Comments on: John Seavey's Storytelling Engines: Metal Men

By: PÃ³l Rua

PÃ³l Rua — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 08:06:16 +0000

The main appeal of the Metal Men was the fact that they relied on their schticks.
Gold was noble and honourable (and a bit dull).
Iron was a strong workhorse, a good solid palooka who'd help ya outta a jam.
Lead was the slow-moving mook with a good heart and a thick head.
Mercury was the snooty know-it-all.
Platinum was the vampy airhead who was equal parts coquette and ingenue.
Tin was the weakling who lacked confidence but always tried his very hardest.

Pure schtick, every one of them.

By: cadmium

cadmium — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:16:19 +0000

Forget an animated series - the big screen treatment is coming! Lauren Shuler Donner (X-Men: The Last Stand, Constantine) is producing the Warner Bros. film.

Awesome.

By: Rich

Rich — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:46:58 +0000

Stephane, that would be lots of fun. They didn't ever appear in the JLU cartoon, did they? Maybe there's room for them to guest on Brave and the Bold once that's on. I'm assuming it's a team-up show.

By: Graeme Burk

Graeme Burk — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:16:08 +0000

Of course, the late 60s revamp no one ever talks about (as opposed to the much-noted Wonder Woman revamp and the infamous Blackhawk revamp) is they made the Metal Men human toward the end of their run, which not only changed the storytelling engine but probably hastened the cancellation!

By: Stephane Savoie

Stephane Savoie — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:31:25 +0000

Man, they REALLY need to make a Metal Men animated series. It would be great!

By: suedenim

suedenim — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:17:12 +0000

One of my recent fascinating discoveries was on this site, which reconstructs (imperfectly, but it's all we got) sales figures from the '60s based on their Post Office-required distribution statements:

http://www.comichron.com/YearlyRankings/1960s/1965/tabid/203/Default.aspx

What's kind of stunning to me is that Metal Men sold really, *really* well! I'd always imagined it to be one of DC's lesser titles, like it would have sold around *Mystery in Space* or *Blackhawk* levels, but it seems for several years to have been DC's top selling comic that didn't have Superman and/or Batman as recurring characters!

The title apparently had a meteoric rise and fall, dropping pretty steeply by the end of the decade, probably due to the limitations of its storytelling engine mentioned above, but that ain't bad! Seems like the Metal Men had a reign comparable to what Lobo had for a while - a significant but limited period of *huge* sales, before people got tired of it.