Unca Cheeks Silver Age Comics Site: Slow12 Silliest DC Comics Stories 8

Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site!

swswswswsw THE 12 SILLIEST DC COMICS EVER PUBLISHED
...OR: "SECRET SHAMES OF THE SILVER AGE OF COMICS"
(PART SEVEN)

Right away -- just with that cover, alone -- you just know we've gotta be talkin' Major, Life-Altering Four-Color Gooberathon, here.

We touched upon this particular comic very, very b-r-i-e-f-l-y last year, in one of the initial DC Comics Hall of Shame mini-summaries...

... but: trust me on this one, my fellow dreck-lovers assembled.

This one -- as much as any comic you've ever seen; heard of; or even imagined -- well and truly deserves that which we've come to refer to, 'round these here parts, as: "The Full Cheeky."

"Birthday Cake For a Cannibal Robot" (whatta title -- !) (METAL MEN #20; July, 1966; the indomitable Robert Kanigher, scripter; the irreplaceable Ross Andru, pencils) opens up with a shot of the series' alloyed allies all hunkered around a large-screen color television, reacting in their various characteristic ways to...

... an episode of the Adam West/Burt Ward BATMAN television show.

(For those of you not entirely familiar with the seven high-density heroes comprising the riveted ranks of said team; they are, from left to right: shy, stammering Tin; Tin's relentlessly insipid and annoying "girlfriend," Nameless; hot-headed and monomaniacal Mercury; lovestruck fantasy femme Platinum; the unfailingly calm and rational Gold; slow-moving [and slow-thinking] Lead; and affable team "strong man" Iron. This will count for two-thirds of your final grade, by the way.)

Whilst said ferrous fellowship is busily agog over the slap-happy televised shenanigans of their fellow DC Comics superstar, however... they are (we learn, on the following page) being monitored and studied by a more anti-social automaton, in turn: all-time, hands down, no-arguments-allowed winner of the Insulting Comic Book Racial Stereotypes Award Dr. Yes -- "twin brother" to the equally despicable WONDER WOMAN nemesis, Egg Fu.

("That rittle ol' mad scientist -- me -- DR. YES!" the limbless, mustachioed, glasses-wearing super-computer caricature lisps, in clueless self-mockery.)

(You know... stuff like this wasn't even funny or excusable back during the breathless, over-heated days of World War II; and we were at actual, bang-bang shoot-shoot war with our enemies, back then. This meta- fictive embarrassment -- by way of comparison -- was penned in nineteen hundred and freakin' sixty-six.)

(There's simply no excuse for this sort of thing. None. EVER.

(I'm just sayin', is all, here.)

Well. Anyway: we're "treated," early on in the storytelling proceedings, to yet another one of the Disturbingly Fetishistic Trappings which were part and parcel of this uniquely idiosyncratic series: the weirdly psycho- sexual "romantic relationship" between Metal Men inventor Will ("Doc") Magnus and the perpetually-in-mechanical-heat Platinum ("Tina").

"Why don't you loosen up," the starry-eyed Tina coos, throwing her adamantine arms around her creator (and nominal "father figure," really; can you say "Woody Allen"...?); "... and admit that you're as gooey over me -- as I am over you? C'mon, Doc -- how about a little kiss, on account?"

"I'd as soon kiss a transistor radio," the eternally plaid-sports-coated inventor snarls, uncharitably. "Why don't you stop pretending you're real, Tina? You're a robot!"

(Well... yeah. A robot you BUILT, Doctor Denial. A robot you built with perfect 36-24-36 measurements, I might add. And programmed, no less.)

(Boyoboyoboy... talk about your archetypal male fantasies: "She's gorgeous. She's my willing slave. And, yet: I walk allllllllll over her. MWAH-ha-ha-haaaa -- !!" Sick, sick, sick.)

(Don't get me wrong, here. The '60's incarnation of the METAL MEN comic was -- overall -- One Damned Fine Read, and no mistake...

(... but: the good folks over at The Kraft-Ebbing Institute would have had a bloody field day with this series. You know it; I know it... 'kay?)

Well. My goodness... that was something of a rhetorical detour, wasn't it...?

Back to our (putative) "story," then...

... because: there is no "statute of limitations" on An Unspeakably Hideous Comic Book.

So: "Doc" Magnus sets to investigating the colossal, jigsawed remains of some hundred-foot-tall robot assassin which had recently fallen in battle to the valiant Metal Men (in a separate, untold story which -- betcha a dollar -- would probably have been one heck of a lot more fun than this toxic little turkey gobbler).

As an astonished (and oddly blasé, really; given the circumstances, I mean) Magnus gapes, unmoving: the mammoth, disembodied head of the anti-social automaton gapes wide... wider... WIIIIIIIIIIDER --

... and promptly swallows the startled scientist.

(This, of course, occasions yet another fresh, heaping helping of Kanigher's super-yum-yum-yummy "Dr. No"-flavored dialogue.

("Rooks rike I, Dr. Yes -- have the rast raugh on you, Doc Magnus!" the egg-shaped egomaniac soliloquizes. "I can still direct my lobot by lemote control, to do my bidding!" This is the sort of "humor" which would -- quite properly, I might add -- embarrass even the shameless likes of a Jerry Lewis. While "guest-starring" on an episode of F TROOP, mind.)

Meanwhile: the Metal Men -- oblivious to the straits perilous of their flesh-and-blood Fagin -- enjoy a brief "cat-fight" interlude between the deliriously possessive Tina and Doc's fashion model "date" for the evening.

("Why should Doc want to go out with a crazy, mixed-up platinum doll like you," the tactful and supportive Mercury points out; "... when he's got real, live beautiful dolls to play with -- like this one?" And this, mind you, was the fellah DC tapped to chronicle the adventures of Wonder Woman. Funny ol' world, ain't it...?)

After chasing off Doc's "beanpole" (Tina's word choice) assignation, the ferrous (and furious) femme elects to "tell Doc what I think of him for keeping me out [of his laboratory], while he plans to twist with that skinny human candystick!" (No, no; it only looks like Human Speech As We Know It. You're letting the fact that he uses real words fool you, is all.)

Forcing her way into Doc's work area, the fuming Tina discovers that her pink-skinned paramour is (to all intents and purposes) gone; scooted; skedaddled; vamanos. She hurriedly summons the other Metal Men, who -- in a breathtaking display of high-tech computerized intelligence, pooled toward a commonality of purpose -- decide that the (ostensibly) absent Doc "must have sneaked out through a back exit."

The ever- watchful Dr. Yes -- safe in the remote fastness of what writer Kanigher refers to repeatedly (if inexplicably) as "The Bamboo Curtain" -- activates the (still-) deconstructed body parts of the giant robot in Doc's lab (it's his robot, apparently; God alone knows how he actually managed to build the bloody thing, sans opposable thumbs) and sics them on the Doc's heroic homunculi. A quick-thinking Gold orders Iron to assume the shape of a gigantic scalpel, however, and -- with the practiced ease of a metallic Marcus Welby, M.D. -- uses his cast-iron comrade to lobotomize their opponent (!!).

"Darn crever, these Americans!" Dr. Yes enthuses, admiringly. "But Dr. Yes is smarter! [...] I have hidden the real respomsometer not in my lobot's blain -- but in its heel! Some joke! Ha-ha!" Much like the story itself, really. Ha-ha.

Allowing the Metal Men to believe that they now control the hastily re-assembled robot, Dr. Yes chortles himself into virtual apoplexy as the burnished band take their newfound "pet" out for a little joy ride... smack-dab down the dead center of Broadway.

A fawning and worshipful human throng lines the street like unto the unwashed hordes of Galilee, chanting in adoration of the returned Messiah.

"The Metal Men are the greatest! They're like Yankee Doodle 'Davids'!"

"We can always count on them defending America!"

"Down with their imitators!" (That Bobby Kanigher sure was a caution, wasn't he...?)

Next stop along the way is a swingin', '60's-style discotheque, complete with caged "go-go" girls wearing (believe it or not) full-body monkey costumes. (I don't even wanna try to extrapolate what's going on in Kanigher's mind at this point.)

The scene in which the groovy golems demonstrate their respective "dancing abilities" is -- easily -- one of the eight or ten least welcome and/or endearing sights in the history of the comics medium, entire. And that's including the regrettable, much-storied incident where a boozy, bleary-eyed Stan Lee offered to show a horrified and speechless Jeanette Kahn his "giant-sized man-thing." While in the middle of a lecture. At the San Diego Comics Convention.

Eventually, it occurs to the Metal Men to find out just whom, exactly, it was who sent their clanking, colossal "chauffeur" to kill them in the first place.

"Take us to your leader!" Gold confidently commands.

This, the robot (with Dr. Yes' unseen blessings) obligingly does.

It will, of course, come as no great surprise to anyone who actually remembers the title of this spavined little storytelling exercise that the nonplused Metal Men are confronted by a mammoth, pink-frosting'd birthday cake, upon their arrival in Red China. Or maybe it would, at that. (We all needs must live in hope, mustn't we...?)

Even the doughtiest, most Kanigher-hardened reader, however, may (I think) be forgiven for blinking in dull surprise at this exchange between the members of the intrepid metal band:

"Say -- that gives me an idea! How about us camouflaging ourselves as candles on that cake? When we're brought in -- we could surprise the enemy!"

"It's crazy!"

"... b-but -- it's just the k-k-kookie thing that might work?"

(I like to imagine that it was at this juncture, surely, that beleaguered artist Ross Andru kept staring fixedly at his old Army revolver; wondering, idly, just what a gun barrel might actually taste like...)

As soon as the sheet-metal saboteurs morph themselves into the desired forms atop the mile-high meta-pastry, however: their gigantic giga-pet attempts to...

... well... to eat them, actually.

The robot's cavernous maw cranks itself open... and a none-too-happy "Doc" Magnus (remember him? The poor, shrieking s.o.b. who managed to get himself all but peristalted, approximately an eternity ago?) pops out, hideous checkered sports jacket and all.

Naturally -- being, y'know, a girl robot and all -- the ecstatic Tina is all over the squirming Doc like chrome on a freakin' fender.

"Even though you won't admit it," the single-minded simulacrum purrs, solicitously; "... we're on the same circuit! You know you want to kiss me!"

(Y'know... I don't believe I've ever seen a woman quite this Hot To Trot since the long-ago days of the young and nubile Susan Sarandon, circa the show-stopping "Touch-a Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me" number in THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW.)

Scant heartbeats before the entire assemblage -- repressed inventor; obsessed invention; and assorted friends and companions -- find themselves pulverized by a gargantuan metal fist, however: they are yanked out of one bad fix straightaway into a worse one by a leering Dr. Yes, occasioning the following surrealistic exclamation on the part of an open-mouthed Magnus:

"Why -- you're the robot twin of Egg Fu, the oriental egghead Wonder Woman cracked in WONDER WOMAN #158, aren't you?!?" [See panel reproduction, below]

This makes, by my count, either the third or fourth consecutive site entry wherein the characters under discussion actually evince self-awareness of their own fictional "unreality," if you will. Without even meaning to, really: I've just made long-time reader; site loyalist; and all-around good guy Quentin Long one mondo happy camper. (Hi, Quent!)

Dr. Yes -- revealing himself to be a sort of limbless Lothario -- makes a special "offer" to the captive Tina, preparatory to his "blainwashing" of the Doc and his periodic pals. ("But not you, kiddo!" he adds, in lascivious aside. "You pletty! Pray it smart! Kiss your fliends good-bye! Stay here with me, and be my 'almond cookie' -- yes?"

The steadfast and devoted Tina (noting, doubtless, that the wanton Won Ton is missing more than just... y'know... a few arms and legs, ifyouknowwhatImean) rejects the Doctor's crude come-on, of course... thereby relegating herself, in turn, to the same fate as all the rest of the Metal Men. ("Yes -- I am going to blainwash ALL of you, and send you back to be enemies of your own country!")

Strapped and secured under a row of what seem to be jumped- up beauty salon hair dryers, the robots and their creator all defiantly begin to chant: "HURRAY FOR AMERICA! HURRAY FOR AMERICA! HURRAY FOR AMERICA!"

It's a hot'n'heavy round of "Dueling Jingoisms" for a few panels, there; but, eventually -- no matter how lustily the heroes attempt to cheerlead themselves out of mental domination -- Dr. Yes' insidious "blainwashing" device has them all blank-eyed and parroting "D-OWN... WITH... A-MER-I-CA... DOWNNN... WITH... AMERRRRRICA" by the time Page Twenty rolls around.

"Take them back to their countly!" Dr. Yes orders his outsized mechanical manservant. "When the Amelicans see how these gleat heroes of theirs have turned tlaitors -- they will doubt anyone's stlength to lesist us!" My gawd, but this "pigdin English" clap gets on your broody nerves, after awhile.

Once again, the mute monstrosity makes the transatlantic trek from the one country to the other; ending up -- as fortune (or cheapjack writing) would have it -- in Yankee Stadium, where the city's schoolchildren have organized and staged an "I AM AN AMERICAN" Day Rally; complete with all manner of banners and bunting and (for all I know) ritual human sacrifices, every hour on the hour.

(Remember what it was like, when we were all young and patriotic and carefree; and we all piled, pell-mell, into the nearest mammoth structure to noisily celebrate "I AM AN AMERICAN" Day? When we all hungered for nothing so much as the opportunity to take our own fledgling patriotic "cues" from artificial life forms? Ahhhhh, yes; those were golden, happier times...)

Faced with the unwelcome prospect of forevermore driving unwashed thousands of innocent, whey-faced youths into the greedy, octopoid arms of International Communism by shouting "Down With America"... the valiant Metal Men do the only thing they can do, given their current situ:

They shake themselves to death.

(Admit it, now: you've never seen THE TEEN TITANS or THE X-MEN do that, have you...?)

With the frenzied, furious cries of a frustrated Dr. Yes booming and echoing throughout the stadium, amplified through his towering cast-metal catspaw ("Destloy! Destloy! DESTLOY -- !!"), however: it seems, for an elastic moment, as if the story will (at the very least) reward us with a little cheap'n'nasty mass carnage and bloodshed, by way of honest auctorial "pay-off"... until --

(waaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiit for it, people)

... until: the (still-) devotedly patriotic bits and pieces of the shattered Metal Men launch themselves into final, apocalyptic, pro-American BATTLE against the godless, Communistic cannibal robot!

(Was this comic book originally commissioned, sub rosa, by the United States military, as potential propaganda fodder? Was it originally conceptualized and crafted to be covertly dropped, by the hundredweight, over the length and breadth of Red China from moving airplanes? Was writer Kanigher meant -- ultimately -- to serve as a desperate America's last-ditch Super-Duper Secret Weapon against the godless, multitudinous Red hordes? Does any other explanation even begin to make decent sense, at this juncture? Without the aid of narcotics, I mean...?)

The story ends with a shot of a winding pseudo-"conga line" of teary-eyed young people, each bearing some jagged and/or smouldering bit of Metal Man wreckage in their anxious, adolescent hands and approaching a (doubtless) dazed and all-but-completely uncomprehending Doc Magnus.

"Please, Doc," one of them snivels. "Can't you put the Metal Men back together again?"

"Y-Y-You've got to do it," another one all but bawls. "For us."

"Hey! Can I... like... keep this?" exclaims a third, feverishly holding aloft Tina's severed torso.

(Ohhhhhhhh... all right, then, dammit! Supposing I did make up that last part, all by myself? What... have I gone and ruined the bloody story for you or something, then? Is that it? Huh? Huh -- ?

(Oh, rell.)

A final note, concerning several of the earlier entries in our The 12 Silliest DC Comics Ever Published series, here:

Regular site visitor and Silver Age DC Comics Mastermind Richard Morrisey was kind enough to write in an identify some of the (previously) uncredited authors for works referenced earlier, herein. I want everyone should give it up for the kindly and patient Mr. Morrisey for providing us, one and all, with the following information:

"The Murderous MagnaMan" (JIMMY OLSEN): written by Otto Binder

"Lois Lane Weds Astounding Man" (LOIS LANE): written by Jerry Siegel

Both "The Monarch of Menace" AND "Beware the Super-Genius Baby!": written by (there's that name again!) Robert Kanigher.

Anyone out there care to make it a clean sweep, and clue ol' Unca Cheeks in as to the perpetrator responsible for the SUPERBABY "Beppo" story...?

Be here next week, kiddies.

We're going to talk a little TEEN TITANS, hereabouts.

"The 12 Silliest DC Comics Ever Published": PAGE ONE

"The 12 Silliest DC Comics Ever Published": PAGE TWO

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"The 12 Silliest DC Comics Ever Published": PAGE SIX