Clockwise from top: Lead, Platinum, Mercury, Doc Magnus, Tin, Iron. Center is Gold.
DC Comics' "metal marvels".
Specifically, the Metal Men are a team of six (sometimes seven) robots created by Dr. Will Magnus, whose powers and personalities are based off their namesake metals: Gold, Mercury, Iron, Lead, Tin, and Platinum (a.k.a. Tina.) In the original series, Tin's girlfriend Nameless - made from a do-it-yourself-kit- was later added.
The team was originally created in 1962 by writer Robert Kanigher, artist Ross Andru, and inker Mike Esposito to fill a last minute vacancy at DC's anthology series Showcase, and because they weren't intended to last past the issue, the robot team was destroyed at the end. However the team proved popular enough to return in the following issues, with their distinguishing feature firmly established: they would willingly throw themselves at any threat and even risk being destroyed because they knew Doc would always gather up their responsometers (microscopic computer brains) and rebuild them.
In their first story, it was established that eccentric genius Will Magnus had invented the responsometer, and used it to create a shape-shifting robot in the form of a woman - Platinum. However due to the unforseen effect of sunspot activity, Platinum somehow developed a human personality - that of a vain girl with a crush on Magnus (a platinum blonde, get it?) Then the U.S. Army asked Magnus to create more robots so they could help stop a giant flying monster that was terrorizing the world. He agreed, and like Platinum, the rest of the Metal Men developed human emotions he didn't intend them to have.
The Metal Men became something of a fan favorite, although they had sporadic success in their own title. Over the course of their series, they faced a number and variety of enemies, including recurring foes such as the Missile Men and the walking chemical vat called Chemo. Keeping with the chemistry theme, some issues even included 'fun factoids'. The original series eventually came to its end in 1978 after 56 issues.
Both during and after the series, there were frequent team ups with other DC heroes, including Batman and The Atom, and occasional appearances in other series. They wouldn't get their own series again until the 1993 miniseries that rewrote their origin so that their personalities originally came from humans. This and other changes were greatly disliked. Thankfully, the miniseries 52 easily fixed this while focusing on Doc Magnus, who would eventually rebuild his Metal Men.
Their next series was the 2007 eight-issue miniseries that told a new origin of the metal marvels with the addition of a new member, the female Copper. In 2009, they were featured in the new Doom Patrol series as a second feature. In 2019, they would have a 12-issue maxi-series written by Dan Didio and drawn by artist Shane Davis following the events of Dark Nights: Metal.
The Metal Men were also recurring guest stars in The Brave and the Bold, and later recurring characters in the Batman: The Brave and the Bold animated series; in the cartoon, they were considered one of the most powerful and useful teams in that series' universe.
In 2021, it was announced
that an animated film adaptation was in development from Disney Renaissance directors John Musker and Ron Clements.
Not to be confused with the one Metal Man that fights Mega Man. Or with Marvel's Iron Man.
Tropes related to these characters:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Rare positive example. In both the original and the New 52 incarnations, the Metal Men having anything resembling personalities is something Doc never intended and can't explain. In the New 52 they weren't even supposed to be sapient or have distinct physical appearances.
- Affirmative Action Girl: Nameless, and later Copper, were added to the team so there'd be a second female character.
- Alchemy Is Magic: In the 2007 series, it eventually turns out that Magnus was not the first to invent the responsometer, and that pre-industrial magicians used a similar process to create golems from various varieties of stone.
- Applied Phlebotinum: The responsometers, the device that is the source of the powers and personalities. Can be seen as early Nano Technology.
- In addition, a retcon by John Byrne in the late '80s established that the Metal Men are actually made of a secret polymer (read: plastic) that can be rearranged in form and characteristics by their responsometers. This was likely done to explain the
logical discrepancies that they're being actually made of the indicated metals would entail (e.g. Mercury would be highly toxic, Platinum would be more costly than all the gold in America, etc.) - Geoff Johns' New 52 incarnation brought back responsometers, and made it clear that they really are made purely of their namesake metals.
- In addition, a retcon by John Byrne in the late '80s established that the Metal Men are actually made of a secret polymer (read: plastic) that can be rearranged in form and characteristics by their responsometers. This was likely done to explain the
- Artistic License – Chemistry: It's a comic book about alchemical robots, so this happens naturally. At one point in 52, when Doc explains his whole theory about inherently intelligent metals to a supervillain, he admits that before he created the responsometer, he was basically laughed out of the room: it had so little to do with actual chemistry or robotics that it's bordering on medieval.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Various giant humanoid shaped robots, animal robots, insects, and even moon microbes.
- Back for the Dead: Nameless. After disappearing from the series without a mention in issue 33, it wasn't until The Brave and the Bold #187 that the mystery was solved. During an upgrade of her body to be more humanoid like the Metal Women, Nameless was damaged and ran off, leaving Doc to believe he'd destroyed her. The upgrade he gave the Metal Men was partly to erase their memory of her. Once reunited, Nameless and Tin became married and the issue ended with her sacrificing herself to save the others from an explosion.
- Bash Brothers: When executed well, this is how the Metal Men fight as a unit. When done badly you tend to get bombarded by a long-winded explanation.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Happens occasionally with the Metal Men, and a couple of times to Doc. A more sustained version occurred when Doc was kidnapped by a foreign dictator, brainwashed, and then began threatening nations as an evil Mad Scientist; he eventually got better.
- Brought to You by the Letter "S": Lead has an "L" on his chest and Platinum has a "P" on her hat. The others have the alchemical symbols for the metals.
- Butt-Monkey: Copper, who is constantly forgotten by her fellow Metal Men. Might even apply to a meta level, given she was consistently ignored or forgotten by other materials written while she existed.
- Canon Discontinuity: The 1993 miniseries was declared non-canon by the events of 52—not only is Doc human again, but the Metal Men's origins, though somewhat tweaked, were changed back to them being solely AI created by the responsometer rather than them being originally human. At one point, Doc muses that during a particularly bad psychotic episode, he thought that he was a robot and the Metal Men were human, suggesting the entire thing was a hallucination on his part.
- Catchphrase: Mercury's "I'm the only metal that's liquid at room temperature!" (In one story Platinum mutters in response "You always forget about caesium, don't you?")note
- Character Development: Doc Magnus between the original revival, all the way through to 52 and the Duncan Rouleau series. He goes through two psychotic breaks and two kidnappings by supervillains, before getting finally getting it together in the '07 series and rebuilding the Metal Men better than ever. You really feel for the guy.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Platinum whenever Magnus shows interest in another woman.
- Combining Mecha:
- In Kingdom Come and Batman: The Brave and the Bold, the Metal Men can combine to form the giant Alloy. Granted, they're anything but standard robots, and Alloy is anything but your typical Humongous Mecha. Alloy eventually made the transition to the regular universe, showing up in Justice League: Generation Lost.
- Possibly inspired, however loosely, by a couple of times in the original series when the Metal Men alloyed together to form a giant robot. This involved a giant smelting pool and they couldn't separate without some other complicated crap happening. If you consider this proper combining, they're among the earliest examples of the trope.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Believe it or not, Magnus' experiments were originally designed to "merely" aid mankind in ease of construction ("Imagine a bridge rising out of the ground, simply because we asked it to.") and other fields. While money was never the primary reason for his research, Magnus did intend to profit from his breakthroughs. But after the creation of the Responsometer things get a tad more hectic...
- Darker and Edgier: Arguably what they tried to do beginning in issue 33. During an upgrade of the Metal Men's responsometers, Doc is injured and in a coma. The upgrade makes the teams powers harder to control, the public turns against them, and the team becomes wanted fugitives. A good bit of the humor is gone, as is Nameless. The series is even called "The New Hunted Metal Men." Later issues (and later appearances in The Brave and the Bold) have the robots disguised as humans, and Doc kidnapped and brainwashed, threatening nations.
- The '93 miniseries had elements of this as well, what with all the Body Horror and the "permanent" death of Gold.
- Deader than Dead: During the 2019-2020 maxi-series, the Nth Metal Man destroys Gold's responsometer in the second issue, and everyone treats this as Gold being gone for good. In the third issue, the Nth Metal Man convinces Doc Magnus to release him from captivity so he can provide something better than a responsometer, and at the end of the issue, Gold is Back from the Dead, now with genuine sentience (the personalities given by the Metal Men's responsometers were revealed to just be emulations of aspects of Doc Magnus' personality).
- Deadpan Snarker: Mercury, when he's not in one of his warmer moods.
- Determinator: Being blasted into their component parts amounts to little more than a setback to the Metal Men, most of the time.
- One instance in their '07 mini-series saw stone golems smash them to pieces. We assume they're dead, until Mercury, Lead, Iron, and Platina arrive on the scene as one great, big composite Metal Man.
- Death Is Cheap: As a consequence of the fact that they're all robots. Most issues of the original series ended with at least one of the Metal Men, and sometimes all of them, out of commission, though they're usually okay by the start of the next issue.
- Distaff Counterpart / Spear Counterpart: The Metal Women (Gold Girl, Iron Girl, Mercury Girl, and Lead Girl) and Platinum Man were created by request by Doc as potential mates for the team. They did not get along and they were destroyed at the end of the issue. Platinum Man turned out to survive and appeared as a foe in The Brave and the Bold #187. Nameless counts as Tin's counterpart, but he created her well before the others were created.
- Dumb Muscle: Lead is as thick as a pyramid and twice as tough. He isn't as strong as Iron, though.
- Fast Ball Special: The team occasionally employs this tactic.
- Fembot: Platinum, who's also the Metal Men's sole female member.
- Fusion Dance: The Metal Men have merged into larger pieces of machinery on occasion, most notably into the giant robot Alloy featured in the Kingdom Come miniseries.
- Gag Nose: Tin and Mercury. Exactly how long it is depends on the artist.
- Gold-Colored Superiority: Gold is the leader, not counting Doc Magnus (Da Chief).
- Good Thing You Can Heal: The old Silver Age comics were fully aware that the Metal Men, being robots, could be destroyed at any time while neither ticking off censors nor messing with future continuity. Consequently, they get wrecked very frequently, especially poor Tin.
- Heroic Sacrifice:
- Gold and Lead in the '07 series. Fortunately, they're saved. By the villains.
- This was an extremely common device in the earliest Metal Men stories. Apparently the logic was that they could simply be repaired every time, but a.) the Metal Men themselves rarely seem to realize this and act like they'll be gone for good upon sacrificing themselves and b.) they sacrificed themselves so often that they started to come across as suicidal
- That was due to it being revealed that Doc was wiping their memories of their deaths each time he rebuilt them, so to them they'd never been killed until he was finally talked out of it by someone after one of their many rebuilds.
- The above was Deconstructed in the New 52 version. After the Metal Men sacrificed themselves to save people from Chemo, Doc was unwilling to rebuild them because he couldn't stand the thought of losing them again.
- Hidden Depths: Chemo, of all people.
- Implacable Man: Chemo. And he always comes back.
- Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: In the original series, while Doc was deliberately trying to make sapient robots, the fact that he succeeded so well with these six was a bit of a fluke that he was not readily able to pull off again. This was originally attributed to sunspots, but that has since been forgotten.
- I Work Alone: Doc Magnus is the literal embodiment of this trope; he's a social misfit, but genuinely strives to help his fellow man. His isolation is both a source of sadness and the drive he needs for his research.
- Jerkass: Mercury has a very inflated ego and is extremely selfish.
- Doc's elder brother, Colonel David Magnus, is quite an ass.
- The Load: Tin is a very fragile guy (what with the metal he was made out of and all), yet he does his damnedest to prove he does not fall under this trope, with little success. Tin isn't so much a Load as a kind of ablative armor for the team and comic in general. Need to show someone's a serious threat but not damage anyone that actually has useful abilities? Let Tin take one for the team — he's not strong, tough, or fast, but he's very brave.
- Losing Your Head: The Metal Men get decapitated a lot. Being robots, this doesn't really cause them much harm.
- Luckily, My Powers Will Protect Me: Mercury never shuts up about being the only metal that's liquid at room temperature, but in the earliest stories the whole team would run up against a threat and rattle off their boiling points or atomic weights, whichever being appropriate.
- Mad Scientist: Doc Magnus. A rare heroic variation. The intention was always that Doc would be less human than his robot creations (for irony).
- Madness Mantra: On at least one occasion, Mercury was traumatized to the point he could only say his Catchphrase in a Creepy Monotone.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: If you come across a group called "The Death-Metal Men", you'd be smart to run for your goddamn life.
- Then there was Plutonium Man. Considering he's made of plutonium and the Despair Event Horizon of Dr. Magnus, you better get your running shoes on.
- Never Given a Name: Tin's girlfriend wasn't given a proper name, and was often called "Nameless".
- No Guy Wants to Be Chased: Though it's uncertain whether he'd be warmer to Platinum if she wasn't so flagrantly insane in her adulation of him, Doc seems to actively hate her because she is.
- Recently, however, it's been suggested he deliberately programmed her to act this way, for reasons of his own.
- No Name Given: Nameless, obviously. She's always called that because no one gave her a name, though Tin called her "Beautiful". There was even a long running contest to name her, but they never picked one to use.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Chemo was retconned into this in the '07 mini-series at least. He leads a hostile corporate takeover of Magna-Tech, becoming the Head Chairman, and gets an eloquent, sinister memo right before he and his cohorts attack mankind. His dialogue still consists solely of noises such as "Glah!!", however.
- Pop-Cultured Badass: In the 2009 backup feature, Iron repeatedly compares people or events to whatever he's seen on TV.
- The Professor: Doc Magnus, of course. Right down to wearing plaid and smoking a pipe.
- Psycho Prototype: Prior to creating the Metal Men, Doc created a robot out of uranium, who became a villain.
- The Psycho Rangers: The Gas Gang and the Plastic Perils. Their debut on Batman: The Brave and the Bold even added a member to the Gas Gang to make it an even six, and gave its members the same voice actors as the Metal Men. There have also been two teams of evil Metal Men (not counting at least one group of evil copies of the originals): one made by an insane robotic clone of Doc, the other by a jealous rival.
- Pygmalion Plot: Unintentionally occurs with Platinum and Doc Magnus.
- Played straight with Tin and his made from a do-it-yourself kit girlfriend Nameless. He always called her "Beautiful".
- Remember the New Guy?: Played for laughs in the backup feature where no one can remember who Copper is.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: Except for their looks. As of of the recent 2019 series due to interacting with a sentient Nth Metal, they now fit the trope more now that they have extra... *ahem* accessories.
- Robot Buddy: The Metal Men are automatons who are close with their creator Dr. Magnus.
- Robo Family: The Metal Men are robots who act somewhat like a family.
- Robot Girl: Platinum.
- Robot Hair: Platinum is (usually) the only Fembot of the six Chrome Champion robots and, naturally, is the only one with "hair". This was changed in the New 52 incarnation, where Gold also has "hair", befitting his new characterization as something of a narcissist.
- Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Since the team never appeared in the DC Animated Universe, Simon Stagg (arch-nemesis of Metamorpho) assumed a giant monster form very similar to Chemo, while another foe, Vox the Bionic Bandit, was reworked into an underling of Vandal Savage (and fought Wonder Woman and Batman).
- Rubber Man: All of them, though Gold particularly so. Many of the 60s comics played up the shapeshifting aspect more prominently.
- Running Gag: Early strips always resulted in the Metal Men getting destroyed, but their sacrifice always assured victory. Besides, the Metal Men can overcome death like a bad hangover if they've got a roboticist handy.
- Mercury will brag that mercury is a liquid at room temperature in all situations. All situations.
- In the 2009 backup feature, almost no one remembers Copper is even there. And when they do, they forget her name.
- Self-Deprecation: The backup feature for Keith Giffen's Doom Patrol run, which is co-written by Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis in addition to having its later installments illustrated by Kevin Maguire, at one point has Mercury buy a DVD of Douglas, Robot Hunter that includes a bonus comic. He sees that the comic is made by Giffen, DeMatteis and Maguire and comments that he didn't know they were still alive.
- Shaped Like Itself: The personalities of the various Metal Men, while somewhat basic by most standards, are literally derived from their atomic make-up. The robots don't merely "act" according to their respective metals; the properties of their metal dictates their world view. For example, Mercury is mercurial.
- This is also why some of them (particularly Iron) appear to have one-track minds.
- This is elaborated upon in the '07 series when Lead and Gold have their metals switched. Their personalities, thought processes and overall attitudes switch, too. They can't do anything about it.
- As they become more self-aware, the Metal Men ask Doc to customise their bodies accordingly. Mercury asks to have "the piercing blue eyes of Bob Hope".note
- The Smurfette Principle:
- Platinum was the only female member of the team. Tin later created Nameless, who didn't really do much other than act as his girlfriend. Right before the Cerebus Syndrome Retool, Doc Magnus created Distaff Counterparts of the team, but they were one-off characters. In recent years, the team finally gained a bona-fide second female member, Copper, though she didn't survive into the New 52.
- The Metal Men's schtick is that each has properties/abilities associated with their respective "metal". Nameless (who, like Tin, is made of ... well, tin) had exactly the same powers as Tin (who was himself probably the weakest of the metal men), but Tin had more experience, so there usually wasn't much for Nameless to do.
- The So-Called Coward: Tin is unconfident and weak-willed, but has "the bravest soul" of all the Metal Men.
- Standardized Leader: Gold was consistently portrayed as the level-headed leader type until 2009 onward, where he's a bit of a narcissist who appointed himself leader because gold is obviously the best metal.
- Status Quo Is God:
- The original series notably subverted this; many of its stories ended with an unresolved problem that is addressed in the next issue. This made it one of very few Silver Age comics with a storyline that flows from issue to issue.
- It's not exaggerating to say that most issues of the original series end with at least one of the Metal Men "dead", only to be repaired in full by the beginning of the next issue. Much like with Doom Patrol the comic used the heroes' nature as robots to get around standards of violence at the time, letting them be maimed or killed because they weren't really "alive" and could always be rebuilt.
- Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: In the 2007 series, Magnus' theories explicitly include such far-sounding concepts as the emotional makeup of the elements, although he still insists it is science. This leads to him being booed out by the scientific community, but it's hard to argue with the results.
- Superpowered Evil Side: The Death-Metal Men. They're radioactive, to boot.
- Super-Scream: One enemy from the end of the original series, Vox, the Bionic Bandit, could do this after his throat was ripped out and replaced by a prosthetic.
- Technological Pacifist: In the New 52 incarnation, Doc created the Metal Men on commission for the U.S. government and military for use as rescue workers. When it came out that they actually intended to use them as assassins, he was virulently opposed to the idea — as were the Metal Men themselves.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Mercury is... well, mercurial and often belittles both Tin and Gold. Iron's also pretty belligerent and his temper can often just make things worse.
- Three Laws-Compliant: In one episode of their DC Nation segment, Doc tries to drill this into them. Mercury being Mercury, he asks if robots are allowed to hurt other robots, and things quickly go to hell from there.
- True Companions: The Metal Men and Doc. Especially in the New 52 version; oftentimes their relationship in the original series was pretty strained.
- Tsundere: Mercury, towards Platinum. He often insults her, but on many occasions it's clear that she's very important to him.
- Unobtanium: Veridium. The alien alloy introduced in the 1993 miniseries is indestructible and had more power than all the Metal Men put together. Considering the main idea behind the team was playing with the properties of known metals, adding this wonder metal kinda tossed the theme out the window.
- Verbal Tic: T-T-T-Tin st-st-st-stutters, and, uh, Lead, uh, uses the word "uh" like, uh, a valley girl uses the word "like".
- Was Once a Man: In the 1993 miniseries, the Metal Men were retconned to have been people. Gold was Doc's brother Mike, Platinum was Mike's fiance Sharon, Mercury and Iron were fellow scientists (Redmond Wilde and Randy Pressman), Tin was a janitor named Thomas Tinkham, and Lead was a pizza-delivery man named Jack. Gold was soon killed, and Doc became Veridium. This was retconned away.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: In the original series Doc tended to think of the Metal Men as tools at worst; he'd always talk about scrapping them or rewiring their responsometers when he was upset with them. At least, this is how he acted most of the time — when the Metal Men are hurt or in danger he starts to show a lot more attachment to them.
- Yandere: Platinum.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: The backup feature for the first seven issues of Keith Giffen's run on Doom Patrol has a sub-plot where the Metal Men's actions inadvertently ruin the life of an actor named Leonard Ruttman, who plays the titular character of a TV show called Douglas, Robot Hunter and finds himself out of a job when the robots' disastrous attempt at satellite repair results in his show's ratings declining drastically. He gets an electric shock that causes him to go insane and actually believe himself to be his character from the TV show, devoting himself to try and destroy the Metal Men. In the final installment, he comes to his senses and is overjoyed to hear that his show has been renewed with the producers willing to hire him back. Unfortunately, he then gets killed when Dr. Magnus' house explodes.
- Yellow Peril: In the '60s they had a few encounters with "Doctor Yes", a bespectacled, bucktoothed robotic duplicate of already deeply offensive Wonder Woman villain Egg Fu (a giant yellow egg with a Fu Manchu mustache and horrendously stereotypical accent).
