Dan DiDio

Metal Men: Elements of Change
Author: Dan Didio, Shane Davis, Jason Wright
Publisher: DC Comics
Publishing Date: 2021
Pgs: 296 pages
Dewey: 741.5973 MET
Disposition: Irving Public Library - South Campus - Irving, TX
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REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Summary:

The Metal Men are back!

And back and back again as they discover they are not the first versions of themselves…

The Metal Men team—Platinum, Gold, Tin, Lead, Mercury, and Iron find a secret room hidden in Doc Magnus’s lab full of empty shells of previous versions of their robotic selves and confront their creator about it.

To make matters worse, a mysterious metal has come through from the Dark Multiverse at Challengers Mountain. He claims he is the Nth Metal Man and that he can provide the Metal Men with true sentience, something Magnus was, apparently, only pretending to have given them.

Who is this Nth Metal Man, and what does he want? If Platinum didn’t know she was based on a real woman Magnus used to know, what else is Magnus hiding from the team? And will the team have to venture into the Dark Multiverse themselves to find out the truth?

Writer Dan DiDio (Sideways) and artist Shane Davis (Superman: Earth One) team up to bring the Metal Men to life on the page in a way that’s never been seen before in Metal Men: Elements of Change. Collects Metal Men #1-12.
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Genre:
DC Comics
Superhero
Science Fiction

Why this book:
The Metal Men have always been a favorite team of characters…even if I have always hated Doc Magnus.
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Favorite Character:
Mother Machine is a bad assed visual. Her minions look a bit like capeless Dr. Dooms.

Plot Holes/Out of Character:
Magnus Opus, really? His whole lab is a drone bot. Very Silver Agey. It kinda flies in the face of the angst persona of Will Magnus.

Considering Jeanette and Doc's interactions on Oolong Island previously, despite their shared history, it's odd that they would consider "dating" when something like the Nth Metal Man was around and not knowing where the Manta beast came from. If they were informed where it originated from it was offscreen and unmentioned. Not very DEO of her, or whatever agency she represents, not very superhero of him either.

Mercury going off to an ashram…that is out-of-character. Doc apologizing to him for making him red and not ever fixing it is very spot on.

Cover and Interior Art:
The image of Plutonium with the Metal Men hanging over him with their lower torsos torn away and all the fire about is an awesome hellscape drawing. Plutonium as the devil in the Metal Men's Dark Multiverse is well done.

Hmm Moments:
A living Nth Metal Man from the Dark Multiverse journey of Challenger Mountain. And they call for an unstable Will Magnus to come and bring his Metal Men to whom his big secret was just revealed. And that happening while Doc is baring his soul to the lifeless automaton that is Nameless.. ...whatever could go wrong?

If Mother Machine, Father Boxes, and Brother Eye aren't all connected that's a big missed opportunity.

And New Genesis and Apokolips, there we go the planted seed bears fruit. Course, it's not like it's a big leap from Mother Machine to Mother Box to New Gods. Especially when another Kirby creation has put in an appearance. I prefer OMAC as a separate entity from the New Gods. Trying to put all the Kirby stuff in one basket limits it too much.

Alloy was the original transformer.

Calling the ball:
The Nth Metal Man is up to no good. He's from the Dark Multiverse and rode Challengers Mountain through the darkness and came out of the same portal that the flying Manta beast came out of, he's no bueno.

WTF Moments:
Is Magnus threatening Nameless? Magnus is nuts. Always has been. He and the Doom Patrol's Chief should be in a Mad Scientist's version of Arkham. And then, he puts her in the hall closet cause she isn’t activated and he was just talking to her. Doc ain’t right.

And Tina met Christina Novak. Whoa! I'm sure the rest of Doc's "friends" are all equally as happy that the creepy, smart bastard stole their images and made his own version of them. The restraining order creep fits the personality. I hope Didio doesn't try to rehabilitate him. Doc always seemed not right. The Metal Men were hamstrung because of him and limited. And their personalities were always off, to a degree that I thought they were all just pieces of Doc's personality. Which I guess they are, kinda.

The denouement left me cold. After all that action, the walk-off at the end is I guess looking to their future as individuals. But the team is over, scattered to the winds. Tin's project is sad. Tina's maybe worse. Effectively, she stayed with her gaslighter because she has always loved him. I would have been happier with her returning to Christina and working things out with her. The question of Christina's son's father needed to be answered too. Tina's face mirroring Christina's in that pic where the bartender threw them the keys and told them to lock up concerned me. What if it was reversed and Christina was the one stalking Doc? Instead of the oblivious dickhead that is Doc being the stalker. His relationship with Jeanette shows us the kind of guy he is pretty clearly. If anything, he'd be more the pay no attention to his significant other than too much. Of course, a move like that would have offended the 60+-year-old fan who has read the Metal Men since they were first published, but it would have been a move toward the future that was more concrete than what they were left with.

The Sigh:
For supposedly sentient beings, Doc has always treated the Metal Men like shit. Condescending. I would even say abusive with the way he acts towards Platinum. If he isn't a gold medal DC Comics asshole, then he's damned close. He'd have to compete with the Chief from the Doom Patrol and that is a hard mountain to climb. In more recent iterations writers have played up Doc's mental problems. But c'mon, that's a pastiche added in to justify his being a dick for all those years. I say let Doc be a dick. Hell, let him be the villain and the Metal Men break free from his control and into their future.

Juxtaposition:
Maybe I'm wrong about whatever Magnus's big secret is. But shouldn't there be a room full of spare parts and chassis for the Metal Men? And whatever it is that gives them that sentience...semblance is what is transferred time and time again as they are damaged beyond repair. Or...or there is more to Magnus's secrets. I just hope we don't get back to their real people...I mean flesh and blood. I like them as A.I.s. Though the human-looking robots in the body shop make it look like maybe that was a lie too.

The Unexpected:
Funny that I'm on my Kirby kick lately, and OMAC shows up in this. Didn't realize he played a role in this one until he showed up on the page. Cool.

Missed Opportunity:
Shame about the Gas Gang. They were interesting in their animal forms. Would be interesting to see The Elemental Men as an expanded team. Sometime. Maybe with Metamorpho suing them for infringement.

Dreamcasting:
Casting Call: Jonathan Frakes as Doctor Will Magnus.
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Pacing:
Was very well-paced.

Last Page Sound:
After complaining in a recent previous review about status quo denouements in comic books, this one totally flipped that script. And still left me unsatisfied. The Metal Men aren't a team and are scattered around the world at the last moment. Was wanting a Platinum-Christina follow-up. This was a nerd's nerd's nerd story. Continuity rich and had a bunch of touchstones for Metal Man history and the ongoing comics event that it was part of. It was well done overall.

Questions I’m Left With:
The Christina Novak story that with the state of the industry will never be told. Is Doc the absentee father of her son, does he even know about the kid. Was the relationship as she stated? Was Doc a stalker? Was she? The juxtaposition of Christina’s face in the one photo that Doc had of them together with Platinum’s face when the bartender threw them the keys and told them to lock up. Was she upset that someone else had drawn Doc’s attention away from being solely focused on her? There are lotta questions regarding that period in Doc and Christina’s life and relationship that aren’t going to be answered but may indeed be mirrored in Doc and Platinum’s relationship.

Conclusions I’ve Drawn:
If there are this many portals to the Dark Multiverse just in the Metal Men, then this is going to be a rich storytelling vein for many years to come in the DC Comics-verse.

Author Assessment:
Was surprised how much I liked this story. Guess I’ll have to give Didio penned books a closer look.
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