Metal Men #30

METAL MEN 30 (1968)
by Otto Binder & Gil Kane

It’s the first time the Metal Men are not written by Robert Kanigher.
They seem pretty sad about it.

Apparently Doc Magnus has turned into Reed Richards, because the roboticist is suddenly exploring other dimensions.

And Doc dies in the very first page!!!

Naturally, the best solution is to bring Doc to another dimension. (????)

A dimension where mercury is green and gold turns into copper, because the situation wasn’t random enough.

But wait, it gets MORE random: Mercury is actually brittle and Gold (now Copper) has lost the ability to speak.

Of ALL the Metal Men to lose their voice, why not Mercury!?
Also Gold/Copper must have brain damage, because he appoints Mercury as the new leader of the Metal Men.

At least some of the other transformations make thematic sense: Iron turns as useless as Tin, while Tin becomes as strong as Iron (enough to save them from a meteor shower).

Lead becomes lighter than air, continuing the theme of opposites…

…and platinum is combustible, which apparently is the opposite of having a high melting point.

The Random Dimension has its own inhabitants, who pretend they want to help Doc Magnus.
In addition to having been turned into copper AND being mute, Gold now has “telepathy hearing”.

Mind you that he’s not reading their thoughts. THAT’S JUST REGULAR HEARING!!!

And conveniently it only works on non-robots.

You might be wondering why Gold/Copper doesn’t try communicating in another way. Well… despite all the changes, the Metal Men are still idiots.

Wow, I’ve never seen a comic book spell out the subplots this succinctly.

Okay, task #1: fight the Mechan Monster by fusing into THIS abomination!

I have the slightest suspicion that Binder doesn’t have much respect for the Metal Men.
Can’t imagine why.

Then Gold demonstrates why being made of copper is actually far more useful.
And WOW is that a great Gil Kane panel!

Task #2 is “find the lost treasure”. It takes a considerable amount of boring pages, and the punchline is rather predictable.

Task #3 requires the Metal Men to go through a Gil Kane Mindf##k.

Seriously, Gil Kane looooves this kind of scene… I think I’ve seen him do this in pretty much every series he’s worked on.

And of course he must include his trademark Gil Kane Nostril Upshot ™.

Gold/Copper leads the team out of the Gil Kane Mindf##k, where Tina discovers a vital clue.

And task #3 is completed once they find the “Lost Princess” making out with some dude.

The Metal Men return to the alien king’s palace, where they learn that he doesn’t have any clue on how to save Doc Magnus.
Something that leads the now combustible Tina to weep tears of fire…

…burning the alien perfume…

…which can RAISE THE DEAD!!!

Just as a reminder, this is not even the weirdest Metal Men adventure.
I wouldn’t even put it in the top ten weirdest!

And so we end with the revelation that the perfume which can raise the dead actually stinks to high heavens.

This is right above the “Statement of Ownership” disclaimer. There was a total of 400,000 printed copies in the previous 12 months, but only 235,000 sold copies.

That is a lot of unsold copies.

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Metal Men significance: 0/10

Silver Age-ness: 10/10
This sums it up.

Does it stand the test of time? 5/10
I think I’ve made it clear just how random the story is, but it’s still far more coherent than the typical Kanigher story. And of course you can’t go wrong with Gil Kane doing the artwork.

Issues when not a single Metal Man dies: 12