Metal Men #36 – Comics Archeology

METAL MEN 36 (1969)
by Robert Kanigher & Mike Sekowsky

A moment of silence for the very last Robert Kanigher issue. I’m going to miss that man.

As it’s often the case with Kanigher, we begin in the middle of the story.
With the Metal Men giving a passionate speech…

…to a giant alien evil clown. Yep, that’s a Kanigher pitch if I ever read one.

To see how we got here, the comic jumps into a flashback. Doc Magnus is still in a coma, as explained by his brother who couldn’t possibly look creepier.

We’re still in the “humans can’t trust robot” phase of the book, something that is not helped by the fact that the Metal Men are consistently the least effective heroes ever.
It’s beyond parody at this point: they can’t even rescue a kite!!!

Geez, I wonder why the cops don’t trust these idiots?

Tina realizes the Metal Men are only good to make people laugh. That’s just sad… I can’t help but wonder if this is some kind of meta commentary by Kanigher on how his creations struggle to be taken seriously?

Nah, it’s probably just so that he could have them put up a circus. (?????)

Try not to be shocked, but the Metal Men SUCK AT THIS TOO!!!!

When you’re upstaged by actual clowns, it’s probably a good time to give up the whole superhero business.

The fact that they’re actually evil alien clowns is even worse.

They’re not even giants: they just have a shrink ray. So the only interesting thing about them is already gone.

I would love to hear Kanigher pitching this story.
“This issue the Metal Men will fight evil alien clowns! They come from a planet where clowns are people and regular people are clowns!”
“Robert, are you off your meds again?”

Kanigher had some kind of fetish about giant women, right? I mean come on!!!
Nice work by Sekowsky on using the vertical panel to highlight the size of the giant. The artwork has been meh at best so far, but that’s a great use of panels (even if I hate when artists use those little arrows to clarify which panel to read next).

While Tin keeps her busy, the rest of the team manages to escape by finding a cannon. Why do they need that when half the team can already transform into a cannon!?

Lead is on a roll this issue, managing to defeat the entire Clown Army pretty much on his own!

If this was written by anyone else, the story would be over now. But not Kanigher!

For absolutely no reason, we need to have Lead protecting the ship and turning into a giant…

…only for everyone to return to natural size thanks to the radiations of the meteor shower.
Which, as far as we know, is completely unrelated to the clowns’ shrinking ray.