This post may contain spoilers for a 16-year-old Metal Men series that’s been retconned away, anyway.
So remember that time Doc Magnus’s human body was irreparably damaged and he became the Metal Man known as Veridium?
He may have been new to his robot body an’ all, but he still had time to make a nerd joke/reference to old Gold Key comics:
I’ve some mixed feelings about this series, and I wasn’t the only one since the “major changes/revelations” in this series have since been removed from the official DC Universe continuity. Like, for example, the big “twist” that the Metal Men were once living, breathing human beings: the foreshadowing for this revelation was presented in one of the Action Comics Superman team-up issues, where Doc Magnus is shown saying something along the lines of “I must never let the Metal Men learn the secret of Level 12!” I remember thinking at the time “oh, I bet the Metal Men were once human, and that’s where their bodies are,” and sure enough, it turns out in this mini-series that Level 12 was exactly that. Pretty sure no one had any problem interpreting that foreshadowing.
My other quibble with the series was too many cramped panels with too much dialogue, and that the dialogue we got wasn’t all that great….very much a “the food was terrible, but at least the portions were huge” situation. But I will say the series had one of my all-time favorite covers, on the first issue:
“Borrowed” that scan from The Comic Book Database, since my own scan of the foil cover didn’t turn out well. And this really is one of those cases where a gimmick cover enhancement really fits with the comic, with each Metal Man given the appropriately-colored “enchanced” treatment. It’s an absolutely beautiful-looking image, and even the Comic Book Database scan doesn’t really do it justice…try to see one in the wild, if you can.
Another thing I like about the cover: this great blurb on the first issue:
Makes the creative team on this comic sound like a group of super-villains, doesn’t it? Well, then again, turning Doc Magnus into “Veridium” seems like a bit of a villainous act to me.
