Today’s post features the first issue of Metal Men produced by the creative team of writer Martin Pasko and artist Walt Simonson without any input from the title’s prior writer/editor, Gerry Conway.  Alas, it’s also the last such issue, since Simonson would only be contributing cover art going forward.

We’ll have more to say about the series’ pending changing of the guard towards the end of the post; for now, however, let’s focus on the comic at hand, starting with its cover — a typically dynamic and high-impact effort from Simonson, though the blurb above the title logo might have given some regular readers pause.  “You are cordially invited to witness the destruction of the… Metal Men”?  So what else is new?  The Metal Men get destroyed every issue… or at least that’s how it seems sometimes. 

Setting aside that exceedingly minor quibble, let’s move on to the opening splash page, where we find our storytellers picking up the threads of their two-parter right where issue #48 left off:

Dr. Will Magnus’s mental health issues go all the back to the last couple of issues of the title’s original 1960s run, which had seen him kidnapped and brainwashed by the hostile (and fictional) nation of Karnia. Though more or less “cured” by the end of the first issue of the present revival, the maker of the Metal Men is still clearly facing challenges, as shown here via his making confused callbacks to Chemo (an old foe whom the robot team most recently fought in issue #46) and the Plutonium Man (their adversary in both #45 and #47) before landing on the villain of the moment — i.e., Eclipso.

The three human females presently in jeopardy are Doc Magnus’ therapist, Isobel Sullivan; Isobel’s roommate, Johanna Rome; and Mona Bennet, the fiancée of Eclipso’s alter ego, Dr. Bruce Gordon.  Perhaps it’s simply Eclipso’s hatred for his non-villainous other self that’s driving his pursuit of all three women… or perhaps, as Platinum’s dialogue appears to portend, there’s a bit more to it than that.

In previous posts, we’ve noted how Walt Simonson’s interest in using typography as a design element often finds expression in his art.  Ben Oda may be the letterer of record for this issue, but it seems likely that Simonson offered some guidance in regards to how sound effects (as well as other specially-highlighted words) should look on the page.

Ah, OK.  The women are supposed to be sacrifices.  Got it now.

“… beats sucking doughnuts and whistling”?  Kudos to Martin Pasko for having coined such a memorable phrase (I’m assuming it’s original with Pasko, since if it’s ever appeared anywhere else, Google doesn’t know about it).

Umbra’s origin story, with its “strange and horrible creatures from out of the depths of space” seems to nod both to the “Cthulhu Mythos” stories of early-20th century pulp writer H.P. Lovecraft and to the “ancient astronauts” hypothesis popularized by Erich von Däniken’s 1968 book Chariots of the Gods? — the latter of which was of course also serving as a primary inspiration for Jack Kirby’s Eternals series at Marvel Comics, around this same time.

Continuing with his very helpful exposition, Bruce Gordon explains how he, in becoming Eclipso, had inadvertently also become the new servant of Umbra; he goes on to speculate how, not having been raised in the local religion, Eclipso needed the parchment he stole in West Germany to tell him how to release the evil space-god.  At that very moment, Gold discovers a copy of that same parchment; luckily, this one’s text isn’t in the glyphic language of the original, but has been translated into Spanish, which Doc Magnus may be able to read… though, given his currently addled state, it’s kind of a dicey proposition…

Another hallmark of Walt Simonson’s graphic approach over the decades has been his readiness to draw upon the artistic styles of historical cultures.  A year before this, we’d seen him utilize ancient Egyptian motifs to build out the visual milieu of Doctor Fate; here, in the design of Umbra and his “brethren”, we see the influence of pre-Columbian indigenous American art.  (The best-known example of this predilection of the artist would of course follow some seven years after this, when he’d add authentic Norse design elements to the Asgardian realms that Jack Kirby had imagined for Marvel Comics’ Thor.)

The Metal Men quickly form themselves into a slingshot, the better to lob a huge boulder right at Umbra’s kisser — but it proves to be a futile gesture, alas…

I’m not sure whether to credit Pasko or Simonson (or both), but the use of sound effects on this page exemplifies our storytellers’ determination not to take themselves too seriously.  (And I’m not just talking about the Rice Krispies reference; I mean, who has ever heard something actually go “sluice”?)

Even as Iron hurries to complete his task, Umbra’s jewel is recharging itself.  Finally, the Metal Men’s resident strongman’s work is done, and the “submarine” is free to flee the deep…

This is the first full-page splash we’ve had since the story’s opening page, and it’s a stunner; comprised mostly of wholly imaginary elements, it’s almost too much to take in all at once.

And that’s that.  As we noted earlier in the post, this was Walt Simonson’s swan song as the story artist for this series; according to the account given by the artist himself for Modern Masters Volume Eight: Walter Simonson (TwoMorrows, 2006), he was simply “burned out” on the assignment:

I’d done five issues in about a year — it was a bi-monthly book.  I had three different writers.  We were getting very wonky with it with the typography and little subtitles and all sorts of weird stuff, which was fun but exhausting.  But I had a good time.

Fifty years later, one may regret that we couldn’t have more of Walt Simonson’s Metal Men, while still being grateful for what we got.  And you can hardly say that he and Martin Pasko didn’t end their collaboration on a high note with “The Dark God Cometh!”, which remains a highly entertaining comics reading experience.

Interestingly, despite what the “Next” blurb  at the bottom of this issue’s last page says, the 50th issue of Metal Men would not, in fact, chronicle a tale of Doc Magnus’ heroic band being “up for grabs”.  Rather, the bulk of the issue would be given over to a highly edited reprint of “The Day Doc Turned Robot!”, as originally presented by Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru, and Mike Esposito in Metal Men #6 (Feb.-Mar., 1964).  As a note on the issue’s letters page apologetically explained, “our overworked writer, Marty Pasko” had fallen prey to “the Dreaded Deadline Doom” (a statement that offers proof, if any be needed, that though someone at Marvel Comics may have coined the term, the House of Ideas wasn’t the only comics publisher where the “DDD” was a problem in the 1970s).

Not that the issue was all reprint.  Along with another excellent cover by Simonson, Metal Men #50 also featured a 3 1/2-page framing sequence by Pasko and the series’ new regular illustrator, Joe Staton — an artist with a very different style from his predecessor, to be sure, but one that fit the title’s unique sensibility equally well in its own way.  But that’s a discussion worthy of its own post — one that I hope you’ll join me for, just a few months from now.