Undercover Comics

METAL MEN #9 - The FIRST Quirky Team?

I'll be quite honest. I'm really not all that familiar with the Metal Men.

But the research has been fun!

(METAL MEN #9 - Cover Dated Aug/Sept 1964 - on Newsstands June 25, 1964 - cover art by Ross Andru)

Many might think the Metal Men were some kind of rip off of the X-Men or the Marvel ‘team’ concept in general, as they’re a quirky group of misfits with a behind the scenes mentor (ala Professor X) - but the truth is, the Metal Men pre-dates the X-Men by a year and a half!

(Not to get off specifics too much here, but it’s actually the Doom Patrol, who it is rumored to have been put together, based upon inside information on Marvel’s upcoming X-Men series. It debuted on newsstands April 18, 1963, while the X-Men showed up almost three months later on July 2nd, 1963. So who copied who?)

First appearing in Showcase #37 (on newsstands January 30th, 1962), you have to figure, at the time when letters pages printed letters from 3-4 months earlier, that the first appearance was written sometime in September 1961. That means that realistically the concept predates all but the first issue of the Fantastic Four. (FF#2 hit newsstands on September 28, 1961).

So are the Metal Men the first quirky, off-beat team?

(METAL MEN #9 - on Newsstands June 25, 1964 - art by Ross Andru)

Created by writer Robert Kanigher and artist Ross Andru, the Metal Men were a successful 2nd tier series for DC Comics that saw them peak in the mid 60's (#12 in 1966) but falter later in the decade and eventually get canceled and mostly disappear for two decades.

Here in issue #9, the second part of the storyline 'The Playground of Terror', called 'The Robot Juggernaut!', Kanigher and Andru have the team bickering and falling over backward to get their act together while taking on a giant robot.

This is the type of behavior that history tries to tell us that only Marvel did, but obviously, that isn't true.

(METAL MEN #9 - on Newsstands June 25, 1964 - art by Ross Andru)

So why doesn't it work with Metal Men for me?

When the Russians beat the United States into space in the 1957, our government looked around and saw a nation of rural, uneducated workers. They set about to push education with an emphasis on math, science, reading, etc. By the mid 60's, what you had was a higher educated American than 10 years earlier, and as such, their need for reading that matched their skill level had gone up.

Not that Metal men is dumb... it's NOT. Robert Kanigher's scripts usually seemed to include information about actual metals and science, on top of having a sense of humor about it that certainly made it a bit more 'hip' than Superman Comics.

(METAL MEN #9 - on Newsstands June 25, 1964 - art by Ross Andru)

And if I had been 13 years old in 1966 (I was 3), I probably would've thought this was awesome. In hindsight though, it reminds me of a lot of DC Comics from this period (vs it's Marvel competition) in that it seems to be geared toward a younger reader.

This would eventually catch up to DC by 1970 as Marvel's continued stories, human characters, social commentary (observed mostly as oppossed to preached) and rabid, older fan base would eclipse them as the #1 publisher of comics.

(METAL MEN #9 - on Newsstands June 25, 1964 - art by Ross Andru)

I mean, even though these characters joke around and seem to have human characteristics... the truth is, they're robots. It just doesn't register with ME, the way Peter Parker/Spider-man did (one of the few comics I would remain reading into my post teen years).

Once again... it's not BAD. It's moderately entertaining.

Just not the kind of thing that makes me want to track down back issue, get a subscription, and follow for the rest of my life.