METAL MEN 34 (1968)
by Robert Kanigher & Mike Sekowsky
A brief tangent: I often rely on the DC Fandom wiki for stuff like credits, publishing dates and and general chronology.
But the Metal Men have entered a period where nobody seem to care about them, so the synopsis they give for this issue is just “The Metal Men get attacked by a bunch of people.”
That is just sad, and couldn’t be further from the truth.
I mean it does begin where we left last issue, with the Metal Men chased by the police…
…but then a giant eldritch abomination shows up!!!
Sekowsky’s art is serviceable, but I really, REALLY despise how he draws Lead. And I don’t even like Lead!!!
Back to the adversary, he’s called… uh. I don’t think the comic actually gets around giving him a name. He has a good design though, but maybe it’s the Time Trapper fan inside me talking.
He takes special interest in Tina, because of course he does.
She does, however, give him a surprisingly heartfelt speech…
…which makes the creature fall in love with her. Too bad he’s not a robot, otherwise we would’ve a Metal Men Bingo.
I get that sometimes superhero comic go all “the real heroes are the first responders”, but NOT THIS LITERALLY!!!
Amazingly, pressurized water doesn’t defeat the giant evil wizard. But he’s kind enough to give away his only weakness FOR NO FREAKING REASON.
Kanigher has to be trolling the readers, right? I mean there is NO WAY we are supposed to believe the Metal Men are anything but the most incompetent superheroes ever!!!
Then again, maybe this entire world is filled to the brim with absolute morons because WHY ARE THE COPS STILL FIRING!?!?!?
Things are so bad that the Metal Men want to go back to the place where Magnus kept them deactivated (they call it a crypt for some reason), but Tina would rather stay with the wizard.
Who I guess is the Duke Of Darkness? I’ll call him Duke for short.
You still haven’t convinced me that Colonel Magnus is not a supervillain, comic.
While the Metal Men sits this one out (how pathetic can they get!?!?), Duke explains that he’s from a planet called Astra Maxima…
…and uses his powers to create an army of mannequins (in an admittedly creepy splash page) that is supposed to take over the city.
AND IT WORKS.
So the Metal Men are recruited AGAIN and equipped with flamethrowers to fight the mannequins (because I guess humans can’t use flamethrowers???)
Duke then takes Tina on his spaceship to fly back to his planet (???), but they stumble upon a random exploding volcano.
Well, to be fair it’s not completely random, there was an earlier reference to increased volcanic activity all over the world.
Tina forces Duke to pilot the ship into the volcano, meaning Tina single-handedly defeats the villain on the month AGAIN.
And so we end the issue with a cliffhanger: Duke is defeated, but something alive is coming out of that volcano.
Don’t get too excited: despite how it looks, that’s not Chemo.
Metal Men significance: 0/10
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
Does it stand the test of time? 4/10 
Just like last issue this is a VERY fast read, but the drop in quality is noticeable. The Duke and Tina stuff is fine if a bit rushed, but the rest of the Metal Men are just a joke, even more than usual!!!
Too bad an awesome design was wasted on such a forgettable villain.
Issues when not a single Metal Man dies: 15
Interesting letters: the readers were NOT kind to the Metal Men. There’s a very long letter that really gets into the specifics; it’s too long to show in its entirety, but here are a few interesting parts.
