Metal Men

Metal Men #48 (Oct.-Nov., 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Cover to Metal Men #46 (Jun.-Jul., 1976). Art by Dick Giordano.

Cover to Metal Men #47 (Aug.-Sep.). Art by Walt Simonson.

Six months ago, we took a look at Metal Men #45 — which, back in January, 1976, was the first all-new issue of the title to have been published since 1969.  Featuring the long overdue reunion of the robot superheroes with their creator, Dr. Will Magnus, that comic had been written by Steve Gerber and illustrated by Walt Simonson.  But Gerber’s effort was a one-off; with the following bi-monthly issue, #46, editor Gerry Conway took over scripting duties as well.  This creative lineup remained in place only through #47, as by the time #48 finished making its way through production, Gerry Conway was no longer at DC Comics.  As we’ve discussed in several previous posts, Conway had been lured back to his former employer, Marvel Comics, to become editor-in-chief; production schedules being what they were, however, his name continued to appear in DC’s books even as his situation at Marvel evolved from being EIC to becoming the writer/editor of a smaller slate of titles.  Read More

Metal Men #45 (Apr.-May, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

As of January, 1976, your humble blogger had been reading DC Comics publications for over ten years — but never, in all that time, had I read a single comic-book story featuring the Metal Men, those robotic heroes created in 1962 by writer Robert Kanigher and artist Ross Andru.  Not any of their 4 tryout issues of Showcase, nor any issue of their own series (which consisted of 41 original installments released in 1963-69, followed by 3 reprint editions published in 1972-73)… not even any of their 6 Brave and the Bold team-ups with Batman and other DC heroes.  Oh, I knew who they were, all right, through the normal process of comics-fan osmosis (house ads, letters-page references, etc.); I might even have been able to rattle off their names.  But I’d never read a single one of their adventures.  Read More

Wonder Woman #171 (July-Aug., 1967)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

It may be difficult for some younger comics fans to believe, but Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman haven’t always been perceived as a “Trinity” of characters standing head and shoulders above the rest of their fellow DC Comics heroes, in the Justice League and elsewhere.  That’s not to say that fans in earlier eras didn’t appreciate the special status of these three characters — the only superheroes to remain in virtually continuous publication in their own titles from the 1940s to the present day — but that appreciation didn’t necessarily equate to seeing the characters as equals.

When I first started reading comics in 1965, Batman and Superman were each headlining two titles of their own in addition to co-starring in World’s Finest, and were also appearing regularly in Justice League of America.  Add to that the two titles featuring Superboy, and (from late 1965 on), Batman’s frequent co-starring turns in The Brave and the Bold, and it was clear to me that these guys were DC’s Big Two, and no one else was in the same class.  Wonder Woman, after all, starred in just one title, and also appeared in JLA — which simply put her in the same good-sized camp as Aquaman, Atom, Flash, Green Lantern, and Hawkman.  Of course, Princess Diana also had the distinction of having been around in the same incarnation since the Forties, unlike most of those guys, as well as the unique quality of being the only female superhero with her own comic book, which put her a step ahead of Supergirl.  Still, all that wasn’t enough to give her iconic status — at least, not in the eyes of the (admittedly ignorant) little boy I was at the time.  Read More

Justice League of America #42 (February, 1966)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

By December, 1965, I had been buying and reading comics for almost half a year, and in that time Justice League of America had definitely become my favorite comic book — the one series I would buy whenever I saw a new issue.  That’s not surprising, I guess, considering its all-star cast of heroes.  Concurrently, I had also sampled individual issues of a number of the Justice League members’ own series (and most of those that I hadn’t gotten around to yet, I’d be checking out before long).  But there were other DC heroes I only glanced at when perusing the spinner racks at the Tote-Sum.  These particular heroes — characters like the Doom Patrol, the Metal Men, and Ultra the Multi-Alien — were a little more bizarre, and a little less-human seeming, than Superman, Batman, and the rest of the JLA gang.  Nevertheless, there was a way for such characters to get my attention, and that was to appear in the JLA’s own book — as Metamorpho, the Element Man, did in Justice League of America #42’s “Metamorpho Says — No!” (produced, per the Grand Comics Database, by the series’ regular team of writer Gardner Fox, penciller Mike Sekowsky, and inker Bernard Sachs).  Read More