sitting in the jet platform AND spinning her upper half down the street. "You're a great scientist, Doc, but you have no heart!" "Tina!" Doc calls. "Stop talking as if you're the human - and I'm the robot! I'm the man who made the mistake of inventing you - remember?" Tina calls "Hi!" and reminds the boy of their show. He waves her off. "I - just - don't feel like going - that's all! Leave me alone!" Tina spins away. The boy cries. "I'd give anything to see the Metal Men - but I'll never be able to see." |
At the Settlement House, Doc presents the robots and their specialities. "Mercury is the only metal liquid at room temperature - Mercury, stop fidgeting!" But with the air conditioning blowing hot and cold, Mercury loops in knots, "making me dizzy! Gurgle - gurgle!" Mercury gets a cheer anyway. Tin, "the humblest metal", stammers. "Wh-what can I do, Tina? I'm j-just tin! I'll disgrace y-you all!" Tina advises he "just have confidence in yourself - there's nothing you won't be able to do!" Gold demonstrates he can be formed into any shape without damage. He turns himself into a tower of coins and fires at Iron. But Tin dives in. "W-wait - I'll c-catch G-Gold!" No luck. Tin is buried under a heap of coins, but the kids cheer loudest of all. Noble Gold says, "Looks like you're the hit of the show, Tin!" Yet Tina can't stop thinking about that lonesome boy. Why didn't he look at her? |
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Lead and Iron surprise Doc with a gag of their own. Iron twists Lead into "the biggest lucky horseshoe in the world", and pitches a ringer around Doc! Doc says, "The Metal Men even surprise me, their inventor!" Tina is up next. "She can spin herself finer than the hundredth part of a human hair. Stretch herself longer than a mile! What feat will she perform?" Tina's "feat" is to take off! "Maybe I'm supposed to have a responsometer and not a heart - but I'm going back to keep that lonely little boy company!" Doc yells, but she's gone. Zinnnnnnggg! Tina unreels herself to find the boy still sitting. "If you won't come to see the Metal Men - then they'll come to see you!" Yet he couldn't see them. He's blind! |
As the boy's sensitive fingers touch the robot's face, he finds tears! Yet her face is smooth and hard. "There only one metal in the world that can cry! You must be Tina - the platinum robot!" Now he's excited. The other Metal Men mus be here! Tina doesn't have the "responsometer" to tell him they're not - - then they are! Doc brought them back. Timmy gets to touch all the robots and guess their identities. |
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The boy's mother explains there might be a cure for Timmy's blindness in the future when new chemical compounds are discovered. For now, it's hopeless. But he always talks about the Metal Men and dreams of visiting your lab and flying in a rocket. Impossible dreams. Well, even Doc Magnus can be a softie. Timmy gets to be the first kid ever to spend a day with the Metal Men. Off they go in the jet platform.  |
Tina babbles - too much. "Doc will cure you, Timmy! He can do anything! I promise!" Doc reins in her rash promise. He can't do anything doctors can't. Timmy understands. Yet Tina persists, and Doc complains about "crossed wires in her responsometer" giving her illusions. Tina gives Doc a big kiss. "I dare you to tell me this - tastes like an illusion!" No, says Doc, "it tastes like being smacked by a cold, wet platinum bracelet!" Doc's lab - really a campus of buildings - has no human personnel. It's entirely run by machines. And what a lab! A rocket sits on the launch pad ready to go! (Doc does a lot of defense work.) Timmy would love to visit it. Easily arranged. Doc will stay behind. After Tina's impossible promise, he'd rather hide in the lab trying to find a cure for Timmy's blindness- though he knows it's impossible. Tina hugs him with multiple coils. "Doc - you're a living doll!" |
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Timmy sits at the controls of the rocket. Tina lets him push the launch button. "Make your dream come true!" They take off - Timmy can feel it! "It's only for a short flight! But when we land, you'll be the first boy astronaut in history!" Short flight. Right... Meanwhile, Doc slaves over his test tubes. "It's hopeless!" "To the dismay of the Metal Men", the rocket gets caught in "a vast cosmic turbulence that's pulling us away from Earth!" As the rocket is tossed around, the robots are in danger of crushing Timmy. Tina spins a net to hold them in place - except for Mercury, who spatters into globules. |
As the turbulence subsides, the rocket comes within sight of a planet. Impulsive Tina wants Timmy to be the first boy to land on another planet! Gold warns, "If atmospheric conditions permit." Timmy is thrilled, especially when they spot a deserted amusement park. "It looks like Coney Island!" Timmy's never been there, either. "Mom was afraid I'd get hurt in the crowds." So... down they go. Gold wisely parks the rocket far away from the playground "in case of threats". Mercury gripes, "What threats? This planet's deserted!" Sure, but what happened to the inhabitants? |
Walking, Timmy counts his steps. "That's how blind people get around!" They pass a gigantic camera, and Tina wants a snapshot later. The park is bright but eerie. No people, no motors, no controls. Lead says, "They must have been built by scientists ahead of anyone on Earth!" Iron reminds him, "Anyone except Doc!" How do the rides operate? They try sitting down in a roller coaster. "Maybe the instructions are inside." Mercury's willing: his feet are killing him! The roller coaster starts by itself, climbing the first steep hill. Then it comes alive with nippers to kill the riders! (As seen on the cover.) "Now we know what happened to the people who lived here! The robot rides turned on them - destroying them!" |
The robots ditch. Gold catapults away as a tower of coins. Mercury shreds into globules. Tina grabs Timmy and spins away. Iron frees Lead, who jumps. Tin won't let Iron sacrifice himself, so grabs the coils - and buckles! Iron grabs the brave robot and they both jump. The attacks heat up. A rocket ride hurls missles at the team. Timmy begs, "I'm a drag! An anchor around you! Leave me here!" Tina vows, "All of us leave together - or none of us, Timmy!" Iron and Lead launch a "ground-to-air" attack. Lead snarls, "If they - uhh - want to fight - we'll knock 'em - uhh - dead!" Together the strongest metals clobber the missiles. |
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The ferris wheel rolls at them like a juggernaut. Gold barks orders. Mercury makes himself a corkscrew through the center, snarling, "I'm on my way, but that's not going to stop it!" Iron props Mercury. And Lead whips the wheel into a spin, so it corkscrews into space! "Lucky, that's all!" says Mercury. The robots run past the giant camera. Tina calls, "Sorry we can't stop to take a snapshot, Timmy!" But they do stop - as the giant camera FLASHES! Guess what? "I can't see! Everything's black! We're finished!" The Metal Men are temporarily blind! A sinister rumble sounds close behind. Blind Timmy can identify that noise: "the mechanical rides are ripping free - coming at us!" |
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The robots panic - and crash into each other. Tina yells to stop or they'll crush Timmy! But Timmy was unaffected by the flash. "Everybody form a single file! Take my hand! I'll be your eyes!" Remember how Timmy counted his steps? Now he recounts them - toward their rocket and safety. Yet the rides are getting louder, howls Mercury... The narrator says, "And so ends the first book of the Metal Men's staggering adventure - a story too vast to be contained in a single issue! Watch for the earth-shaking conclusion in Book Two ... ... in Metal Men 9! |
Comments How can you go wrong starting a story with a kid who's blind? Lots of melodrama here, and lots of fun. The Metal Men were often called "unpredictable" because you never knew what would happen next. Stories could do anywhere. Any surprise was fair game. While Mercury complains that his feet hurt? The warmest parts are the double apparent contradictions. These metal robots, "forged in the crucible of science" have astounding personalities and emotions. Doc Magnus built them better than he knew. Which is another contradiction, because Doc considers their personalities a flaw. Darn it, they just won't follow orders! Time and again Doc threatens to scrap the lot - but never does. The Metal Men are perfect comic book foils - they're visually interesting all the time. There were never any characters more suited for colorful and delightful pictures. Superman looks like a man in every panel. The Metal Men can take on any shape in a second. Why they're not more popular is a mystery. |
Did anyone ever ask Robert Kanigher? He created and wrote the Metal Men. Heck, he wrote everything from Wonder Woman to Sgt. Rock. We know he was infantry in World War II. But did he also have a Chemistry degree? Another Kanigher touch is a classical reference flipped on its head. In the myth of Pygmalion, a sculptor carved a female statue so beautiful he fell in love with it, and almost pined to death. Venus, Goddess of Love, took pity on the sculptor and turned the statue into a real woman. Here's a Kanigher-reverse. Doc creates Tina, she falls in love with her creator, and it drives him nuts! Which was a good question for the Freudians. Why did Doc manufacture five male forms and one female? Hmm?... For the record, this is an atypical MM tale, one of very few that were continued. Usually there was enough weirdness for a self-contained issue. But Metal Men stories had a "making it up as you go along" feel. The tales often ran away from the writer - same as the robots often ran away from Doc! |
Read another fan's history and appreciation of the Metal Men. Read DarkMark's terrific original story starring Tina in "The Helen O'Loy Blues". |