THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD 55 (1964)
by Bob Haney & Ramona Fradon
The Atom is the first superhero to meet the Metal Men in this story written by the great Haney & Fradon duo, perhaps best known as the creative team behind Metamorpho.
This has the same cover date of Metal Men #9.
We begin with the Metal Men giving a show to some orphans. If this was any other hero I’d call it sweet, but with these guys I’m worried for the kids.
And then we move to Tina wanting some robot children of her own!!!
Yeah that’s a face that says “either build me kids or I’m going to kidnap someone else’s kid”.
Tina is so giddy about this idea that once they’re back at the lab she can’t stop dancing…
…and she ends up killing herself!!! That is so shocking that Mercury and Tin switch colors.
This time all hands are on deck to rebuild her.
THEN IRON EXPLODES.
Gold also dies when he falls into a vat of aqua regia. So, uhm, we’ll later learn Doc is not behind this, so I have to wonder… why does he keep in his lab a huge vat of a chemical that is incredibly damaging to Gold?
Now don’t be shocked, but it turns out Mercury is not exactly great under pressure.
There’s no reason to be embarrassed, Mercury, that’s a normal physiological reaction.
Yeah that’s not how absolute zero works, guys. Or mercury. Or thermometers.
Tin raises the temperature, resulting in THE most gruesome Metal Men death you’ll ever see.
I have to say that this is a fantastic mystery. Even Doc is giving a great performance!
To close off the tragedy, Lead also dies.
That’s the most human Doc has ever been. Where was THIS guy throughout the series!?!?!
That’s when we learn about the villains of the story: Uranium and his confusingly name girlfriend Agantha.
Seriously, I’ve tried to look up the word “agantha” to understand what it’s supposed to be… and I’ve got nothing. From the dialogue I think she’s supposed to be silver.
But the big news is that Uranium is Doc’s first robot!!! Kind of insane that he went with URANIUM as his first metal, but then again few people have accused Doc Magnus of being sane.
Also I suppose he’s the reason why Doc never had kids.
Unlike the Metal Men, however, Uranium is quite intelligent. And crazy in a less funny way.
That was enough to have Doc turn him into an inert form.
Unfortunately Uranium managed to pull himself together after his inert form was used for new experiments (!!!) and now he’s basically a supervillain.
This looks like a job for the Atom, who gets contacted (in his secret identity) at page 13 of this 24.5 page story.
When a guy who is basically a walking chain reaction waiting to happen wants you to build a doomsday weapon, you know it HAS to be good.
Luckily Uranium keeps around models of the atomic structure of the Metal Men (????), so the Atom quickly deduces how he managed to alter their bodies.
That is ALMOST how chemistry works! WAY closer to actual science that nearly anything that happened in the main series.
We don’t get to meet the Atom very often in any of my retrospectives, so let me take the opportunity to say that HE’S AWESOME.
The Atom fixes all the Metal Men, and just in time because Doc’s weapon is now ready.
Even if Uranium has some doubts about killing him!
This is a cool twist: he might be a supervillain, but Uranium is still programmed to have at least some respect for his creator. Agantha, on the other hand, was created by Uranium and not Doc.
Plus since she’s the evil counterpart of Tina it makes sense to have her wanting to kill Doc.
Alright, time for some serious robot versus robot violence!!!
Aaaaand now I remember these are the Metal Men.
Why didn’t they EVER try stuff like this in the series!? This is great stuff!!!
Uranium has another gimmick, though: he can spawn Alpha, Beta and Gamma!!!
These are supposed to stand for alpha rays, beta rays and gamma rays.
Lead is the only one who can stop Uranium’s particles, but Agantha is trying to seduce him.
Joke’s on her, we know that in this period he had a steamy relationship with Iron.
This turns into a metal catfight!!!
While short, it’s an entertaining fight. Which Tina wins because come on.
Uranium makes a run for it, but the Atom has a suggestion to the Metal Men: how about they stop sucking for just a couple of panels?
I would say this means Mercury is the hero of the story… but this is entirely thanks to the Atom.
This counts as a double death for Lead, since he needs Doc’s help to be revived. As of now, this pushes Lead to being the Metal Man with the most deaths.
This was GREAT!!! Why didn’t the Metal Men try fusing again? Well, the following month Metal Men #10 was published and…
Metal Men significance: 0/10
Never mentioned again. You would think the fact that Doc built a sentient elemental robot before the Metal Men would come up sometimes!!!
Silver Age-ness: 3/10
Considering the era, even the science is surprisingly accurate.
Does it stand the test of time? 10/10
Hands down THE best Silver Age Metal Men story. It’s not even a question… everything is better!!! The characterization, the mystery, the action, the science, this is top notch superhero fun!
Should this have been part of the main series?
YES.
Number of elements: 56
Uranium and Agantha.
Times Nameless has died: 5
Times Platinum has died: 20
Times Mercury has died: 21
Times Gold has died: 22
Times Tin has died: 26
Times Iron has died: 26
Times Lead has died: 27
Well, they got Silver’s chemical symbol right – Ag, for the Latin argentum. Why they called her “Agantha” I’ll never know. But Doc screwed up Uranium’s symbol. It’s just “U”, not “Ur”. But that’s a minor gripe. The science in this story was a cut above that in the regular series, as you’ve said.
Maybe Silver wasn’t considered “girly” enough for a name?
“This counts as a double death for Lead, since he needs Doc’s help to be revived. As of now, this pushes Lead to being the Metal Man with the most deaths.”
So he’s taking the LEAD.