The cold open: AQUAMAN returns home from his latest adventure to find all's not well with Atlantis.
The main story: Batman meets the newest heroes on the block, the mighty Metal Men, creations of Professor Milton Magnus, and helps them thwart the fiendish Gas Gang.
Tropes:
- Body Horror: As a result of the heroes, the Gas Gang get mushed into one evil cloud-blob. They actually seem pretty okay with that part.
- Brick Joke: Gas Gang member Helium gives Batman Helium Speech during a fight midway through the episode as a joke. Later, after Batman's final battle with the gang, the others ask him if he's suffering from any side effects of exposure to their powers and he talks in that squeaky voice again.
- Broken Record: "Starro lives. Starro lives. Starro lives. Starro lives..."
- Convection, Schmonvection: The Gas Gang plan to dunk Professor Magnus in a volcano which will go off. He seems to have no problem until he's nearly right in the hot stuff.
- Covert Pervert: Platinum turns herself into a chair and invites Batman to sit on her, commenting "best seat in the house".
- Designated Girl Fight: The only female members of each superpowered team briefly fight each other.
- Distinguished Gentleman's Pipe: Doc Magnus, in keeping with the show's Silver Age aesthetic, carries a smoking pipe around, though he never actually smokes anything in it. This is, after all, a kid's show.
- Dumb Muscle: Lead is the toughest of the Metal Men, and so dumb he needs to be reminded what his own name is.
- Evil All Along: Professor Magnus believed his partners were decent and upstanding people who by simple freak of comic book science have been transmuted into gases. Batman reveals they were all terrible people to begin with.
- Evil Counterpart: The Metal Men face the Gas Gang.
- Famed In-Story: Magnus and his work into nanotech and robotics are so well known that within minutes of meeting the Metal Men, Batman deduces Magnus is the only person on Earth who could have created them.
- The Generic Guy: Gold's the overconfident leader, Platinum's the only girl, Lead's the Dumb Muscle, Mercury's the Jerkass, Tin's the runt, and Iron... ... Iron's sort of there.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: Tin believes, not without some justification, that his powers aren't as flashy as everyone else's, but Batman and the others persuade him he can be useful.
- Helium Speech: With a villain made of helium, this was naturally going to happen. And Helium loves doing it to people.Batman: (squeaky-voiced) Your time will come, evildoers!Helium: That's never not funny!
- Hope Spot: Outnumbered in Atlantis, AQUAMAN tries to retreat and alert Batman to the situation, but he is then overtaken while distracted by Fluke.
- Kryptonite Factor: Iron meets Oxygen. And as iron does, it makes it him oxidize.
- Lying by Omission: Gas Gang wanted to make a gas that can cause voclanic eruptions to sell to despots and dictators but told their partner Doc Magnus, the creator of titular Metal Men, they're doing it to make the world better. They just omitted who it's good for (themselves).
- Mood Whiplash: From the normal silliness of AQUAMAN's latest terribly named adventure to finding everyone in Atlantis, Fluke included, have been Starro'd by the Faceless Hunter.
- Negated Moment of Awesome: AQUAMAN is about to try to slice the Faceless Hunter with a sword, but he has to hold back when conscripted Atlanteans (including his wife and child) suddenly get in-between them.
- No-Sell: AQUAMAN learns the hard way that he can't simply command the starfish covering people's faces. The Faceless Hunter tells him he's not dealing with normal marine life.
- Oh, Crap!: One of the Gas Gang has this reaction, after Batman throws a lit spark at them.
- This Is Gonna Suck: All set to talk about his latest adventure, AQUAMAN has this reaction when he sees his wife and son have starfish on their faces and are approaching him menacingly.
- To Be Continued: With everyone in Atlantis subdued, the Faceless Hunter says he will be dismantling all of Earth's other defenses before Starro arrives.
- We Can Rebuild Him: The Metal Men's bodies, including the rare metals gold and platinum, get smashed up, but they're able to rebuild them.
