FA+
Shop
751
Views
Views
21
Favorites
Favorites
Category
All / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 800 x 1130
File Size 306.2 kB
Report this content
More from Saara
How many of you read The Metal Men when you were young? Oh... How many of you have even heard of The Metal Men?
They were a band of humanoid robots invented by Dr. Magnus in a DC comic book of the same name. Each robot was made from a different metal, you see, and had the characteristics of that metal -- Iron was muscular and strong. Lead was heavy and a little dull. Gold was handsome and ductile. Mercury was mercurial. Tin was cheap... and crumpled easily. Of the five Metal Men, only one was female, Platinum, usually just called Tina. She was wildly in love with her creator, of course, who was unable to admit to himself that she wasn't just another hunk of hardware he had cobbled together. The fact that he had used just about the most expensive metal on Earth that didn't have to be assembled atom by atom in a cyclotron didn't suggest he had somewhat different motives for building a female robot. Anyway, I ran into some pages of The Metal Men online and wrote to the guy who's site it was. That reminded me of a drawing I had done of Tina way, way, way back. I boasted to the web page guy that maybe it was the oldest surviving piece of Metal Men fanart in the world. Check that date -- 1974! ...maybe it is the world's oldest!
Those chemical formula in the background seemed like a good idea at the time. I changed my mind pretty fast, but it was too late and I had to go through with it. This was decades before Photoshop, you see. Those hundreds of tiny letters and numbers are Lettraset and had to be rubbed down on the paper from a transparent sheet, one by one, without getting any of them crooked or out of place!
They were a band of humanoid robots invented by Dr. Magnus in a DC comic book of the same name. Each robot was made from a different metal, you see, and had the characteristics of that metal -- Iron was muscular and strong. Lead was heavy and a little dull. Gold was handsome and ductile. Mercury was mercurial. Tin was cheap... and crumpled easily. Of the five Metal Men, only one was female, Platinum, usually just called Tina. She was wildly in love with her creator, of course, who was unable to admit to himself that she wasn't just another hunk of hardware he had cobbled together. The fact that he had used just about the most expensive metal on Earth that didn't have to be assembled atom by atom in a cyclotron didn't suggest he had somewhat different motives for building a female robot. Anyway, I ran into some pages of The Metal Men online and wrote to the guy who's site it was. That reminded me of a drawing I had done of Tina way, way, way back. I boasted to the web page guy that maybe it was the oldest surviving piece of Metal Men fanart in the world. Check that date -- 1974! ...maybe it is the world's oldest!
Those chemical formula in the background seemed like a good idea at the time. I changed my mind pretty fast, but it was too late and I had to go through with it. This was decades before Photoshop, you see. Those hundreds of tiny letters and numbers are Lettraset and had to be rubbed down on the paper from a transparent sheet, one by one, without getting any of them crooked or out of place!
Category All / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 800 x 1130px
File Size 306.2 kB
I wasn't around when the Metal Men first appeared but I do remember reading some subsequent appearances, such as this issue when I was 13:
http://www.comics.org/issue/38731/cover/4/
http://www.comics.org/issue/38731/cover/4/
What struck me is how "modern" it looks, I mean, using a formula as a background like this is definently a stylistic flourish that's common nowadays cus of photoshop, and I suppose it was less self-evident back in the days where it wasn't as much of a substitute for background as it was a genuine background concept that took work.
Very scientifical too! But that was part of the silliness of it all. In the first issue, Tina steps on Doc's foot, and he screams in agony, "Tina, get your atomic weight 196.84 off my foot!" Yeah... right. A scientist is too education to just yell, "AAAAAAAAHHH!" like anyone else. A robot of pure platinum would probably weigh something like a ton and a half. Put all that weight in one shiny platinum foot, and you can imagine her stepping on Doc's toes would mash them like they were shaving foam. Like I said, it made it a really goofy book.
The "Tina" in question was a replacement Tina, who was opinionated and didn't like her team-mates -because they had emotions ! The real Tina had blown herself to random atoms in dealing with the unforeseen untoward consequences of her trying to build a robot version of her beloved Dr. Magnus who would appreciate her -and not yell at her for acting like a human. This new Tina acted in such a way that Doc threw her into the smelter and worked at somehow gathering up Tina';s scattered atoms and putting them all back tiogether ! That also led to a chain of events including lunar microbes, a planet of robots, and the Gas Gang !
The worst Metal Man story ever was Brave & the Bold #55 where the Metal Men had to battle and desttoy an URANIUM robot and his villainous silver girlfriend.The artwork was good, but the writing,the logic was haywire,screwball. Throughout Brave & Bold's team-up run, the pseudo-science was screwball !
The worst Metal Man story ever was Brave & the Bold #55 where the Metal Men had to battle and desttoy an URANIUM robot and his villainous silver girlfriend.The artwork was good, but the writing,the logic was haywire,screwball. Throughout Brave & Bold's team-up run, the pseudo-science was screwball !
As far as the Metal Men go, I try not to step in the same spot in the stream twice anyway. It was what it was and I'm not going to be bothered by anything its become.
Incidentally, I did watch some of a newly animated Metal Men meet Batman cartoon and found it badly dumbed down. And the Batman who seemed to be every episodes crime-fighting "host" was a shell of the 1990s series.
Incidentally, I did watch some of a newly animated Metal Men meet Batman cartoon and found it badly dumbed down. And the Batman who seemed to be every episodes crime-fighting "host" was a shell of the 1990s series.
The Metal Men either self-destructed, sacrificed themselves, or were destroyed in almost every issue. Then Doc would melt them down again, pour the metal into the molds and they'd be as good as new for the next issue. It tended to make their destruction less dramatic than otherwise.
i JUST WATCHED IT. After fighting Chemo, they then had to fight the Gas Gang, who ...well, Wiki also reviewed the film. Batman seemed to have a sore throat from breathing some of the gas at the very end.
There was also Aquaman fighting extensions of Starro and the Faceless Hunter, and I recall the JLA multi-parter tjat's based on. Starro, always cloning himself so there'll be more battles, and Chemo, always regenerating from spilled body fluids....
There was also Aquaman fighting extensions of Starro and the Faceless Hunter, and I recall the JLA multi-parter tjat's based on. Starro, always cloning himself so there'll be more battles, and Chemo, always regenerating from spilled body fluids....
I was startled when I first saw "Showcase #27 presents - METAL MEN" showing the band of robots fighting a flying monster and Lead solemnly stating "If we Metal Men fail, the world of humans will be doomed !" My thought was "Hey wait a minute ! Aren't all super-heroes, regardless of what powers they have, supposed to be made of flesh & blood ?".
At the end, they were all destroyed, and the story was supposed to be a 1-shot (!) A filler, until a new try-out was brought in. As if was, they had to bring them back for 3 more issues. By then, smashing them up each issue became a staple.
DC baffled me when during the upheavals since CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, the Metal Men had to be reinvented from scratch and that Dr. Simon Magnus was insane and could not create new Metal Men because his medicines were blunting his creative edge. App. they were permanently destroyed in #46, their responsiometers cooked by the fiery radiation of Plutonium Man. The stories in #47 on - never happened .
I prefer consistency and not this constant retconning.
At the end, they were all destroyed, and the story was supposed to be a 1-shot (!) A filler, until a new try-out was brought in. As if was, they had to bring them back for 3 more issues. By then, smashing them up each issue became a staple.
DC baffled me when during the upheavals since CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, the Metal Men had to be reinvented from scratch and that Dr. Simon Magnus was insane and could not create new Metal Men because his medicines were blunting his creative edge. App. they were permanently destroyed in #46, their responsiometers cooked by the fiery radiation of Plutonium Man. The stories in #47 on - never happened .
I prefer consistency and not this constant retconning.
I never followed any of that... All the DC infinite worlds stuff happened in some other world as far as I'm concerned.
I read very few superhero comics -- I have a small pile of the Paul Dini Batmans that were published in the wake of the 1990s animated series, for example. I have "Watchmen" and the "Dark Knight" collections. I've got "Killing Joke" which is so fucking superior to any but the two Tim Burton movies that I can't understand why it wasn't adapted to film. I have the Superman "All Star" collections, which suprised me as very good. Doubtless there are other graphic novels that I'd enjoy reading, but they cost too much and I don't go looking for them.
I read very few superhero comics -- I have a small pile of the Paul Dini Batmans that were published in the wake of the 1990s animated series, for example. I have "Watchmen" and the "Dark Knight" collections. I've got "Killing Joke" which is so fucking superior to any but the two Tim Burton movies that I can't understand why it wasn't adapted to film. I have the Superman "All Star" collections, which suprised me as very good. Doubtless there are other graphic novels that I'd enjoy reading, but they cost too much and I don't go looking for them.
The chemical formulae composing the background of your Tina pic (not hokey at all, but giving her the dignity and respect she deserves), I presume, are water soluble and can be grown into crystals.
I never tried this at work, tho I was obsessed with growing nice crystals of metal salts. (alum ,copper sulfate,...). But platinum is just TOO exoensive to waste in this manner, Also some crystals dry up and even crumble,(iron alum), others soak up water from the air (calcium chloride).
I never tried this at work, tho I was obsessed with growing nice crystals of metal salts. (alum ,copper sulfate,...). But platinum is just TOO exoensive to waste in this manner, Also some crystals dry up and even crumble,(iron alum), others soak up water from the air (calcium chloride).
I also demurred at growing crystals of URANIUM salts. You can understand WHY !
Are you aware that Francium is so radioactive that it's own internal heat will melt and vaporize any solid chip of it ? This makes its exact properties impossible to determine. A halflife of ~20 minutes makes it hard to even make a solid chip and it is about to melt & boil away even as you do so ! All that we know is that francium is in the alkali family (sodium, potassium, lithium ...). It only occurs in radiodecay products. Like technetium and promethium, THEY are nowhere near the trans-uranium elements, but ...
Are you aware that Francium is so radioactive that it's own internal heat will melt and vaporize any solid chip of it ? This makes its exact properties impossible to determine. A halflife of ~20 minutes makes it hard to even make a solid chip and it is about to melt & boil away even as you do so ! All that we know is that francium is in the alkali family (sodium, potassium, lithium ...). It only occurs in radiodecay products. Like technetium and promethium, THEY are nowhere near the trans-uranium elements, but ...
I can't say that I had all that memorized, no. But I don't have any doubt that I'd read about it at some point, since I find physics and chemistry keen stuff to read about. By transuranic standards, 20 minutes might as well be a million years. Hard to measure anything about an element that only exists one atom at a time, and for less time than it takes for a virtual particle to pop into and out of existence.
7Only at the level of deep quantum , is the conservation of matter violated, ravaged ! On the level of 1 / 10^30 magnification is space & time seething instead of continuous, fluid. Also violated is radioactivity. On that level, God plays dice with the universe. Some radio-elements can decay in more than 1 way and there is NO way to make an element hold its radiation in !
By the way, my hearing aid detected that a Geiger counter exhibit , in the Musuem of natural History, was fake !Listening to the pops by switching my hearing aide to "telephone" mode (I can even listen in on messages in exhibits), I heard the radiation pops were too rhythmic, too regular. Apparently this rhythm can not be detected by the flashes, but only by the ears. Exposing the museum-goer to real radiation was seen as too risky.
By the way, my hearing aid detected that a Geiger counter exhibit , in the Musuem of natural History, was fake !Listening to the pops by switching my hearing aide to "telephone" mode (I can even listen in on messages in exhibits), I heard the radiation pops were too rhythmic, too regular. Apparently this rhythm can not be detected by the flashes, but only by the ears. Exposing the museum-goer to real radiation was seen as too risky.
Comments