Metal Men #31

METAL MEN 31 (1968)
by Otto Binder & Gil Kane

Alas, the last Gil Kane issue.

We begin with Doc Magnus repairing Iron, while lamenting this is the 29th time he’s had to fix them. By my count Iron has died 19 times so far, but I’m adding this one as the 20th even if he wasn’t damaged last issue.
If we sum ALL the deaths of ALL the Metal Men, by the way, Doc has had to repair them a whopping 112 times!!!

The idea of having a backup team is actually very clever, although Doc seems to go out of his way to one-up himself and choosing more useful metals. Are the Metal Men we know going to be the B team now?

Yeah, one of the new robots has a lisp. That’s not going to become annoying very soon.

And some of the New Metals are rather dense.

Mercury hasn’t said his catchphrase in a long time, but apparently Doc finds it just as annoying as I do.

Okay, I have to admit that move DOES lower the Doc Magnus Awfulness Scale a bit.
Aaaand it’s raised again when he makes ANOTHER girl robot in love with him.

I mean, ONCE might be a honest mistake, but TWICE!?

Tina takes it just about as you would expect.

Our villain for the issue, ladies and gentlemen: the disembodied mind of Darzz, alien dictator of planet Thrombb.
The Silver Age, man…

Doc Magnus might have invented the opposite of artificial intelligence.

Darzz is already absurd on his own, but he randomly has the power to animate objects!

Tina doesn’t fall for Darzz: she just wants to make Doc jealous.
That’s going to be hard, considering he’s more interested in playing ping pong with Iridia (WTF!?).

Not gonna lie, Darzz has an AWESOME power.

Are we SURE we don’t want to have the New Metals replace the Metal Men as the title characters? They seem to be far better heroes!!!

Tina is on the case, meaning she’s either going to save the day or she’s dooming us all.
There are no half measures with her.

Yeah sure, Darzz might be a dictator who almost killed thousands of people, but he’s kind to her AND once he animates a mannequin he’s already more human than Doc!

The rest of the old Metal Men feel so useless that they have new jobs in… maybe a day?

Not all of them are able to find something useful to do, though.

Too bad Darzz is now possessing Silver, and he has reprogrammed the New Metals to follow him.

And so we have a big dumb fight between the two teams… except it’s not as dumb as you would expect because Binder actually knows something about science!!!

See, it wasn’t so hard to FINALLY use the physical properties of the elements in a Metal Men story!!!

You would expect Darzz to survive the destruction of the robot he’s animating, but this is his last appearance.

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Metal Men significance: 0/10
I wonder why Magnus didn’t just re-create the New Metals and add them to the roster.

Silver Age-ness: 8/10
More science than usual, but come on… DARZZ.

Does it stand the test of time? 7/10
This was actually pretty decent! Sure, Darzz comes out of absolutely nowhere and is pretty silly, but there’s potential there. The New Metals… they don’t get an actual name in the story, by the way… were done well: they had their own personalities, not always a carbon copy of the original Metal Men. And it’s not like they were evil, they were just reprogrammed that way.
Sure not all of it works (the Metal Men find jobs immediately!?), but THIS is how the series should be!!!

Number of elements: 42
Adding Cobalt, Gallium, Iridium, Osmium, Silver and Zinc.

“Mercury is the only liquid metal at room temperature”: 15

 Times Nameless has died: 5
Times Platinum has died: 14
Times Mercury has died: 16
Times Gold has died: 18
Times Lead has died: 19
Times Iron has died: 20
Times Tin has died: 20