Metal Men

My first experiences with the Metal Men was reading about them as the backup feature of  issues of my dad's comic book collection. I remember my dad telling me that they were all humans that died and had to have their consciousness inserted into robots. (I've never found evidence of this. But for a few issues, the Metal Men wore human disguises to protect their identities. So maybe this is what my dad was thinking about.) 

Anyway, I really enjoyed the fantastic adventures of Dr. Magnus and his Metal Men: Gold, Platinum, Lead, Tin, Mercury and Iron. They fought a lot of science based villains and used their imputed knowledge of science, physics and chemistry to save the day. The Metal Men also had the ability to mold their shape and join as a kind of early version of the Transformers into large pieces of equipment or flying machines. Knowing even at a very young age that all metals except Mercury are pretty rigid and solid was the only fanciful downside to my complete enjoyment. What can I say? I was an early realist, much like Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Just not as annoying.

This hardcover collects the 2007-08 miniseries that continues Magnus and his Metal Men's story from DC's weekly series 52. Along with the addition of brand new team member Copper, the Metal Men are under the microscope thanks to Dr. Magnus' corrupted actions with the mad scientists on Oolong Island. (What do you expect when you almost cause a third World War?) 

In the present day, the Metal Men have been captured by Checkmate. They will remain under quarantine until the covert agency can determine if the Metal Men are threats to humanity thanks to a techno-virus that is corrupting anything with a microchip and a CPU. Meanwhile in the ancient past in the waning days of the Roman Empire, a nameless evil seeks revenge for the loss of a primitive version of the device that powers the Metal Men, as well as enables these solid titans to mover like a fluid. (Finally, I have an explanation for this!)

Anyways, the thief of this device has repercussions in the not too distant past during the early days of the creation of the Metal Men. Having bidden its time for centuries, the Nameless seeks a genius who can reconstruct the missing machine. People like Da Vinci, Edison and Einstein weren't brilliant enough to rebuild it. Only Dr. Will Magnus had the foresight to take the fiend's blueprints and make life out of nothing!

Written and illustrated by Duncan Rouleau (Ben10), this miniseries' storyline is taking place essentially during 3 points in time, at the same time. We also get glimpses of an apocalyptic future that may or may not be at the hands of the Metal Men. There's even some parts taking place out of time. This all makes for a very confusing storyline. Thankfully, I still had a vague recollection of what occurred in 52. I think without that I would have been a lot more lost than I was. 

With the time travel part aside, this was still a confusing book. Duncan Rouleau adds a lot of technobabble, science talk and chemistry into this story. Did he forget that this was supposed to be a work of science FICTION? I'm sorry. But anytime you add letters to numbers, my eyes glaze. When it came to these parts of the story, I glossed over as much as possible. 

The artwork was amazing. I've no complaints there. And the new character and the origin story of the Metal Men were great. I felt that there was finally a good explanation as to why the Metal Men can change shapes. Plus, to explain that the robots are also not 100% made of the metals of which they are named explains how Dr. Magnus could afford to build them. Unfortunately, this just wasn't enough to combat the mind-bending quantum physics and min-numbing science and math that overtakes the majority of this miniseries. 

I think you can blame story plotter, Grant Morrison for this. He tends to overreach with his ideas. I guess Duncan Rouleau wasn't able to reign that overactive imagination in too much with the final product. 

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars.