Comic Review: Metal Men (2019-) #6

Metal Men (2019-) #6

DC Comics

Writers: Dan Didio & Shane Dawson

Artist: Shane Dawson & Jason Wright

Letters: Travis Lanham

Raise your hand if you like robots.

Is that everybody?? Nice!

I, like you, love robots. Like you, I have thrilled to all sorts of fanciful tales about our metal friends and will almost never say no to a story involving robots that has something new to say. Having read through what’s currently published of DC’s present Metal Men series, I think that while it does have new things to say, they come at a cost that many fans may consider to be too great. But before I can talk about that, the art is up first.

Like the previous five issues, the art isn’t much to write home about. Coloring and linework are both completely standard for a contemporary DC mag, though on some close-up shots I do notice some nice thick lines. Love to see ‘em! Shadows in this book aren’t especially noticeable or deep, which comes as a result of the high-saturation ink-light color-forward style. And don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate the saturation of the book, but I’ve always found that shadows without texture have a hard time anchoring objects the way that shadows ought to. The facial expressions are a mixed bag, with some being executed with surprising tact and others being kind of awkward. Given that (almost) the entire issue is about some fairly heavy emotional baggage, this was an important thing to get right – and I’m not entirely sure that they did, but I think they got close.

Story and Characters:

The plot of this series, in case you haven’t been following it, is that Will Magnus is a fraud and a failure and a big ole manipulative jerk who uses the Metal Men, who were actually never fully sentient after all, as tools for his own purposes. This issue follows Platinum as she goes to find the person she was based on to discover the truth about her creation, following the other Metal Men becoming “freed” or “whole” after getting a tune-up from the Nth Metal Man. Tina’s designed based on one of Magnus’ exes, so she goes to meet the ex, and the ex explains that Magnus is, as is the refrain of this series, a big ole jerky jerkface that doesn’t much care ‘bout no-body but his own goldurn self. An interlude shows Chemo escaping from a Russian containment facility, and we also see the Nth Metal Man talking to some mysterious folk who apparently sent him to get the “Maker” (one imagines it’s Magnus) and, it’s implied, save the lives of said mysterious folk. The main point of the issue is Platinum’s emotional journey to understanding the reality of Magnus’ beef-jerky nature and making the decision to accept Nth’s tune-up process, and if that sounds like an interesting premise that’s because it is!

It’s a legitimately interesting premise for a Metal Men story, but only if you first accept the premise that Magnus is and always has been a jerk, which is a tough pill to swallow. I know the kind, pipe-toting Will Magnus from the old days as well as you do, and seeing this obnoxious toxic-masculinity character assassination is hard for me. It feels a little cheap, a little too much like an attempt to embrace the cultural concept of Bad Men. I think emotional abuse and manipulation is a very relevant topic. I think it’s an important topic to discuss within art and within comics and, indeed, within superhero comics. But, if I’m being honest, the premise of Magnus being a jerk is a hard one for me, because I do not want him to be one. And that resistance to the premise, to the baseless loss of who Will Magnus has always been, is a very reasonable response for myself or for anyone who has any experience with previous incarnations of the character.

So, for anyone who feels the way I do, I offer a solution: Just pretend the damn series is an Elseworld or something and then keep reading anyway, because when you look at the series for what it is – an unbelievably thinly veiled metaphor for controlling people in your life – you can actually get a reasonable amount of value out of it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s written without much tact or grace, but I can muster up an appreciation for the things it’s trying to say and the fact that Didio chose the Metal Men to say those things. I think the team dynamic of the Metal Men was a good fit for the issues that Didio wanted to address, but with all this metacommentary out of the way, you guys still need to know whether this is well-executed.

And the answer is… Sort of? Like. Kind-of sort-of? Problem number one is the dialogue. It’s fairly stilted and says everything it wants to say without mincing words. But, in a story that should be told delicately and with respect to the characters, I find that directness to be a pretty immediate failure on both counts. Platinum actually says the words “everything I am is a lie.” That’s not good writing. This is telling without showing, spreading out the subtext thinner and more transparent than jam on toast. It robs any emotional beats of their potential power or poignancy and instead leaves the reader with a flat representation of the feelings instead of an experience of the feelings. Maybe I’m being a little too harsh, but I guess I just feel totally blue-balled over here! I love the metal men, and I think this take could have been so much more interesting than it is! The fact that it’s not a total failure and is still kind of interesting makes me even more annoyed than I would be if it was fully bad! It’s just a waste of potential. But, if you like the Metal Men and you’re able to sit through Mean Magnus, I don’t think it’s a waste of your time. Despite my frustration, I still recommend it to fans of the characters because it’s a legitimately interesting take on them. Poorly executed, but still.