Another wacky creation of noted madman and manbabe, Bob Kanigher. Before the Powerpuff Girls, before Terminator 3, before "Friends", there was ... The Metal Men. They had two series of their own, one of which ran seven years.
In a world, where Vibe and the Viking Prince are on TV, Catman is a threat, and Detective Chimp is back on the case, nothing short of Bat-Mite is off the table. What about the Metal Men?
What should DC do with these imaginative characters?
Should they let Morrison weirdify them? Tough call. I'm not sure even Grant Morrison could make the Metal Men weirder than they already are.
Shall Geoff Johns tie them more directly into the larger DC mythos by, say, having them be by-products of the tech that made Robotman (either the original or the more familiar one), or vice versa?
Should they be forgotten as out of place embarassments in a grown-up DCU? If the DCU has Metamorpho in it, can the Metal Men be any worse? When was they last time they were used-- was it in Byrne's Superman?
I'm really not sure what I think. What do you think?
Dude, they're in INFINITE CRISIS #2. Keep your eyes peeled. (They're not doing a hell of a lot, mind you, but they're there.)
ReplyDeleteFor a while there was a series in the works, to be written by Evan Dorkin, but DC pulled the plug on it (the dopes!).
ReplyDeleteThere's a Metal Men story in one of the Bizarro Comics anthologies that I think is an excellent treatment ...
I love the Metal Men. Give them Grant, Geoff or Kyle Baker if you have to, but get them a writer who actually likes them. I personally would like to see a serious take on them as aren't they all human mind patterns in robots? It would be neat to see some of them enjoy your new forms while others go the pathos route.
ReplyDeleteAnd lest we forget, the Dorkin Metal Men series was to be drawn by Mike Allred. Phooey on DC for stupidly cancelling the project. They should release that and the Teen Titans Swinging Elseworlds Special by Haney and Allred, and polybag each issue with a $50 bill as an apology to readers.
ReplyDeleteI hated that 90s series that "revealed" that the Metal Men were actually real people whose minds were transferred into the bodies of robots, and then Doc Magnus "became" a robot himself. Thoroughly urinates on the entire Silver-Age history of these characters. Bah.
ReplyDeleteYes, I didn't like that either.
ReplyDeleteI've never encountered anyone who liked that mini series. Luckily, it seems to be out of conitnuity, as Gold (who was destroyed) keeps showing up.
ReplyDeleteAll I gotta say is Bring'em back.
One cute bit about that mini was that Gold turned out to be Doc Magnus' brother, Michael. I always thought that was an "in-joke" on the part of DC staff.
ReplyDeleteThe Metal Men enver left. I've seen them in crowd shots in recent crossovers (Infinite Crisis, Identity Crisis), and nearly every universe-wide ensemble elseworlds/flashback (JLA: Year One, the Nail)
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Mxy I actually read and enjoyed Adventures of Superman. First time that ever happened...
ReplyDeleteSince people are complaining that the DCU has become too dark, the Metal Men would be a great way to lighten up the place.
ReplyDeleteAnd even though I personally don't think that things have gotten too dark, I'd still love to see the Metal Men in a series. Who doesn't like robots?
Dear god, Dorkin/Allred Metal Men... that would be a masterwork. What idiot pulled the plug on that one?
ReplyDeleteWho doesn't like robots?
ReplyDeleteThe clowns behind the 90s series (I forget who they were, now) who decided they weren't robots at all, but people in metal bodies.
That '90s "they're really human" idea is in the "No Longer Operative" file now, right? I hope?
ReplyDeleteSeriously, it's hard to imagine a worse, more wrongheaded, idea for these characters, unless it's making Doc Magnus a Metal Man himself, which IIRC they also did in that series.
It gives them pathos the characters don't need or want, not to mention taking something like Platinum's crush on the Doc and changing it from something cute and funny to something seriously creepy and weird, and not in a good way.